In order to achieve their goals, people often use the psychology of influence, which helps to manipulate a person. Even in ancient times, one could notice the facts of how the priests controlled the people, instilling in them that religion was harsh, and everyone would be punished if they did not follow the established rules and customs. The psychology of influence has a strong effect on the subconscious, forcing the victim of influence to follow the lead of a skilled manipulator.
Experts say that it is easier to influence or control a person when he experiences fear , or when he himself needs it, for example, he is pursuing his own goal and he is forced to succumb to influence. People with weak character and insufficiently educated people are also susceptible to manipulation.
Try to dress well
If possible, dress better than the person you're talking to. Experiments conducted in different social groups and different situations have shown that people tend to be embarrassed by those who are better dressed than them. For example, if you know that the person you're talking to usually wears a sweater and jeans, dress in a suit. Moreover, the point is not in the cost of clothing, but in its “status”. A business suit or evening dress is always rated higher than, say, a sports-style outfit. If it is important to you that the person is embarrassed, follow this rule.
The good old “external enemy”
Fear of an external enemy has always been one of the key tools in the hands of politicians who want to start a war.
One of the main figures of Nazi Germany, Hermann Goering, said that there is nothing easier than mobilizing people for a war that none of them wants: it is enough to tell them that they are under attack and condemn the pacifists for their lack of patriotism and for putting the country at risk danger.
In our time, the external enemy has acquired almost supernatural features in the form of terrorists, and modern society is in a permanent state of war with this invisible threat.
After the September 11 attacks, the American government launched an international military campaign called the Global War on Terrorism. Under its auspices, military operations have been and are ongoing in different parts of the world, for example, military operations against the Islamic State. It is noteworthy that in English this concept of the fight against terrorism in all its manifestations is abbreviated as “War on terror”, which can be translated into Russian as “war on terror”, or even “war on horror (fear)”.
American political scientist and politician Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote about the War on Terrorism: “This phrase in itself is meaningless. It defines neither the geographic context nor our perceived enemies. Terrorism is not the enemy, but a military technique: political intimidation through the murder of unarmed people.”
The War on Terror has created a culture of fear—fear that “clouds the mind, heightens the emotions, and makes it easy for political demagogues to mobilize the public in favor of their political goals.”
The "War on Terror" provoked not only a series of military actions, but also the expansion of surveillance programs against citizens in an attempt to identify and suppress any terrorist threats in their infancy. The threat of terrorist attacks is a mandatory argument in strengthening monitoring of the private lives of citizens in the USA, China, Russia and other countries.
Speak in an even tone
Many people are convinced that if they raise their voice, it will immediately instill awe in the other person. But more often than not, people who start shouting only cause irritation and annoyance in their counterparts, and not fear or respect at all.
The greatest fears are caused by those who, even in situations where it would seem that a breakdown is inevitable, maintain a restrained tone. And if they speak a semitone lower, then everyone already knows: this is a bad sign and you can expect anything from the boss.
Learn to speak almost in a whisper even in a stressful situation - and you will inspire horror in those around you. But, of course, this should not be the babble of a self-doubting person. You must be confident in yourself and demonstrate this to your interlocutor.
Method “Deception of the subconscious is only for once”
For example, you are afraid of public speaking. When you are afraid, your subconscious may tell you: you will look like a complete fool, you will be laughed at, you will screw up, you will be considered stupid and a failure, you have never done this, where are you going! In response to this internal monologue, you can tell yourself: “This is just for one time, I’ll quickly tell you everything and leave, I’ll never have to do this again, it’s just a 15-minute speech. I’ll perform once, no one will think anything bad about me.”
Thus, by taking the first step towards your fear just once, you will already begin to cope with it. Having done this, it will be much easier for you to take both the second and third steps.
Ask the person to talk about themselves
Firstly, as you know, most people like to talk about themselves. Secondly, we tell people we trust about ourselves. Thirdly, the one who talks about himself becomes vulnerable, since you can then use the information he presents for your own purposes. It is not for nothing that during an interview the recruiter listens more to the candidate for the vacancy, and he speaks and answers questions.
But even if this is not a job interview, but, say, a meeting with a potential business partner, it doesn’t hurt to ask him questions that will provoke him to talk about himself. Moreover, these may not necessarily be issues related to your joint affairs. They can also be about personal things. For example, where is your interlocutor from, does he have a family, what does he like to eat, what kind of music does he prefer, etc.
Try to turn things around in such a way that the person cannot avoid the questions or it would be inconvenient for him to do so. If the interlocutor is interested in having a good relationship with you, he is unlikely to answer: “It’s none of your business.” This means that, willy-nilly, he will have to give the desired information about himself. And this will immediately put you in an advantageous position.
How to induce fear in your interlocutor and be guaranteed to win in any negotiations
Shake hands correctly
Analysts from the American psychological magazine Psychology Today conducted a study and came to the conclusion that 60% of the decision about whether to respect you is made by the interlocutor at the moment when he shakes your hand. In general, a proper handshake is a very underrated skill. Not flaccid and not too strong. The hand should not be released immediately, but it should not be held for too long. You can’t shake it, but it’s also stupid to freeze with your interlocutor’s hand clenched.
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Now concentrate, because if you have had training in your life on proper negotiation, it is possible that it taught you one very dangerous stupidity: to give your hand slightly palm down, thereby forcing the person whose hand you are shaking under you adapt.
In such a situation, your palm is on top - and your worthless business coaches assured that this was how you showed who would be on top in these negotiations. Well, psychologists have proven that this is not only stupid, but also counterproductive.
After such an act, the interlocutor immediately ceases to respect you and take you seriously. The palm should be perpendicular to the floor, and nothing else.
Dress up
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An interesting scientific study was conducted at Princeton University, which found that people are wary of those who are better dressed than them (and the interlocutor makes a conclusion about whether a person is well dressed in the first 100 milliseconds of a meeting). Moreover, people do not at all connect whether a person is well dressed with the cost of his clothes. This also doesn't mean you have to always wear a jacket and white shirt.
Scientists conducted experiments in different social situations and groups. At a party, business meeting, baby shower, dinner, etc., people are wary of who is best dressed in appropriate attire in the room. So, if you are one of those people who are sure that the external pitchfork is unimportant, you are wrong.
Choose your clothes carefully and be sure that a business meeting will go much better if the interlocutor decides in the first 100 milliseconds that you are the best dressed in the room.
Give people the opportunity to talk about themselves
Scientists at Harvard University have proven what we already knew: people love to talk about themselves. But this is Harvard, so the scientists go much further. Studies have shown that when a person talks about himself, the same parts of the brain light up that light up when a person has sex or eats a delicious dinner. That is, few things in the world bring people so much pleasure. And now the main thing.
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Firstly, when a person talks about himself, even if he started it himself, it strengthens his confidence that the interlocutor is trustworthy.
That is, they begin to trust you regardless of whether you give the impression of a person who would be worth trusting.
Secondly, talking about yourself makes a person much more vulnerable. So just by letting your business partner talk a little about yourself, you make him a little weaker. Ask a few questions that will provoke the other person to have such a conversation, and you are already in a winning position.
Watch your tone
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70% of 1 thousand professional negotiators surveyed by the Linkedin portal claim that as soon as the interlocutor raises his voice even a little, he ceases to inspire respect and fear. Conversely, the most feared businessmen are those who never raise their voices, and in stressful situations even begin to speak more quietly than usual.
Besides the fact that raising your voice in a business situation is a sign of poor upbringing, it is also ineffective. If you want to be respected and even feared, watch your tone.
If you can control yourself to such an extent that you can speak almost in a whisper in a situation in which anyone else would go broke, you will become the person who will inspire trembling horror in those around you.
Ask uncomfortable questions
This is more appropriate in some everyday situations, rather than in business communication. Suppose there is some person with whom you do not want to maintain a relationship. But you just can’t get rid of it. You can sew off the Velcro in this way. Let's say you know his most vulnerable spot and you know that he is not very inclined to talk about this topic... Behave tactlessly. Ask: “Well, are you getting married soon?” (knowing that the lady has no prospect of marriage), “Aren’t you thinking about losing weight?” (if your friend has a constant problem associated with excess weight). You can ask questions about family, about earnings, about some events from the past of a given person, if you are sure that this is the very topic that is “taboo” for him. However, an awkward question is also suitable for those cases when you need to unsettle your counterpart and “expose himself” to you. Show that you know him better than he thinks.
Of course, you may think that some practices are very questionable from an ethical point of view. However, it happens that this is the only way we can force a person to show his true face. And, in the end, the winners are not judged!
How to overcome the culture of fear with the power of your mind
Franklin Roosevelt, in his inaugural address in 1933, uttered the legendary phrase: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” He described the fear of fear as “a nameless, causeless, unreasonable terror that paralyzes the necessary attempts to turn a retreat into an offensive.”
Modern culture has succeeded in trying to give fear a separate entity, turning it into an overarching feeling of insecurity and anxiety.
Fear of the unknown and the inability to do anything to avoid unknown future threats cause pathological anxiety in people: in America alone, 40 million people or 18% of the total population suffer from anxiety disorders. Research shows that anxiety causes indecisiveness in people, which makes us prone to interpret the unknown in a negative way. To avoid falling victim to this indecisiveness and anxiety, it is necessary to find an effective defense against fear.
The worst thing that happens when the parties argue about what we should fear most is the intolerance of the arguments of the other side, the position of “either with us or against us.” It leads to a completely unscientific condemnation of critical thinking and requires faith rather than understanding.
One of the key mottos of the Age of Enlightenment was the Latin saying of Horace sapere aude - “dare to know.” Immanuel Kant translated this as “have the courage to use your own reason.”
This idea is more relevant now than ever, because with such an abundance of information about threats, risks and impending global disasters, only rational thinking and one’s own opinion can protect a person from painful anxiety and confusion. If we stop being led by assessments and opinions, we will learn to look at the facts and independently decide what conclusions to draw from them.
In addition to rational and critical thinking, an obvious antidote to fear is cultivating courage. Winston Churchill said that courage “is not in vain considered the highest virtue, since this quality guarantees the existence of all other virtues.” Another master of aphorisms, Mark Twain, said that “courage is resistance to fear, not the absence of it.”
There is a version that the word “risk” comes from the 17th century Italian term “riskare”, meaning “to dare”: courage allows you to see in risk an opportunity for growth and prosperity, and not a threat to the existence and health of the risker, as is customary in our time.
Roosevelt's phrase stems from a similar statement by the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca, who advised at the beginning of our era:
“Separate confusion from its cause, look at the matter itself - and you will be convinced that there is nothing terrible in any of them, except fear itself. What happens to children, the same happens to us, adult children: they get scared if they suddenly see in masks those they love, with whom they are accustomed, with whom they always play. It is necessary to remove the mask not only from people, but also from circumstances and return them to their true appearance.”
Let's try to tear off from life the mask of fear that our contemporaries persistently put on it - and stop being afraid of it.
Fear provokes various somatic reactions in a person, for example:
- Temporary paralysis or heart failure
- Stomach pain, headache, or nausea
- Dizziness or fainting
- Excessive sweating
- Muscle tension, twitching, or tremors
- Tears
- Stuttering
- Unsustainable sleep patterns
- Loss of appetite
- Rapid or shallow breathing
The mental reaction to fear can be expressed in the appearance of intrusive or distracted thoughts, loss of attention and confusion. People may also experience a variety of emotional experiences, including horror, anxiety, anger, despair, numbness, or helplessness.
False alarm
Fear is an easy feeling to confuse, so before we talk about how to get rid of anxiety, we'll learn how to identify it.
There are situations when we do not distinguish between emotions, so a so-called “false alarm” is formed. In this case, the first thing psychologists can advise is to learn to isolate anxiety from a large stream of other emotions. Observe yourself - in what situations you become anxious. Divide these situations into those in which anxiety is justified and those in which it is not.
For example, you are riding a bus and, approaching the stop, you are overtaken by a feeling of anxiety. On the one hand, this may be caused by the fear that you will miss your stop, or by a feeling of shame, as it is awkward to ask the driver to stop the car.
Or another example - you want to help the teacher in class, but you are afraid to raise your hand. This fear may stem from lack of self-confidence and the expectation that your classmates will laugh at you.
Sometimes anxiety is born from some other feelings, such as shame or uncertainty. Having realized this and overcome it, you no longer have a reason to worry, and along with it, the state of anxiety disappears.
The physical and emotional effects of fear
Without a sense of fear, a person's daily well-being or survival will obviously be at risk. Normally, fear is useful; it helps people recognize and respond to dangerous or harmful situations by triggering the fight-or-flight response. Moreover, fear affects people physically and emotionally.
Fear provokes increased perception of space and time, increased vision, hearing and smell. In life-threatening situations, fear can also reduce the ability to notice small details, shifting focus and enhancing the ability to finely discern large or blurry objects. These changes in perception increase a person's chances of surviving a dangerous situation.
An example of how fear can affect perception might be when a tourist spots a wild bear. A tourist is unlikely to focus on small details, such as the special features of a bear. On the contrary, fear tends to heighten a person's senses to better detect the location and any movements of the bear, which increases the chances of rescue.
