Invisible Influence: The hidden forces that shape behaviour - Softcover

Berger, Jonah

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1471148041 ISBN 13: 9781471148040

Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK, 2016

Synopsis

If you’re like most people, you think that your choices and behaviors are driven by your individual, personal tastes and opinions.
   You picked a jacket because you liked the way it looked. You picked a particular career because you found itinteresting. The notion that our choices are driven by our own personal thoughts and opinions seems so obvious that it is not even worth mentioning. Except that it’s wrong.
   Without our realizing it, other people’s behavior – what psychologists call “social influence” – has a huge influence on everything we do at every moment of our lives, from the mundane (which movie to see or place to have lunch) to the momentous (which career path to take or person to marry).
   We make riskier decisions because someone patted us on the shoulder. We like the name Mia because Madison and Sophia are popular names this year. Even strangers, or people we may never meet, have a startling impact on our judgments and decisions: our attitudes towards a welfare policy totally shift if we’re told it is supported by Democrats versus Republicans, even though the policy is the same in both cases.
   But social influence doesn’t just lead us to do the same things as others. Like a magnet it can attract, but it also can repel. In some cases we conform, or imitate others around us. But in other cases we diverge, or avoid particular choices or behaviors because other people are doing them. We stop listening to a band because they go mainstream. We skip buying the minivan because we don’t want to look like the soccer mom.
   By understanding how social influence works, we can decide when to resist and when to embrace it: we can affect others behavior and use others to help us make better-informed decisions.

About this title

Review

"With great insight, Jonah Berger removes the cloak of invisibility from powerful sources of influence and resolves fascinating mysteries of human behavior."
--Robert Cialdini, author of Influence

"If you want to know what really influences your behavior, read Jonah Berger's latest eye-opening book, packed with thought-provoking research, memorable stories, and powerful insights. A terrific read!"--William Ury, author of Getting to Yes with Yourself

"As he did with Contagious, Jonah Berger takes us deep beneath the surface of things, with mesmerizing results. Invisible Influence is a book with the power to transform the way we see ourselves and our place in the world."
--Arianna Huffington, author of Thrive

"Jonah Berger has done it again: Written a fascinating book that brims with ideas and tools for how to think about the world."
- Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit

"From the very first page, this book will change the way you look at yourself--and others. Eye-opening and thoroughly engaging."
--Amy Cuddy, author of Presence

"Whether you want to influence others, make smarter decisions, or just better understand the mystery that is human behavior, this book will show you how. A terrific, insightful read."
--Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos

"Berger offers an engaging guide to the concept of social influence. Berger's prose is consistently entertaining, applying science to real life in surprising ways and explaining research through narrative. His book fascinates because it opens up the moving parts of a mysterious machine, allowing readers to watch them in action."
--Publishers Weekly

"Berger picks up where his Contagious: Why Things Catch On (2013) left off to explore why we desire what we do--and more, why we act as we do, politically, socially, economically, and emotionally... he does a good job of distilling scientific insights into easily understood object lessons on social psychology."--Kirkus Reviews

"Jonah continues to be one of the most innovative psychological researchers publishing today. His insights are not only thought provoking and counter-intuitive, he manages to express them in a practical and pragmatic way. I'll read anything he writes--and use it too."--Ryan Holiday, author of Trust Me I'm Lying and Growth Hacker Marketing.

"Invisible Influence is that rare business book that's both informative and enough fun to take to the beach."--Anne Fisher, Fortune.com

About the Author

Jonah Berger is an associate professor of marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. His research has been published in top-tier academic journals, and popular accounts of his work have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Science, Harvard Business Review, and more. His research has also been featured in the New York Times Magazine's "Year in Ideas." Berger has been recognized with a number of awards for both scholarship and teaching. The author of Contagious and Invisible Influence, he lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1471148041
• ISBN 13: 9781471148040
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 272