Episode 169 – Dealing With the Angry Prospect

Anger is a secondary emotion. A prospect’s anger is usually an indicator that something else is askew and that he needs or wants attention. When we are angry – we want attention or action now. You can assist in diminishing his anger by determining the key issue he is upset about. It is also often effective to ask for his help, opinions, or advice. This will usually diffuse his anger or even change his attitude and demeanor completely. In some circumstances, you may want to use anger to make a certain point or to evoke a certain reaction. However when someone is angry they are more likely to blame someone else. In their mind it is not their fault. When they are sad they will usually blame the situation.

When people become angry they tend to rely on intuition or an educated guess. Anger triggers non analytical information processing. Anger causes us to use mental shortcuts to decide if the argument is right. An experiment was done that induced anger. The participants that were angry tended to discriminate between weak and strong persuasive arguments more than those in a neutral mood. In other words, those that were angry tended to be more influenced by heuristic cues (intuition) than those in a sad or neutral mood.