Sociopath Community

I quoted the parts of the article I found interesting, and bolded sentences I thought were particularly interesting. The article can be found here.

"Are we all just puppets on a string? Most people would like to assume that they are free agents – their fate lies in their own hands. But they’d be wrong. Often, we are as helpless as a marionette, being jerked about by someone else’s subtle influence. Without even feeling the tug, we do their bidding – while believing that it was our idea all along."

"'What we’re finding more and more in psychology is that lots of the decisions we make are influenced by things we are not aware of,' says Jay Olson at McGill University in Quebec, Canada – who recently created an ingenious experiment showing just how easily we are manipulated by the gentlest persuasion. The question is, can we learn to spot those tricks, and how can we use them to our own advantage?"

Olsen has background as a magician, and his experiment involved a magic card trick.

As a scientist, Olson’s first task was to formally test his success rate. He already knew he was pretty effective, but the results were truly staggering – Olson managed to direct 103 out of 105 of the participants.

Unsurprisingly, that alone has attracted a fair amount of media attention – but it was the next part of the study that was most surprising to Olson, since it shows us just how easily our mind is manipulated.

"For instance, when he questioned the volunteers afterwards, he was shocked to find that 92% of the volunteers had absolutely no idea that they’d been manipulated and felt that they had been in complete control of their decisions. Even more surprisingly, a large proportion went as far as to make up imaginary reasons for their choice. “One person said ‘I chose the 10 of hearts because 10 is high number and I was thinking of hearts before the experiment started’,” says Olson – despite the fact that it was really Olson who’d made the decision. What’s more, Olson found that things like personality type didn’t seem to have much influence on how likely someone was to be influenced – we all seem equally vulnerable. Nor did the specific properties of the cards – the colour or number – seem to make success any less likely."

"The implications extend far beyond the magician’s stage, and should cause us to reconsider our perceptions of personal will. Despite a strong sense of freedom, our ability to make deliberate decisions may often be an illusion. “Having a free choice is just a feeling – it isn’t linked with the decision itself,” says Olson."

"Or how about the simple task of choosing wine at the supermarket? Jennifer McKendrick and colleagues at the University of Leicester found that simply playing French or German background music led people to buy wines from those regions. When asked, however, the subjects were completely oblivious to the fact."

"In one striking result, simply seeing a photo of an athlete winning a race significantly boosted telephone sales reps’ performance – despite the fact that most people couldn’t even remember seeing the picture. And there is some evidence showing that handing someone a hot drink can make you seem like a “warmer” person, or smelling a nasty odour can make you more morally “disgusted” and cause you to judge people more harshly."

There is also a section on the article about how to avoid being manipulated, but I didn't think it was a very good bit.

"Maybe I am just attuned to manipulation, but personally I find subtle marketing to be pretty funny, and not at all effective on me."
I am that way as well for the most part for visual and sound stimulus done from advertising, but the paths of convincing that can stem from physical contact (hugs and handshakes), scent (pheromone scents, freshly baked cookies, sweet scents), and aspects of appearance in person (like if they're wearing a lab coat while holding a clip board) still affect me somewhat. Even as someone attempting to use such things, it shows that manipulation works in both directions simultaneously. Actively resisting it doesn't always help either since it's still somewhat sinking in by being noticed at all.

I attribute my resistance not just to natural skepticism, but also from having had an advertising writer in the family to give me an earlier chance to notice what's going on alongside former theater training. Noticing micro-expressions and little tells that show they aren't genuinely a part of the scene distract me from the usual draw.

"When I worked at Wal-Mart, the soundtracks were always pretty upbeat, sothat it'd put people into an upbeat mood, and they would hopefully blow more of their money than they usually might."
Oh Wal-Mart... I do not miss being stationed there for one of my older jobs. The only fun part of the job was conning people into trying samples they had no interest in whatsoever.

"They even had a song on one of the playlists about this woman with an innocent and naive voice singing about how she just wanted to buy everything in sight."
Suggestive language in the form of song as passive manipulation does sound like something they'd try, but from it being so impersonal I imagine it having less of an obvious impact. Marketing to each user's individual buying history to sort out what else they might need I find a little spookier (like what Amazon and Target do), especially since it's mapping how predictable people are successfully through impersonal automation. It makes people seem that much less remarkable when it can be sorted that way.

"There is a great book on the topic of free will, called The Illusion of Conscious Will, by Daniel M. Wegner. That man tore apart the notion of free will like no other."
I'll put it towards the top of my list of books to check out. With that as the topic it might hold my attention long enough to push through this rut of book reading difficulty I'm currently fighting off.

"You know you've been on the internet too long when it's initially read as "Big Black Cock: The hidden tricks of powerful persuasion".

LOL.

"More often than not, the more people learn about this stuff the more fearful they can become of even little everyday conventions like a basic handshake. It's like social mysophobia."

I can agree with that to an extent. Have you ever been into Abercrombie and Fitch, and they're playing that pumped-up electronic music, and are there posters of these ripped and oiled-up dudes with their shirts off and those seductive gazes, and of women showing off that 10/10 bikini body? Which basically say: "Be cool. Be sexy. Wear A&F." Maybe I am just attuned to manipulation, but personally I find subtle marketing to be pretty funny, and not at all effective on me.

When I worked at Wal-Mart, the soundtracks were always pretty upbeat, so that it'd put people into an upbeat mood, and they would hopefully blow more of their money than they usually might. They even had a song on one of the playlists about this woman with an innocent and naive voice singing about how she just wanted to buy everything in sight.

But yeah, I can see how this article could make people paranoid.

"Pointing out the illusion of choice to people who believe they pilot their lives solely on their own can be fun for gauging their attachment to their perceptions (and need) for the belief freedom. I personally haven't believed in "free will" being real for a while now.

This kind of thing makes for some of the best face-to-face conversations with people."

There is a great book on the topic of free will, called The Illusion of Conscious Will, by Daniel M. Wegner. That man tore apart the notion of free will like no other.

"Marketing to each user's individual buying history to sort out what else they might need I find a little spookier (like what Amazon and Target do), especially since it's mapping how predictable people are successfully through impersonal automation. It makes people seem that much less remarkable when it can be sorted that way."

Computer algorithms know more about us than we do about ourselves.