How to Win Games and Manipulate People (SHUX'19)

so this is going to be mind games now to win games and manipulate people if you've ever wondered why it always seems to be that certain people always seem to win any game that involves any form of negotiation today we're hopefully gonna explain why but right off about I need to point out a couple of things this presentation will contain evil also I realized in the process of doing this presentation that actually I am evil and almost all of the things I discovered it's like oh I already do that when I'm playing CI I just didn't know it was empirically effective so by the end of this thing you may realize you may feel like hang on Matt Lee's is evil which is true but only in the context of when playing Ti so basically when you're faced with manipulating someone there is very specific steps and one of the earliest steps of persuasion is the nicer way of saying manipulation is am I going to be very direct and logical or am I going to appeal to their emotions the direct route obviously is the logical route let's use my words to convince people of what I want them to understand or do I do more subliminal seduction it's cetera yeah so the second route will come to me a second but the central route is what most people think of as being persuasion of being the idea that like hey if I'm logical and I give you good reasons for things then I will be able to win you around and obviously we can see as indexed in the world right now it doesn't work like that because also there is a second path to persuasion hello it's Quinn's with a glass of milk come in the peripheral routes feelings don't care about your facts is unfortunately quite frequently way more effective than anything else and the thing about peripheral judgments is we make them based on simple things like is this person like me are they attractive do they sound clever are they wearing a hats that's not that's not one but it could be it could be it could be yeah yeah for instance I don't have any hair and I had hate two men I'm more persuasive when I cover my bald head up yeah yeah it's because of the peripheral route we'll talk more about that in this talk the thing that you need to bear in mind though is even if you can't convince somebody with your logic and with your like know help me do this because ABC peripheral judgments change really slowly which means basically like often if someone's making a peripheral judgment about something you're saying it's not gonna just you can't just change it dramatically you can't just get a new haircut and suddenly be like immediately change someone's mind about you although might help actually but yeah if you've got something they embedded if someone's like you're the person in the group who always wins and that's kind of a law thing about you you're really going to struggle to change that perception so you're probably gonna have to ignore the peripheral route a little bit and take a more direct approach but don't worry we'll tell you exactly how you can do that another word for the peripheral route is intuitions and intuitions is your instincts you're almost born with it like my gut tells me you're a dirty liar yeah yeah no I don't have any facts for that except my gut tells me that I should listen to my gut yeah yeah and if your gut says Matt's a filthy liar and Matt usually wins then I'm gonna have a really difficult time trying to convince you not to attack me even if it's a crazy idea and I see that all the time when I'm playing games Thanks firstly there's four elements following how effectively you're gonna be able to persuade someone it's like who's the person saying it who are you what are you saying exactly the method kind of the medium of how it's being kind of communicated and the audience like who you actually talking to so he got little I got a pop-up I should point out these slides were actually um Alan's actual slides he uses for teaching psychology that I modified right you're actually you're in a psychology lecture now so but let it be known modification did not include putting Matt's face on that's actually what I show in my classroom I wish that was true so the first thing is a communicator right which is like credibility is the main thing if you're seen as being an expert and trustworthy right then whatever you say it's just gonna it's gonna get through to people so much more easily doesn't matter what you're saying let's be very clear rule number one of persuasion is you do not want the person to know that you are attempting to persuade them so rule number one is seem trust word the rule number 2 is credibility more than anything else so how do you appear trustworthy how do you appear credible and there's loads of weird ways that you can do that like this is an example when we played a mega game and you can see at the start of the day I look disheveled and they may become increasingly more disheveled until I am turbo disheveled at the end of the day but it really does make an intra men de stiffer incite if you look like you've got yourself together if you look smart and then people are gonna trust you yeah and that's insane yeah it's basically fake it until you make it you can be saying a whole bunch of bullcrap but if you're saying it with confidence and clearly using words that are relatively quick you can really convince almost anyone of anything yeah yeah yeah and if you speak if you speak confidently and fluently just constantly and quickly even quickly is a big thing right and you will be more convincing and you know you're pointing out when we talk about this casually like this is why ben shapiro is popular yes it's like an unbelievable idiot but he talks very quickly so fast and so people think this guy must be this guy must be smart because a lot of people think i can't do that he talks like the Micro Machines man back from the day in that that's word after word after word so I I can't string together such great vocabulary in such a short amount of time yeah yeah and it doesn't matter what you say because it could be convincing even if someone points out it's factually untrue and this is the sleeper effect for instance not sure if you know this about Matt Lee's over here I he got evicted one time because he kept on kicking puppies and then thought sure it is true like and also I heard the relationship before your marriage you she broke up with you because you kicked her puppy no hash tag puppy oh no that's Quinn's I'm so sorry you're right no it's not it's neither of those but here's the sad thing I said that hashtag puppy punter and even though we said even me saying that's not true people will believe it case in point and I'm not even trying to stir up controversy and it drives me nuts that this is controversy vaccines do not cause autism yeah but the prom oh thank you thank you the person who came up with that research even emitted yeah I made it up and he got busted he's not a lot but he stole makes his money going around without being able to do any more research talking about how vaccines cause autism even though he's on the record for admitting it but people still believe it because at some point someone said it and it made sense at one time so sorry puppet punters everywhere like meritocracy is a term which was coined by someone who who kind of did it as a joke it was like meritocracy and then hang on a minute why are you using this seriously like it's it's very easy the sleeper effect is like you just completely forget that everything you forget why you discounted something you just remember the message like someone said something any guy actually has not true but then you forget the whole out I start true bit and you just remember the thing before until it seats in this is something outside of what's on there our presentation here if you get someone to confirm in writing a lie that they originally believed and this is empirically shown they will believe it even if the source told them right there and then they did this amazing experiment where they asked people hey who do you think is a better firefighter someone who tastes risks or someone who doesn't and they said well someone who takes risks then in the experimental group they had them write down defending it with the words that they wrote and that was repetitive but I believe because they take risk they put their lives and then you show them backed after fact after fact that no actually firefighters who take more risks that are in their job description end up dead and other people are dead that is not true but they refuse to change their mind no matter how much evidence you show them even though they knew they were in an experiment and the experiment was trying to convince people that your idea is wrong they still refuse to change their mind when everything said we just gave you a lied anyway yeah this does come back to that later though actually about how we really do double down on our own nonsense another key thing here though is how attractive somebody is now obviously we're not talking about attractiveness here in terms of like physical attractive although you know that can be a thing but there's a good reason why you'll get Carly Jenna to sell Pepsi Riley and me but at the same time physical attractiveness is not the only aspect of how compelling and believable someone is similarity to us is a major thing if we think someone is like us then we will find them way more convincing when I teach this during the political season in social psychology it is so frustrating because when you look at political ad campaigns it is this playbook it's like they've listened to this lecture because you want to look exactly like someone else but slightly better because if you're too good then they don't like you and this is why you'll hear politicians say oh I shop at Walmart just like you or oh I play basketball just like you no they don't they just want you to believe that you are them etc so it's just one of those techniques say like hey look at me so the most ideal ways to persuade someone is to appear to be someone who's just like them but a little bit better just a little bit and that's why a lot of that you know there's simple psychology everyone knows about like mirroring people's body language etc is just free things that a lot of persuasive people will naturally do none I'd be like Alan a great guy I like Alan a lot it's just it really works so yeah you know if you're seeing next to somebody in t.i and they're having a terrible time like to really sympathize with them and try and get on the same page as then like it may well pay huge dividends in an hour when you need them to betray their friends how are you gonna say what you're gonna say fear-mongering I'll just jump right to that because there's a lot of fear-mongering ads and they work very well until they don't cuz fear-mongering if you're gonna try to get someone to act with fear it has to be something that they can do immediately and simply here's why when you talk about climate change it's not really effective argument that says oh by the way the world is gonna end we're all gonna die if we don't do something it's great it really doesn't work however because what am I supposed to do tell me exactly what I'm still so using strolls right then there's like straw really that's gonna save the world but when it comes to smoking ads or let's get really appropriate in games like blood on the Clocktower if you listen to Quinn's right now we will all lose all you have to do is vote for Quinn's right now otherwise this game is over by the way I just played blood in a clock tower last night with Queens this is total humble brag in my pocket he's a lovely but gullible man yes yeah but also essentially deeply untrusting but you can still trick him despite that it's it's wonderful but ya know it's it's you can try and scare people into things but it unless you give them an easy option it doesn't work it almost backfires and also it can backfire really easily as well if you're trying to be low because remember rule number one credibility yes you have to make sure that they don't know that you're trying to manipulate them yes not scalable and if you are too obvious with your fear-mongering like you're just trying to scare me in it you'll have the opposite effect exactly and the same sure actually when you intimidate people if you're trying to be like hey don't do this or I'm going to come and attack you like if your threat isn't seem credible and people know that you're just trying to trick them then they're actually gonna actively just bounce back against that even harder which is why a lot of the best ways to kind of like work in these games is actually to just leave the game and this is why I kind of like doing it you leave the game with no one even having any idea that they've been persuaded to do anything at all even after the game right I've played games of Ti where I've won and everyone's gone home and to this day no one has any idea that I it's quite heavily manipulated the room to do what I wanted yeah and that's fine because hey it's just a game and nobody feels bad about it because it's not like the end of a game of the resistance whereas like you just like to me for like an hour that's that's cold so what you've just uncovered it in breaking this down into the most basic lessons you can take home because the reality of it is this takes skill and practice and you're really practicing manipulation what's wrong with you but there are very specific things you can try to do one thing is do not brag like I just did from winning against Quinn's at a game just say hey well played be as humble as possible because if you ever want to play that game again they'll remember you totally saying you sucker ma'am and then you've just blown your credibility for future games humility humility humility wow I'm so surprised I won I'd know I did yeah you trusted me I guess you shouldn't have I'm sorry Alan Batman Gooding you've gotta love him because if you don't he'll trick you into loving okay right so now we're gonna talk about perceived wisdom and there's the wizard this is where I think it gets really interesting quite quickly because some of this stuff is just like what is the human brain doing is it drunk does it need to come home well-worn phrases just land better which means if I say to you like hey don't put all of your business interests into one Avenue then that will not be persuasive but if I say hey don't put all your eggs in one basket then you'll go that's a wise thing to say which means if you use like well-worn phrases and classic adages people are going to just think that you're more wise and more credible and they're gonna act on what you say but here's where things get quite fruity frankly you you don't actually have to use real phrases you can just say things that sound like phrases so I can say like you know eggs in your basket are better than eggs for good friends and I come back and people might go you know yeah totally know what that means but it kind of sounds like a thing that people would say and you know too many friends spoil the eggs that's all I'm gonna say on it if you're gonna attack me attack me but too many friends spoil the egg what they found in 2000 is that rhyming sentences are more convincing so if you could just say things that rhyme then it it kind of tricks our brains into thinking that it must be a saying and if it must be a saying then it must be more true and more valuable if the gloves doesn't fit you must acquit boom so persuasive yeah that guy got away scot-free yeah he really obviously murdered people but yeah it's it's crazy it's it's a thing where basically you know it's one of the reasons perhaps where I am actually much more effective at like negotiation games and persuasion games is because my mum is a poet I was just gonna bring that up yeah and like so what you know I have a way with words that has a cadence that is nice it is easy I fight you either yeah no it's so yeah just try just try and think of it if you got something you want to say just see if you can work out a way to make it rhyme but again I only do this when you're playing games you monsters all right this is this is the message so this is directly where we tell you very specific techniques that you can use for instance be humble was a good lesson to do foot-in-the-door phenomenon this is ridiculous foot-in-the-door phenomenon people like it when they do something for you and this is a good lesson in relationships in marriage what not as crazy as it sounds when someone says can I help you and you say no you think you're doing them a favor like oh I don't want you to bother etc etc what you've actually done is you've just rejected them and they take it as an affront because they ask because they probably want to help so the best thing you can do is have them do something really simple and that's your foot in the door because you can start asking for more and more and more and more and more that was really nice right yeah I'll give you the example that I actually shared at the panel about creating community I probably shouldn't even admit this but I've actually taught the people who work at our booth to do this if no one's coming to the booth I can't believe I'm reading this on record cuz it works too well no one's coming to the booth and we want to sell games so what I do is I take a card from the table and I'll flick it at someone who's walking by and it will fall in front of them and I'll say oh my goodness I'm so sorry and they'll pick it up for me and hand it to me thank you so much for picking that up for me would you like to play one of our games go Alan what have I told you about not being evil outside of specific games and circumstances the whole premise this talk was supposed to be me being like evil and you being like no Matt you have to not be evil right this isn't gonna work here's the thing and this is actually a rule you should believe if it comes to sales and I know we're supposed to be talking about in games you will be known as someone who is achieved and a liar if you don't believe in the product that you're actually selling so the best advice I can give is that you can say that's really evil for me to sell but I believe in two rooms in a boom and if you don't have fun during two rooms in a boom I don't want you to have the game but that's not lemonade may be an amazing experience for you and if it is I believe I'm actually helping you by allowing you to get the game if I didn't believe that I would feel uncomfortable there'd be cognitive dissonance I'd have trouble sleeping and I'd either have to believe I'm a horrible human being or I'd have to stop selling that's not lemonade yeah no that makes no sense when I was younger usually lots of things where I would be involved in sometimes selling things and I found that if I believe they don't I'd be like incredible right incredible at if I didn't believe in even a tiny bit I'd be the worst right I just couldn't do it oh yeah all right well Joey's out on how evil you are you're not quite shitlord yet maybe like you know quick warning though this is exactly how cults work and how amway works and other kind of pyramid schemes is they'll just say hey we want to talk to you or psychologies nemesis Scientology or they don't believe in psychologies because we're not gonna tell you everything we're just gonna have you come to a meeting and not really tell you anything and then come to another meeting and maybe we'll tell you a little bit more and they leave these breadcrumbs and eventually before you know it you're hosting entire parties for strangers at your house and then your next level and now you're what is it fatal levels I don't even get your level up yeah 999 Tom Cruise James you get your phaeton level 2 lovely new ft I'm rambling obviously I have issues with this but yeah me too me too if anyone's interested in joining that special Club you can make me run the back and we're gonna have like a kind of secret chat about it you know just bring all the cash you have and spouses and that's all stuff right next thing up the two sided bill I've got one member already fantastic you're on the ground level that means when you get to like the top level you're gonna have control over I kind of like moving on I'm gonna I'm gonna I love mega games I love mega people who run mega games but I'm gonna murder those people anyway two sides an appeal which means offering the opposing view to decrease its impact something in the film eight mile which apparently Allen has seen yeah and here's the truth of the matter you probably don't know this because you stole my power points is if you click on that eight Mile type tactic it will actually play the end of eight mile raise your hand if you've seen the movie eight miles Marshall oh good we're gonna plot spoil it because he dominates the competition at the end because all he does is say exactly what his opponent will say this is one of those golden messages of manipulation is say everything that they may say Quinn's may say that normally I'm much more loud and much more confident but all he's trying to do is manipulate you and he may say that I'm the demon because I totally accused this one person but that's not the case at all it works wonders it's better coming from your mouth than your opposition so nip it in the butt yeah before nip it in the butt there we go yeah I know it's supposed to be bad but yeah mix it up though and yeah I am actually I haven't got a thing for it yet but when this goes up in YouTube I'm gonna make sure that I put a little link so people if they want to get the slides and get links and have a read through they can have a look at it sweet the primacy effects the recency effect pretty popular effects but basically people will always remember the first thing or the last thing in a chain of things so it works like this primacy effect works great if there's a delay before they have to make a decision ideally you do both if it's a debate for instance if you're playing a game speak first and speak glass let all the opposition speak in between but if you have to choose it depends how much of a delay is there before they have to make a decision typically in a game they decide right afterwards for instance blood on the Clocktower werewolf last words you want to speak glass because right after that that's when people vote on whether they're going to eliminate someone or not so the last words think of Julius Caesar by Bill Shakespeare right and there was Marcus Anthony and Brutus and Brutus made the mistake of asking to speak first but Mark Antony said you know what but Brutus is an honorable man let's pick up our swords right now and go kill Brutus so anyways with your last make sure there's the call you have to have a call to action if you'll first you need to drag it out and make sure there's no decision for ages exactly yeah this stuff works too well it's the thing but I mean we'll come back to that later but the method is really important like you know is it in writing is it face to face repetition makes things believable mere-exposure again and this is kind of I guess ties in so like things that sound like adages or things that sound like well-worn phrases keep saying things again again as if they're true then they will just feel more true hash tag puppy punter yeah like I didn't do that I really didn't do that I know you didn't doesn't matter doesn't matter about 100 people minimum are kind of gonna remember it when someone the future says Oh Matt didn't that punch a puppy they'll go yeah no I think I think he did yeah that's the thing cool thanks Alan problem you're welcome face to face exposure is more effective so yeah after playing a ball game people try and persuade them whether when they're face to face rather than tomorrow when you've stopped playing the game not so relevant to what we talked about again it totally depends on the amount of time if people aren't really cognitively engaged you want it to be as quick and interactive as possible just think of someone who has a hard time keeping attention you need the lights you need the bells you need the whistles hey this is what we should do but if someone's very thinkI and quiet and reserved written is the best mode of communication because then they can take their time and really analyze it no sir don't cover yourself in actual lights and bells it's Nels do if they really have a hard time I'm telling you you're really gonna like you're not gonna get invited as plague gloom Haven again okay audience you have to choose your targets wisely because you would assume that maybe the people who the most meek be the people who would be the easiest to influence me true no it isn't true it's people in the middle not like super sure I know what I'm doing but also not like I don't know just look for the most middle of the ground person in the room and yeah well again it goes back to what we originally said someone who's similar in age to you ideally they're slightly younger than you because for some reason people think the older people may know more but not too old because then you're out of touch but if I'm you but just a few years older which which maybe I'm I can guarantee I'm older than you met I know I am so it's like oh I definitely older than Quinn so in my pocket again shouldn't brag but anyway absolutely here's the other thing and this kind of breaks the rule adolescents are really easy targets and I don't mean offend adolescents adolescents 22 years of age and younger into their teens their prefrontal cortex is still developing and they're more likely to remember anything that happens in that age if you were to ask for your most memorable experiences it doesn't mean that they all happened in your adolescence it's just the way that your mind is more of a sponge for memories during adolescence part of that aspect is that you're easier to manipulate during that adolescence as well because you realize you're learning and getting things wrong and adapting so you can manipulate them the only ones that are more easy to manipulate our children but that's not really fair because they can't even tell the difference between a commercial and reality but so if you don't have a peer next to you but you have some teenager there you go yes I should point out that this is this is a word not altered from Alan's original slides which is a except for children unsophisticated trusting children can't even tell the difference between adverts and programs to rooms and ablaze in manipulation of children I think it's it's I put this in here partly to just be kind of unfairly mean to Alan because I knew he'd pull something like poppy punter and also partly because I have noticed that whenever I'm playing two rooms in a boom in like big like families things children are the best allies because they will just tell you everything they know they will not suspect you when you feed them bad information and they're leaky as hell they were just going to have conversations loudly which means you just give them bad information and then they just win you the game you evil evil man it's the best like befriend children they've got things they're useful to say as well and you can use them as pawns anyway the interesting thing about persuasion is you when you need to change tracks right when you've got a situation whereby like you know you're trying to use direct persuasion and it's not gonna work because they're like you know I don't think about it because a lot of this comes down to that like none of the reasons people make peripheral decisions about things actually make sense it's like we haven't got time to make like tremendous amounts of decisions every day about everything right what a sandwich I just want a sandwich I don't really care what's in it sometimes and if I was to spend all my energy going through the logic of feta versus mozzarella then I just be exhausted but the problem with this is sometimes people end up making peripheral decisions when they should actually be thinking about things and it's not just a sandwich it's more important than that and again you know look at Exhibit B the world but the thing is like the need for cognition is important it's like have you managed to convince someone this is something that they should think about and if you haven't and then maybe you can't straight away and you can't actually convince somebody they should think about something and everyone's probably had that experience where they're like look what you're saying is insane I have facts that prove otherwise they've already decided no no no this is not something that I'm gonna actually expend any brainpower on so I'm just gonna listen to the attractive lady on the television boiling it down to brass tacks when you scan the room for who your targets are going to be in what taxes you're gonna use there's some key identifiers and if someone is talking from a logical central route you need to adapt to that but if you can't up with enough of a logical explanation for why you're doing what you're doing you pretty much have to abandon that target and start going for the peripheral route for the other people so it's all about seeing and figuring out central peripheral route it's the first thing you want to do yeah and it's the thing is like if you've got people who are using like direct persuasion and they're being more persuasive but often in games it's like you're trying to persuade someone not to do something you don't want to do but you haven't got a good reason for it you just throw on and to do it and like if your argument is weak then you need to just try and switch them on to periphery or disrupt their ability to directly think about things and this is why distraction and see this smells and whistles this is one of the thing where I did not do this because of this it was a fun thing for the stream but when we played Twilight Imperium stream I had lion bars because I was a lion and it meant a key point in the day when I thought it might be fun I basically bribe tried to bribe people with lion bars but things like this at the point where you're making an argument and then they're trying to formulate a counter argument and then you distract them somehow you break that ability sometimes the brain just forgets what it's doing and just doesn't pick it up again and just goes yeah whatever all right sure like you know it loses its flow all of these are dangerous because there is a balance to it because if you're too obviously distracting them you've just broken rule number one and they know what you're doing for instance if Quinn's actually does have a compelling argument and I just interrupt him and say look at me I can juggle people will know oh my he's just distracting me so I won't listen to the point that Quinn says and the opposite will happen obviously you need to pay attention to Queens but if you interrupt enough and I hate saying that because this is one of the dark reasons that when I play a social manipulation game I have to check myself before hand and say how dark am I willing to go the goal is to have fun not necessarily to win and I don't want to sacrifice it so if I don't really feel like interrupting like I should interrupt this right now but the only way to really interrupt is to be a jerk not worth it and I think it's an interesting thing there in terms of like often when we play these like social deduction games we play them with our friends and it means some people are way more adept and find enjoyment in lying where are some people on and it was fascinating someone in the audience was telling me the other day about how they played some games blood in the clock tower with some people who were like seriously into it and you know that that's kind of a different circumstance to playing with your friends because it seemed to be a thing where like everyone knew the rules inside of now and it meant everyone's playing four dimensional chess right I think his exact words was he's like at one point somebody was like crying and then I realize later they've been pretending to cry and I was like is that too much and I was like no I don't think it is I think it's okay and it's like no you could never do that just with your friends but if you're playing in this sort of like cabal of mad lies then sure I guess it's like it yeah I guess about like there's a degree of like it's assumed consent in terms of like there's so much am I allowed to screw you over right because I stopped playing social manipulation hidden role games for a while because I realized you could win if you are emotionally manipulative because it works really well when someone throws down and gets angry I'm not the spy and you're like whoa hey this game isn't worth pissing you off and then the underlying I was this by I won no you didn't yeah nobody won that game we're gonna remember this for all the horrible reasons and we're probably never gonna see each other again because you just crapped on the table yeah that and there is a major thing you do see people who will just like really go for it away that you're like an hour come on like it's not fair and this is a key thing actually with distraction like often distraction will just be repeatedly interrupting someone repeatedly stopping them from trying to and that's that's not cool like you know they gets the point where like you know what it doesn't matter it is just a game and that's why actually like I think one of the reasons I actually do very well at games like ti exedra is I will try to win but I actually genuinely don't care and it means I will not like go to the point where I will be actively trying to push something that isn't gonna work I'll have a go but the point where someone goes actually Matt go away no I'm Michael it reminds me of relationships where if you're too forward with affection too early people get turned off and it has the opposite effect it's almost the same way if you have to have sincere intentions in your heart that will go through if you sincerely want to have fun then people will actually listen to you more because you're fun to be around and therefore you're more likely to win if you don't care as much about winning but anyways this this whole circular trap of okay here we go defense against a bad arts to this yeah so obviously a key thing here really is we've taught you the ways that you can bend the world to your whims the flipside of all of this stuff is if you know what to recognize in these things and actually you can defend yourself against circumstances where people are actively trying to manipulate you or persuade you but also you can defend other people and you can see it and you can think actually you know what like whether people know they're doing or not and that's a really key thing like you shouldn't go away from this and be like hey you're evil what you're doing is because I did a lot this stuff and I'm playing games I did read a lot of it people do naturally without even realizing they're doing it but you can see it and you can go actually and you can try and help look after people and this is something I would advise you do everywhere not just in games so make a public commitment so the first thing you can do it's a really make sure that somebody can persuade you is to publicly commit to something if somebody says listen I want to convince you not to do this don't attack me don't do this don't do this you can okay what can talk about this but just to let you know I am gonna do this next turn and if you make that public commitment to the table then it doesn't matter what that person says they're gonna find it way harder to actually convince you to do something different and like that the problem of this is obviously the flip side of this is you're being stubborn you know this is why we think of stubbornness is because more often than not when someone says something they then don't change their mind anything are we you're being stubborn but it's like actually it's a defense in a way so yeah if you know that somebody might actually be about to have a real beating from someone super manipulative and super persuasive just try and gently encourage them to say oh hang on before you before you know what are you gonna do next time what do you wanna do like allow them to kind of bolster their own defenses in the way that might actually help let me tell you the dark side of that though is if you are the one manipulating someone if you get them to publicly commit to what you're trying to manipulate them to do we're voting against Quinn's right yes let me hear you say it yeah we're voting against Quinn's cool that's yeah yeah that's that's that's the flip side of that absolutely is if somebody says something that you like you know oh sorry I didn't catch that yeah oh cool right yeah interesting attitude inoculation she can with a king you best make a deeply compelling argument this is fascinating mm-hmm if I say to Alan Alan I think that having a bath when you're stressed out it's nicer than having a shower and then Alan says to me you know actually Matt that's doesn't make any sense it's ridiculous showers are superior why why because you get in you get out and you're not sitting in your own filth the entire time yeah but you know I feel like he just missed the point now like you know it's it's about relaxation it's about enjoying your own filth for half an hour Matt maybe was putting your laptop on a little bench and watching some Netflix I'm just gonna watch some daredevil have a bath it's delightful well Alan's done there is he's basically used like not the best argument he's used a slightly weak argument and because of that now he's inoculated me in terms of persuasion he's made it so I'm actually defended now not just against weak arguments but actually against stronger arguments the future so it's a situation where basically if somebody has a position and then somebody comes against them if you don't if your first argument against something is not strong then actually even if your second argument is really strong it might not work because you've effectively given them their ability to defend themselves against future attacks that are stronger I think the easiest way to explain this is using the root word of inoculation what's in the flu vaccine yeah a defeated version of the flu you are giving a bit of flu a bit of flu so that your body learns how to fight against the bigger flu that actual flu so same thing I come at you with weak arguments you've already inoculated yourself against the stronger arguments so think to yourself what are some of the arguments that someone's gonna give to me come up with solutions to those and even if there's bigger attacks against you you're at least more prepared yeah yeah you would have liked actually part of this is just thinking things yourself from being like actually trying to think of cancer arguments ahead of time or if you see somebody's doing something like you know Prada their defenses if you think yeah that's a good stance to take but I'm just gonna product you a little bit so you actually like aren't gonna lose this opinion at the first sign of anyone's slightly manipulative this is not something that is that relevant to games to be honest but it's really fascinating and we want to chuck some stuff in here in the slides that people look at you can work you can come up with examples of this the poison parasite is simply this people have been conditioned to associate some things with other things for instance this classic Marlboro if I even pronounced that right advertisement of the cowboy with the smokey and it works like people see that and they think Oh cigarettes but now you conditioned them for something that is the opposite effect so I missed my lung Bob when you show that advertisement beforehand now when they see the actual marble oral advertisement they'll think oh lung cancer instead of whoo the coolness of being a cowboy on the ranch while smoking a smooth cigarette sound like I'm selling the cigarettes more than I'm not but anyways sorry you can do that if you know that someone has a strong association of like Oh Quinn's he's so fun to play games with I mean I could say like Quinn's the liar yeah yeah that's actually yeah that tone of voice mimicking tone of voice and switching it up also I guess do you know if somebody is a is lording it over my example with a lot of this stuff is Twilight Imperium because it's like it's a long game of basically persuasion but you know if somebody's like going around if you can just and this is this is one of the things that I feel at least comfortable with actually as a suggestion because it's like if you can put posterize other players then you will undermine their their ability to you know convince other people if you can / pasteurize other people in their respect and manipulate see it's no problem is it's kind of mean and that's like where it's like you're actually just being a dick and we come back to what Alan said earlier of like did you actually win the game but then if you know somebody is being very serious and militaristic and they're like I've got all of these amazing troops and they're like you know being sick they're being super serious and you can lightly poke fun at them and make their kind of dominance of the game look a little bit more silly rather than something that should be respected then you might actually turn the tide of a war but do be careful with that one because it yeah if you're just taking the mick out of people it's not nice the cliche expression is mimicry is not always flattering yes yes and this is the easiest thing you can do to defend yourself against manipulation persuasion you're doing it right now be educated and familiar with issues that one's kind of like it's a key thing but it's easier said than done right yeah it is inoculation once again by learning these things you've inoculated yourself against being persuaded and even how to persuade other people so no one both sides two sided appeal no it's kind of boring but really knowing the rules if you really know the rules for a game like then it means when people are coming at you with things I say we could do this you like no no no because you know because this because that and that will help you again you know be somebody who is seen as being you know I've keep forgetting the main words of this like respectable and what's the words credible credible that's it you'll be seen as credible however this come backfire I have lost count of the number of games I played where somebody knows all of the rules but they're kind of a nob about its and and because of that like you don't see them as being like somebody slightly smarter than you you see them as somebody who's like I don't like you and then therefore the fact that they know all the rules doesn't make them any more credible right for persuasion and often you'll find that the the real rules lawyers the people who really just want to play the game and notall they often don't win games like that because even though they have the best skill level like they seem to distance people they're not able to relate to people yeah trustworthiness in credibility unfortunately includes attractiveness as we said and if people don't like you that's not attractive yeah so know the rules but don't lured them be there as somebody who's like if people aren't sure you can go well it's this actually but don't be like no no no no no I think you'll find in Subsection B for mmm-hmm now it's time for wheels within wheels this is the point where I reveal possibly though I'm evil because what we did is we try to take a lot of these principles for self defense and to subvert them to allow you to be even more manipulative I feel better because Alan has already mentioned in one of these which means I'm not that bad or we're both awful so yeah obviously it's best when people don't know that you're trying to manipulate them like you can actively persuade people if you can get through to them and if they can engage themselves to think you can make the stupid points you know don't be a lot of people think the persuasion is about constantly appearing to be really clever but that only matters if you are actively trying to persuade them as you persuading them if you can actually change it so the point of persuasion is coming from outside of you it's like ventriloquism then a they're going to make it's gonna seem way less likely that you're trying to persuade them and be it means that yeah you don't have to be small this is why marketing agencies hire celebrities to advertise their product yeah but it comes down to yeah and you know if you make stupid points you can inoculate opinions for other people and I feel bad cuz I do this all the time in TI somebody's like oh I think I'm gonna go and do this and I'm like oh that's great and I go BA but isn't that a bad idea because if you take that then surely next time they can just do that and then they go no no they can't do that because because they've already done this and okay oh yeah and it's great because then you're just like you've just solidified them and they have no idea they just think you're an idiot so a lot a lot of you know good persuasion in games comes from just allowing your ego to like just disappear if you want to be seen as being persuasive you're not gonna be ask stupid questions and this is a really key thing actually and this is the one thing I learned was looking at all this research which was like the one takeaway from today which is really valuable in the world and people should try and spread is it if somebody is stuck on peripheral reasoning and you cannot get them to think about topics and you cannot get them to engage with facts don't try and give them more facts because it's not gonna work because their brain has decided that they're not thinking about this whatever reason they're not gonna spend the resources they're not doing it we got this covered it's fine and the only way you can change that is to trick them into thinking and then if you can make them think then maybe you'll actually get them to switch tracks it's just you have to trick their brain into changing your topic to being something that they've made a decision on to being something that they're actively thinking about so just ask questions ask stupid questions don't ask the kind of questions that are there to catch people out and go but what about this because then they're gonna see that as persuasion and they're gonna lock the doors but if you just keep asking them questions about stuff and just be stupid and listen and ask more questions eventually you're basically going to trick them into slowly opening the doors of their brain and make them think about the topics now which point they're kind of in trouble but that's I think that's that's valuable for conversations at Thanksgiving or Christmas however yeah my as we said someone's got a stance and you wanted to keep it get them to vocally share it how you do that is up to you just waiting against and this is my favorite thing this is waiting against your interests increases your trust and credibility it's a two-sided appeal again saying you can you persuade against your own interests badly then you you're going to inoculate them so and this is what this is actually I do i when I was reading through it I was like oh my gosh I do this all the time I am the first person to say if it's if it's like a half good idea to attack me at any point in the game I will just say to that person flat out you know what you should probably attack me but then when I go into why I might not give the the best reasoning I will give a reason but it might not be the best reason and then often like that will mean they won't attack me and it's this weird thing of your girl oh no that's a good point yeah no no actually yes so you actually you've you've not only gotten to say actually no I shouldn't do that because of this it's it's yeah but again they go home they go to sleep they have no idea what you've done and the final slide is please be good the thing that is I think brilliant about psychology is it's not actually really unlocking secrets it's it's scientifically proving things that I think deep down most of us already already know whether it's you know old phrases or gut feeling right or just stuff that we automatically do when interacting with people and we know it kind of is effective but we don't know why and it just validates what some of our hunters have been however I will say that some of our hunches are opposite because there are these colloquialisms that are opposite like a Lonely Hearts better than a broken heart but it's better to love and loss and it's never to have loved at all but which one of those is true science and then figure out like well let's actually measure people suffering if they've never been with someone and let's actually measure people's suffering after a breakup which one's better and it worse yeah etcetera exactly and you need that so you say common sense but at the same time which common sense is actually correct yes yes and sometimes common senses are correct but not at all for the reasons that people would think yeah and the interactions that way so it's fascinating and as I say like if you watch this online in the future we will have a link in the description so you can actually like look at the slides check out some of the citations let's check out some other things we didn't go into a much detail if you're interested but generally yeah just remember that a lot of this stuff is just humans and how we work and how we function and don't take any of this and think you've like learnt tricks it's more like you've gained an understanding of how people work feel free to have fun being evil whilst playing games but the rest of the time please do try and understand that we all have the same broken brains and we need to look out for each other and that's that's about it yeah enjoy what you do do it for the right reasons yes thank you very much [Applause] you

Channel: Shut Up & Sit Down

Views: 49,716

Rating: 4.7768364 out of 5

Keywords: Shut Up and Sit Down, SUSD, SU&SD, Board Game Review, Review, Board Games, Board Gaming, Boardgame, Board Game, Gaming, Tabletop, Fun Games, Quintin Smith, Matt Lees, Psychology, Alan Gerding, How to Persuade People, Manipulation, Psy, Psych, Persuasion, Win Games, How to Win, Social Psychology, Werewolf, Mafia, Twilight Imperium, Mind Games

Id: JMtxii4s9ss

Length: 47min 0sec (2820 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 25 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/JMoon33]

Damn, what happened here?

[u/DDB-]

This was a really interesting watch, as it reminds me of a similar talk at PAX a couple of years ago and they said a lot of the same things. Made me realize that I was already manipulating my friends in games, so I try now to be cognizant of when I do it and not to overdo it.

That said, the rhyming one is one of my favourites that they pointed out because a recent example stands out to me. With my group we've been playing a bunch of Love Letter recently and I've managed to get people on board of mostly using their Barons against our friend Aaron, because I just started saying "It's the Aaron Baron play" every time it happened.

[u/lostonpolk]

Well, I got the 'ask stupid questions' part down pat.

[u/uhhhclem]

Presentations like this often fail to convince the audience that these techniques exploit features of cognition that everybody shares, including you, yes, you. You will believe something more strongly if you've put it into writing. You will be less likely to be persuaded by an argument if you have previously refuted a weaker form of the argument. You will be more likely to believe what someone says if they're like you.

They try to explain this, but it's not something that's really amenable to explanation.

For instance, there many forms of unconscious bias that have been demonstrated to be practically universal. But when you confront someone with all of the experimental evidence that's been used to demonstrate this, if you demonstrate, say, that confirmation bias is a thing that affects literally everyone, that person will think: wow, other people really have interesting failure modes.

The only way to get the universality of these failure modes across to a person, unfortunately, is to make the person fail. Unconscious-bias training is really only effective if you put a person into a position where their unconscious bias leads them to make a bad decision, and you can demonstrate to them that they just did that thing that everyone does. Nobody believes that the "everybody" in "everybody does this" applies to them until you make them prove it to themselves.

Nothing gets the point of this presentation across like falling to one of these techniques and then being shown, after the fact, that you fell for it. Also, even that is really hard to do. People don't want to believe that they fell for something,

[u/nilkimas]

I'm not good at trading/negotiation games, lets see if this will help. I have shied away from those type of game because I'm not good at them.

[u/Laotzeiscool]

By Dale Carnegie

[u/Dreamio]

What is going on with this post and all this drama lol?

[u/NecroDaddy]

Great info. Too bad now everyone else knows too though.