Learned a life-changing tip about human psychology - Any others?
I am reading Never Split the Difference right now, and while the book has a few stereotypical "salesman self-help" moments, I have found some of the strategies to be genuinely incredible.
The biggest game changer for me has been mirroring what the other person says to avoid conflict and gather more information.
Real life example: My wife has a bad habit of poorly explaining what she wants and where it's located. Then, I get her flustered when I rapid-fire follow up questions. Here is an exchange we have frequently which leaves us both frustrated as hell.
She will ask something like, "Can you get the box out of the drawer please?"
I usually reply, "What box?"
"The box. The red box."
"Okay...what drawer?"
"The drawer, you know, the drawer. Come on."
"DUDE. Can you at least tell me which room you're even talking about?"
"Nevermind, I'll get it."
Lately I've been trying mirroring to help both of us and it's awesome.
"Can you get the box please?"
"Get the box?"
"Yeah, the red box. It has a paper in it that I need."
"Okay, you want the red box with the paper in it?"
"Yeah it's in the kitchen drawer next to the sink."
It's so weird when you first start doing this intentionally, but people don't even notice. I have no idea why it works so much better but it's amazing.
So, this got me thinking, what other little human psychology tricks work? Are there other books that genuinely changed the way you approach people or situations?
I'm a teacher and my job is to teach students who mostly have behavioral problems, so I am always on the look out for more of these things.
Reward schedules are mirrored by their extinction schedules.
Imagine 3 slot machines.
Use this same behaviour when giving your dogs treats. If you give them a treat every time, the 1 time you don't have a treat, you've damaged your credibility for ever. But if you have a treat ready to go every 3rd to 10th time, the dog knows that you MIGHT have a treat every time.
If you're standing/sitting next to each other, instead of across from each other, it's way, way harder to be mad at each other.
This can be especially useful in group settings: If you know two people don't go along well, sit them next to each other. They will be less disruptive.
Even in meetings/groupings with many people, if you ally with just one or two people, you can often engineer two people to sit next to each other because there are no other options.
Completely separately, being an active listener is extremely easy and will avoid a ton of misunderstandings. People who give physical signs of actively listneing are also more liked and included than those who do not.
What are signs of active listneing? Nodding and shaking your head when appropriate in conversation, changing facial expressions, smiling, laughing, looking at the speaker when they're reaching an important point/climax in what they're saying and so on.
These things are even more important in online meetings and will land you so much more goodwill. If there's ever an opportunity to have your camera on, and you don't actively want to hide from being noticed, you should have your camera on and be actively listneing while showing signs of this.
I don’t get exactly how you’d do this. Can you give an example?
I'm not the person you asked, but I think they meant something like:
You are out with some friends (A, B, and C) and know that B is a little annoyed at C right now. So you tell A ahead of time to sit next to you when you all go out to eat (assuming the table has 2 seats on each side) so that it forces B and C to sit next to each other on the other side, hopefully alleviating the tension.
Can also see it working in family dinners and other situations like that.
Body language.
If you want to communicate that "I'm not being difficult, I'm just having a difficult time, and I know you're not being difficult, you're just having a difficult time" -- uncross your arms unclench fists. Try not to hover over someone, if they're sitting, you sit too. If they're not sitting, try sitting and offering for them to also sit. Try to sit beside them instead of across from them. Try to not frown. Breathe slower, it's okay to look obviously breathing slowly in and out. relax your shoulders. If they seem approachable, open your hand closer to them and slowly extend it, don't just grab their hand but make an offer to hold hands. Then just breathe together for a minute, holding hands, let them say whatever first. If they seem upset at a thing, and not upset directly with you, offer, "would you like a hug?" helps.
A lot of the time it's not two people fighting against each other, it's just people having a hard time beside each other. So let's physically present it that way, shoulder to shoulder. Your partner isn't your adversary, they're your greatest asset out of an adversarial situation.
usual disclaimer, not for abusive situations or abusive partners/loved ones applies
I'll be honest, I was applying this to a workplace scenario right up until "offer to hold hands," and then I realized the context after a bewildered moment. Good stuff!
Oh whoops!! Yes this works for workplace as well, with less touching and doe eyes :) in place, say things like "we'll work on this together / figure it out" and offer fist bumps
Learn about the Fundamental Attribution Error. When someone else makes a mistake, humans tend to ascribe an internal issue of the person as the cause. (Person A was late to the meeting. They're disrespectful of other people's time/lazy/uncaring.) When they themselves make a mistake, humans tend to ascribe an external problem as the cause. (I was late to a meeting. Traffic was really bad.)
Monitor your own thinking for this problem. Yes, sometimes the causes of other people's mistakes are internal, but not always. Sometimes the cause of your mistake is external, but not always.
I have to admit that once, I was driving home and really, really had to poop. I made a left on red in order to get home sooner, because it was a 20-seconds-makes-a-difference level. (Traffic was clear and it was safe, but absolutely not something I would do normally.) Most people seeing this would assume that I was just an asshole who didn't care about traffic laws.
I use this knowledge to make sure I am not making assumptions about the cause of other people's behavior. It not only helps me be less judgemental, but also lowers my blood pressure when driving, because instead of assuming that everyone who does something wrong is an asshole with no regard for safety, and get all angry about it, I can think that maybe they just really need to poop.