Proven Psychological Tricks That Can Make Your Life Easier

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Proven Psychological Tricks That Can Make Your Life Easier


Proven Psychological Tricks That Can Make Your Life Easier

Proven Psychological Tricks That Can Make Your Life Easier

Psychology allows us to understand the behaviour of the people, and how to deal with them effectively. There are many psychology tricks that can make it easier for you to communicate with others and get your message across in uncomfortable situations. Learning about these tricks can thus make your life much easier.

Here are some proven psychological tricks that can be of great help to you:

  1. Power Language

Who wouldn’t want to be more confident in their lives? However, a simple but super effective psychological trick can make it a lot easier. It is called power language.  According to Amy Cuddy, a renowned psychologist, while studying the body language of others you can learn about them, you can use the same to empower yourself as well.

When you use powerful body language, which is characterized by using more space, and moments that are open and spread out, you feel more confident. Doing the same also reduces the release of cortisol (the hormone responsible for creating stress), and increases the release of testosterone (the hormone responsible for a dominant nature).

  1. Warm Handshakes

When you are about to shake hands with someone, make sure your hands are warm. This is because cold hands are linked to distrust. So, when you do a “cold” handshake with someone, you are sub-consciously associating yourself as a sly or dishonest person in their minds.

  1. The Power of Eye-Contact

Many times, when we don’t get an appropriate answer from someone we repeat ourselves. However, they may not still want to speak up, or maybe they do but hold back their real feelings. One powerful way to deal with such kind of situation is to simply look into their eyes. This will make them feel under pressure and force them to share what they are actually feeling.

  1. Advantage of Proximity With Danger

Say, you are about to have a meeting with your team, but don’t know how to avoid a certain aggressive person who will be in the conference room with you and the others. You know there is a high possibility of a heated argument with the said person, and there can be name calling too. Your first instinct is likely to stay as far away as possible from this person. However, you will be surprised to know that actually staying close to this person you can avoid a difficult situation. This is because when you sit right next to this person they will feel uncomfortable, and will reduce the level of aggression they plan to exercise.

  1. Limited Choices

Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper (Graduate School of Business from Columbia University, and Department of Psychology from Stanford University respectively) decided to test out the theory that if you have too many choices you don’t choose at all, and got conclusive results.

They found that four are the maximum number of options that we can consider at a time to make a good choice. Any more than that, and we feel overwhelmed. Thus, if you ever need to make a decision make sure you give yourself only few choices. It may seem better to consider all possible options, but that will only make the decision-making more troublesome, as is evident from the research done by Iyengar and Lepper.

  1. The First or the Last

Most people have the clearest memory of the things that happen first and last. Whatever remains in the middle is mostly just a blur. Thus, if you are going for an interview make sure you are either the first person they interview, or the last. This way you are more likely to be remembered by the employer, and more likely to be selected.

  1. Better Choice of Words for Better Outcome

How many times do you get irritated when can’t get someone to do something? Well, there is an easy solution for that. Say, you want your friend to pick you up from work on a certain day.

Instead of asking whether they are available for the same on that day, give them a few choices of timings (let’s say 6 pm and 7 pm), and ask which of these are more suited to their availability. Doing this will instantly put a certain sense of control on your side, and force them to pick an option, rather than denying it altogether.

  1. Foot in the Door Technique

The Foot In The Door (FITD) is one of the oldest psychological tricks, but quite effective even today. Simply put, it means that by asking for small favours first you can gradually get a person to say “yes” to bigger ones. Below is a good example of this technique:

You ask a person to give you directions, and then do so. Then you ask them to walk a little with you so that you don’t go to a wrong path, and they comply. Finally, you ask them to walk with you till the destination, and they would do so.

The principle behind FITD is that when a person agrees to do a favour to you it creates a bond between you two. Any subsequent request which is only slightly bigger than the previous will be easier for them to consider and comply with.

Thus, you can make them to say yes to a big request which they would otherwise say no to if asked first. Taking the previous example, if you had asked a person to take you to a certain destination they would have most likely said “no”. However, by taking gradual steps you eventually made them obligated enough to comply.