Stuff You Should Know - How Reverse Psychology Works

Episode Date: December 10, 2015

You have very likely used reverse psychology before, trying to persuade someone to do something you want by suggesting they do the opposite. What's behind the bizarre reaction this elicits? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.

This is Stuff You Should Know. I'm a little grumpy about this topic, and I'm just gonna go ahead and throw that out there. Because it's pretty thin? Well, not only is it thin, but just the older I've gotten, man, this just all, we're talking about reverse psychology. And I see it's used with kids sometimes and stuff.

But then when it gets to relationships and- Dude. Professional relationships and business. Yeah. I just- It's a little disgusting. It all feels like manipulative games, and the older I've gotten,

the more I just have no time for that garbage. Yeah. And I'm just, you know, like, be honest, even if things don't turn out well. Yeah. At least you were honest, and you weren't being some manipulative puppet master. Right.

It's just gross. Dude, I ran across advice on how to use reverse psychology to get your boyfriend back. There's a site called xboyfriendrecovery.com, and it gives tips on it. So unhealthy. It really insists on asking the question, do you want the person-

Right. Who you can use reverse psychology to get back? And if you're using that kind of stuff, if like this is the tactic you're taking to get your boyfriend back, then is this the kind of relationship you really want in life? Agreed. So I'm right there with you.

I think people are so afraid to walk away from a relationship, even if it's toxic, we don't touch on that kind of stuff much. We should do more stuff on relationships like that. Okay. Because it is tough, and I get it, but I don't know, man. You get a little age under your belt, and it's very easy to just say, no, get out of that.

Go treat yourself with kindness and respect. Even if you take that out of the equation, you shouldn't manipulate other people in being in a relationship with you. No, not at all. That's a pretty good rule of thumb that applies to just about everybody. It will lead to badness.

You also should not be such a desperate human being that you buy something you can't afford to impress the salesman who's selling it to you. Another good rule of thumb. That might work on me, actually. Maybe that's why it bugged me, too. Oh yeah, I can't afford that? I'll take two.

I'll show you. All right, that was all preamble. Yeah, but we sadly covered a lot of this topic in just that preamble. So we're talking reverse psychology, and it turns out psychology itself doesn't even really recognize reverse psychology. Although it is definitely a thing.

Like you can point to certain instances of reverse psychology, and the basis of it is that you are telling somebody to do the opposite of what you want them to do, and what you're doing when you get them to react and do the opposite of what you're saying, which is what you really want them to do. What they're displaying is recognized by psychology. It's something called reactance.

And with reactance, people oppose what they're being told out of a sense of independence or protecting their sense of autonomy. But for whatever reason, even if it's not in their own best interests, they'll do something that's the opposite of what they're being told. That's reactance.

Reverse psychology is priming that pump in order to manipulate somebody into doing what you want. Yeah, and a lot of the examples given in this article are very ham-fisted, but I'm gonna use them anyway. Like this first one is just a pure definition of what it could be. His wife wants her bedroom painted. So she asked the husband,

can you please paint the bedroom? And he's like, no, I wanna paint the bedroom until she finally goes, you know what? You're not such a great painter anyway. I'm gonna paint the bedroom, cause I'll do a better job. And then in this article, of course- That husband springs off the couch.

I'm going to the Sherwin-Williams right now. Empty Miller, light canes just go everywhere. He pauses the football game. So that's just a very bare bones example of how someone might try and manipulate their husband or wife into doing a chore. Instead of having just a grown up relationship where you tell your husband,

maybe we should talk about painting the bedroom. And he goes, I'll entertain that because you're a valid human. And you have opinions and needs and wants. And if you don't do this, you're in big, big trouble. Yeah. It's not just adults though, is it, Josh? What that reverse psychology is used on?

No, typically it's used on children. Something as simple as saying like, I'll bet you can't finish washing the dishes before your TV show comes on. That's a good positive use. Sure, yes. And psychologists who do recognize and talk about this kind of stuff

because it is worth talking about and there is a certain amount of service among psychologists to, I guess, talk to parents about the use of reverse psychology because it isn't necessarily something you want to use a lot. You want to use it sparingly. And there are certain qualifiers that you need to use like, for example,

you shouldn't use negative reinforcement or negative reverse psychology. Right, and this is actually a pretty good example, I think. Like you want your kid to hang their bike up in the bike rack above the cars in the garage. So negative reverse psychology would be, if you really want them to do that for you to say, oh, you know what, let me do it

because you're so dumb, you'll drop the bike on the car. Right. What kind of monster would do that? Apparently they're out there. But that is a great example of negative reverse psychology. You really want your son to hang that bike up, but you end up insulting him in the process of trying him to get him to do something.

Right, and then the kid's self-esteem is in the toilet and it swirls around counterclockwise if it's a kid from the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, which is not true, by the way. And I also don't think, I didn't even find this in there, this is just me. I don't think you should pit your children

against one another either. Like, you know, I bet you can't finish your green beans like your big brother can. Right. I grew up in a family with a big brother that was way better than me. Right. And way smarter and better looking and thinner.

The green beans really took effect on that one. No, but I have to say, my parents never compared us or never expected me to be him, which was great. Yeah. They probably did it accidentally, but. Or they did it behind your back? Maybe so. But at any rate, I always appreciate it.

They go to bed and be like, I don't really like that, Scott. Let me tell you what he did today. Oh, I'm a big Scott fan myself. That was all the buzz behind the scenes. Scott, Scott. So some more recommendations if you're a parent using reverse psychology is that you, again, you don't wanna use it too often

because even a dumb kid can see through what you're doing eventually. Yeah, and they're gonna think you're a manipulator. Yes, you don't want your child to think of you as manipulative, even if you are. You wanna at the very least manipulate him and not thinking that. So you wanna be smart about using reverse psychology.

And then there's a whole school of thought among some parental advice columnists that say you shouldn't use reverse psychology at all. It's a really bad idea across the board. It's a form of dishonesty, I think. Yeah, and once your kids do pick up on this, they will be like, well, my parent doesn't really mean anything they say.

It'll also teach, you're teaching your kid not to listen to you, and there's a good example of that in this article where if you really wish that your son would cut his long hippie hair, a type of reverse psychology would be to come up to him and stroke him and be like, I hope you never cut this hair, it looks so good. That's a little creepy. And then the kid, sure.

And then maybe because he's creeped out, the kid goes to the barber the next day, has his hair cut, and joins the army, you know? So you got what you wanted. Your kid's out of the house, he joined the army. But you also have taught him to not listen to you, especially if you praise how good his hair looks after he cut it.

So not only do you not mean what you say, you're also kind of wishy-washy because you like the long hair, but now you like the short hair. And you're praising the kid for having done the opposite of what you told him to. That's right. So this is all this combined.

It's basically, it sounds like lazy parenting. Yeah, you know? I agree. Or cold calculated, terrible parenting. Yeah, psychopathy. Yeah, that. Let's take a break here and we'll come back and finish up. No, I'm just kidding.

We'll come back and talk a little bit more about who might be affected by reverse psychology. In the next episode, on the podcast, Hey Dude, The 90s Called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor. Stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point,

but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our youth for the goals of our life, because the music was so beautiful and so different on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever.

Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper

because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to, hey, dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man.

And so, my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.

Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, experts say, if you're a narcissist.

Man, I really hate that. I saw that in this article and it jumps out. Yeah, experts say. But they do say, Josh, if you're a narcissist, or if you're a control freak. Right, check. Or if you're type A, that you might be more susceptible to being manipulated by a reverse psychologist.

Why is that? Well, because you want that control. Yeah, and that's ultimately what it comes down to. So, like, none of this will possibly work if the person doesn't feel that they're autonomy and sense of freedom and sense of self-destiny is not at stake here. Yeah, true.

That's what you're doing is you're assaulting that person's ability to choose. And so, they're going to choose the opposite to reassert themselves. And apparently, people who are type A's are more likely to sense that their autonomy is being tread upon. A more passive person that type B,

which we should do an episode on that. Yeah, where that came from. Type A, type B. And definitely, we should do one on personality inventories. Totally. But with type B people, you really shouldn't use reverse psychology on them because they'll end up doing what you ask.

Yeah, like, sure. So, you're asking them to do the opposite of what you want. And then they'll just go do that, you know? Yeah, just asking what you want them to do. And they might go, yeah, great, I'll do that. Right, the problem is people who use reverse psychology are the same people who worry that the person they're talking to is not going to do what they want.

You know what I mean? I guess so. It's not true. There's a doctor, a psychologist named Jeanette Raymond in Los Angeles, of course, who says that it's not so much. What does that mean? I don't know.

It's not so much the personality type, though, but the dynamics of the relationship, which makes a lot of sense. It does. I also read an article in Psychology Today on this about that context has a lot to do with it, too, whether it works or not. And this was a 2011 post, so it was kind of charming

that the guy uses Charlie Sheen in rehab as an example. Oh, yeah, it's a good one. He's saying, right, he's saying that saying something that, like, if one of Charlie Sheen's friends had said to him, like, don't go to rehab. You totally don't need rehab. Don't go. Charlie Sheen, very likely, would have been, like, awesome.

Yeah, you're right. I totally agree with you. Because, number one, his desire to not be in rehab and to do tons of cocaine, and his desire to be proven, to prove that he doesn't need help, would definitely trump any petty, fleeting desire to prove that person wrong and regain a sense of autonomy. What a weird time that was.

It really was. He was the most famous person in the world for about a month. Yeah. Didn't you guys see his tour? No, okay. I read about it, I didn't go see it. Mike Tyson?

Yes. I saw Tyson. Two very different things. I'm not equating those two. Someone I knew went to that stupid Charlie Sheen tour. And apparently the people who went were really unhappy because he tried to make it, like, just some normal thing. Yeah.

Like, no, tell us how your drug story is. What, like, a legitimate stage show? Yeah, which it was not. Right, yeah. And, like, he wouldn't talk about any of his drug stories or sex stories or anything like that. He was just basically just doing, just talking. Yeah.

And he got booed a lot. Yeah, and I think even now Charlie Sheen is like, that was weird. Well, why'd I do all that stuff? He just came to. Yeah. Just now. I think he even admits what a dumb period of my life.

Yeah. I could talk about that guy all day. I don't think we should do a Charlie Sheen episode. Okay. I like him. Tuna, I think, is one of the best moves ever made, and he did really well in it. Yeah, good movie.

Men at work? I never saw it. You have to see men at work. Do I? Yeah. Casablanca first, though? Sure. Okay.

Just to appease the people in podcast land. If you asked me personally, you could watch them at the same time. They give a really bad example to me in here about Julian Assange, which of WikiLeaks. This is, like, this almost made me just throw my laptop away while I was reading this. Yeah, it said basically an example is if Julian Assange

had not been told to stop, if basically the U.S. government had said, fine, just go do it. He would have lost interest. And never would have published all those diplomatic cables. That is in this article. Terrible, terrible example.

Yeah, I actually just scratched it out. He did it, and I knew with a pen, looked like a knife. You just went back and forth, like carving it up. Yeah. Man, I really can't believe it made it in there. So children, though, one of the big reasons kids, it works on kids, is because if you're a parent, and I'll find this out at some point, not yet, obviously,

but kids, it seems like they're innately interested in doing the opposite of whatever you say. Yeah, and plus they're also, their little brains are developing. They're what you call naive in a lot of ways. So it does tend to work on children. Again, like we said, you want to use this sparingly, if at all.

But there have been studies. There have been real studies on this kind of stuff. We finally get to the studies. So the study of reverse psychology or this phenomenon of reactants being primed, right? Really kind of starts in the 70s, but there's this very famous study from 1982 that was in the Journal of Personality

and Social Psychology, I think. Bulletin, maybe, in there. Anyway, this night, yeah. Picky-une. Right, in this 1982 study, found that children who were given free reign to play with a bunch of toys, except one, that toy became super popular.

That's just obvious to me. Sure, but they're studying things. They had to put it down on paper eventually. They had another study, or a very similar one, had kids rate a handful of toys that were in this room, and then the researchers went back and picked the one that fell right in the middle. I think it was a toy motorcycle or something.

And with a new group said, this is like, you can play with all these toys except for the motorcycle. And then later on, they formed yet another new group with new people running the show, and some of the same kids that had been told no to the motorcycle were suddenly very interested in the motorcycle.

So this has been documented. This has been looked at over and over again, but they don't exactly know what the mechanisms are behind it. And we will dive into that right after this. ["Dive Into That"] On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor,

stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it.

It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair.

Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in

as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough,

or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you.

Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael.

And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen,

so we'll never, ever have to say, bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. ["Song of Love"] So before we move on, I want to point out to adults out there. It's very normal and even kind of cute when there's two kids playing with two different things.

And one kid says at some point, well, no, I want that one, because they're playing with that toy. So I want that toy. It looks like way more fun. It's not cute when you're an adult. No. And I see it happen where, you know, I want what that person has.

Sure. Why don't I have that? Why don't I have that? And people, there are plenty of advertisers out there that use that, that manipulate that. Some of them go to hysterical lengths, like there's a Patagonia ad that had a picture of a Patagonia jacket, and it just said, do not buy this jacket.

I think it was a little tongue-in-cheek. Well, you know what I actually did? I hope it was tongue-in-cheek. I posted this article, what was yesterday, well, it had been a couple of weeks ago, on Facebook, on our Facebook page. This one? OK.

Before you sent it as a. What a coincidence. I know, right? And I said, I would advise you to not read this article. Like, ha, ha, ha. And it did pretty well. Did it really? Yeah.

I got a lot of shares, and a lot of people seem to read it. And most people were like, oh, very funny. But I don't know. Did it work? Probably. I'm almost sorry they read the article now. But I think it probably got a lot of reads, because it is something that's so ingrained in popular culture.

Reverse psychology. It's used all over the place, either expressly, like there's a very famous Simpsons episode, where Homer's reading a parenting book. And his brain says, don't you get it? You've got to use reverse psychology, and Homer's like, that sounds really hard. I'm not doing that.

And his brain goes, well, fine, don't use reverse psychology. He goes, OK, I will. And I saw another example, Tom and Jerry. When Jerry has a bomb, and they're passing it back and forth, and then all of a sudden, Jerry changes, and suddenly grabs the bomb back like he wants it. And that makes Tom want the bomb. And Tom, of course, ends up holding the bomb

while it explodes. Reverse psychology. And actually, the same lady that made the terrible, terrible example of Julian Assange does point out that this is, it almost enters the realm of folklore. Sure. Reverse psychology does. But there is something going on there.

And again, it is based on reactants, which is somebody doing the opposite of what's presented to them, breaking a rule, something like that. But we don't really know what's behind it, right? Well, one another quick example is, and this wasn't even us trying to use reverse psychology, but during some of our necrotizing fasciitis or maggot therapy, when we're like, don't go to Google Images

and look this up. Invariably, we have people emails like, why'd you have to say that? Because that's the first thing I did, and it was disgusting. That's why I spell it correctly, because I know people are not going to listen to us. But it's not us saying, oh, I really want them to go look at this, so we're going to tell them not to.

We really mean it. Don't go look it up. It's disgusting. Yeah. Oh, you sort of do. A little. OK. So there's been research into trying to figure out

what's going on here. Yeah. Why do people do this? And Esther Inglis Askel, who writes over at I09, great site, she wrote a little post on this and is talking about how is it that people are rebelling against authority to establish their own autonomy again, or their sense of autonomy?

Yeah. Or is it that they're curious? Their curiosity is piqued. And she makes a really good case for curiosity being piqued by saying, if you put forbidden on a door, a lot of people are going to go right through that door to see what is on the other side of this forbidden door. I'd be one of them.

But if you put on that same door a science that's forbidden, colon, toilet overflow, people are going to be like, I'm not going in there. No, I'd be like, no, there's probably donuts in there. And OK, so you're the suspicious type. But if you take it on its face, she makes a good point. Yes, some people would be repelled by the idea of a disgusting overflowing toilet in there.

But other people might have their curiosity swatched, and so they wouldn't need to transgress. So it's a lack of information and a curiosity. Right, and apparently other studies kind of bolster this idea because they show that the reactance is more intense, the more arbitrary a rule seems. So people are saying, wait, why? I don't understand this.

It doesn't make any sense. That seems to be one component of it. And another component of it, however, seems to be just disobeying. There was another study that was, I think, in conjunction in that 1982 study of teenagers. And it found that a group of teens were told do not cheat on this test.

It's really important you don't cheat on this test. Yeah, and not like all the other tests. Yeah, I guess. Which you can cheat on. And this group was induced to cheat more often, more frequently than the control group who weren't told not to cheat on this. What's the point of that?

I guess it's just finding boundaries. Or you could also make the case that they're trying to see what happens if they do cheat. Right. Because they're curious. So the jury is definitely still out on what's behind reactance. Yeah, we talked a little bit about how business,

I think they said in the article that sales is a common way in business that you can use reverse psychology, like the car salesman who shows all the cars, except for the most expensive one. And they're like, well, why don't you show us that? And he's like, well, I think that's probably out of your price range. And then if you're an adult living in a child's body,

or a child living in an adult's body. Yeah, like big. Yeah, you go, well, no, let me see that car. I can afford that. Yeah, what do you mean? And the Goofus family, who's always broke, drives off in their brand new car. Or the relationship example they gave,

like if a boyfriend's like, you're becoming kind of clingy to the girlfriend. And the girl immediately is like, yeah, you know, I think we should spend some time apart, actually. Yeah. We should even date other people. Boom. The guy all of a sudden says, wait a minute,

what do you mean date other people? Yeah. So some of that harmless stuff in a relationship happens, I'm sure. But that's not what we were talking about earlier, with like truly toxic relationships. Manipulation. And manipulation.

That's a different thing. There are different levels of this. OK, so the same spectrum for sure. But it also levels all the way up to real therapy called paradoxical intervention. Yeah. And psychologists actually say reverse psychology is the media invented that.

That's not what we call it. It's an actual therapy that some people say is not ethical to use. Other doctors say, no, it's just fine to use. Yeah, I actually came across a paper from the 90s or something about the ethics of using paradoxical intervention. In crunch music. It's does right.

This does help or it can help. And the whole idea of it, it's not really reverse psychology. It's just about the closest thing psychology has to reverse psychology. Yeah. Where you are telling a patient to go and purposefully do a symptom, something they're complaining about. So if somebody is saying that they're a big procrastinator

and they don't have any control over this is who they are, the doctor prescribes them one hour of procrastination every day. So they decide an hour to just procrastinate. And it does a bunch of different things. One, it's silly. The whole point of it is meant to be silly. It also takes something that was formerly

thought of as involuntary, voluntary. And since it's voluntary, you can also voluntarily not do it. Yeah, it means you can actually control something you didn't think you could control. Right. But then also by making it silly, it disempowers this thing that's just such a big problem. Yeah.

Now it's a silly thing. I'm purposefully procrastinating an hour out of every day. The thing is, is if the patient is not privy to what technique you're using, it's very manipulative. Yeah, it's almost like a light-hearted aversion therapy. Kind of, yeah. Sort of.

Or exposure therapy. Exposure, yeah. Is that the same thing? Yeah. Not aversion, but yeah, it's, yeah. Like if you're afraid of snakes, let me dump a bunch of snakes on your head. Right.

Yeah. That's pretty unethical. I would say so. But like you said, some psychologists say now you can use it as a tool in your toolbox. Yeah, just don't be a tool when you use it. Terrible. So the whole point of all of this

is these are all persuasive techniques or what are called compliance techniques, right? Yeah. It's what you're trying to get people to do what you want. And there's another thing I ran across called the door in the face. It's a compliance technique, which people use all the time. You'll find it very familiar.

It's when you ask for something really huge that you know the other person's going to turn down. And they do. And then you ask for something what you originally wanted, which is smaller by comparison, but they may have turned down if you'd asked for it just on itself. Yeah, I think we talked about a version of that in the MPAA, like film makers.

They'll say, I really want to get this violent scene in there. So let me do something really outrageous that the MPAA is going to pull that and not pay as much attention to the thing I really wanted to keep. Right, so that's door in the face. There's also foot in the door where you ask for incrementally larger stuff to where you finally bill it to the thing you want, smaller to larger.

But then lastly, check the other thing I ran across was probably the healthiest way of using reverse psychology. So if reverse psychology works because the person feels like their sense of autonomy is being threatened, you take their autonomy and you put it front and center. You say, I can't make you do anything. Only you can decide whether this is good or bad for you. Right.

So do what you want. And technically, it's a form of reverse psychology. But what you're doing is you're taking this obstacle that really doesn't have anything to do with anything, this person's sense of autonomy, putting it right there in the middle and saying, this is a non-issue. I respect your autonomy. I can't tell you what to do.

You decide it. It doesn't even strike me as manipulative necessarily. It strikes me as healthy. Or you can just be honest with people. See where that gets you. But I think that's honest. Yeah, no, true. But yeah, you can also just say, I want you to do this.

I know I can't make you, but this is the direction I want you to go. There's also The Door in the Floor. Did you see that movie? No. Do you mean Flowers in the Attic? No, The Door in the Floor was the Jeff Bridges movie based on the John Irving book, A Widow for One Year.

Great book. Yeah, pretty good movie. John Irving knows what he's doing. I thought A Widow for One Year was a much better title than The Door in the Floor, though. Yeah, The Door in the Floor rhymes. Hollywood loves rhymes. They sure do.

Yeah. You got anything else? Surprisingly, no. If you want to know more about reverse psychology, good luck finding it because we covered everything, sadly. You can start, though, looking at how stuff works in the search bar by typing reverse psychology. Since I said search bar, it's time for a listen in the mail.

This is from Robbie. Hey, guys. Thanks for your enlightening coverage of a vast assortment of topics. Help me find common ground with children and adults in all types of social situations that could have otherwise have been excruciatingly awkward. I'm an artist, so I listen to you while I paint.

Music is great, but sometimes spoken word allows me to work longer. It's a steady feed of stimulation instead of emotional ups and downs that can come from music. In other music-related news, I recently conducted a social science experiment where I went around New York City and asked strangers what their three favorite things are.

The most common answers were family, music, and food. What would yours be? So what three? What are your three favorite things? OK. You, me? Yeah. Can I lump food into just one category?

Yeah. Food. OK. And what's your third's going to do? You do. What's your guess? Travel. Yeah, I guess, OK.

Or booze. No. No. I'm not so sad that I'm going to say that, although it's definitely up there. I will say. Top five. I will say my lemon tree is probably number three.

Wow. Love that lemon tree. It's a producer. Not like that lousy lime tree. And my friends. I got to put them there. We'll say food and friends. OK.

After you, me. My favorite three things. My favorite three things are food. I'm going to say friends and family, which includes Emily. Sure. It's a bit of a cheat. Food, friends and family. Folks.

Food, folks and fun. Fun. Friends and family is a cheat, because that includes everybody. Yeah, you can just say folks. Food, friends and family, people. And people's number two for you. I'm going to go with music.

Oh, that's a good one. Boom. What about movies, though? Do you like music more than movies? I like. Oh, man, that is a tough, tough, tough question. You know who asks people questions like this? Jerks.

No. Because it's so impossible to just come up with three things. What's this guy's name? Robbie. Robbie, you're not really a jerk, but. Man. Actually, what the email should have said is, if I were you guys, I don't know.

I don't think you could answer it. He should have said that. For psychology. I want to hear you guys waffle on your top five or six things that you like the most in the world. So he finishes by saying, what would yours be? There are three of you. I'm sorry, but there's only two of us in here now.

Yep. Frank, the chair's over there, but he can't talk. Could you possibly answer the question? We just did. I would record the podcast app on my Apple TV as you spoke, and then include this footage in his experiment. So. We're being experimented on right now.

Yeah, let's go ahead and give him permission to use that clip if he wants. I do not give you permission. You can use my side. You can use it. That's a thank you for your incredible work with your three exclamation points. Is there a site that people can go to to check out Robbie's

progress or Kickstarter or anything? Well, he directed us to a YouTube link. So if I just go to YouTube and type in three favorite things, and you'll probably come across it. Cool. Well, thanks a lot, Robbie. I mean that ambivalently. It was like six months ago that he asked us, so he probably

gave up on us anyway. Is there even a YouTube anymore? If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at SYSKpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast.howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web. Stuffyoushouldknow.com.

For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back

into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance

Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help and a different hot, sexy, teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart

radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.