Contrarian Advisor

undefined:

__INDEX__

A contrarian advisor (or contrarival) is a persuasive system member who motivates/encourages an individual member/system, by talking exclusively in reverse psychology.

The goal of a contrarian advisor is to make their target(s) reflect on a specific situation so they can decide to change things on their own, rather than being forced to change things through someone else's decision. Hence, this role is often endorsed by a protector, as long as the persuasion techniques are not condescending, threatening, or malicious.

Contrarian advisors often do not have the ability to front (or have extreme difficulties doing so), but they can be co-conscious.

Due to the nature of reverse psychology (hidden meanings through reversed statements), this headmate might be very complicated to understand for people on the Autism spectrum. Thus it may be interesting to engage in a simple discussion with the headmate, asking easy questions, to try to notice the "reversed answers" pattern.

Examples
Here are some examples to help visualize actions of a contrarian advisor:

A contrarian advisor may declare that there is no need for the host to move from a dangerous situation, in the hopes that their target will wonder why and pick up clues about the dangerous situation, to then decide to actually move away from the danger. And if their warning is not taken into account or misunderstood, they might employ heavy clues to accentuate their statement, such as: "Really, there is absolutely no need to move".

An unsolicited contrarian advisor may suddenly point out some facts in reverse psychology, in the hopes that a target engaged in a decision-making process will take these facts into account. The goal here is to cause a disruption in the train of thoughts: if the facts were point out normally, they would not necessarily be heard by the targets; but by saying the facts in reverse, this will elicit a cognitive dissonance that will persuade the targets to react to the absurd statements they just heard, to correct these statements. Then, the correction they just made will unconsciously remain in the back of their head, while they are pursuing their decision-making process/tasks.

Related Terms
The contrarian advisor role is considered a subtype of rival, because, by stating reversed thoughts or facts, a contrarian advisor creates a "push and pull" dynamic similar to the competitive environment that rivals create to motivate their target(s).

History
This definition of the term and its flag were coined on November 13th, 2023, by Pluralpedia user Oceanic-Lanterns. The term itself was coined with help from the Discord server.

The term describes the way a recent member started talking to the host of the user, to help change things in their life.

Description of the flags
The flag (digital drawing) is made of 4 parts: 2 in dark orange (left-bottom, right-top) and 2 in lighter orange (left-top, right-bottom); these colors symbolize risk-taking, determination, and encouragement out of comfort zone. A horizontal line (darker than the rest) cuts the flag. And at the center, there is a diamond shaped in 2 colors. Over this double diamond, there are 2 black circular arrows going in clockwise direction, to symbolize "reverse".

Simplified version: The flag (digital drawing) is made of 4 horizontal lines. From top to bottom: light orange, orange, darker orange, very dark orange; these colors symbolize risk-taking, determination, and encouragement out of comfort zone. At the center of the flag, there are 2 black circular arrows going in clockwise direction, to symbolize "reverse".

Coining of the flags
Since Contrarian advisor is a subterm for Rival, the flag created by sunflowerhoard has been used as a template, though heavy perceptual changes were made. The dark colors have been adjusted to a lighter tone (+15% brightness), to avoid any agitated/competitive connotations, in order to emphasize the protective nature of the role. The pink tones were adjusted towards the orange spectrum (+40°), to symbolize risk-taking, determination, and encouragement out of comfort zone. Then, an icon meaning "reverse" has been applied on it, to symbolize the "reverse psychology" speech pattern (its color is dark to contrast with the lighter tones in the background).