Debating at its Best
By Ananya Rao
Do you lose to your siblings in a fight? Or do you feel like you don't know how to have an argument and win? Well, I can help you with only five psychological tricks to win an argument.
Understanding the other person's perspective: Though this trick isn't too psychological, it helps you to stop repeating the same thing over and over again. This trick allows you to find holes within their argument and use them to your advantage.
Acting relaxed and calm: Being calm can really catch someone off guard. People, being humans, have a need to feel superior when in an argument. This is why we raise our voices. But staying calm and collected with no facial expression triggers them and creates a need for them to ramble on and on and get louder since they don’t feel superior anymore.
Staring at their eyes and staying silent: Though this is similar to acting calm and relaxed, staring into someone's eyes when they are at an epitome of anger, is an interesting way to make them quiet down. When in an argument, staring at someone's eyes makes them feel self conscious and they will feel a need to either turn the conversation to you or stop talking all together. Bonus, if you look at someone deep in the eyes with a concerned look on your face, they will one hundred percent feel more conscious and will immediately quiet down. Or in the worst scenario, they will cry.
Focusing on the subject at hand: When in a debate or argument it is easy to steer away from the subject at hand and move on to a subject focusing more on the person you are arguing with. For example when I argue with my brother, we may be arguing about who is going to clean the table but when doing that it is important to stay on track and on subject rather than bring outside matter in. especially like saying “your room is never clean, the least you can do is clean up the table”, this not only moves away from the original matter but also hurts the other person's feelings. And though we want to win an argument, it shouldn't be to the expense of someone else.
Reverse Psychology : Last but not least is reverse psychology. Now I do we have seen this is many movies and it never seems to work, but according to the statistics it does. It is human nature to go against what someone tells you at times, they want to challenge you in a debate, using reverse psychology you confuse them. For example when someone says something like:
“You're ugly!”
You don't challenge them and say something like: “No im not!”
But instead, say: “I know” (a variation of this).
This leads to your argumentative opponent not receiving a challenge and backing down. Creating a power shift in the debate.
I hope this article helped you out and gave you more information about this topic. I also hope you finally win an argument, one you might always lose.