Persuasion: Use It Or Lose (it)

I'm giving you this one for free ;)

The human mind is an interesting and fickle thing.

It's important to keep in mind that practically every decision you make every day did not derive from a freely selected rational choice; rather, finely honed techniques of persuasion and influence, developed over one hundred years of research and experimentation, have been at work upon your poor psyche from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep... and often even into your dreams.

The powers the stem from these techniques are in and of themselves benign, but they can be used for nefarious purposes or noble ones. After all, "persuasion" is just the science of getting people to consider "yes", and if the thing that you are persuading people to say yes TO is good then you are doing a good thing.

For example, many persuasion techniques are used in pickup artistry, or PUA, which is the science of dating. Many people find this to be trickery, manipulation, and abuse of the inherent triggers of our subconscious in order to get people into bed. BUT if you are a good person and just use the techniques to break down barriers that would otherwise inhibit you from meeting people -- well, I don't see a problem with it.

Robert Cialdini is the preeminent expert on Influence and Persuasion. He literally wrote the book on both of them! Here is a short, terrible quality video of Cialdini describing his identified "6 Principles of Influence":

The Principals go as such:

• Reciprocity
• Social Proof
• Commitment and Consistency
• Liking
• Authority
• Scarcity

These principals are vital for you to study as a human being in this modern world, if not just to be more able to recognize when they are being used so you can act more rationally in society.

I might post more about each of these principals as time goes on, and also persuasion in general.

What do you think? Is that something you'd like to see?

Let me know, and follow me @shayne