Steal These Advertising Secrets to Trick Yourself Into Reaching Your Goals
You can override your less-than-helpful instincts by learning techniques from the persuasion business
The reason why you hate being micromanaged by your boss is the same reason why, as a kid, you refused to put your coat on when your mom told you to bundle up. We’re all wired with a knee-jerk “don’t tell me what to do!” response called psychological reactance — and it can kick in even when it’s you telling yourself what to do.
Saturday Night Live recently captured this tendency with a skit about the “Pelotaunt,” getting riders to workout not through encouragement, but through passive aggression. A woman in the spoof says, “If I hear the phrase, ‘You can do it!’ I literally won’t.” But when her coach taunts her instead, she pedals faster to prove them wrong.
That’s psychological reactance in action: Our desire to protect our sense of autonomy is so strong that we’ll even do the exact opposite of what we’re told just to prove a point. The SNL…
