Persuasive or manipulative?

(Youtube Video to add https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E46oWB4V0s)

Psychiatrist Dr. Raj Persaud shares some insights on how to seduce others. And while our work life is in many ways separate from our dating life, both share our need to connect with others.

Most of Persauds’ suggestions may not be ground breaking, such as the necessity of meeting another persons’ wants in order to persuade them into our camp. One thought was noteworthy, however: to influence others, in exchanges it serves us to strategically disagree with everything the other party says for the first half of the time and then to switch to agreeing for the second half of the conversation. What we know from social psychology research, this approach flatters as it gives the recipient the impression that they ‘turned us around’ due to their own powers of seduction. It provides the illusion of having an impact, a very seductive thought.

Is this playing a game, is it manipulative, even Machiavellian? Persaud argues that life itself is a seduction and that if we do not play the game we risk running into trouble.

Intrigued?