Follow It

I read the title “How to Seduce a Cop,” and I can’t deny that I was interested. No, I did not in a way plan to learn how to bat my eyelashes or bare some skin in a blatant attempt to satiate my fetish for cops. Because I can assure you that I have no such fetish. Thank you. It just happened to intrigue me. If there is a foolproof system of getting out of a parking ticket, who’s stupid enough to turn down such expertise? And so Jay Heinrichs delves into the art of persuasion.

Heinrichs plants his idea by telling a joke about how a psychologist screws a light bulb and the punch line is “ First, the light bulb has to want to change.” Of course. Because light bulbs have feelings, or didn’t you know? Seriously though, it is actually a very plausible and logical answer. Everything that changes in this life has to want to change. Unless it is a pregnant teenager, in which case I’m pretty sure she didn’t actually want or plan on having a growing fetus obstructing her otherwise flat stomach. But that’s a rare exception that takes into account causes of actions.

To get people to do something, they have to want to do it themselves, unless you hold a gun to their head. Heinrich explains how to attain this change of attitude in the first place: mood, mind and desire to act. First, you have to change the person’s mood to one that will be most amiable and easygoing (ie. More accepting). It is by doing this that you are making them more prone to manipulation, more malleable to understand your arguments. In other words, this is how you get them to change their mind.  The last is probably the most difficult of all which to spurting them with the desire to act. Here is where you have to resort to appealing to their emotions to convincing them they are doing what they want to do. Changing the mood is where seduction comes in. To seduce is, by definition, to lead away from duty, accepted principles, or proper conduct. It’s not only about sex, the concept we usually relate it to, it’s about being subtle and cunning enough to change someone’s concrete views. Changing a person’s perspectives and judgment is not easy, and that is why persuasion is not as easy as it looks. But with the given tools, it can be quite useful.

Arguing doesn’t always necessarily mean you’re going to win. The difference between fighting and arguing is that in fighting you can win, but in arguing you can get what you want. It is all a matter of subtlety, of manipulating your adversary very casually to the point where they think they are the ones making the decisions, when really, they’re doing what you want them to do. But you don’t only want to convince them that it’s what they want to do. “Besides using desire to motivate an audience, you need to convince it that an action is no big deal-that whatever you want them to do won’t make them sweat.”

The goal is to change another person’s mindset. You don’t always have to win, you just have to get them to concede, reach consensus. This is Heinrichs advice. Follow it.