So, I've read a fair amount of the literature about group dynamics and social influence, and taught classes that discussed and used it. So I thought ISo, I've read a fair amount of the literature about group dynamics and social influence, and taught classes that discussed and used it. So I thought I'd know much of what was in this book already. While I was familiar with some of it, there were a number of tricks I hadn't noticed, and excellent descriptions of the ones I had, complete with explanations. Definitely worth reading!
Influence describes the six categories of techniques that have the potential to influence us without our conscious awareness. One, for example, is the mark of authority -- people are more likely to follow directions and suggestions given by someone with a title (Dr., Judge) than otherwise. The same applies to suggestions given by people who dress as if they are in the successful upper-class, or who are acknowledged authorities in some field (it doesn't have to be the one under discussion). What makes the book interesting (besides the highly useful listing of techniques and defenses) is the additional research -- including the surveys showing that people *are* in fact completely unaware that they're doing it. When asked about an experiment, they will insist that the given technique won't work, but when actually involved in the experiment, will fall for it almost every time. Really interesting stuff.
I read recently that if you trace the locations (by location-aware cell phones) of a small population in an American city over a 6-month period, on average, the movement collapses into standard predator patterns. ( http://www.citeulike.org/user/sjc/art... ). This says something profound about the reasons we give for our behavior vs. the underlying causes. Cialdini sheds some light on these differences by pointing out some other areas where our thoughts don't match our actions, and explaining the unconscious shortcuts we use to help us function in our daily lives.
Plus, it's got some great tricks to get out of being pressured into buying stuff or contributing to charities you don't like. :D...more
This was an interesting, though oddly named, investigation into the process of decision making. Klein spent years researching the process of making deThis was an interesting, though oddly named, investigation into the process of decision making. Klein spent years researching the process of making decisions, and discovered that the standard model (listing options, comparing them, choosing the most favorable) is wildly inaccurate, and rarely used. Rather, people tend to make decisions based on analogies and scenarios developed through experience.
This book has huge quantities of interesting information, presented in a slightly scattershot way (it has organization, but it felt somewhat awkward to me). Among the bits that really stuck with me were that team minds (decisions made by teams) acted analogously to very young children (at first a bunch of barely communicating parts, which over time develop efficient ways of working together and grow into a self-aware entity). And the way team minds work mirrors the way a single mind works (thus again supporting the theory that the concept of a singular "self" is totally bogus, and that we're all collectives -- this seems to be growing in popularity, and is almost certainly true.)
Also, Klein suggests that intuition is an unconscious expression of experience -- over time, one develops a more cohesive sense of situations (see above), to the point that it becomes as hard to see exactly why one feels that a situation is wrong as it would be to figure out what one's left arm is thinking. He cites several stories of people who were sure they had developed ESP that saved their lives, but when interviewed by Klein's team, were eventually able to pinpoint how their experience allowed them to detect anomalies in various situations, giving them that overall sense that something was urgently wrong.
Lots more interesting stuff, including models of decision making, recommendations for developing experience and better awareness of decision making skills, and lots of interesting stories (the fact that stories can serve as a form of experience leads Klein to pepper the book with them, which is pretty cool).
I give it a 4/5 because it did seem somewhat disorganized, with a lot of information and speculation mixed somewhat haphazardly together. And there were a few bits I ended up skimming as essentially restatements of other sections. But the information in here is great, and well worth reading and thinking about. ...more
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