The ManipulationBible - Wladislaw Jachtchenko

["records of their achievements to present to the boss at their annual review, they\u2019ll soon find their ambitions thwarted by the management, who can\u2019t recall any particularly outstanding achievements\u2026 The Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman once said, \u201cYou must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.\u201d32 Manipulation does not always come from the outside. We often lie to ourselves, usually to make ourselves feel better. This is harmless and sensible to an extent \u2013 for instance, to prevent ourselves being paralyzed by past mistakes that we can\u2019t change. But anyone who wants to escape their delusions and face reality \u2013 which is a necessity for personal and professional development \u2013 must do something to combat superiority bias within themselves. The way to do this is to focus on judging our achievements objectively. For instance, if you think that you \u201cwrite well\u201d, the first question to ask yourself is if anyone besides your mother and your close friends has ever told you that. Then ask yourself if anyone with any professional experience has praised your work. If a newspaper or journal has printed anything by you. If you have had any positive feedback from strangers or expert forums. And so on. Note: It might be nicer to live under the illusion that you are a rose among thorns. But such blatant bigheadedness lulls us into a false sense of security \u2013 and prevents us from getting on in life. OceanofPDF.com","2. Confirmation Bias It is easier to crack an atom than a prejudice. Albert Einstein Confirmation bias is our tendency to select and interpret information in a way that confirms our own expectations. What we cannot accept, we simply ignore. What we already believe, we seek out in as many publications and media outlets as possible \u2013 where we see our opinions confirmed. The most glaring example lies in how we select and respond to political content. A staunch conservative will know all the ins and outs of their national conservative party, read conservative-learning articles and opinion columns, believe what conservative politicians say on TV \u2013 but will rarely read left-leaning newspapers, and will pay far less attention to other parties. Of course, this is true of people on all sides of the political debate. In wartime, propaganda amplifies this effect. Here\u2019s a contemporary example from my own land of birth: if you watch Russian TV coverage of the Ukraine conflict, you\u2019ll hear again and again how inhumanely the Ukrainian army are treating civilians \u2013 in repeated breaches of the peace protocol. But if you watch Ukrainian TV, you\u2019ll only ever hear how inhumane the Russian army are towards civilians \u2013 in repeated breaches of the peace protocol.","If you already support one side in the conflict, you will watch the channel and read the newspaper that backs your own view. And that is exactly what confirmation bias is: you are not looking to consider objective facts or opposing views, but are (often unwittingly) seeking out information that puts you in the right. The reverse approach would be a more reasonable way to make the most realistic possible assessment of the situation \u2013 and to develop some tolerance for people on the opposing side. But if I ask participants in my workshops to argue in favor of a proposition that they don\u2019t agree with, most will say, \u201cI can\u2019t! It\u2019s not what I think at all!\u201d The overwhelming majority of people are very unwilling to consider opposing views. They would rather stay in their intellectual comfort zone \u2013 repeating what they\u2019ve thought for years. It\u2019s all very well for me to say. I spent over ten years performing in debating tournaments. There, you are allocated a point of view and have to defend specific aspects of it, regardless of whether you agree with it or not. So I soon got used to arguing from conflicting positions \u2013 and sometimes discovered that the opposing view actually made more sense than my own. But most people have never had this experience. Most of us live in so-called echo chambers: we seek out friends and acquaintances who echo our own opinion \u2013 and we only rarely hear \u201cdissenting\u201d views or alternative perspectives. If someone comes along who disturbs our echo chamber, they are usually purged from the group in no time.","This happened to me not so long ago, when a few acquaintances of mine started making fun of people who can\u2019t spell. They apparently found the notion of spelling mistakes hilarious, one-upping each other with jokes about the stupidity of the so-called lower classes. When I \u2013 a first- timer in the group \u2013 pointed out that some people in society are systemically underprivileged, and their literary shortcomings are mostly down to a lack of access to education, I got a lot of funny looks. It was written all over their faces: \u201cHe\u2019s talking bullshit! He isn\u2019t one of us!\u201d I was never invited back. How Can You Use Confirmation Bias to Manipulate People? Once you are familiar with the effects of confirmation bias, you can follow these three strategies to manipulate your victim: 1. Mirror what they say. First things first, take care never to contradict them. Even if you are of the opposite view, mirror their opinion completely, to manufacture a bond as quickly and effectively as possible (for more on mirroring, see p. 22). We consider people more trustworthy and likeable if they confirm our opinions. 2. Affirm them in their delusions. Second, present the facts in a way that deliberately upholds and affirms an obvious fallacy. Tell the other person that they\u2019re right, even though you know that they\u2019re wrong \u2013 because you can use this to your advantage later. For instance, imagine that a client approaches a lawyer with a hopeless case. Instead of telling the client that they\u2019ll lose in court, the lawyer confidently declares, \u201cWe\u2019ll","take it all the way! Right up to the supreme court, if we have to!\u201d Talk is cheap for the lawyer. Regardless of whether they win or lose the case, they will still be paid for out-of-court work, the court proceedings themselves, and so on. (The lawyer might claim that the client was so convinced by their own case that they didn\u2019t concede any opposing viewpoints, leaving the lawyer no choice but to back them. But is that really true? In most cases, the lawyer just doesn\u2019t want to lose the client \u2013 so they deliberately butter them up. Even if they don\u2019t want to believe it.) Lawyers are just one example here. Every profession gives you the chance to exploit other people\u2019s delusions and affirm their false assumptions. The fatal mistake here is that it is extremely difficult to prove beyond doubt that you exploited their delusions. Because you can find plausible enough explanations for every decision you make. 3. Make a dazzling first impression. Third, make use of another cognitive bias \u2013 a stronger relative of confirmation bias. It is known as the \u201cprimacy effect\u201d, which states that the first piece of information that our brains receive tends to inform our subsequent impressions. This was confirmed in a classic experiment by the famous psychologist Solomon Asch in 1946. Imagine that you have to make an assessment of someone\u2019s character. This person is described as having the following traits: intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, envious. When Asch presented these characteristics to his subjects, they described the person as smart. In a parallel experiment, subjects were asked to describe a person with the following","traits: envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive, industrious, intelligent. The second group described the person as difficult. You\u2019ve probably noticed that those were six absolutely identical adjectives \u2013 just in reverse order. So, what Asch discovered \u2013 which has since been proved again and again in dozens more experiments \u2013 is that we are conditioned by the first word or first impression we receive, and we then interpret everything that follows in light of this impression. This is another example of confirmation bias at play. I witnessed this countless times on the debating circuit. If a speaker had a great opening to their speech, they were always popular with the audience. Even if the rest of their speech was average, they scored higher than most. We know intuitively that first impressions are extremely important. After all, you don\u2019t get a second chance at first impressions. But there\u2019s a big difference between knowing something in principle and consciously using it to your advantage! Escaping the Confirmation Trap We all know that criticism is great when it\u2019s constructive. Don\u2019t we? Not really. Confirmation bias dictates that we only like accepting feedback that conforms to our own self- image. When we receive affirmation that we expect and that validates us, we not only treat it as more reliable, but we remember it for much longer. If the feedback doesn\u2019t fit our self-image, we quickly dismiss it as implausible.33","We all need to get out of the echo chambers in our peer groups, where our friends and acquaintances are all of one mind. Talking to new people and reading different newspapers aren\u2019t the only solutions here. You could, as suggested earlier, actively seek out views that contradict your own \u2013 and start playing devil\u2019s advocate. And if you come upon solid counter-arguments, investigate them further and take the opposing evidence seriously. Hopefully, though, you already have some friends who gently disagree with you from time to time\u2026 Confirmation bias prevents us from seeing objective truths and hearing opposing views, leading us instead to seek out content that puts us in the right. It would make more sense for us to do the opposite. OceanofPDF.com","3. Attentional Bias I have to see a thing a thousand times before I see it once. Thomas Wolfe Attentional bias is people\u2019s tendency to see only what they want to see, or what their attention is directed towards \u2013 regardless of whether it is relevant or not. Note: A brilliant experiment to illustrate attentional bias is the \u201cmonkey business illusion\u201d or \u201cgorilla experiment\u201d. I won\u2019t give anything away at this stage \u2013 go and look up the short video on YouTube. It\u2019s guaranteed fun.34 In our heart of hearts, we know that we don\u2019t see reality in its entirety \u2013 we only see fractions of it. But what most people underestimate is how small that fraction of reality really is \u2013 and how manipulable people are when they are only presented with specific parts of the bigger picture. Let\u2019s look at a couple of examples from the media. We frequently see dramatic and extensive reports of shark attacks on humans, and we get the impression that there is a real and quite significant risk that we could be attacked by a shark. On average, around ten people die from unprovoked shark attacks each year (although it can be as many as a hundred). In the same timeframe, vast numbers","of people are killed by bees, dogs and horses. But these don\u2019t make such spectacular \u2013 i.e. profitable \u2013 headlines for the media as deadly shark attacks, which have become the terror of humanity since the Jaws films. Another deep-set fear that the media has been constantly drawing our attention to in recent years is the threat of being killed in terrorist attacks, which claim an average of 80 lives a day worldwide \u2013 and which are reported across the globe. Every death is one too many. But what about people dying of starvation? On average, over 20,000 people die each day of malnourishment that is theoretically avoidable. But because we hear so little about it, most people don\u2019t give it a second thought. This specific subset of attentional bias is called \u201cavailability bias\u201d. We assume that the information we are supplied with (especially by the media) is particularly pertinent to us, so we let it shape our decisions. The fallacy here is that the information provided might not contain the most significant facts about an issue \u2013 and the issue itself might be of no importance anyway. But attentional bias is not confined to the media. It also conditions our own expectations, leading to selectiveness in what we perceive \u2013 and what passes us by completely. One of the finest selective perception experiments out there is the so-called monkey business illusion. (Last chance to look up the video \u2013 spoilers coming up!) The speaker in the video diverts our full attention to the girls passing the ball \u2013 and I for one completely missed the gorilla in the middle of the screen. But I\u2019m in good company: about half of viewers don\u2019t see it if they have no prior knowledge of the trick. How is that possible? The","gorilla walks right into the middle of the picture, and even starts thumping its chest. Even if you know to look out for the gorilla, you\u2019ll still fall for the experiment\u2019s sequel, in which one member of the black team disappears \u2013 and the curtain in the background changes color. As Daniel Simons (the experiment\u2019s inventor) so aptly puts it: \u201cWhen you\u2019re looking for a gorilla, you often miss other unexpected events.\u201d And it\u2019s true: we are constantly missing unexpected events. Another revealing experiment featuring a famous violinist took place in 2007 in Washington. This legendary violinist, who had won every possible accolade and played to soldout concert halls with the world\u2019s best orchestras, was placed unannounced one morning, in a baseball cap and shabby clothes, in a metro station in Washington, D.C. What happened next? What do you reckon? Did people stop to listen? Did they recognize Joshua Bell? The director of the National Symphony Orchestra Leonard Slatkin predicted, \u201cOut of a thousand people, my guess is\u2026 maybe seventy-five to a hundred will stop and spend some time listening.\u201d Bell took his multi-million-dollar Stradivarius, headed into the metro station, and started to play. Just three days earlier, he had played to a sell-out audience in Boston. And now he began playing one of the hardest pieces ever written to passing commuters. And how did they react? Well, out of over a thousand passers-by, only seven stopped to listen. And only one person recognized him. In 43 minutes, he earned the grand sum of $32.17. He received another $20 from a woman who recognized him \u2013 when","three days earlier, audiences had paid over a hundred dollars each to hear him. Most of the people who threw him some change didn\u2019t stop to listen, but just carried on walking. They evidently weren\u2019t fussed about the music \u2013 they just took pity on him. Because our expectations have been shaped not to expect to see a star violinist in a metro station, we don\u2019t give him the slightest bit of attention, even though he\u2019s standing right there. In other words, we are constantly living with a sort of tunnel vision. Our attention is focused exclusively on what we expect to see. And everything that falls outside this narrow fragment of the spectrum is simply erased, ignored, or dismissed as irrelevant. What is fascinating is that everyone sees their own perspective as the all- important thing \u2013 unaware that their reality is only a fraction of the whole picture. Using Attentional Bias to Manipulate People To utilize this for manipulative purposes, you just have to direct someone\u2019s attention towards the information that suits you \u2013 while taking care to paint a complete and realistic picture. I still remember my first big assignment with a multinational company, when I was presented with a contract over 20 pages long. My business partner told me, \u201cAll the important stuff is here on the first page. You don\u2019t need to look at the rest, it\u2019s just the usual terms and conditions \u2013 none of it\u2019s important, it won\u2019t be relevant to you.\u201d Needless to say, the first page was nicely laid out, in large font and neat tables \u2013 so it was quick and easy to read. The","terms and conditions from page two onwards were in small print, written in legalese \u2013 and even as a fully qualified lawyer it was going to be a lengthy task to comb them for irregularities. Fortunately, my law professors had told me a thousand times: \u201cDon\u2019t sign anything important without reading the small print.\u201d So I said to my business partner, \u201cIf the terms and conditions aren\u2019t important, we can just leave them out, can\u2019t we?\u201d He exclaimed, \u201cOf course not! We have to include them.\u201d I told him, \u201cThey can\u2019t be that unimportant, then. And I need time to look through them.\u201d I gave myself an hour to read them \u2013 and discovered a commission clause that I couldn\u2019t accept. And that we later amended. But it\u2019s not just in negotiations that you can direct people\u2019s attention towards the aspects that suit you, as my business partner did. The internet presents countless opportunities to exploit attentional bias. Imagine that you\u2019re uploading a video to YouTube and want to get as many views as you can, as quickly as possible. One of the decisive factors is whether the thumbnail (the little picture you click on to view a video) grabs the attention of a YouTube user. And there are a few manipulation tricks that can ensure good viewing figures even for bad videos. To get people\u2019s attention, the thumbnail should: \u2022 feature a face, ideally looking directly into the camera (we have stronger reactions to faces than to objects \u2013 and eye contact invites eye contact) \u2022 convey strong emotions (this creates an emotional charge that makes the viewer more likely to click than if they feel no emotional connection to the video)","\u2022 use loud colors (because they stand out more against YouTube\u2019s white background). How Can You Avoid Falling Victim to Attentional Bias? As a communication coach, I often notice that in self- assessments after practice conversations, my clients focus exclusively on one particular aspect of their performance \u2013 and disregard everything else. \u2022 Example 1: A client who cares a lot about his outward appearance spends the whole self-assessment talking about his body language and tone of voice, while totally ignoring the content \u2013 i.e. his actual arguments. \u2022 Example 2: A client who is extremely content-focused only reflects on the internal logic of her arguments, and doesn\u2019t give a second thought to classic aspects of communication such as her body language and tone of voice. \u2022 Example 3: A client focuses exclusively on what went badly. And when I ask what he did well in the conversation, he says, \u201cI don\u2019t know\u2026 Nothing?\u201d In short, if you only pay attention to content, your professional appearance will suffer \u2013 and vice versa. And if you only focus on the negatives, you won\u2019t notice what you did well. To make ourselves less susceptible to attentional bias, it\u2019s a smart idea to identify several important criteria before performing a task, and to keep as many of these criteria as possible in mind throughout. Ideally you wouldn\u2019t do this alone \u2013 if possible, try it with an experienced coach.","Of course, you can also use attentional bias to manipulate yourself in a positive sense. As illustrated in the third example above, some people only focus their attention on what goes wrong. In my experience, these people suffer worst from insecurity and stage fright. If you only focus on your weaknesses, your self-confidence suffers enormously. The trick for developing more confidence in this regard is simply to shift your focus onto what you are good at. This won\u2019t transform your objective performance in the short term. Because all you\u2019ve done is flip a switch in your head. But in the medium term, your steady shift of focus onto the positives will give you increased confidence, enabling you to see yourself in a better light and silence your demons more and more. The early stages of this process are very difficult for perfectionists and self-critical people. But it works! Are you a manager or an executive? If so, take note: this trick works equally well on your colleagues. You just need to point out what your colleague is good at, and praise them for it. Their confidence and motivation will rise, and they will try harder \u2013 and you, their boss, will get better results from them than before. Note: People are susceptible to manipulation when they can only see a small part of the big picture. OceanofPDF.com","4. Cognitive Dissonance If you say A, you can\u2019t say B. But you can realize that A was wrong. Bertolt Brecht \u201cCognitive dissonance\u201d is a complex-sounding term to describe a simple psychological problem, namely a perceived internal contradiction. It arises \u201cwhen the brain processes several things (perceptions, thoughts, opinions, attitudes, wishes or intentions) that are incompatible with one another\u201d.35 Internal contradictions feel inherently disagreeable to us \u2013 and we dispel these contradictions by adjusting our attitudes or behavior to straighten things out. This is known as cognitive dissonance reduction or resolution. About 20 meters from my front door there\u2019s a pizzeria. I keep meaning to eat less pizza, but cooking isn\u2019t my idea of fun \u2013 and it takes time. It\u2019s always so tempting just to get a ready-made meal for a fiver instead. This tension in my mind (I want a pizza \u2013 but I shouldn\u2019t, because it\u2019s so unhealthy) can be resolved in two ways: 1. I can change my behavior, by deciding not to have pizza. 2. I can justify my behavior, by telling myself I\u2019m allowed a pizza now and then, as long as it doesn\u2019t turn into a habit. And who says it\u2019s so bad for you anyway? A bit","of dough, a bit of cheese, a bit of onion and a bit of salami \u2013 it can\u2019t be that unhealthy! Which option am I more likely to take? That\u2019s a rhetorical question, obviously. Changing your behavior is difficult and takes energy. It\u2019s far easier to justify your own behavior to reduce internal dissonance. Suddenly, the supposedly unhealthy pizza turns into a perfectly acceptable culinary choice. People are unbelievably good at lying to themselves to swiftly resolve internal contradictions. You smoke, despite knowing that it\u2019s bad for your health? \u201cIt\u2019s okay \u2013 the important thing is that smoking calms me down \u2013 and I\u2019d rather live a short and happy life than live long and die miserable!\u201d You hate your job and have already mentally checked out \u2013 but still turn up every morning? \u201cIt\u2019s okay \u2013 I\u2019m putting my degree to good use, and I\u2019ve already invested so much time and energy in the company \u2013 I only have to get through a few more years before retiring, and then that\u2019s the end of it!\u201d You couldn\u2019t come up with a single decent argument during a disagreement? \u201cIt\u2019s okay \u2013 that was only because a good argument didn\u2019t occur to me at the time \u2013 but I definitely wasn\u2019t wrong. No way!\u201d We will sooner justify our (mis-)behavior than change it. It\u2019s far easier. Academic research into the notion of cognitive dissonance only began in the middle of the 20th century (the term was coined by the American psychologist Leon Festinger). But the idea of dissonance resolution is over 2,500 years old \u2013 appearing, for instance, in a short fable entitled \u201cThe Fox and the Grapes\u201d, attributed to the Greek poet Aesop (c. 6th century BCE):","A fox one day spied a beautiful bunch of ripe grapes hanging from a vine trained along the branches of a tree. The grapes seemed ready to burst with juice, and the fox\u2019s mouth watered as he gazed longingly at them. The bunch hung from a high branch, and the fox had to jump for it. The first time he jumped he missed it by a long way. So he walked off a short distance and took a running leap at it, only to fall short once more. Again and again he tried, but in vain. Now he sat down and looked at the grapes in disgust. \u201cWhat a fool I am,\u201d he said. \u201cHere I am wearing myself out to get a bunch of sour grapes that are not worth gaping for.\u201d And off he walked very, very scornfully.36 The Classic Cognitive Dissonance Experiment The social psychologists L.E. Festinger and J.M. Carlsmith designed the following experiment.37 They asked students to spend an hour performing a boring task \u2013 repeatedly turning pegs in a pegboard by ninety degrees. About as dull as you can get. The crucial variation was that in one group, the students received twenty dollars for performing the task, while the other group only got one dollar each. When the time was up, each student had to convince another student waiting in the foyer that the \u201cjob\u201d was great, and that the waiting student should definitely do it too. Last of all, the students had to rate how interesting they found the task. At this point, something astonishing happened: students from the second group, who had only","received one dollar, described it as far more appealing than those who got twenty dollars. How could that be? According to Festinger and Carlsmith, it\u2019s simple. The one- dollar group had to lie to the other students about the task being exciting. Cognitive dissonance arose in their minds as they did so \u2013 and they felt the need to reduce this dissonance. But because they had already done the boring task and had lied about how exciting it was, the only way for them to feel good again was to alter their own perception of the job itself. Like the fox in the fable, who retrospectively badmouthed the grapes, the students talked up the boring task. Festinger and Carlsmith also offer a plausible explanation for why the twenty-dollar group felt less cognitive dissonance. In their case, the students had an extrinsic motivation (i.e. one triggered by external stimuli): the twenty dollars. The money compensated them for their hour of boredom \u2013 and consequently, this group was not affected by cognitive dissonance. To rid ourselves of uncomfortable internal contradictions, we resolve cognitive dissonance by reinterpreting reality \u2013 essentially, a form of self-deception. How Can You Use Cognitive Dissonance to Manipulate People? You can artificially induce dissonance in your victim\u2019s head, prompting them to reduce this dissonance to your advantage. What does that mean in practice? Here are a few examples:","\u2022 The foot in the door trick. We like to behave consistently. If we say A, we feel inwardly compelled to say B too. Otherwise we run into contradiction. That\u2019s why the foot in the door trick works so well \u2013 it\u2019s all thanks to cognitive dissonance. Remember the experiment with the little window sticker and the big sign saying \u201cDrive carefully\u201d in people\u2019s front gardens (p. 34). \u2022 The low-ball trick. This trick has been made infamous by car salesmen. You start by offering the customer a good price \u2013 and once they have made the decision to buy it, the price rises for some fabricated reason. To avoid cognitive dissonance by going against their original decision, they will still cough up \u2013 inwardly downplaying the unexpected additional cost, to avoid feeling stupid. Needless to say, the low-ball trick isn\u2019t confined to sales \u2013 it\u2019s also useful in everyday life. In one experiment,38 students were asked to participate in a study beginning at 7 am. Only 24 percent of respondents agreed to take part. In another group, students were asked to participate in the study, but the start time wasn\u2019t mentioned. 56 percent accepted. Only after they agreed to take part were they told that it started at 7 am \u2013 and that they could still cancel if they wanted to. But nobody pulled out (neatly illustrating the notion that \u201cIf you say A, you also have to say B\u201d). And almost all of them (95 percent) turned up early in the morning as agreed. \u2022 Exploiting the Andorra effect. In Max Frisch\u2019s play Andorra (about a fictional place called Andorra, not the real country), the protagonist mistakenly believes that he is of Jewish descent. He is constantly confronted by","negative prejudices towards Jews in Andorran society, until he gradually begins to internalize these negative characteristics and outwardly exhibit them. The Andorra effect states that people modify their behavior to conform to society\u2019s judgments \u2013 even when these social judgments are incorrect. A neat experiment to prove this:39 women who had heard a week earlier that they were considered charitable people donated much more money to a charitable organization than women who had not. To avoid cognitive dissonance (i.e. to avoid contradicting this image of themselves), the women simply accepted a stranger\u2019s judgment as a benchmark for their own conduct. The most famous example of cognitive dissonance is Philip Zimbardo\u2019s Stanford Prison Experiment back in 1971, which remains the subject of controversy.40 It is a striking and terrifying demonstration of just how quickly people slip into the role entrusted to them \u2013 and take on the characteristics expected of them. Zimbardo built a mock prison in a cellar at Stanford University. Participants in the experiment were split by the toss of a coin into guards and prisoners. The experiment was to last two weeks, but had to be cut short after only six days. What happened? The guards were kitted out with uniforms, truncheons and sunglasses. Little by little, they began not only to play their role, but to internalize it \u2013 and began to exploit their position of power more and more, terrorizing the prisoners. On only the second day, the first serious riots broke out: the prisoners blockaded their doors, and the guards used fire extinguishers to spray ice-cold carbon dioxide into the cells, forcing the prisoners to open the doors. The","guards then undressed them, confiscated their beds, and banned them from using the toilet, forcing them to do their business in buckets instead. The researchers had to step numerous times in to prevent serious abuse. Five prisoners in total had to be released early on health grounds (anxiety attacks, severe skin rashes, and depression). One of the reasons why the guards took to their role so quickly was that their uniforms and sunglasses made them feel anonymous and part of a collective \u2013 with the power to set their own rules. But the decisive factor was cognitive dissonance: the guards were tasked with keeping order, which they could only achieve using harsh punishments \u2013 and they justified these harsh punishments by telling themselves that it was their job as guards to keep the prisoners under total control. No matter how brutal their actions might seem to us outsiders, the guards were inwardly convinced that they were doing the right thing. You only need to tell someone how you think they will behave, and the probability rises that they \u2013 to be consistent with your description \u2013 will behave as described. That said, the Andorra effect obviously has its limits. Don\u2019t exaggerate your descriptions too much. And another thing to watch out for: constant dripping wears the stone. In other words, the Andorra effect works best if you subtly ascribe certain characteristics to someone over an extended period of time (months, or even years). It works for positive descriptions \u2013 and unfortunately also for negative ones. We automatically latch onto other people\u2019s expectations of us and behave accordingly. And we subsequently justify our actions, to preserve harmony with our new \u201cself-image\u201d and with the expectations of the group. The Stanford Prison","Experiment demonstrates that people will stop at nothing to resolve cognitive dissonance. OceanofPDF.com","5. The Priming Effect A thought cannot awaken without waking others. Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach You can use priming (which means \u201cpreparation\u201d) to influence how people process stimuli (i.e. cognitions). By placing a certain stimulus first, you can steer subsequent associations in a particular direction and manipulate people\u2019s behavior. More simply put: the first piece of information that we receive shapes how we react to the next piece of information. There is, of course, a clever experiment to illustrate this.41 A group of test subjects were asked the following two questions: 1. \u201cHow happy are you?\u201d 2. \u201cHow many dates did you have last month?\u201d In this order, no causal correlation arose between the two answers. In other words, there were happy people who\u2019d been on lots of dates, happy people who\u2019d been on few dates, unhappy people with lots of dates and unhappy people with few dates. No big surprises so far. But the result changed dramatically when another group of subjects were asked the same questions in reverse order: 1. \u201cHow many dates did you have last month?\u201d","2. \u201cHow happy are you?\u201d This time, there was a strong causal connection between the two questions: a correlation coefficient of 0.66. People with more dates said that they were happier, while people with fewer dates said that they were unhappier. The first (specific) question primed them for the second (general) question. When people from the second group thought about their happiness, they thought about it in light of the dates they\u2019d been on. The initial question shapes our answer to the follow-up question. Remarkably, priming does not only work at a cognitive level, but at a physical one too. In another experiment in America,42 people were primed with words associated with old age \u2013 \u201cwrinkle\u201d, \u201cforgetful\u201d, \u201cFlorida\u201d, and so on. Slowness, another classic association with old age, was not explicitly mentioned. But subjects from the group primed with \u201celderly words\u201d moved more slowly and sluggishly through the hallway on leaving the experiment than the comparison group, who had not been influenced by the elderly stereotypes. Words condition our physical vitality too. Finally, here\u2019s a popular example that you can try out on a friend (they must answer as quickly as possible, and obviously mustn\u2019t know the trick already): You: \u201cWhat color is snow?\u201d Your friend: \u201cWhite.\u201d You: \u201cWhat color\u2019s the wall?\u201d Your friend: \u201cWhite.\u201d","You: \u201cWhat color are clouds?\u201d Your friend: \u201cWhite.\u201d You: \u201cWhat do cows drink?\u201d Your friend: \u201cMilk.\u201d Priming Women: The Secret to the Second Date As a young man, I utilized priming to invite women back to my home for the second date. It worked astonishingly well. Without priming, things went as follows: I met a woman in a bar for the first date, and used mirroring as much as possible. If she liked travelling, I did too \u2013 telling her all about my most recent trip to the Philippines. If she loved animals, I told her about my safari holiday in Botswana. If she was stressing out about exams, I told her about my legal exams and our high failure rates. If her hobby was playing the piano, I waxed lyrical about a classical piece I was learning on the guitar. Mirroring always built a connection \u2013 and in most cases (90 percent) the woman wanted to see me again. The reason why mirroring works so well is explained in the chapter on building a quick rapport (p. 22). But if I tried to invite the woman back to mine for our second date \u2013 for a pizza, of course \u2013 she almost always replied, \u201cNo, let\u2019s go out somewhere. We still barely know each other!\u201d With priming, things went rather differently. Again, I built a quick rapport using mirroring. You won\u2019t get anywhere unless you make those connections. But every so often I would mention my flat: how much I liked living there, how light it was, the great pizzeria and cool bar just down the","road \u2013 and the guitar that I picked up from time to time. I didn\u2019t bring it all up at once, of course. I just dropped these little hints into conversation, so that my flat got some good publicity \u2013 and there was more reason to come round for a look. When I invited women back to mine for a second date in the wake of this priming, the uptake was 30 to 40 percent. And if you\u2019re thinking, \u201cHow can you be so manipulative? That\u2019s just unfair! You shouldn\u2019t do that!\u201d then stop, take a deep breath, and think about the manipulative techniques that we all employ in dating. For me, it was mirroring and priming. For other men, it\u2019s a convertible, or their muscles. For women, it might be a figure-hugging dress, red lipstick, a pair of sexy stilettos, and so on. Everyone works with their own resources \u2013 presenting themselves in exclusively positive terms, deploying half-truths, compliments and expensive clothes. Let him who is without manipulation cast the first stone. Unintended Priming: My Clients\u2019 Requests Incidentally, people sometimes prime each other without realizing it. Every week I witness a perfect example of totally unintended priming. In each of my courses \u2013 be it on the subject of arguing, negotiation, or answering back \u2013 I ask participants whether there are particular topics that they want to cover that aren\u2019t mentioned in the course plan. Someone breaks the ice, saying something like, \u201cI always get stage fright in front of an audience. I booked the course to learn how to deal with nerves.\u201d No prizes for guessing what the other ten participants suddenly want to get from the course. Almost all of them (!) will say that stage fright is a big issue for them. Another week, the first","participant will say that she would especially like some pointers on how to make a persuasive argument. And nearly everyone else will then focus on topics to do with arguing and persuasion. Only one in a hundred participants really considers in advance what they want to learn and turns up to the course with an exhaustive list. These examples also reveal why priming works so well. Make no mistake about it: people are generally a little lazy. For the sake of ease, they let themselves be guided by what\u2019s been said already. It\u2019s not just electricity that consistently takes the path of least resistance. The better prepared we are, and the more we know precisely what we want in a given situation, the less we will let ourselves be primed by others. How to Use Priming to Manipulate People Priming is all about deftly feeding people pieces of advance information, to trigger specific associations for our own benefit. Here\u2019s an experiment43 with palpable relevance to everyday life. It starts with a man called Donald. No, not that Donald \u2013 this example dates back to 1982. In the experiment, subjects were presented with general statements such as, \u201cA salesman knocked at the door, but Donald refused to let him enter.\u201d Before the test subjects read this sentence, though, they were exposed to certain words. The first test group were shown words such as \u201cconfident\u201d and \u201cadventurous\u201d. The second group were given words such as \u201cinsult\u201d and \u201cinconsiderate\u201d. Then they all had to make a positive or","negative evaluation of Donald\u2019s behavior based on the sentence above. The result will hardly surprise you by now. The group primed with positive words gave Donald a positive rating. The group conditioned with negative words gave him a negative rating. So, if you\u2019re having a disagreement, professional or personal, and you want the other person to be \u201creasonable\u201d, prime them with words like \u201cfair\u201d, \u201csolution\u201d, \u201ccompromise\u201d \u2013 and the chances increase that they will begin to act accordingly as the argument goes on. Or perhaps you want your presentation at work to be well received? If so, tell your colleagues over lunch about another talk you recently went to, where the speaker came across as \u201cconfident\u201d, \u201celoquent\u201d and \u201cutterly convincing\u201d. A few hours later, your colleagues will probably rate your own presentation more highly than if you hadn\u2019t primed them in this way. Priming Yourself to Get Better Results It goes without saying that you can prime yourself too. And as born egoists, we naturally do this to our own advantage. How does it work? In another experiment,44 researchers asked two groups to solve various creative problems. One group was primed with positive words like \u201csuccess\u201d and \u201cwins\u201d \u2013 the other was primed with neutral words like \u201clamp\u201d and \u201cgreen\u201d. You don\u2019t need me to tell you that the first group achieved better results. Positive self-description is one of the best ways to increase your chances of success. Priming is","ultimately related to another phenomenon that you\u2019ve almost certainly heard of: the self-fulfilling prophecy. If you believe in a prediction, it will come true, through your own direct or indirect actions. Remember the words of Mahatma Gandhi, who boils this principle down to its very essence: Carefully watch your thoughts, for they become your words. Manage and watch your words, for they will become your actions. Consider and judge your actions, for they have become your habits. Acknowledge and watch your habits, for they shall become your values. Understand and embrace your values, for they become your destiny.45 OceanofPDF.com","6. The Anchoring Effect Numbers are our most reliable means of evaluating reality. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin The anchoring effect is closely related to the priming effect. It\u2019s all about the magic of numbers \u2013 which serve as an anchor, in the form of a momentarily available piece of contextual information. Numbers sound reliable, objective, and correct. And we know that mathematics is the most exact science. Which is why we are so easily manipulable by numbers. Here\u2019s an experiment46 to prove it: imagine that while visiting a museum, you are asked how much you are willing to donate to save birds that have fallen victim to an oil spill. But instead of it being presented as an open question, you are asked to give a concrete sum. A group of museum visitors in San Francisco were asked just such a question: \u201cWould you be willing to pay five dollars?\u201d The result: respondents offered to donate an average of 20 dollars. In a repeat experiment, the scientists asked, \u201cWould you be willing to pay 400 dollars?\u201d How did people react? Were they angry? Did they run away? 400 dollars is hardly chicken feed. Nothing of the sort. The response was astonishing: respondents from the second group were willing to donate an average of 143 dollars. A whole 123","dollars more than the first group \u2013 all because of the new anchor. The Anchoring Effect: How Was It Discovered? The anchoring effect was first identified by the scientists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, only 50 years ago. In one of my favorite experiments,47 they asked people to spin a wheel of fortune. The wheel displayed the numbers 1 to 100, but was programmed to stop on either 10 or 65. Subjects were then asked what percentage of UN member states came from Africa. If the wheel stopped on 10, subjects estimated on average that African states made up 25 percent of UN members. And if the wheel stopped on 65, subjects estimated on average that 45 percent of UN member states were African. The \u201crandom\u201d number generated by the wheel, which had nothing to do with the subsequent question, influenced people enormously. Their estimate always stayed close to the artificial anchor. Can Experts Also Be Duped by the Anchoring Effect? You might object: \u201cOrdinary people may well fall for that \u2013 but not experts. How are we meant to know how many African countries there even are in the first place? For a start, there are new states like South Sudan still appearing now and then \u2013 and who knows how many of them want to be in the UN? And how many are actually allowed in?\u201d But is it true that experts can\u2019t be duped by the anchoring effect? I have a few friends who work as estate agents. And I have always wondered how the value of real estate is calculated. Obviously, location plays a decisive role. And there are","other plainly important factors, like whether the property needs renovation. But the difference between a luxury home in Los Angeles costing $10.9 million (as advertised online) or \u201conly\u201d \u00a38.3 million has always been a mystery to me. So I was all the more fascinated to read about the following real estate experiment.48 Two very unevenly matched groups competed against one other: students and estate agents. Both were handed a ten-page memo with all the relevant information to make a price valuation of a building (location, area in square meters, price of neighboring houses, prices of properties sold in the last six months, and many more details). The only difference between the memos was that different list prices were printed at the bottom. Local property experts claimed that to any estate agent, a five-percent deviation from the \u201ccorrect\u201d property valuation would be conspicuous and easily noticed. Both groups were transported to the property, to examine it and the surrounding neighborhood in person. Each participant in the experiment had lived and worked for over five years in the city where the property was located (Tucson, Arizona). The outcome: students and estate agents alike were heavily influenced by their respective anchors. If the list price was low, the estimates in both groups were low. If the list price was high, the estimates in both groups were high. So much for expertise. You might say, \u201cEstate agents? They don\u2019t have a clue! They aren\u2019t experts at all.\u201d And admittedly it is remarkable that anyone can call themselves an estate agent, without any sort of training. (It\u2019s the same with management consultants and communication coaches, by the way.)","But what about experts with years of training behind them? Judges, for instance? I undertook seven years of training to qualify for judicial office. And I took it for granted that something as serious as sentencing could never fall prey to the anchoring effect. Judges, the pinnacle of the \u201cintellectual elite\u201d, could surely never have their verdicts swayed by random numbers. Could they? Unfortunately so. In an experiment,49 judges were presented with a fictitious criminal case. The crime was identical each time. The subjects, young German judges, each received all the information necessary to adjudicate the case. The judges were split into two groups. In the first group, the prosecutor called for two months\u2019 imprisonment; in the second group, the prosecutor called for 34 months. How were the judges in each group influenced by the prosecutors\u2019 differing demands? In the group in which the prosecutor had called for only two months\u2019 imprisonment, the judges passed average sentences of 19 months. In the other group, in which the prosecutor had called for 34 months, the judges passed average sentences of 29 months. That\u2019s ten months\u2019 difference. The accused could spend almost a whole extra year behind bars, just by getting unlucky with the prosecutor. Note: Even experts with years of training fall victim to the anchoring effect. How Can You Use the Anchoring Effect to Manipulate People?","For businesspeople, it\u2019s a good idea in contract negotiation to get in there first with a price that suits you. Of course, you shouldn\u2019t stretch it too far. Set a starting price that is high for the other party, but still just about feasible. They will try to negotiate, but will be unwittingly guided by the anchor you\u2019ve dropped. Similarly, if you are an executive or manager, you can use quarterly targets to motivate your employees to achieve a particular result. But this principle can also prove useful in your private life. If, for instance, you anticipate a disagreement over how long you should go on holiday for, anchoring can help steer things in the right direction. If you think that your partner will want to go away for only one week for lack of money or time, then start the conversation by asking them, \u201cHoney, when shall we have two weeks away in Sardinia?\u201d They will most likely end up agreeing to ten or eleven days. OceanofPDF.com","7. Social Proof Why do we follow the crowd? Because the crowd is right? No: because the crowd is powerful. Blaise Pascal People are pack animals. They might not want to believe it, but they constantly bow to the majority. We all mistakenly believe that if lots of people do something, it must be right. To manipulate someone successfully, it can be a crucial advantage to have an apparent majority on your side. One of the most convincing experiments to demonstrate this was carried out by the psychologist Solomon Asch.50 Imagine that several people are sitting around a conference table. They are shown lines of differing length on a sheet of paper. What the one test subject doesn\u2019t know is that everyone else at the table is part of the experiment \u2013 and is following the researcher\u2019s instructions. The task is to say which line is exactly the same length as the reference line. The answer is obvious to every participant each time \u2013 it\u2019s the simplest of assignments. How did the original experiment play out? A total of eighteen sets of lines were passed around. The people at the table, who were part of the experiment, were told to give the correct answer to six of them (scattered randomly throughout the eighteen) \u2013 to give the general","impression of credibility. In the twelve other runs, they deliberately chose the wrong line. And one other important detail: the participants always gave the same answer in front of the subject, never contradicting one another. In each round of questions, the subject answered last. What happened? In around a third of cases, the subject went along with the obviously mistaken majority, although they could see with their own eyes that the answer that everyone else had given before them was demonstrably wrong. The subject did not want to stick their neck out and risk looking stupid. Later re-runs of the Asch experiment showed that the larger the group, the greater the pressure became for subjects to conform. The more people had already said something, the more likely the subject was to agree with them. Since the Asch experiment in 1951, social psychologists have carried out dozens of further studies, producing the same result again and again: most people let their actions be influenced by (supposed) majorities. In one such study,51 researchers went from door to door and asked people to donate to charity. The longer the list of previous donors, the more likely respondents were to donate as well. The effect was magnified if the donor list included friends or acquaintances of the respondent. And since we\u2019ve reached the middle of the book: in another nifty experiment,52 subjects were read five positive book reviews. When a single voice read out these five different positive reviews, subjects were less drawn to the book than when five different voices read out the five positive","reviews. They were the same five positive reviews both times. There shouldn\u2019t be any difference \u2013 but this is where the herd instinct, or \u201csocial proof\u201d, kicks in. Social Proof: The Scourge of Intellectuals Intellectuals have long been skeptical of mainstream opinion. Mark Twain once wrote, \u201cWhenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.\u201d53 Friedrich Schiller remarked, \u201cThe majority? What is the majority? The majority is foolishness. Reason has only ever been the property of the few.\u201d54 His friend Johann Wolfgang Goethe was equally unenthused by mainstream opinion: \u201cYou have to keep repeating the truth, because fallacies are constantly being perpetuated all around us \u2013 not by individuals, but by the masses.\u201d55 Of course, intellectuals of their caliber probably think that the majority of people are rather dim. But for manipulators like us, it\u2019s less about what\u2019s true, and more about what works. And social proof is a pretty useful tool in this regard. How Can You Use Social Proof to Manipulate People? Everybody is talking about social proof right now. It is, if you like, the best-known cognitive bias of our time. The new professional class of so-called social media experts recommend putting lots of testimonials on your home page; YouTube and Facebook users are constantly on the hunt for social proof in the form of views and likes. The internet community is currently riding a social proof wave: on almost every website you\u2019ll see mugshots of customers praising a particular product \u2013 beneath a headline","screaming, \u201c97 percent of customers recommend our product to their friends!\u201d So, make sure \u2013 to the extent that you can \u2013 that the (supposed) majority is behind what you say. Then barely anyone will be able to oppose your majority position. In capitalist societies, it feels as if there\u2019s nothing money can\u2019t buy. And that\u2019s exactly how many people get their likes and subscribers. They mostly come from fake accounts \u2013 but that\u2019s irrelevant for the users who\u2019ll see your 14,863 Facebook \u201cfriends\u201d and be instantly impressed. They will think to themselves, \u201cWow! He\u2019s really popular \u2013 he must be a good guy!\u201d A quick internet search will lead you to dozens of sites where you can buy followers and likes with your credit card. OceanofPDF.com","8. Optimism Bias and Wishful Thinking Everything is going to be fine in the end. If it\u2019s not fine, it\u2019s not the end. Oscar Wilde Most people are optimists. Not in the sense of thinking that the world\u2019s beautiful, perfect and fair. But in another sense: they think that they are less susceptible to negative consequences than other people. In this respect, optimism bias is related to the above-average effect. Once again, it\u2019s a case of us thinking that we\u2019re special. A classic example: people believe that they\u2019re less likely to have an accident if they\u2019re at the wheel.56 They assume that they won\u2019t fall victim to crime.57 Smokers reckon that lung cancer is unlikely to affect them.58 And stockbrokers are convinced that they are less vulnerable to market slumps than their colleagues.59 People are aware of the general risk, but they don\u2019t apply it to themselves. The question is: why are we so optimistic? Essentially, the answer is pretty simple: because it just feels better. The thought pattern behind wishful thinking is straightforward: \u201cI want X to be true. So X must be right.\u201d Or, when taking a risk: \u201cI don\u2019t want Y to happen to me. So Y won\u2019t happen.\u201d","Most of my friends are soon to be married, or are already married. And if I mention divorce statistics to them, they wave me away, saying, \u201cThat won\u2019t happen to us! We love each other too much and trust each other a hundred percent.\u201d Don\u2019t other newlyweds love each other just as much? Aren\u2019t young people who exchange vows deeply confident that it will last a lifetime? Everyone believes that their marriage will work out. You won\u2019t find many bridegrooms heading for the registry office thinking, \u201cThere\u2019s a thirty percent chance it will all turn sour.\u201d And because people really want their marriages to be a long-term success, it can\u2019t be any other way. This is the epitome of wishful thinking. Selective Perception There\u2019s another distorting factor in our minds that encourages wishful thinking. When we make comparisons with others, we generally don\u2019t pick an \u201caverage\u201d acquaintance to compare ourselves against, but some absolute walking disaster who is constantly running into trouble. This selective perception is what keeps us optimistic ahead of our own wedding day. Imagine that you have a female friend who married an alcoholic. After three years the marriage fails, and you say to yourself, \u201cI knew it wouldn\u2019t work out for them! But that sort of thing wouldn\u2019t happen to us.\u201d Such glaring negative examples are much more prevalent in our minds. We seldom compare ourselves to friends who are \u201cnormal\u201d \u2013 and who still haven\u2019t managed to make it work on the marriage front.","But even without negative examples to skew our perception, it\u2019s still just easier to believe nice things. My mother, for instance, always used to say, \u201cThe Russian soul is a very, very special thing.\u201d This was naturally a comforting thought. She truly believed it, as the owner of this unique spirit \u2013 so different from Brazilian, English and Chinese souls. One day I asked her what exactly was so special about the Russian soul. After that, she stopped saying it. And I still feel a bit bad about it: perhaps I put paid to the idea that she\u2019d cherished all those years, that she was very, very special. How to Use Optimism Bias and Wishful Thinking to Manipulate People As we can see, people think that risks don\u2019t apply to them \u2013 and they want to believe what feels good. Your only job is to strengthen their delusions. You can do it with a \u201cprecautionary\u201d phrase like, \u201cOf course there\u2019s a slight risk; but because it\u2019s you, I\u2019m sure it\u2019ll work out.\u201d You won\u2019t usually have to justify this statement, because it is already doctrine in your victim\u2019s mind \u2013 we\u2019re just there to affirm it. If they do question you, it\u2019s a good idea to have a bogus argument up your sleeve as to why everything will definitely work out for them. OceanofPDF.com","9. Processing Fluency The best formulations are the simplest ones. Anonymous The phrase \u201cprocessing fluency\u201d will be unfamiliar to most people. But it is the concept that helped Donald Trump to victory in his 2016 election campaign. It describes the phenomenon that our brains favor simple information. And Donald Trump is the master of simple information. Short sentences that our minds absorb in an instant. According to linguistic analysts, Trump uses the grammar of a sixth grader and the vocabulary of a seventh grader. And he knows that he owes his election victory to less educated people. He wasn\u2019t joking when after a caucus victory he commented, \u201cI love the poorly educated.\u201d60 Trump is also totally aware that he uses simple language. It\u2019s part of his strategy. But less educated people liking simplicity isn\u2019t the end of the story. We intuitively accept simple, neat mathematical solutions as true;61 the same goes for statements that make for easy reading.62 It works in reverse too: essays written in messy handwriting receive lower grades from teachers \u2013 regardless of content.63 One of my law professors, who will remain nameless, gave me the following tip before my exams: \u201cWrite legibly, and structure your essay clearly, so","that the examiner can grade your exam in peace with a glass of wine and the news on in the background.\u201d Speaking the Same Language Incidentally, accents and dialects also make it harder for listeners to absorb information: processing fluency is reduced, and what you say will be less well understood and far more critically scrutinized. The impact of a strong accent on grades is something that I have experienced in my own life, from the age of eleven. I am Ukrainian by birth, and moved to Germany at eleven, without knowing a word of German. I quickly picked up the language \u2013 and was a good student from the word go, especially in mathematics, as my accent played no part there. But in subjects like history, politics, and religious studies, I was stuck with distinctly average grades for quite a while. Marco, my best friend at the time, produced answers that were no better than mine \u2013 but all the way through high school, he consistently got better grades. He could express himself in a much more polished manner than me \u2013 German was his mother tongue \u2013 and I had trouble keeping up. Over time, my German got better \u2013 and our grades began to even out. I could express my ideas better and better, and started impressing the teachers more and more. At some point I began deliberately dropping intelligent-sounding words into my essays \u2013 preferably in the introduction \u2013 to signal to the teacher at the outset how eloquent I was. My favorite words at the time included \u201cambiguity\u201d and \u201cnarrative\u201d \u2013 and I started getting top grades in humanities subjects too. Ultimately, Marco and I left school with the","best grades in our year group. But to this day, my teachers remain oblivious to how much they are swayed by accents and dialects when grading their pupils. It was a similar story with the English language when I began competing at international debating tournaments. Even if I got the sense that I had made the better argument, the (mostly anglophone) jury awarded the win to the native speakers. Only once I had begun to assimilate the native idiom did I gradually begin to beat teams from Harvard and Cambridge, becoming a successful tournament speaker across Europe. In my early days at school, I didn\u2019t know just how much native speakers discriminate against people with accents or dialects. I only knew that they did. But later I came across more and more studies highlighting this discrimination. In one experiment,64 scientists gave a native speaker, a foreigner with a mild accent, and a foreigner with a strong accent the same sentence to read out \u2013 for instance, \u201cA giraffe can go without water longer than a camel can.\u201d Native speakers then rated the credibility of these statements from 1 to 10. The result was unmistakable: native speakers gave native speakers a higher truth rating than non-native speakers. Even harder to stomach was the fact that it made barely any difference to the truth rating whether the accent was mild or strong. Credibility was similarly low for both accent groups. In a further experiment,65 participants were explicitly told in advance that the researchers were aiming to find out whether a speaker\u2019s accent impacted the credibility of what they said. And participants still gave lower truth ratings to speakers with strong accents (though in this instance,","speakers with mild accents were considered equally credible as native speakers). Besides processing fluency, people with accents or dialects also face the problem of their voices triggering cultural prejudices.66 For a start, there is the general phenomenon that we consider people less trustworthy if they don\u2019t belong to our own community (they aren\u2019t \u201cone of us\u201d). We don\u2019t need to look to foreigners to see this in action. Let\u2019s take someone with a thick Southern accent. They will be sneered at and not really taken seriously in New York, Chicago or San Francisco. The same goes for someone trying to get by with a thick Scottish accent in London. The people they meet will instantly be influenced by negative stereotypes about Scots. These sorts of people often come to me for \u201celocution training\u201d, because they know from experience how their pronunciation negatively affects their chances in the job market. The bottom line is: whether you like it or not, accents and dialects make people appear less credible. How Can You Use Processing Fluency to Manipulate People? You will instantly seem more credible, and meet less resistance from listeners or readers, if you speak in a neutral accent, using short sentences with simple vocabulary, and if your handwriting is clear and simple (legibly written against a high-contrast background). The actual truth of what you say plays only a secondary role when you are trying to manipulate someone. Because your aim \u2013 to quote Schopenhauer \u2013 is to get your own way per fas et nefas (\u201cthrough right or wrong\u201d).","OceanofPDF.com","10. The Halo Effect Beautiful things are not always good, but good things are always beautiful. Anonymous I have already briefly mentioned the halo effect in the chapter on dazzling people with your appearance: one positive quality outshines all others, so we see someone in an entirely positive light \u2013 interpreting all their traits as virtues. Dozens of experiments have proven that attractive people are rated extremely highly in all areas of life: they supposedly have sunnier temperaments, get better jobs, and are smarter, friendlier, happier in life, better parents, more trustworthy, and more secure.67 In every imaginable area of life, beautiful people are at an advantage. To illustrate this, let\u2019s take a closer look at how we assess someone\u2019s intelligence. In an experiment,68 young men were asked to evaluate an article. In one group, an author photograph of an attractive woman was appended to the article; another group got a photo of an unattractive woman; and the control group read only the article, with no photo to look at. Obviously, the article with the pretty author scored highest.","But writers aren\u2019t the only ones who benefit from looking good. Numerous experiments69 show that even the courts are less likely to find good-looking people guilty of the same offence \u2013 and they receive shorter sentences than less attractive people. Another study demonstrated that attractive defendants were twice as likely to be acquitted than less attractive defendants.70 And attractive defendants had to pay less compensation than less attractive defendants. Conversely, if the victim is more attractive than the accused, the victim receives almost twice as much compensation.71 And they say justice is blind. As if that weren\u2019t enough, good-looking employees earn 12 to 14 percent more than their not-quite-so-attractive colleagues,72 and they get jobs more quickly too.73 Unfortunately, the list of injustices goes on: people are far more inclined to help attractive people,74 and are more likely to be persuaded by them.75 Life Is Unfair From Day One If you think that the halo effect only comes into play in adulthood, you\u2019re mistaken. Scientists observe differences even in how babies are treated by their parents. Adults look longer at cute babies, and smile at them more.76 And adults are agreed on what counts as cute: big eyes, chubby cheeks, and a small chin. But that\u2019s not all: cute babies \u2013 just like attractive adults \u2013 are also ascribed positive inner qualities. They are seen as more sociable, smarter, and lower maintenance.77 Of course, the importance of appearance carries forward into our school years. Good-looking children have more friends, and they get a girlfriend or boyfriend sooner \u2013","while unattractive children quickly become outsiders and loners. We don\u2019t need science to prove this. We\u2019ve all seen it for ourselves. The media reinforces this effect. In photographs, on television, and on YouTube, Instagram and so on, we constantly feel the need to look as good as possible. More and more of us follow attractive people online who don\u2019t actually do anything apart from eating, shopping, travelling and going for walks. If you don\u2019t have any cool friends in real life, you can at least get closer to your beautiful idols by watching their videos, keeping their company virtually as they go about their lives. Superficiality Isn\u2019t That Superficial It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. Oscar Wilde It\u2019s an adjective that carries explicitly negative connotations in our language: if you are superficial, you have no depth, are a bad conversationalist \u2013 and are generally deemed uninteresting. But given everything we now know about the halo effect, it\u2019s fair to assume that in our supposedly knowledge-based society, primal mechanisms actually have a vital role to play. Our ancestors associated an attractive appearance with a healthy disposition and physical vitality \u2013 and even in the 21st century, our brains still work in an astonishingly similar way. Since the Stone Age, we have built vast cultural frameworks with all our music, art, poetry and science, but even today, if we\u2019re looking for a partner on an online","dating app, we look at a photo and ancient evolutionary mechanisms kick in within milliseconds to determine who wins our favor. Antonym: The Horns Effect The reverse also applies: a distinctly negative trait in a person can leave us with a negative overall picture of them. A classic example of the horns effect is at the start of a job interview, when the applicant introduces themselves, and in doing so inadvertently reveals a negative piece of information \u2013 for example, that they dropped out of university. The boss or recruiter will subsequently project this information onto everything that the applicant says. For example, if they have moved around more than most people, that will be treated in light of dropping out of university as \u201cproof of instability\u201d. If the same applicant had graduated from university with a stellar degree, this would instead demonstrate their \u201cflexibility\u201d. So, when meeting someone for the first time, it\u2019s vital only to reveal positive information about yourself. As a communication coach, I often see speakers apologizing in advance for the fact that they haven\u2019t had enough time to prepare for a talk. If they kept that to themselves, they might still pull it off. I once felt the full impact of the horns effect. I was leading a two-day management training course for a big company, with eight people in one group, and a second group of eight a week later. The first group thought the course was fantastic. The second group found it \u201cfine\u201d, but they weren\u2019t all that enthused. Why not? On the first day of the second course, I had turned up \u2013 through no fault of my"]