Social Engineering Blogs

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Psychological Manipulation: Programming the Mind Through Priming

What if I told you that you could influence the way someone behaves towards a certain person by simply telling them a story or exposing them to certain words just before they met up with the other person. Well the truth is, you can. It’s called priming and can be used to modify behavior and manipulate the way other people perceive things.

Basically priming works because of the fact that human beings associate different ideas and concepts with certain words. Here’s a quick exercise I got from the book “Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior” by Nick Kolenda that demonstrates this concept.
“It might seem like an odd request, but think of a lucky dwarf. Are you thinking of one? Good. Now go with your immediate gut reaction and think of a number between one and ten. Quick! Stick with the first number that pops inside your head, and don’t change your mind. Are you thinking of a number? Although it’s far from foolproof, you were more likely to think of the number seven.”

He goes on to explain how the “lucky dwarf” that he told you to think of, has certain associations with the number seven that were activated in your mind. Lots of people view the number seven as a lucky number, and even if you don’t you’re still aware that that association does exist. Also, the word dwarf activates a subconscious association to the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarves that many of us have seen at some point in our lives. Again, even if you’ve never actually seen the movie before, chances are you’ve probably heard about it several times before, and that’s all that needs to happen for your brain to make that type of association.

This type of psychological manipulation can also be used to program another person to feel a certain way about someone based on the temperature of another object. Below, you’ll see a video that demonstrates how the temperature of a beverage you happen to be temporarily holding for someone, can influence the way you feel about that particular person. Once again, your mind associates certain feelings with certain temperatures, and that’s why this method can alter your perception of the other individual.

As you can see, if you understand the different ways in which the mind works, you can use it to your advantage and of course the good of others. When you practice priming other individuals on a consistent basis, you’ll begin to become rather skilled in the way you think of and embed words that activate the associations you’re aiming for. Don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t work as well as you had hoped it would the first few times you try it. More practice will only make you better. You’ll be amazed at how powerful this technique can be.

Psychological Manipulation

People make decisions and behavior modifications everyday based on certain reasons they feel are justifiable. If you were to dig deep enough, you would most likely be able to figure out why you do the things you do…or rather why you think you do the things you do. You see, there are certain things that happen in our environment that influence our behavior purely from a subconscious standpoint, bypassing the thinking brain completely. Because of this, the cause of that particular behavior is often inaccurately attributed to something else our conscious brain picked up on. The interesting part about this, is that you can create these types of behavior adjustments in other people without them even knowing it. This is the art of psychological manipulation.

Lets say you’re raising money for a business and are trying to get someone to donate. Based on this persons interests, you know that they might not want to donate to your cause. To prevent this from happening, you can make use of an NLP technique that’s designed to subconsciously implant the idea of donating money inside this persons mind. This can be accomplished by slightly adjusting your tone when saying certain words to them.

For instance, you could mention seeing people donating blood at the pharmacy around the corner when you were driving over to your bank. Saying something like “I saw a sign that the pharmacy put out asking people to donate blood while I was on my way to the bank to deposit some money this afternoon.” This type of statement would most likely just be considered small talk by the other person. However, when you lower your voice slightly when saying the words “donate” and “money”, giving them a more commanding tone, their subconscious mind will pick up on this command giving you a better chance of getting a donation from them.

This is an extremely powerful psychological manipulation technique, that can become even more powerful the more you use it before you ask for the donation. The more embedded commands you’re able to use, the better your chances of success will be. Now I know this technique seems quite simple, and in a lot of ways it is, but you’ll need to practice using it on a smaller scale first to get the proper tone down. At first, lowering your tone on certain words will probably sound unnatural and honestly a bit odd, but that’s just due to your lack of practice. The more you use it, the more natural it will sound to yourself and others. Before long, you’ll be able to use this tactic to influence the behavior of anyone you want at the drop of a hat.

Of course this is just one of many different psychological manipulation techniques you can use to control certain situations you might run into on a day to day basis. When combined with other tactics that I will be discussing soon, you’ll be able to accomplish virtually anything your heart desires.

Talk soon

Lie Detector

I think it’s safe to say we’ve all been in a situation where we felt like someone might be lying to us. It’s in those frustrating moments that we desperately wish we knew what to look for in order to figure out whether they are telling the truth or not. If you know what type of behavior to look for and of course consistently devote enough time towards learning this skill, you’ll be able to detect deceit in an instant and become your own lie detector. Before I get into the specifics, it’s important for you to know that you should never decide that someone is lying or trying to con you based on one signal alone. Before you reach a conclusion, make sure you’ve done a thorough job of collecting evidence that leads one way or the other, using a cluster of cues rather than just one. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, lets get to the fun part!

One gesture you might be aware of that is often used when lying is touching the nose. Often times when someone is telling a fib or fabricating the truth, they’ll touch their nose far more frequently than they usually do. However, the interesting part about this is the reason that lies behind this phenomena. When people lie, often times their nose will actually swell. Now before you start staring at other peoples nose when you suspect lying, you should note that it’s too discrete to notice with the naked eye. However, when this happens it creates a tingling sensation or a slight itch that leads to their frequent nose touching.

Another revealing tell to keep your eye out for is hands around the mouth and eyes. This is the same type of behavior seen in children, just in a more subtle fashion. When a child says something they know they’re not supposed to say, they cup their hand over their mouth as if to prevent the words that have already been said from leaving their mouth. Adults do the same thing, it’s just not as obvious. When adults lie, it’s not uncommon to see them take a position in which their hand is covering up their mouth or part of it. People do this subconsciously for the same reason they did when they were kids, but due to the increased subtlety of their behavior it can easily be missed by the untrained eye.

Hands to the eyes have a similar meaning as hands to the mouth. This gesture is also a more subtle version of the rather obvious hands completely covering the eyes that children do when they don’t want to see something. In this situation, the liar doesn’t want to look at the person that they’re lying to, which leads to eye rubbing/itching. Again this behavior is carried out subconsciously by the liar, but means the same thing it meant when they were young. Sometimes the liar will simply look away more than usual when they’re lying to avoid looking at the other person.

To increase your accuracy, observe the behavior of those you tend to interact with on a daily basis, and take note of how they usually behave. Whenever you’ve established a norm for someone, it will be much easier to tell when they’re not being honest with you or if something is bothering them. Some people have little idiosyncrasies that could be misinterpreted as a lying gesture if no norm has been established. Knowing what someones “usual” behavior is like, becomes extremely useful when you want to really make sure someone is being honest, and combined with other universal tells like the ones previously mentioned, can turn your mind into a human lie detector.