The Subtle Art of Persuasion

Negotiating can be a vital skill in today’s world. Every day we are met with conflicts and disputes lined up one after the other. These issues are simply a result of people having their own opinions and views. Negotiations help to find common ground between opposing parties and then resolve the problem. I know this ability to negotiate would help me in my day-to-day life and, if I perfected the ‘art of persuasion’, I could potentially use the negotiations to compound my point of view. This could help me in the moment and even after the fact if the issue was ever brought up again (or if the solution was long term). Mediation could also be handy in solving common disputes, but the challenge would be finding a person that is one hundred percent impartial to the situation. This task is difficult because appearances and preconceived notions can play a significant role in the final ruling. People are constantly judging each other based on their looks, behaviors and manner of speaking. Due to this type of judgment, a mediator can be unpredictable and unreliable. Therefore, negotiating is a more dependable option when it comes down to a tough choice. Although, negotiations can be a long and challenging process – one wrong move and you have to start all over.

Negotiating is like playing poker, it is imperative that you keep your game face on and prevent the opposition from knowing your true intensions. If they call your bluff, you must stray further away from your goals and closer to the opposition’s goals, and even risk losing the game. As well, you need to time your moves in order to gain the most; to achieve this, you must know when to fold and when to go all in – this is to say that you must win some and lose some to find common ground an reach the end, but you don’t want to stray to far from your original post. You essentially want to win all of the chips.

Decision Time

Not long ago, I experienced some discomfort due to cognitive dissonance. I was looking through the course selection sheet for next year and was met with many choices. As anyone would, I weighed all of my options and considered the pros and cons of each. After making the decision to take a significant number of challenging courses, I was left with an uneasy feeling – one that told me I would suffer next year. I disregarded this feeling because I had the same predicament last year, made similar choices and was met with this same apprehensive feeling. This feeling told me that I had willingly subjected myself to a stressful year, however it turned out that the felling was wrong. This experience has made me consider my “gut-feeling” and its tendency to be incorrect. It was wrong on that one instance, but what if it is right this time, or the next? This contemplation has left another moment for cognitive dissonance to appear and shine doubt on both choices – the choice on whether or not to trust that “gut-feeling” and when, since you don’t exactly have a gut-feeling telling you when to trust your gut-feeling. So how do you know when that feeling will be right? I suppose the answer is that you never know if that feeling is right or wrong until you take the leap and proceed with the task at hand. Cognitive dissonance was the feeling that told me I had to make a choice and my gut feeling told me that, either way, there would be consequences; after these two feelings, there is one more – a wave of anxiety than comes just before you find out if you made the right choice or not. That ten-second trepidation is the worst of the three feelings, in my opinion. It’s the cause for people to get cold feet and back out of a potentially important task. After (or during) the anxiety, the cycle repeats – you are forced to choose between following a task through or backing out (cognitive dissonance), which is followed up with your gut feeling that says something along the lines of, “You can’t back out now! You’re so close!” or, “You’ll only make a fool of yourself! It’s a huge mistake!” and lastly, the feeling of apprehension. The trick is knowing when to trust your feelings and when to just go with the flow.

Every choice we make leads us down a different road and we often get stuck between the decision to go left, right or in some diagonal direction. It would appear that, sometimes, there is no right choice – only a lot of different options. Having these choices leaves us uneasy as we wait to find out the conclusion of our predicament and discover any consequences we will be forced to face. Each road leads to a separate destination, some are unwanted and even bit scary, while others take us straight to our goals. We just hope that if we go down the wrong road there will be a place to take a U-turn or someone to help us find a detour back to the road we wanted to take. And, every now and then, all we need is a bit of good luck.

Appearance versus Reality

Appearances play a large role in our perception of the world around us; they help us determine how to react at first impressions. As the six aspects of social psychology state, there are multiple components to making such conclusions about our surroundings. As I have been going about my daily life, I have realized how often these components come up. For example, I decided to learn a bit of sign language (you never know, it might be helpful) and I learned that the most important things are letters and facial expressions. Facial expressions can completely alter the message you are trying to convey, it can be the difference between a question and a statement. We rely on the appearances of others to understand, rather than just relying on what they are saying. These interpretations can help us avoid unpleasant situations and can also cause them if we misjudge a person/place. The first stage in the aspects of social psychology is ‘person perception’, which can also be applied to places. Our expectations of places/people can change our impressions for better or for worse. I have noticed this aspect is seen quite often in buying a house. Since my dad has begun house shopping, it has come down to the old phrase ‘location, location, location’. A house may seem nice on the inside, but a shady location is a huge turnoff, as are shady neighbors. Even if it’s one of those times when you shouldn’t judge too quickly, it’s better to be safe than sorry, especially when picking a location to live for several years (or more). However, there are many instances when first impressions can be false impressions – when appearances are deceiving. Appearances often mean more than they should in the school environment. Our school is okay when it comes down to judging on appearance, but this is merely due to the fact that most of us have grown up together since elementary. Despite this fact, styles still play a large role in the school ‘clicks’, although as I said previously, our school isn’t too bad.

I believe the old saying “you can’t judge a book by its cover” has a lot of merit and can be true in most cases. A book may look old, gross and moldy, but it might be a really good story, or it could be a new book that wasn’t taken care of. However, the opposite is also true. A book might look really good with a cool cover and an awesome synopsis, but it could be the worst book ever (this usually happens with movies). The same is true for people and places. An odd looking person or a dingy place could end up being great, as well, a great looking person/place can be deceiving.

Monopoly Reflection

Round one showed a variety of moods among the players. Player 1 (playing by normal rules) showed normal behavior, while Player 2 seemed quite disgruntled with the obligation to follow new rules. I, Player 3, was less concerned with the new set of rules because I do not like to stress over games. Player 4 was fairly happy with the advantages, despite being a neophyte to Monopoly. After a short period of time, Player 2 became frustrated and wanted the game to end. This was either due to the disadvantages that rendered the player broke, or a simple lack of interest in the game. As Player 3, I spent most of my time in jail; jail isn’t the worst thing when you are at a disadvantage in Monopoly because it can be considered to be safe. This can be related back to the real world with homeless people, for instance: in jail, the have food to eat and a roof over their heads.

The second segment showed a slight bit of change for a short period of time. Player 2 was put at such a large disadvantage during the first round, it was challenging to try and catch up. Player 2 was still frustrated (but to a lesser scale) and still was not interested in playing. Player 4 was enjoying the ‘financial freedom’ but did not quite understand the game at this point; I imagine it would have been a much quicker game if Player 4 understood more about the advantages of having houses and hotels. Player 1 had a small advantage and had no trouble transitioning to the second round. I, Player 3, enjoyed the time out of jail, but also ended up paying more to other players who had built up their territory.

Understanding Internals

I have been considering psychological concepts involved in learning and understanding the environment, such as personality and the way individuals learn. As pointed out the other day, it seems that I have a lot of ‘drive’ and a lot less emotion. Might this be part of my personality? Is it something that makes me who I am? I would have to say it does affect who I am and how I live my life. This internal drive has allowed me to be quite intrinsic, and external (extrinsic) motivation only fuels this need to learn. It would appear that Drive Reduction Theory applies more to my life than Harlow’s monkeys, although my reward is internal, the ‘satisfaction of a job well done’. I guess this can be taken in both a positive and a negative way. On one hand, I have potential to do tasks that require a lot of dedication – mostly academic and work related. On the other hand, it would seem that I skipped a step along the road in developmental psychology, and will most likely skip over some further experiences that lie outside of the world of personal achievement in the future. So does this shape my personality? I suppose it would, my ‘drive’ is really who I am, it is a part in at least one subcategory of each of the five personality categories: unconscious motives, the self and conscious awareness, all of the cognitive subcategories, abilities, and reward/punishment and observable behaviour. Since drive is the majority of who I am, I wonder what will happen if that drive ‘runs out’, if I eventually crash.

It would be so much easier if there was a button for everything. A button to press when you need more money, a button that will tell you the right answer or the right thing to say, even a snap of your fingers would be just fine. It is the same for motivation, when you just want a task to be done. A button would be so much easier, to either get the job done or tell you how to do it right. Too bad there are no buttons to answer all of life’s questions, which is why we need motivation. We all have goals, the difference is whether that goal was set by someone else, like money, or if it is something that you strive for yourself.

Living With Lies

The myth about stress causing ulcers has been one that I have heard all too many times; it is also a myth that I am glad to know the truth about, granted, the news is still a bit inconclusive, but it is better than the myth being true. I have found myself worried about future stresses and the damage it may cause. It is true, however, that stress can lead to numerous health hazards, but it is good to know that there is one less to worry about.
A myth that I am less than relieved to hear disproved is the myth that a positive attitude can cure cancer, although I knew it would be a long shot. Even though positive attitudes do not cure diseases per say, they can help to increase a persons odds of pulling through a difficult disease. Positive attitudes allow people to feel better about themselves at no risk to their personal well being, so even if it does cure diseases, it couldn’t hurt to try.
Both of these myths are examples of post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning, based on ones own experiences and the experiences of others. People need to believe in something that can help them through a challenging set of circumstances, so if it helps them feel better, does it really matter if it works?

These myths can have a ‘placebo effect’ on a person. The thought that a myth is true can ultimately change ones outlook on something, such as health. A placebo is a simulated medical intervention that is designed to help a patient where real medicine can’t. It can lead to a patient having perceived or actual improvement. The same can be true for certain myths, such as a good attitude can cure diseases, and hypnosis can help memory (which has not been proven). These myths provide what some call false hope, but isn’t false hope better than no hope at all.

Over-Thinking Thinking

The other day, I was working on some physics homework and was completely and utterly lost as to how I got a particular answer. Not that the answer was wrong, but the entire process of getting to that answer was baffling. I began to think about the thinking process; it some times feels like my mind is subconsciously working out a problem while my conscious mind desultorily wandered. I began to think of psychology and the critical thinking process, how we move from one thought to the other. Problem solving with math related problems can be broken up into a few different thought processes. I start by determining what I need and use that to find necessary formulas – this gets tricky when there are multiple formulas or when unexpected thing represent important variables. The next step is to rearrange the formula and insert the information that you know. It becomes challenging when there are multiple unknown variables, this is when you choose to adopt another formula and do a separate set of equations to find one unknown or use to formulas in one equation. The next step is fairly straightforward: use the formula to determine the value of the unknown. It becomes more bothersome if you realize that the answer you got does not make sense, like 15 m/s for someone on a bicycle or 2.1μ.

Problem solving is the main function of directed thinking and breaks complex ideas into smaller, more manageable thoughts. This process is comparable to the process of digestion. Enzymes are sent out to break down complex molecules, like carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, into small molecules that are easy to digest, like simple sugars, triglycerides, and amino acids. Thoughts are broken down to make it easier for us to comprehend or ‘digest’ information that we receive.