"Diplomacy: the ability to tell someone to go to hell so that he'll look forward to making the trip".

Some time ago a relative brought me a coffee cup containing the inscription: "Diplomacy: The ability to tell someone to go to hell so that he'll look forward to making the trip." Although pithy, the saying captured the essence of diplomacy--the ability to convince foreign leaders that doing what you want is in their interest. By necessity, convincing sometimes requires credible threats of dire consequences if not followed. Nevertheless, diplomacy's essence is the art of persuasion. Not surprisingly, whether as individuals or as representatives of governments, we are more likely to succeed if we have a clear psychological understanding of the person we are trying to convince.

-Stuart Seldowitz, Foreign Service Officer

(p. 47, The Psychology of Diplomacy, 2004)

PsyDip: To what extent can we bring to bear on this topic the scientific research findings from the psychology of persuasion and the psychology of personality? And what about the clinical psychologists who say even if one can send another to hell happy, it will come back to bite the sender in the end, psychologically-speaking, perhaps even karmically-speaking?