LANGUAGE: How Does Language Trick People?

What does life-is-good mean to you?

Well, in my opinion, life is great when there are plenty of things to learn in life because I don't have much talents but I am very proud because I learn most of the things on my own. Anyway, here comes the fun part. If you are born with incredible skills, for example mathematical or musical skills, you can't teach people how to do that. However, if you were bad at the beginning and master it later on, you can guide people on how to do that because you have experienced it yourself. Today, I would like to share a trick on how to influence someone to do your favours by giving them choices.

First, we have to understand: 'Output' of our brains must be logically linked to the 'Input'. For examples,

1. If I ask you in English, "What is your name, Miss?" (input), your answer will probably be, "I am Queenie" (output). Nevertheless, if I ask you in English, "What is your name Sir?", it's illogical to answer in Malay, "Nama saya George Bush."

2. If someone asks you, "What is your name?", you can't reply, "I love roti canai." This is because the output doesn't link with the input.

Ever wonder why an insurance agent can meet you up even you don't really want to as you know he will be selling something to you? This is because they never ask you, "Are you free for dinner tonight?". If they do, your answer can be either, "Yes, so you can steal my money." or "No, I need to do my laundry tonight." and so on... Powerful salesmen ask, "Are we having dinner tonight or tomorrow night?". Now your answer has to be logically linked to the question, unless you are really not free on both nights. Most of the time, you would pick the better answer which is tomorrow night.

You can try this trick on other people!

Situation 1: While ordering Char Kuay Teow, ...

Boss: How many eggs do you want? 1 or 2?

You don't even want an egg.

Situation 2: At a boutique, ...

Sales girl: Ma'am, would you like to pay by cash or credit card?

You don't even plan to buy.

The "choices" you propose is very vital. We give them choices where we both want. They pick either one, they fall into our trap. Instead of giving them both what we want, we can give them A or B where A is what you want while B is an extremely stupid choice to be chosen. For examples,

1. Your friend asking you to hang out with them: Come on! Are we friends or not?

Actually there's nothing to do with friends or not, you can always choose to go home.

2. Your boyfriend: Do you want me to watch Batman or Lord of the Rings?

Actually he just wants to make sure you don't say High School Musical.

3. God: Do you want to go to heaven or hell?

Actually, ....

Even if you don't want to use the trick, knowing it prevents you from falling into other people's trap. The next time when someone uses this trick on you, look at them and point, "Don't use that trick on me!". =D

Source: AhYap's Blog

Sign-ed off,
PANG YUEN CHENG (QUEENIE)