Reverse Psychology

Reverse Psychology is used by parents on a daily basis to get their children to do things they would rather not do. Humans love to break rules young and old and in that respect thats why it can work so effectively. One theory that is strongly linked to reverse psychology is that of 'Dissonance' (Leon Festinger 1957)

'a negative, unpleasant state that occurs whenever a person holds two thoughts that are psychologically inconsistent'.

It is the inconsistence between thoughts that causes the person to think, stop, and consider what's actually correct, this uncertainty makes people uncomfortable a feeling they want to get rid of as quickly as possible by assessing what is actually correct. In terms of the video dissonance is used by claiming that Mcdonalds is a 'well balanced meal', and that salad is only eaten by rabbits, this is the opposite to what we are told on a daily basis, and because of this we hope to make the audience stop and think, people must persuade themselves in order to change their attitude about something and this is just one step taken in the hope of completing this.