A Psychological Trick to Evoke An Interesting Conversation

A generalization of Cunnigham’s Law is that it’s similar to what Socrates tried almost 2500 years ago: the ancient Greek philosopher that upset many people in his day by questioning their knowledge.

In its simplest and most accurate explanation of the phenomenon being described: people generally don’t want to be helpful, but they do want to be the smartest person in the room.

I signed up to be a conversational English teacher to several Japanese students. It made my job harder when they were quiet or gave me only one-word answers.

When I showed a quiet kid a picture of an elephant and asked “what is this?” they got bored, moved on, cried, anything but answer my question. But if I said, “this is a giraffe” they would all stand up and scream “no, that’s an elephant!” — and suddenly they’re all engaged.

If I say something inaccurately along the lines of, “so, you’re an engineer. That means you build engines, right?” They can’t wait to correct my ignorance fast enough. They’ll go into detail explaining what an engineer is, what it isn’t, and what kind they are. All I have to do is chime in with “are you sure?” every few minutes and they’re talking up a storm for the rest of the conversation.

Many people are inherently more willing to jump into a conversation in which they can feel superior. Hence, it makes the conversation engaging to them.

In fairness, they didn’t know the real reason behind your misinformation, and that’s the price you pay for psychological manipulation. But it did show some people in a positive light, and that’s a rare enough occurrence.