Emotional Manipulation for Fun and Profit

So, in playing League of Legends, it has come to my attention that there is a disconcerting number of people who don't know something that should be fairly basic to any team game: how to give advice so that it is taken.


It's harder than it sounds!

So, you're in a game. Bottom lane is losing to Blitzcrank, and horribly. Like, they've got three deaths at the 7:00 mark. Bad times, and this is typically when otherwise reasonable players want to start scolding their fellows. Resist this temptation.

Basically all the advice I'll be giving here, you see, is based off of one simple and obvious principle: Pride is one of the most powerful emotions humans possess. Psychologists have like a million terms for all the millions of ways pride-- the desire to think of yourself as awesome-- influences us to act in ways otherwise contrary to reason. This is encapsulated in some term I cannot recall-- if we're faced with a choice between thinking of ourselves as not-awesome, and literally any other option, we'll pretty much always choose the other thing, with the rest of our beliefs correcting themselves to fit. Let us take a concrete example.

Suppose you told the player in bottom lane "wtf noob, don't u know to hide behind your minions, uninstall ur game and go play tetris. Also noob jungler underleveld lol." This is somewhat more helpful than the option of simply telling him to uninstall and leaving it at that, but even so, by the simple act of insulting him you've made it crazy-unlikely he'll take your (actually quite good) advice to hide behind his minions to avoid getting grabbed. The unconcious calculation is basically as follows:

"Either this guy knows what he's talking about or not. If he knows what he's talking about, I'm a feeding noob who should go play Tetris, and also I should shield myself using my minions. Will crediting this guy imply I'm more or less awesome?"

The rest of the calculation is pretty trivial. Thus, the thing you'll most likely hear in response is

"STFU noob i no wut im doin, also wtf jungler no gank?!?!?!?!??!?!??! noob jungler"

But this is all obvious. What many folks seem not to realize is that even the most politely-worded bits of plain advice send the subtle, but very real, message of "you don't know what you're doing." Thus even if the hypothetical gentleman above spoke thusly:

"My dear fellow, I would kindly recommend you utilize your minions so as to avoid Blitzcrank's rocket grab, which quite assures him of a kill when landed"

The most likely response would be "STFU noob", followed by repeated harassment of the team's jungler as above.

This makes the best advice, I think, take the form of roundabout comments regarding what you've done or regretted not doing in similar situations, preferably in a self-deprecating form so that the other fellow doesn't think you're lording it over him. Thus:

"Blitzcrank's rocket grab is pretty tricky to deal with. Last time I faced him I always got murdered when I didn't keep minions between me and him. Also, wtf jungler nooooooooooooob."

To which bot lane can only respond "ya jungler sucks, gg". But the important thing is, this way he might actually take your advice. And thereby stop feeding Blitzcrank. And really, isn't that the important thing?

This is actually much easier if the behavior you want the other person to perform is something that you, yourself, should reasonably be doing, because then it can take the form of

"Sorry, I keep forgetting to keep minions between myself and Blitz"

which gets across exactly the same information as above, but without any assault-- implied or otherwise-- on the pride of your teammate. (Note that you can totes do this even if you hadn't actually made the error in question. I have never once been called out on this.)

Happy hunting!

*edited for psychological accuracy, courtesy of Blake

Humility is so practical a virtue that men think it must be a vice.

--G.K. Chesterton