8 clever psychological life hacks to give you an advantage in everyday situations
Fake yourself happy
1. If you make the biggest smile you can, you will automatically feel happier.
2. This is based off the finding that emotional expression causes emotion. People saying “eeee” (which uses the muscles used in smiling) or made to hold chopsticks in their teeth (same thing) reported feeling happier than people asked to do similar tasks (saying “uuuuh”).
Read social dynamics
3. When a group of people laugh, people will instinctively look at the person they feel closest to in that group.
Read: wanna know who wants to bone who? Look at who they look at when everyone laughs.
4. Pay attention to people’s feet. If you approach two people in the middle of a conversation, and they only turn their torsos and not their feet, they don’t want you to join in the conversation.
Similarly if you are in a conversation with a coworker who you think is paying attention to you and their torso is turned towards you but their feet are facing in another direction, they want the conversation to end.
Get people to do you favours
5. This sounds a bit silly, but if you’re asking for a favour, always use the word ‘because’.
I remember reading about a study done at a university where they used every imaginable combination of words to ask if they could cut in line for the photocopier, and they found that using the word ‘because’ short circuited people’s brains into believing that there’s a reason for it, even if they said something stupid like ‘could I please cut in line? Because I need to make some copies’.
6. Foot-in-the-door phenomenon. People are more likely to agree to do a task for you if you ask them to do something simpler first.
Be a smooth-talker
7. People have a certain image of themselves and will fight tooth and nail to cling to it. Use this information wisely.
8. I do this all the time. You can avoid insulting someone by not saying anything that shows you perceive them differently than what they’re trying to present. Or you can be a little more manipulative and make people like you by casually stroking their ego.
EDIT: yes this could go wrong, especially if you have bad intentions. Not all manipulation is bad though if done on a small scale with innocent intentions.
Let us know how you get on if you decide to try any of them out and bend people to your evil will.
Reblogged this on Random Repeat.