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> Can anyone still take the other side in a negotiation (or any other situation, really) seriously if it becomes know that they're trying to pull this parlor trick?

That's why it's so important to know about these things. Once armed with knowledge, it becomes a parlor trick. If you don't know about the techniques, then you're playing at a disadvantage.

I read the author's previous book on influence[1] and it was rigorously researched with confirmable studies. Well worth reading, since it surveys a wide variety of mind hacks people play on us across 8 or so broad categories. It changed the way I thought about all kinds of situations I routinely encounter.

https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Practice-Robert-B-Cialdini/...

⬐ RangerScience

In this http://suffadv.wikidot.com/ RPG, one of your stats represents the level of "applied psychology" in use in your home culture. The more advanced / pervasive the use of the applied psychology, the stronger your character's inherent ability to defend against it.

⬐ BeetleB

Influence is a great book (and a fun read).

Although the author himself marketed it that way, it's a lot deeper than just "parlor tricks" to get you to buy stuff.

It explains fundamentally why some people may listen to you and others may not (and vice versa). As someone who was always a poor influencer, I always wondered why if I explained something to someone, they would reject it. But if someone else explained it in the same way, they would accept it. The book explains why really well.

Overall, if you do not conform well to societal norms (that includes being a geek), it will explain why your life will be miserable.

It explains why people can be persuaded to do crazy things like committing suicide for a cult (and why others won't do such things).

It also explains the power of reciprocity (as well as its down side). It starts with a simple story: The author was walking down the street when a kid tried to sell him a chocolate bar for $2 for some good cause. The author doesn't like chocolate, and it's too expensive. The kid then says "OK, I'll give it to you for a dollar!" The author, kind of automatically paid him a dollar and took the chocolate. A few minutes later, he wondered why he bought it: He doesn't like chocolate and doesn't care about the cause! The reason was reciprocity: The kid made a concession, and he automatically felt a need to reciprocate.

This is a common tactic in negotiations (and one negotiation training often warns you about), so you could view it as a parlor trick. But it does go deeper.

Many people in my life have gotten upset with me because:

1. They would have a request of me that I do not want to grant.

2. They offer me something for it - something I do not care for.

3. They make concessions on things or offer me more - again for things I do not care for.

4. They then get upset at me that I'm selfish, look how much others are willing to do for me and I don't reciprocate, etc.

But, umm, why should I reciprocate for something that is of no value to me? These people are not trying to manipulate me - this is their true feeling. Humans are hard wired for reciprocity, and when you don't play along, people can get upset.

I once asked a friend to do some exercise with me. He agreed, but when the time came he really didn't want to do it (bad weather). He said "Hey, tell you what: I'll do this for you if you learn skill X" (skill X is something I've been avoiding for years.

To me, learning skill X is a huge investment I did not want to make, and certainly not worth doing just to get him to exercise with me that day. So I decided to release him from his obligation. I declined his offer and said it's OK if he doesn't want to work out with me today.

Over a year later, I discovered that had upset him. From his perspective, he was willing to make a big sacrifice for me (work out with me that day with poor weather), but I was not willing to reciprocate. I had to explain to him: It was a big sacrifice for him, but only a small gain to me (it wasn't too big a deal if he didn't work out with me). Fundamentally, I do not need to reward him for making a big sacrifice, if I do not value it. I released him precisely because I sensed it was a big sacrifice, and did not want him to waste it.

Negotiation training teaches you this: If you want to make concessions, ensure they are meaningful to the other party. And on the flip side, be wary of concessions others make for you - if you do not value them, signal this strongly to the other side.

I may understand this, but most of the world doesn't. They will make concessions that have no value to you, and much of society will expect you to reciprocate. It'll take a lot of zen-fu not to get yourself in these situations.

tldr; Sorry for the lengthy comment. Book worth reading. And oh, I have only read a third of it...

⬐ deanCommie

Some very interesting ideas and stories in here. I can't help but wonder what you learned from this experience.

Because surely "be wary of concessions others make for you - if you do not value them, signal this strongly to the other side." is not sufficient advice.

By the time the person has made the concession, they've already struggled, weighed the pros and cons, and decided it was worthwhile to offer a sacrifice.

While I completely agree that you are under no obligation to reciprocate, and should be wary about people trying to maliciously trap you into such an obligation, you also have to be aware that friends and family members will do this to you inadvertently.

Explaining to them that this sacrifice is of no value to you can too easily be misconstrued as "you do not value me". If maintaining the social bond is important to you, then more is needed. I don't know what, though.

⬐ BeetleB

>Explaining to them that this sacrifice is of no value to you can too easily be misconstrued as "you do not value me". If maintaining the social bond is important to you, then more is needed. I don't know what, though.

Nor do I. I don't recall if the book had any good suggestions. I somewhat doubt it. It's a fairly light, humorous book, even when dealing with serious topics.

This is especially problematic across cultures. I grew up in one culture, but my parents are from a very different culture (and country). We would visit my relatives every year, and my parents constantly chided me for not showing gratitude. I was just a kid, and I kept telling my parents "If X was such a big deal for them, tell them not to do it next time!" I just wouldn't accept that I had to do something awesome when I did not feel I got anything in return (in fact, I often disliked many of the "concessions" people made for me, so it was doubly worse).

Innately I guess I understood the problem without knowing the concepts. Over the years, the signal did get through - my relatives would be told in advance not to spend money buying certain categories of gifts for me (e.g. clothes) because I likely would not use them.

⬐ z3t4

Giving is easy, accepting a gift is really hard.

⬐ LoSboccacc

Welll they play on your brain so even when aware you sometimes get caught in it. Like upselling tricks: overdone they indeed turn me away for sure, but subtle things like phone capacity or bundled items or cpu megahertz? It's the magic of nonlinear pricing and 'it's just 5% more!'

⬐ apathy

> confirmable

But were they indeed confirmed? This is the problem that keeps cropping up. Sometimes I wonder if believing in findings from the psychological literature isn't a disadvantage. Knowing about them is good -- you can pick up on the chumps who actually believe them. But believing them?

It's not at all clear to me that uncritical acceptance of these studies is ever a good idea. The response of senior investigators shrilly decrying "methodological terrorism" when their small-sample findings fail to replicate does little to increase confidence in said findings (or, indeed, the field as a whole).

nb. In no way is this confined to psychology. It's just more rampant there, to judge by the foundational manner in which the field has been shaken up. Nobody doubts that PCR works or that iPSCs can be induced, because the experiments to replicate the results are relatively trivial. But the nature of psychological research seems to make such exercises very difficult, to the point that individuals "take it on faith" that an effect is real (as opposed to assuming it's wrong and running a quick experiment to show that the next year or two of their life won't be wasted). Maybe we're just more cynical in bench-based disciplines?

⬐ unoti

> But were they indeed confirmed? This is the problem that keeps cropping up.

The book is carefully researched and exquisitely footnoted. Can you cite something specific that you have a problem with in the book? I'm curious if you have even read this book or if you just stating a more general concern about people who do me publish research.

⬐ apathy

I can't quite understand your last sentence -- I publish, as do most academics, so that can't be it. But Cialdini is the "pre-suasion" guy, and that one has certainly failed to replicate. So I guess I have a prior skepticism about anything from a standard textbook publisher covering similar topic. I've found too many errors in exercises, etc. to believe that their editors are doing much of a job; it's a drag when you're teaching a stats methods class and the book questions have major numeric errors so you can't use it for homework. What's the purpose of the book at that point?

Next time I teach (actually the past few as well) I'm not going to bother with a textbook. Go pull these primary research articles, pull the data, and see if the methods were used correctly. The end.

As previously, I've had some surprised looks when students did this with biological data sets. It's not like psychology is some rogue's gallery; it's a widespread problem. Only solution is to verify results before building upon them.

⬐ artifaxx

Psychology definitely needs a higher level of rigor in their studies. It is frustrating but you just have to pick apart the methodology more rigorously to be reasonably certain. Understanding how our brains work even at a rudimentary level is too useful to pass up.

Reading or recently finished:

The Book of the New Sun: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_New_Sun

Influence: Science and Practice: http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Practice-Robert-B-Cialdini/d...

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: http://www.amazon.com/Self-Editing-Fiction-Writers-Second-Yo...

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_M...

Wraeththu: http://www.amazon.com/Wraeththu-Storm-Constantine/dp/0312890...

⬐ gruseom

Cialdini is classic. It's the only science book I've stayed up all night to finish, it's such a page turner. Plus I remember astonishingly more of it than I do of most books. His anecdotes really help with that.

(It was a different edition though.)

⬐ tptacek

I read Cialdini years ago because Joel Spolsky recommended it here:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/navLinks/fog0000000262.html

From that list, I also highly recommend:

* Peopleware (get your cofounders to read it too)

* Godel Escher Bach

* A Pattern Language (but don't bother reading it straight through)

* Growing A Business

⬐ gruseom

I love Pattern Language and use ideas from it all the time. It, and Alexander, are much more interesting than the mechanistic stuff that software people reduced him to. I think Chris Alexander is one of those rare cases where it's possible to see that an individual is right and an entire field is wrong.

Growing a Business I read because you recommended it on HN a few years ago!

Peopleware I remember as being pretty enlightened in spirit and ahead of its time for software projects, but one of those once-you-get-it-you-get-it things. Also, they totally made shit up in that book (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=333694).

GEB, meh. Hofstadter always struck me as the pseudo-profound type. Perhaps I am unfair.

⬐ akkartik

Wow, first criticism I've ever heard of GEB.

Finally got off my ass and purchased Pattern Language. (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195019199, right?)

⬐ gruseom

That's the one. I hope you enjoy thumbing through it.

The first thing from that book that caught my attention was his point about rooms feeling more alive when they have light coming in on two different sides. I've noticed that, or the lack of it, in just about every room ever since.

Hofstadter? It's always the same grad-students-drinking-beer mentality: hey man, this thing is totally like that other thing. The connections seem profound, but are not, because they don't have deep roots in anything. The real tell is that nothing of great value ever comes out of this way of doing business (I mean this style, not H's work specifically). It's an intellectual sugar rush.

But again, perhaps I am unfair.

⬐ tptacek

I'm not as rigorous as you are; the idea that Demarco and Lister made up historical anecdotes in the book doesn't perturb me too much, because the value of the book isn't so much prescriptive ("break your company into tiny teams and let them each pick a far-flung cool-looking skunkworks office") --- it's more that it provides a new way of looking at how your company is organized.

On the other hand, I didn't "get" Surfer Rosa for like a year after I bought it, because by the time I had (in the early 90's) almost all the music I listened to was more or less cribbed from Pixies songs. Maybe the same thing happened with Peopleware, where pretty much every blog post we read about dev teams expresses a sentiment traceable to some part of Peopleware.

In my defense with GEB: I didn't read it because Joel Spolsky told me to, I read it because a girlfriend did. A similar logic had me pretending to enjoy Faulkner. My take on Hofstadter may be oddly colored. Also: I haven't read any of his other books and am not a Lisper, so he's had fewer opportunities to annoy me.

⬐ gruseom

Oh, the making shit up part doesn't perturb me (well, maybe a little) - I just think it's worth mentioning. Your Pixies analogy is very clever. If Peopleware is the Pixies then maybe Jerry Weinberg would be the Velvets? Maybe not. The Velvets kind of stand on their own pretty well. Maybe the MC5. There's a band I never got, though they were pretty influential pre-punk. (My point is that Weinberg's early stuff on human factors in software -- Psychology of Computer Programming -- was seminal, but not particularly readable now.)

⬐ akkartik

I wish I could grok these references :/ I didn't grow up in the US, so my musical knowledge ends with classical rock (and even that's not very deep).

⬐ gruseom

Do you like rock n roll? If no, I wouldn't bother. If yes, there is an unbelievable world of music to explore, and you're in luck, because you can easily get most of it on the internet instead of spending countless hours combing through dingy record stores as we used to have to do.

As far as alternative rock music (the stuff that never got played on commercial radio) goes, there are basically two schools: the kick-ass school (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDNzQ3CXspU) and the melodic school (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=844bENvq0e0). If you like either of those, there's a universe out there. I've always loved both. And that's not to mention the parallel/intersecting universe of black music with its tremendous riches. The five peak years or so of late 60s soul, when blues and gospel merged, are particularly great. Their emotional resonance is unmatched by anything anywhere. A mid-period example is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5fqWugnIhk (1967) and a late one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPUGC4zFMjc (1971 or so). Again, there's a whole universe of this. Several, rather.

The 60s and 70s were a musical supernova. Especially the 60s, though the 70s stuff often sounds better. It seems you can spend the rest of your life finding amazing stuff from that era. A guy I knew named Greg Shaw who was one of the great champions of punk and garage rock had over a million records. He went all over buying them for pennies at yard sales because people thought they were junk. Later he released selections of his favorites on low-budget compilation albums. Every generation rediscovers this music. Stuff like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoBB0e-dVhc and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZXkzao9KvA.

As far as rock music goes, the best material today is no different from the best of decades ago. It's the exact same patterns being reworked. Take e.g. the Black Keys- that's all they do. That's no criticism; it's the same thing the "originals" were doing. It's a little weird that 45 years mean so little culturally - i.e. that the music of 45 years ago and today are (technology aside) about the same. The process hasn't been linear. It's more like a state change occurred in the post-war years and we've been living in that reality ever since.

⬐ akkartik

Thanks for that slam-bang tour, I'm going to digest it slowly.

I like rock, but I don't tend to put on music as much as others. I'm more likely to hum it than listen to it. I usually have something stuck in my head. I watched Soylent Green a few weeks ago and had Beethoven's ninth stuck in my head for days. Anyway, I think not tending to turn on music makes me less likely to discover new music.

⬐ tptacek

The Velvets are The Velvet Underground, a New York band best known for songs like "Who Loves The Sun", "Sweet Jane", and "Heroin". They're one of the precursors to punk music.

Listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xcwt9mSbYE

The joke is, almost nobody bought the first Velvets album, but everyone who did started a band. Which brings us to the Pixies, which is a Boston band from the late eighties that combined sounds from the Velvets, surf rock, punk, and "college rock" indie like Husker Du and is more or less the greatest band of all time sorry Daniel but it's true.

Listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdzoK5jwESM

All this is just to build an elaborate and overwrought metaphor; Kurt Cobain from Nirvana famously claimed that everything on Nevermind, their best-known album, was more or less lifted directly from the Pixies. The Pixies are another band notorious for being more influential than commercially successful.

So the point being, Peopleware, decades old, blog posts today, &c, you get it.

⬐ akkartik

Yup, got the reference. Thanks for the musical links as well.

⬐ gruseom

The line about everyone who bought the first VU album started a band is usually attributed to Brian Eno. I wouldn't say they were a precursor to punk so much as to all things indie. The Stooges were the biggest precursor to punk. John Cale, the avant-garde genius from the Velvets, did produce the Stooges, but that was after Lou Reed had kicked him out. I've never been a huge VU fan musically though I like them fine, but there's no denying they were sui generis and everything art-cool in rock music since can be traced back to them. (I was a huge fan of Cale's 1970s solo albums though. Do you know them? Equal parts exquisite and menacing.)

Pixies... why sorry? I admit I never got them though - not then and not since. I need more melody and song structure than that, and the ironic-detached thing only gets me so far.

Re Cobain, he may have said that, but it isn't true. Nevermind is classic because he pulled off what no one else had and blended the indie-noise thing with classic pop songwriting. I think that was genius and his tragedy was being embedded in a subculture that didn't respect that. There's a documentary floating around online (edit: at http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/kurt_cobain_about_a_s...) in which he says that his original idea for a band was Black Sabbath crossed with bubblegum and that no one else got it. In that subculture (which I remember well, and the pretentious twattage that went with it) it was de rigeur to piss all over the pop side; that was how you established your cred. It was also a limiting move: it's why the music from that period isn't anywhere close to the level of the Ramones or Pistols or many others. (I suppose we disagree here.) Anyway, Cobain put them together and millions of people loved it and he never lived that down. Nor alas did he ever do it again.

Re the Pixies - have you seen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEPi5EQjEpw? David Sanborn, yuppy purveyor of intolerable smooth-jazz, somehow had the coolest musical thing going on TV in the late 80s. It was canceled after he had the Residents perform with Conway Twitty!

⬐ tptacek

I think Nirvana picked up a thread that had already been running through REM and the Replacements and that started with Big Star; I'm hesitant to give him too much credit for the an idea as big as "revitalizing serious pop music", but it's hard to put a finger on why I listen to Nirvana so much more than I listen to The Replacements.

Love John Cale. Not so much a Lou Reed fan.

Night Music! Had no idea! That hair! How could this not be great? Thank you!

Cialdini's Influence: Science and Practice is amazing. It is almost a perfect mix (at least, in my opinion) between rigorous (citing studies) and accessible (using anecdotes, etc).

http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Practice-Robert-B-Cialdini/d...

Unfortunately, most of the best information I have received for psychology came from the two classes I took (Social Psych, and Behavior in Organizations). I learned a tremendous amount, but very little (if anything) from the other books.