FBI mind attack: the super psychological tactics of the US federal police

Chapter 13 Knowing what is reasonable and knowing what is beneficial - FBI's shrewd "humanity tactics" (4)
The FBI found in long-term practice research that in social interactions, everyone is eager to gain the respect and attention of others, which is a normal psychological need of human beings.People in leadership positions, especially, value the explicit support and respect of others.Therefore, if you are working with the leader, you should always be aware that the dignity of the leader cannot be violated.Even when the leader makes a mistake, he cannot refute it in person, but should give him a step up, and then remind him politely in private to save face for the leader.People who can do this can often become the "caring person" of the leader, get praise from the leader, and can more effectively improve their status and value.Therefore, the FBI tells people to learn to use language in daily life and work—this is not only a powerful weapon for people to safeguard their own interests and protect their rights, but also a basic survival skill that people should possess to gain a foothold in society.

There is such a case about language use in the FBI training course:
The chairman of a large supermarket in the United States is holding a meeting to discuss the issue of the company's trademark.In fact, before the meeting, the chairman already had a logo in his mind, but in order to let everyone feel democratic, he asked the supervisors at the meeting: "Everyone, everyone, the meeting today is to discuss the replacement of the company's LOGO. The question is to solicit everyone’s opinions. Now I have a LOGO here, and I think it’s not bad. What’s your opinion? Let’s discuss now.” The chairman asked several department heads one after another, and everyone thought that The trademark chosen by the chairman is very good and can be adopted directly.But the last female deputy director of the export department named Strong, who came to the meeting instead of the traveling supervisor, had a different opinion in her heart.She thinks that the logo pattern chosen by the chairman is quite substandard and has no aesthetic feeling.Therefore, she decided to firmly defend her point of view and not to use this trademark.But she didn't tell the real reason, but used a brilliant excuse.

She said: "Chairman, executives, I also think this trademark is very good, with beautiful graphics and bright colors. Considering the overall appearance of this picture, although it is in line with our company's corporate culture, it seems to be in line with the current international trends and The general environment is different, and it even seems a bit out of place. If we really use this pattern as our company's trademark, I am afraid it will not help us much to increase our orders, and there may even be requests for returns and exchanges. Just imagine , how can the international community tolerate a cultural phenomenon that is very different from the current fashion in the market? The requirements of various countries for corporate culture are getting higher and higher, and the cultural taste of the international market is also getting higher and higher. If our company uses this, it will not reflect A trademark with an overall international trend that does not enhance the company's image may not be of great help to our plan to occupy the global market."

After listening to the deputy director's opinion, the chairman thought about it carefully and felt that her point of view was indeed correct, so he adopted her suggestion and changed the company's trademark.After half a year, the deputy director was promoted to the director of the export department.This is not only because she was able to stick to her own opinions and put forward appropriate suggestions to her boss, but also because she was able to put forward her opinions in a way acceptable to her boss and make her boss accept her opinions.

The FBI believes that in social life, people must learn to use language skills flexibly, so that they can not only stick to their own principles and safeguard their own interests, but also leave room for the other party to accept their point of view, without psychological problems. feeling of repulsion.You must know that using a tactful way to leave room for the other party to explain is more effective than direct refusal, and it can make things develop smoothly in the direction you set.

6. Set the suspense flexibly, and the FBI will make the other party listen carefully

Psychological studies have shown that when people hear incredible or unexpected words, they will feel uneasy because of doubts in their hearts, and they will inevitably be unable to restrain their inner curiosity to find out because of fear. FBI agents are familiar with this psychological characteristic of human beings. When engaging in psychological offensive and defensive battles with opponents, they can flexibly use the opponent's curiosity to make them listen carefully to the interrogation, and then investigators can learn from the subtle clues of their conversations. Find the breakthrough of the case and bring the suspect to justice.

In this regard, the FBI will use the following methods:
(1) Do not play cards according to common sense, causing the opponent to feel fear

In 2003, the U.S. military encountered the "donkey consignment rocket attack Baghdad" incident that shocked the world in Iraq. In the early morning of November 11, two high-end hotels in the center of Baghdad and the Iraqi oil building were attacked by rockets, causing serious casualties. The overall appearance of the hotel and the oil building was damaged to varying degrees.At that time, war correspondents from all over the world and American staff lived in these two hotels, so the security measures should be quite complete, but why were the attackers able to successfully launch rockets?
The amazing thing about this case is that it broke through ordinary people's thinking, and it is completely unexpected that its modus operandi is to use donkeys to transport rockets.

In the report submitted by the US FBI agents responsible for investigating the case, the attackers placed the rocket launcher on an inconspicuous agricultural donkey cart and quietly transported it to the Palestine Hotel, the Sheraton Hotel and Near the Iraqi oil building, the terrorists fired multiple rockets at the target and then abandoned the donkey cart at the scene and quickly evacuated.

Afterwards, the FBI, American soldiers and Iraqi police launched a joint search operation, and two donkey carts were found on Saadun Street near the Palestine Hotel. launcher.Subsequently, an agricultural donkey cart was also found near the Iraqi oil building. The launcher was hidden by the attackers under the crops loaded on the cart, and was able to escape the security check and came to the intended target near the city center—a foreigner. The gathered Palestine Hotel and Sheraton Hotel, as well as the oil headquarters representing the lifeline of the country's economy, fired rockets and caused huge losses.

After the attack, U.S. military commander Ladd Sea said that this guerrilla tactic of using a donkey cart as a means of transportation to launch rockets was the first time in Iraq, so the U.S. military relaxed its vigilance, which led to such an unexpected attack. ending.Because most people wouldn't associate a rocket launcher with an old, slow farm vehicle like a donkey cart, let alone as a rocket launching platform.

Analyzing the above cases from a psychological point of view, that is, if people’s behaviors are all carried out in the expected way, then people can maintain a calm mind to treat them, and it is easier to find flaws from common behaviors; If the action exceeds the expected range or the way people are used to, they will immediately feel flustered, lose the clear will and rationality they should have, and even be forced to give up the original plan.Here is another case that illustrates this point more clearly.

Jack Willard is a new agent of the FBI. He is still receiving training and is in the internship stage. However, with his super learning ability and adaptability, he has basically been able to keep up with the fast and high-pressure working mode of the FBI. And be able to skillfully apply the acquired work skills.

One weekend night, Jack was walking home after a party. When he passed a narrow corridor between two tall buildings, a masked big man suddenly jumped out from a dark corner, pointed a pistol at Jack.Jack's first instinct was to draw a gun to defend himself, but since it was a weekend party, he was not carrying a weapon at all.At this critical moment, Jack did not call for help, nor begged for mercy from the gangster, but suddenly said to the masked gangster calmly: "Sir, you are holding the gun in the wrong way. Is it the first robbery? You can do it like this." Hit me? You didn’t aim at my heart at all, you should aim at this side.” He slapped his chest with his hands and said, “You should aim here, come on, shoot, see if you can hit me. middle." The masked gangster never expected Jack to react like this, and for a moment he was so shocked by what he said that he forgot to act, and then Jack suddenly exclaimed: "God! You idiot, you didn't Pull the safety catch!" As soon as the gangster heard this, he immediately turned the head of the gun to check, and while the gangster was distracted and the gun was not pointed at him for a moment, Jack stretched his leg and tripped him, and then flew over to the gangster's hand holding the gun. Press on the top of the head, put your knees against the gangster's neck, and subdue him.

(2) Artificially creating "precious information"

There is also a way to surprise people and use suspense, which is completely different from the above-mentioned way of using people's mental blankness to generate fear and doubt, and then stop the established plan, or even the opposite way.That is to artificially create some "precious information", increase the value contained in the information, use people's curiosity to generate a desire for psychological pursuit, and then induce people to speculate, explore, listen, and even arrive at If you can't stop, you must get to the point where the truth will come to light.

Many people have this experience, especially teachers who teach in schools.In the classroom, the teacher will be angry when faced with the students’ chirping noises, and then say loudly: “Stop talking casually!” There were sounds all over the classroom.This situation often causes headaches for teachers.At this time, if the teacher uses such a method-emphasizing the importance of the classroom content, it will receive very good results.For example, the teacher can say to the students who are chatting casually in the classroom: "This question is very important, and it may be tested in the next mock exam, and there is a simple method to solve the problem. But I just want to talk about this method once, listen to it." Students who don’t know will wait until the next exam to fail.” When the students listen to the teacher’s words, they will immediately quiet down, and this silence will definitely last until the teacher finishes the lesson.

The FBI believes that some information is always more precious than other information and is more valuable to a certain group of people, so people in this group will show a high degree of attention to this information.Because in their view, this information is very precious, and it is difficult to get it again after it is lost, so they must listen carefully.If you use this method to make opening remarks to the corresponding group of people, it is easy to grab the attention of the listeners, and this attention can be maintained for a long time.

From the perspective of criminal psychology, when the FBI interrogates a suspect, the suspect is in a state of safeguarding his own interests, and he will inevitably have a hostile attitude and resistance to the investigators, so he often responds to the questions raised by the FBI. Ignore or answer irrelevant questions.When suspects are asked questions about them, their sense of self-protection becomes more pronounced, their voices are lowered significantly, and their words are slurred or evasive.In fact, these are the words the FBI wants to figure out and find clues from. FBI investigators are well aware that it is not easy to extract such precious information from criminal suspects, so they not only need to go through a long period of investigation and evidence collection, but also try to investigate the suspect's background, understand their preferences, and then release the corresponding information , aroused his strong interest, made it difficult to resist the temptation, so he fell into the trap set by the FBI unknowingly, and communicated with the FBI.As the saying goes, "the more you say, the more mistakes you make."As long as the suspect is willing to tell, even if the things he said are out of order and have nothing to do with the case, but through these precious details, the FBI can finally find out the criminal evidence of the suspect and show it to him, making the suspect I have to admit the fact of the crime and explain the process of the crime.

(3) "Notify" in advance to make the other party concentrate

FBI criminal psychology research experts pointed out that when people get along with each other, they usually don't pay attention to one thing for too long. If the time is too long, people will lose interest and patience. , the next time you encounter a similar thing, you will choose to avoid it.Therefore, people should remember that they should pay attention to grasping the time when communicating. If you avoid the important and just blindly instigate it, things will not achieve the desired effect, but will cause the listener to have conflicts, irritability, and lack of concentration. .In this case, what you say is no longer noticed by others, let alone approved by others.

This situation can actually be avoided, which requires the use of the FBI's common technique when interrogating criminal suspects-pre-notification.When we watch TV, we often see TV program announcements.For example, "Animal World" is broadcast at 17:30, "News Network" is broadcast at 19:00, etc. When you see these previews, if you find that there are programs you are interested in, you will choose to fix them in a certain program. Channel waiting or changing to that channel during the time of the show, and without these announcements, people are likely to watch aimlessly or simply turn off the TV.And this is the simple application of the "advance notice" technique in daily life.

The FBI believes that this pre-announcement technique is very common in daily life and work, and the use of this technique can easily capture the hearts of the audience, arouse their interest, and enable them to concentrate for a longer period of time.Especially in investment promotion activities, advance notice can usually achieve good commercial results.Under normal circumstances, businessmen aim to obtain the maximum benefit, so what attracts their attention is often the issue of investment risk and rate of return.When conducting investment promotion activities, investors often don’t like to waste a lot of time listening to long-winded speeches from partners. They don’t really want to know how grand your plans are, how ambitious your goals are, and how big your project will be in the future. How much development, what they want to know is actually just how much profit they can get.If investors always complain about "when will the talk be finished? Can you make a decision as soon as possible" when attracting investment, you should pay attention to changing the way of talking, otherwise you may lose this opportunity to obtain funds.For example, when you are negotiating with an investor, you can give a general summary of the content of the conversation in advance: "Before I negotiate with you, I would like to introduce you to the general content of this conversation. I will use 5 minutes It is time to introduce you to the current development status and future investment prospects of this project; and then spend 10 minutes to introduce the risk rate and return on investment of this project to you; if you are interested, then I will spend more than ten minutes at the end I will give you a detailed report on the main issues and attention issues in this investment project.” This method generally does not make investors feel bored, and can make them listen to the project introduction patiently.Because the advance notice has made him look forward to the project.In addition, pre-notification has other effects, such as making the other party feel respected.When you can summarize the content of the conversation in advance and inform the other party, not only can you make the other party feel your sincerity and respect, but you can also shorten the distance between each other, which is conducive to a deeper conversation.

(End of this chapter)