The important thing to realize is that although business does not have to be adversarial (there are genuine win/win proposals), it can be. It depends on the other person.
Once someone starts pushing you to make a trade, you should reject in principle, otherwise you are creating an “asshole filter”—the people who respect your preferences will leave you alone, the ones who don’t care about your preferences will keep talking to you. You should refuse politely first, but when the salesperson persists, you should now assume that the interaction is adversarial, and that anything they say is just another tactic to scam you. Which implies that there is no reason to listen to them (unless you want to e.g. write a blog about it later).
Salesmen actively exploit the fact that our social instincts do not match our current environment. You try to be polite, sometimes to the degree where it costs you resources (if you buy the apples), essentially for two evolutionary reasons. First, to avoid a potentially costly conflict. But it is unlikely that the salesman would e.g. stab you with a knife if you refuse to buy the apples! Second, to keep a reputation of a polite person, in the eyes of your partner and the onlookers. But there are no onlookers, and the salesman is not going to interact with you in the future in any other way than maybe trying to sell you more apples!
Not sure what is the most elegant way to solve such situation, but maybe saying “No, thank you, I am not interested” and smiling politely while closing the door (actively ending the conversation), or if the dialog does not happen next to your door, then some equivalent physical action, such as turning and walking away. By saying the polite words you satisfy your social instict that wants to believe that you were polite even if it does not make much sense, and now either the interaction is over, or the salesman needs to counter-act your physical action—by putting their feet in the door, ringing your bell again, grabbing your shoulder, or following you on the street—in which case you should now only comment on their behavior, ask them to stop doing it, or threaten to call for help. Now you have made the adversarial nature of the interaction explicit, so you won’t feel the pressure to be polite.
I am sure the good salesmen have some clever counter-move to this. Maybe start talking quickly again before your close the door, so it would feel impolite to close the door in the middle of their sentence. Maybe calling you out on (what they reframe as) your impolite behavior, like: “why are you so hostile to me? I just offered you some apples, man!”. I think this is still an improvement, because it ruins the “we are just talking nicely” frame. And I guess the proper reaction is just to say shortly “not interested” or “please leave me alone” and continue closing the door / walking away.
...perhaps we should offer people some training for situations like this. So when the actual situation comes, they will be less surprised by it...
I wonder what the equivalent strategy for conscientiousness would be: looking accusingly at the chocolate and saying “no, you are just trying kill me”, or looking accusingly at web browser and saying “no, you are just trying to waste all my free time today”?
perhaps we should offer people some training for situations like this.
The salespeople have training for it. But there’s a big assymetry involved—it pays for salespeople to get better at selling, so the training is (to the extent it’s effective) self-funding. Victims don’t get paid, so it’s hard to justify the cost/expense of training. This is especially true for this type of training, which consists of “let’s practice getting past the discomfort by experiencing it multiple times and remembering to always focus on our goal”.
Which highlights the main assymetry. The salesperson HAS a goal—they want to sell something. The victim does NOT have a clear goal—they want to feel good about themselves on many dimensions (politeness, providing for family, getting good deals, etc.), and haven’t thought about what they want from THIS interaction.
One of the most basic general sales scripts is this:
After a purchase has been made, say “Great. Today only and for people who have already bought from us, we have 25% off our XXX, if you just check catalogue page 19.”
Whether they buy or not, you follow with, “We also have 25% off our XXY, if you have a look here.”
And on and on.
The script is simply not to go away, keep asking for more sales, until the buyer breaks social decorum by being literally rude and just saying (some version of), “Stop. I am done. This conversation is over.”
The important thing to realize is that although business does not have to be adversarial (there are genuine win/win proposals), it can be. It depends on the other person.
Once someone starts pushing you to make a trade, you should reject in principle, otherwise you are creating an “asshole filter”—the people who respect your preferences will leave you alone, the ones who don’t care about your preferences will keep talking to you. You should refuse politely first, but when the salesperson persists, you should now assume that the interaction is adversarial, and that anything they say is just another tactic to scam you. Which implies that there is no reason to listen to them (unless you want to e.g. write a blog about it later).
Salesmen actively exploit the fact that our social instincts do not match our current environment. You try to be polite, sometimes to the degree where it costs you resources (if you buy the apples), essentially for two evolutionary reasons. First, to avoid a potentially costly conflict. But it is unlikely that the salesman would e.g. stab you with a knife if you refuse to buy the apples! Second, to keep a reputation of a polite person, in the eyes of your partner and the onlookers. But there are no onlookers, and the salesman is not going to interact with you in the future in any other way than maybe trying to sell you more apples!
Not sure what is the most elegant way to solve such situation, but maybe saying “No, thank you, I am not interested” and smiling politely while closing the door (actively ending the conversation), or if the dialog does not happen next to your door, then some equivalent physical action, such as turning and walking away. By saying the polite words you satisfy your social instict that wants to believe that you were polite even if it does not make much sense, and now either the interaction is over, or the salesman needs to counter-act your physical action—by putting their feet in the door, ringing your bell again, grabbing your shoulder, or following you on the street—in which case you should now only comment on their behavior, ask them to stop doing it, or threaten to call for help. Now you have made the adversarial nature of the interaction explicit, so you won’t feel the pressure to be polite.
I am sure the good salesmen have some clever counter-move to this. Maybe start talking quickly again before your close the door, so it would feel impolite to close the door in the middle of their sentence. Maybe calling you out on (what they reframe as) your impolite behavior, like: “why are you so hostile to me? I just offered you some apples, man!”. I think this is still an improvement, because it ruins the “we are just talking nicely” frame. And I guess the proper reaction is just to say shortly “not interested” or “please leave me alone” and continue closing the door / walking away.
...perhaps we should offer people some training for situations like this. So when the actual situation comes, they will be less surprised by it...
I wonder what the equivalent strategy for conscientiousness would be: looking accusingly at the chocolate and saying “no, you are just trying kill me”, or looking accusingly at web browser and saying “no, you are just trying to waste all my free time today”?
The salespeople have training for it. But there’s a big assymetry involved—it pays for salespeople to get better at selling, so the training is (to the extent it’s effective) self-funding. Victims don’t get paid, so it’s hard to justify the cost/expense of training. This is especially true for this type of training, which consists of “let’s practice getting past the discomfort by experiencing it multiple times and remembering to always focus on our goal”.
Which highlights the main assymetry. The salesperson HAS a goal—they want to sell something. The victim does NOT have a clear goal—they want to feel good about themselves on many dimensions (politeness, providing for family, getting good deals, etc.), and haven’t thought about what they want from THIS interaction.
One of the most basic general sales scripts is this: After a purchase has been made, say “Great. Today only and for people who have already bought from us, we have 25% off our XXX, if you just check catalogue page 19.”
Whether they buy or not, you follow with, “We also have 25% off our XXY, if you have a look here.”
And on and on.
The script is simply not to go away, keep asking for more sales, until the buyer breaks social decorum by being literally rude and just saying (some version of), “Stop. I am done. This conversation is over.”