Hey Thoughty2 here.
"Adam was but human…
He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden."
wrote Mark Twain.
Now I want you to do something for me, do NOT think of a white bear for the remainder
of this video - oh, you've already failed haven't you?
The reason you thought about a white bear was the exact same reason you clicked on this
video.
This same instruction was given to a group of test participants in the 80s.
They said, for the next several minutes, "whatever you do, don't think about a white bear".
Of course, they all failed too.
For the next several minutes all they could think about was a white bear, no matter how
hard they tried not to.
Many of them attempted to think of other, random scenarios, picturing themselves on
holiday for example, to try to divert their minds but a white bear always found its way
into their thoughts and before they knew it, they were sky diving in Venezuela with a polar
bear.
At the end of the study they all admitted that their attempts to not think of a white
bear were entirely futile.
Why do our brains have a natural tendency to think of or do the exact opposite of what
they're told?
Reverse Psychology can be very powerful.
Today the middle and upper class in Europe eat a diet that consists mainly of Kale Chips
and Hummus but in the 17th century they ate potatoes.
That's right, the humble spud, today a European staple, was, for a long time only eaten by
the upper classes and royalty.
The lower class were superstitious of the potato, they saw it as bland, tasteless and
many thought it was poisonous.
But the upper echelons of society saw the potential of the unassuming brown vegetable
and ate it plentifully.
During the period of the French revolutionary wars, the usual food staples in England, which
was at the time basically some variation of a meat pie, was in short supply and England
was on the brink of a famine.
So the English government took steps to try to get the English public to eat more potatoes,
which were in plentiful supply.
They went so far as to hand out pamphlets entitled "Hints Respecting the Culture and
Use of Potatoes", but no matter how much they pleaded with the people, they wouldn't eat
potatoes.
The same struggle to make potatoes a normal food staple was happening across the whole
of Europe.
Eventually it took someone to do something quite different and not ask people to eat
potatoes, but to use reverse psychology.
Enter Frederick the Great of Prussia.
The king of what is now Germany saw great potential in the potato as a way to cheaply
feed the nation and not rely so heavily on expensive bread.
So, in 1774 he issued an order to his subjects to start growing potatoes, to which they replied
"The things have neither smell nor taste, not even the dogs will eat them, so what use
are they to us?"
So he concocted a plan, he planted a grand, royal field of potatoes and stationed royal
guards to protect the field every day.
The local peasants started to grow suspicious, what food could be so valuable that it requires
round-the-clock guard protection.
And, just as Frederick had predicted, within a few days the local thieves were stealing
potatoes from the royal plantation and selling them at the local market for a high price.
Before long the whole town was eating his royal potatoes.
His plan had worked perfectly, because he had made them forbidden and told people that
they can't have the potatoes, suddenly everyone wanted potatoes.
And so, over the following years the fondness for potatoes spread across Europe.
Whether it's thinking about white bears or eating potatoes, humans love to do what we're
told not to do.
Children are the ultimate victim of reverse psychology.
Tell a kid a hundred times to eat their broccoli and they won't budge, but tell them they're
not allowed broccoli anymore and suddenly it's their favourite food.
But why can our brains be so easily duped?
Why can we not resist pushing the red button, why do we always want what we can't have,
whether it be our neighbour's sports car, or wife?
We even do the opposite of what we tell ourselves to do.
When you're about to give a speech to a group of people and you tell yourself to be calm
and not to panic the complete opposite happens and you start violently shaking.
It seems at times that our brains are just out to get us.
Why?
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So what is the secret behind reverse psychology?
It's all because of a thing called "Reactance".
Reactance is the concept that we are all afraid to lose our freedom and we will do whatever
it takes to hang onto it.
If our freedom is threatened, for example if someone takes away our ability to make
decisions we react out of fear.
If someone tells us we can't have fast food anymore, we instantly crave fast food like
never before, because we are reacting out of fear of loosing our freedom.
Reverse psychology works so well because when you threaten to take away somebody's freedom
their natural reaction is to go out of their way to exercise that freedom and prove to
you that you're unable to take it away.
Just take a look at fair Romeo and Juliet.
They first met and liked each other, sure.
But it was only when both their families forbade them from being together that they fell crazily
in love and ended up dying for one-another.
It's one of the most powerful examples of reverse psychology in literature.
But the greatest example of reverse psychology of all time comes from ancient Chinese history.
In the greatest book on war ever written, The Art of War, Sun Tzu wrote: "Appear weak
when you are strong, and strong when you are weak".
During the period of the Three Kingdoms in China, around 200 AD - the country's multiple
leaders were at war and one such leader Zhuge Liang was known as one of the greatest Chinese
strategists of all time.
During the war of the three kingdoms, Zhuge Liang was held up in a fort with only a handful
of soldiers.
When his enemy Sima Yi learnt of his location and heard he had so few men defending his
fort.
Sima Yi set off with an army of thousands of men, to conquer Zhuge Liang and take over
his fort but Liang heard about Yi's campaign before he arrived.
Instead of bolting all the doors shut and putting what few soldiers he had along the
battlements with bows and arrows to defend the fort, then hiding away somewhere, he came
up with a plan involving a magnificent feat of reverse psychology.
Liang ordered all the doors and gates of the fort to be opened up wide.
He ordered his few soldiers to dress up as civilians and to sweep the grounds inside
the fort and the roads outside with brooms.
Liang then sat calmly atop of the fort, looking out at the approaching army and said not a
word but melodically played his Guqin - an ancient Chinese instrument that is plucked.
As Yi arrived with his huge army, weapons in hand, he was greeted with open gates, peasants
cleaning the streets and a calm, fearless Liang sat atop his empty fort, still playing
his instrument.
Sensing suspicion Yi instantly thought it was a trap and that Liang had setup an ambush
involving hiding his soldiers in the surrounding hills to circle Yi's army from behind.
Instead of rushing the empty fort, Yi quickly ordered his men to retreat with great haste,
fearing an imminent ambush, an ambush which of course didn't exist.
And so, using reverse psychology, Liang had quelled an otherwise deadly attack.
Liang's incredible strategy has since come to be known as "Empty Fort Strategy" and it
made its way into the famous Chinese Thirty Six Stratagems as the 32nd stratagem.
From Chinese masters of war to modern day advertising, the power of reverse psychology
is timeless.
Like this advert for the British Army, that uses reverse psychology to almost makes you
feel guilty for not joining the army.
And my personal favourite, this advert... for a university degree in Reverse Psychology.
An Amsterdam hotel has perfected the art of reverse psychology, by branding itself "The
worst hotel in the world".
Hans Brinker Budget Hotel is smack bang in the centre of Amsterdam and is, by their own
accord very cheap, smelly, cold, not too clean, has absolutely no luxuries and is generally
a damn awful place to stay.
Online reviews for the hotel include "A bus shelter offers the same facilities."
and "What is that smell?
I demand to know what that smell is."
But instead of trying to improve their standards, they just made these advertising campaigns...
and this... and this...
And, well would you believe it, it worked.
Since releasing these brutally honest ads the hotel's business is booming.
Hans Brinker's 511 beds in 127 rooms are nearly fully occupied all year round.
And yes, it's still awful.
Reverse psychology has certainly worked out favourably for Hans Brinker but not so much
for another advertiser.
Smoking kills, we all know it, even smokers.
But addiction is a difficult and emotionally-driven problem to overcome.
In early 2000, following a treaty signed at the 2003 World Health Assembly in Geneva,
it became the law in most countries that cigarette and tobacco packaging had to contain a health
warning.
Some countries adopted written warnings and others contained highly graphic pictorial
warnings.
In the following years many world governments put funds into anti smoking ads on national
television.
Such ads are usually highly graphic and usually end in the protagonist either developing cancer
or erectile dysfunction.
The World Health Organisation were pretty pleased with themselves and believed this
visceral new advertising would vastly reduce the number of smokers worldwide by using fear
to make them quit.
And for a while the world ignorantly believed that the strategy was working.
But what have we learnt?
That the more times you tell somebody they can't or shouldn't do something the more likely
they are to do it.
And sure enough, multiple recent studies have shown that warning labels on smoking products
has absolutely no effect on smoking or quitting rates whatsoever.
Moreover a recent study by experts at Tel Aviv university and New York university concluded
that, bizarrely, warning labels on cigarettes, no matter how horrific, actually increase
cigarette sales.
Researchers showed various packets of cigarettes to test participants, some had warning labels
on, such as "Smoking Kills" and "Smoking Causes Cancer" etc. and some of the packets had no
warnings on them at all.
The participants were asked which packets they would rather purchase and the vast majority
of them chose the packets with warning labels.
There's something interesting going on here, this has a lot to do with reverse psychology
but there's a bit more to it.
The researchers found out that the test participants believed that the brands that put warning
labels on their cigarette packages were perceived as more honest and trustworthy and so in some
strange way, the perceived quality and value of that brand's cigarettes went up, in the
minds of the participants.
Reverse psychology isn't just a mental quirk, it's a tool that many successful people have
used, among them Freddie Mercury.
After Queen recorded Bohemian Rhapsody, a six-minute long song, every record company
they spoke to said it was too long to be successful and would never be played on the radio.
So Freddie Mercury gave a copy of the song to his friend and radio DJ, Kenny Everett,
as a gift.
Freddie told him never to to play it on air.
Of course Everett did the complete opposite and played the song on air over 14 times in
a single radio slot.
It was soon number one in the UK charts and it went on to grace the number one spot again
in 1991 after Mercury's death.
Thanks for watching.
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