Don’t you hate being pressured into doing things you don’t want to do?
Savvy influencers like pushy sales people, aggressive colleagues, and annoying neighbors have a knack for pressing the buttons that make it difficult to say no.
To help combat these advances, Stanford Professor of Psychology Phil Zimbardo has put together a list of 20 hints to help you resist unwanted influences.
Particularly handy is this suggested counter-move, for when they try to use the rule book against you:
Rules are abstractions for controlling behavior and eliciting compliance and conformity — challenge them when necessary: ask, who made the rule? What purpose does it serve? Who maintains it? Does it make sense in this specific situation? What happens if you violate it? Insist that the rule be made explicit, so it cannot be modified and altered over time to suit the influence agent.
20 Hints for Resisting Unwanted Influences [The Lucifer Effect]
20 Tips Redux: Don’t get emotional.
Yes, I ‘hate’ it.
Reminders of pure pressure from high school all over again.
Have you heard of “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert Cialdini? Really fantastic book on the principles of influence and studied by sales professionals and college psych students. It’s a fantastic book to study the psychology behind it. It really helps to be aware once you have more insight and understanding into why it works on us.
Thanks for the link. Great article!
Love & Gratitude,
Tina
Think Simple. Be Decisive.
~ Productivity, Motivation & Happiness
Tina,
I’m actually in the process of reading “Influence” right now. It’s incredible! Expect a post on it when I finish.
Influence is the best book I’ve read all year! It’s amazing how powerful those techniques are. They really work! Hope you enjoy the book, John.