Sergio compliments his coach on his "good judgment, his "ability to see beyond what happens on the field", and his "knack for motivating players" in an effort to prevent himself from being cut from the team. which verbal power ploy describes sergio's comments best?

ingratiation

Explanation:

ingratiation is a psychological technique that is conducted by making our target like us first before we try to influence our target to do something or adopt a certain way of thinking (this is what sergio does when he praises his coach for his good judgement).

When we like someone, we are more likely to become biased and might ignore the negative aspects that exist in that person. This will make us lower our guard and become much easier to be influenced.

this null effect is caused by a weak manipulation and ineffective internal validity. in a scientific study, as the one dr. morimoto is trying to perfom, internal validity refers to the confidence placed in the cause-effect relationship and to how well an experiment is done and able to eliminate confounding variables.