The Psychology of Persuasion: Boost Your Ego with NLP and Manipulation: How and When to Use Those Techniques. Be a Stronger Empath, Understand the Big Picture to Persuade People and Win Influence by Benedict Richard & Martinez Edward

Author:Benedict, Richard & Martinez, Edward [Benedict, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-10-27T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 3:

Hedging Tactics and Safety Lines

To Be Ambiguous Or Vague

Closely related to the withdrawal tactic is the hedging tactic. It often initiates a definitive withdrawal. It uses intentionally ambiguous terms or vague expressions. Should your own position be endangered, you simply fall back on a meaning that escapes the attack.

Example

Michael: "Of course, with aggressive pricing policy, I did not mean that we should enter a price war with our competitors, but only that we should be more flexible in our pricing policy."

In his statement, Michael immediately reinstated a safeguard by speaking of a "flexible pricing policy.” This position is difficult to attract because it is hard to narrow down. Depending on the point of view of the interlocutor, importance can be selected from the vague field of "flexible pricing policy.”

The hedging tactic is a typical maneuver of the op-opportunist, who does not commit to anything and then joins the opinion that promises the safe profit.

Defense

Ask the manipulator to re-pinpoint his position. Retreat to hidden restrictions. Sometimes the manipulator tries to build in safety lines already in the formulation of his point of view. We have already met with one in the last section. Another security option is hidden restrictions.

What can be understood by a hidden restriction? Your interlocutor actually made a limitation when formulating his position. Over this restriction, however, he goes so far afield in the further course of his argument, so that the statement finally makes a more absolute impression than it should make by the restriction actually. The listener escapes this hidden limitation error.

Example

Manuela tries to convince her supervisor that the tasks in the team should be redistributed and a separate team meeting should be called.

Manuela: "Practically all the team members are in favor of having a meeting in which we discuss the matter of task distribution. This was shown by the discussions I had with the team. I think that with this unanimity, we should plan such a meeting concretely.”

The term "practical" limits the scope of Manuela's claim. But she continues as if all the members had really been questioned. This inaccuracy is often used for purely tactical reasons. If the audience or the listener should not accept the point of view, then the argument has the opportunity to talk himself out. Manuela could deny her original statement and claim that she spoke only of a "large majority" who were in favor of the team meeting. This tactic provides a retreat option should the manipulator be in distress.

Other typical expressions with a limiting effect are:

basically

essentially

for the most part

under certain conditions

in principle

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