Invisible Influence: The hidden forces that shape behaviour - Softcover

Berger, Jonah

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1471148041 ISBN 13: 9781471148040

Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK, 2016

Synopsis

In Invisible Influence, the New York Times bestselling author of Contagious explores the subtle influences that affect the decisions we make – from what we buy, to the careers we choose, to what we eat.
 
If you're like most people, you think your individual tastes and opinions drive your choices and behaviours. You wear a certain jacket because you liked how it looked. You picked a particular career because you found it interesting. The notion that our choices are driven by our own personal thoughts and opinions is patently obvious. Right? Wrong.

Without our realizing it, other people's behaviour has a huge influence on everything we do at every moment of our lives, from the mundane to the momentous. Even strangers have an impact on our judgments and decisions: our attitudes toward a welfare policy shift if we're told it is supported by Democrats versus Republicans (even though the policy is the same). But social influence doesn't just lead us to do the same things as others. In some cases we imitate others around us. But in other cases we avoid particular choices or behaviours 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 a soccer mom.

By understanding how social influence works, we can decide when to resist and when to embrace it – and learn how we can use this knowledge to exercise more control over our own behaviour.

About this title

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