The child's belief that the tree is capable of action is referred to as : Animism
In animism, people tend to believe every objects has a soul and conscience of their own which became the foundation of their spiritual belief. One of the example is the Mayan ancient culture that worship the Sun because they believe it's the one that brought prosperity to them by creating rains.
He is using the methods of the foot-in-the-door phenomenon
Explanation:
The Foot-in-the-door technique is a gentle tactic that one uses to get a person to agree to a large request by first having them agree to a modest request first. That is the technique Joe Banks is employing
