The Psychology of Manipulation

Abstract

Abstract This chapter discusses psychological mechanisms that contribute to the mistakes that manipulators induce targets to make. It begins with a sketch of a simple model of decision and action. Next, it discusses how limits on time and information create challenges for decision-making. Because of these limits, most decision-making relies on a combination of fast, unconscious processes that identify promising courses of action, and slower, conscious processes that select among them. This is the basic insight of dual process theories of decision-making. Adding the findings and insights from these theories to the sketch of decision-making helps us see a variety of ways that manipulation works. The chapter concludes with a discussion of several cognitive and decision-making biases that facilitate manipulation. These include the availability heuristic; framing effects; the status quo bias; the immediacy bias; and biases toward social conformity and against conflict.

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