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by throwaway0a5e 2138 days ago
Exactly. It's just an interrogation technique but you need one less body on the payroll because you don't need a "good cop".

Pretty much every manipulation technique used in negotiation, sales and interrogation is useless if the person it's being applied to realizes it. Polygraphs are about the lowest quality because the machine is right f-ing there for the world to see whereas with other techniques there's at least a non-zero chance that the person using them is being earnest and it's not just a technique.

2 comments

>Pretty much every manipulation technique used in negotiation, sales and interrogation is useless if the person it's being applied to realizes it.

That is just wholly incorrect. The whole point of marketing is that it works even if you know it's happening to you. Anchoring, a common sales tactic, works even if you know they're doing it to you. You can absolutely respond to it with your own tactics if you know about it, but it still effects you. We really aren't better than our animal brains.

>The whole point of marketing is that it works even if you know it's happening to you.

The point of most advertising is selling an emotion. (Advertising is a subset of marketing) Convincing the buyer to buy a product based on projecting a feeling on or drawing an emotion from that person. This is inherently a lie and thus manipulation. Most people don't realize what's going on.

Let's use Harley Davidson as an example, there are many. Their entire pitch is being a rebel, getting away, being cool, salvaging your youth. It's not, "this is a great machine and good bargain." If most people were wholly objective about purchasing a motorcycle based on utilitarian use and cost, they probably wouldn't purchase a Harley. Advertising to the rescue. It's a brain hack.

What would they buy a 150cc dirt bike?
There are many places where people do buy motorcycles based on utility and cost -- underbones, standards, and scooters between 49 and 250cc are popular. The most popular vehicle in history is the Honda Super Cub.
>You can absolutely respond to it with your own tactics if you know about it, but it still effects you.

Of which ways that it effects a person have you learned?

anecdata: i just rented a house. the listing said x. when i saw the property, the realtor said "rent is ${x+200}". I still felt like i expended my negotiations after clarifying that the rent was actually x. I knew he was fucking with me, but i needed a place to live, and i wanted to negotiate more, but it was hard to muster a negotiation after i felt like I already negotiated.
This is absolutely incorrect. On day one of one of my university courses on negotiation, we did a group exercise that demonstrated anchoring. For those unaware of the concept it's that a final negotiated agreement tends to be strongly influenced by the first position (e.g. price) that is put forward.

After the exercise, we dived into how it worked and how to prepare and counter anchoring. Then we ran a slightly different, but similar, exercise. Even when highly educated students were fully aware of how anchoring worked, and that they were susceptible to it, and knowing ways to ways to counter it, deals still tended to be closer to the initial reference point.

It certainly helps to know ways in which you may be manipulated, but knowledge does not make you immune by any stretch of the imagination.