Please remember this perverse outcome

Sunday, March 19th, 2017

Charlie Munger was not impressed with academic psychology, but he was impressed with Robert Cialdini‘s Influence:

Cialdini had made himself into a super-tenured “Regents’ Professor” at a very young age by devising, describing, and explaining a vast group of clever experiments in which man manipulated man to his detriment, with all of this made possible by man’s intrinsic thinking flaws.

I immediately sent copies of Cialdini’s book to all my children — I also gave Cialdini a share of Berkshire stock [Class A] to thank him for what he had done for me and the public. Incidentally, the sale by Cialdini of hundreds of thousands of copies of a book about social psychology was a huge feat, considering that Cialdini didn’t claim that he was going to improve your sex life or make you any money.

Part of Cialdini’s large book-buying audience came because, like me, it wanted to learn how to become less often tricked by salesmen and circumstances. However, as an outcome not sought by Cialdini, who is a profoundly ethical man, a huge number of his books were bought by salesmen who wanted to learn how to become more effective in misleading customers. Please remember this perverse outcome when my discussion comes to incentive-caused biases a consequence of the superpower of incentives.

Cialdini’s Pre-Suasion came out recently.

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