History Main / ReversePsychology

* [[http://www.garfield.com/comics/vault.html?yr=1995&addr=950804 When Jon told Garfield to go away, Garfield dared Jon to make him do it]]. Jon then told ''{{Garfield}}'' to stay and Garfield left.

* ''ForAFewDollarsMore'' has a nice little complex one. {{ClintEastwood}}'s Man With No Name character is a bounty hunter working from the inside of BigBad Indio's gang. His partner on the outside, [[CoolOldGuy Colonel Mortimer]], tells him to advise the gang to flee north since there's a good place for an ambush, and the two can catch the gang in a cross-fire. However, Eastwood wants all the money for himself and advises the gang to go south, pointing out that north would be [[IronicEcho a good place for an ambush]]. But Indio doesn't know Eastwood very well and [[GenreSavvy suspects it may be a trap]]. So he splits the difference and heads east. When they get there, Eastwood finds Mortimer waiting for him, explaining that he ''knew'' Eastwood would do the exact opposite of what he said and ''also knew'' that Indio is suspicious of betrayal. Since they couldn't go west, as that's where they pulled off their heist, east was the only place they could run.

* The song "Stay Awake" from ''Film/MaryPoppins''.
** Mary Poppins ''owns'' this trope. She gets herself hired by interviewing her employer and tricks Mr. Banks into taking the kids to work with him by acting like it's his idea.
* In the [[Film/{{Thor}} Thor movie]], Loki pulls this fairly subtly to get Thor to attack Jotunheim.
* Both the film and book version of ''ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' tell the audience to go see/read something more pleasant than what they're currently attending.

* ''Anime/TenchiMuyo'' begins this way. Tenchi has repeatedly been warned by his grandfather that he must never, ever, under any circumstances enter the cave behind their ancestral shrine where a demon was supposedly imprisoned. Go on, guess how the first episode opened...Of course, it's later revealed that this was a case of his grandfather being a GenreSavvy TricksterMentor, since he knew full well what Tenchi would do and what the likely result would be.
** He pretty openly goads Tenchi to opening the shrine, as he tells her that he can have the key as soon as he's able to take it from him through combat or trickery, and eventually Tenchi succeeds.

* ''VideoGame/Utawarerumono'': "Eruruw is not in that direction. You can't go there." ''(points straight across a field filled with manure)'' This is why Aruruw is awesome. (She really isn't in that direction, of course, but the guy asking just called her uncute and is rather [[{{Jerkass}} rude]])

* ''TenchiMuyo'' begins this way. Tenchi has repeatedly been warned by his grandfather that he must never, ever, under any circumstances enter the cave behind their ancestral shrine where a demon was supposedly imprisoned. Go on, guess how the first episode opened...Of course, it's later revealed that this was a case of his grandfather being a GenreSavvy TricksterMentor, since he knew full well what Tenchi would do and what the likely result would be.

* "[[{{Utawarerumono}} Eruruw]] is not in that direction. You can't go there." *points straight across a field filled with manure* This is why Aruruw is awesome. (She really isn't in that direction, of course, but the guy asking just called her uncute and is rather [[{{Jerkass}} rude]])
* In {{Naruto}}, Rock Lee decides he's successfully used reverse psychology... on the screen assigning matchups for the preliminary fights for the chunin exams.

* Ayam Aghoul's debut episode in ''Disney/{{Aladdin}}'' has a moment like this with Aladdin and Genie after Aladdin unwittingly releases Aghoul, who declares Jasmine his bride.

* In ''{{MASH}}'' after a visiting British officer starts sarcastically berating his wounded men as a bunch of slackers and an appalled Hawkeye practically drags him out of the ward, the officer explains (patiently) that he's deliberately using a reverse psychology gambit to cheer them up because if they were seriously wounded no one would ever dream of yelling at them. Since ''he's'' yelling at them they can't be hurt all that bad, now can they?

* In {{MASH}} after a visiting British officer starts sarcastically berating his wounded men as a bunch of slackers and an appalled Hawkeye practically drags him out of the ward, the officer explains (patiently) that he's deliberately using a reverse psychology gambit to cheer them up because if they were as seriously wounded as they actually are no one would ever dream of yelling at them.

* [[ThingsMrWelchIsNoLongerAllowedToDoInAnRPG Mr Welch]] is no longer allowed to use a low Charisma stat to get people to do the opposite of what he suggests.

** Invoked in "Chef Goes Nanners" by Ned and Jimbo. In a desperate attempt to keep the city's racist flag unchanged, they ask the Ku Klux Klan to vote to change it. When asked why, Jimbo explains that if the Klan votes to do something, the city, not wanting to side with racists, would vote for the exact opposite, and since the racists are in the minority, they're sure to lose. Thus, the flag would remain unchanged.

* In the documentary ''Film/GideonsArmy'', a public defender is convinced of his client's innocence, but does not have the funds to order a fingerprint analysis that he believes will exonerate his client. In court, he motions to prohibit any fingerprint evidence from being used in the trial. The suspicious county prosecutor fights him and immediately orders up a fingerprint analysis on the prosecution's dime. The fingerprints come in and do not match the defendant's, providing a strong case against prosecution.

* In ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheHolyGrail'', Dr. Donovan warns Dr. Jones (Junior) not to trust anyone. Indy promptly puts his trust in Dr. Schneider and gets burned for it. Doubly applied, since Dr. Donovan convinced Indy to trust him enough in the first place to meet with Dr. Schneider.

* During Prohibition, there was a loophole that allowed vineyards to indirectly sell wine. They would sell "grape bricks" and yeast that, when placed in water for an appropriate amount of time, would become wine. They often had "disclaimers" with something along the lines of, "After dissolving the brick in a gallon of water, do not place the liquid in a jug away in the cupboard for twenty days, because then it would turn into wine."

* The premise of ''Depict1''

* One person pointed out how some widely hated stuff like ''Webcomic/CtrlAltDel'''', ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'', Music/JustinBieber, and [[ItsPopularNowItSucks anything popular]] became so popular despite such a huge HateDom because it was unintentionally invoked ''by the HateDom itself''. The quote "The more you hate it, the stronger it gets" refers to this action in practice where someone hears about a work from the HateDom or HateDumb, then decides to [[BileFascination try it out]], only to experience CriticalBacklash or find it's just as bad as they say. The publisher still wins in the end because they either earned a new customer or still got someone to buy something when they didn't even fall into the target demographic.