Tim Casteel's Reviews > Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

This is widely regarded as THE book on persuasion. After seeing it on countless “must read” lists, I picked it up.
It did not disappoint. AND it’s an easy fun read.

Written in 1984, Cialdini’s book is primarily geared to help you resist invisible “automatic” influence, which is even more important in our digital age.
THEY are trying to elicit "automatic, mindless compliance from people, a willingness to say yes without thinking first."
Our brains don’t function well with overwhelming input.
And our modern world has "created an environment so complex we are reverting to animal like instinctual autopilot decisions.” Which is not good. We’re making unthinking decisions.

This book will make those techniques visible so you can fight them.

"You and I exist in an extraordinarily complicated stimulus environment, easily the most rapidly moving and complex that has ever existed on this planet.

To deal with it, we need shortcuts. We can’t be expected to recognize and analyze all the aspects in each person, event, and situation we encounter in even one day. We haven’t the time, energy, or capacity for it.”

So we "respond mindlessly” to certain (invisible to us) persuasive cues.

You are being exploited by marketers and, chiefly, your phone by these invisible "weapons of influence” that "direct our actions with quiet power.”

"As Sir Joshua Reynolds noted, 'There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking.’”