Split-Second Persuasion: The Ancient Art and New Science of Changing Minds [Hardcover]

This is not a book about persuasion along the lines of Cialdini, nor is it about conversational hypnosis along the lines of Milton Erickson, this is about manipulators and manipulation.

The book investigates the darker side of human nature. My mother once worked in a mental hospital, and she explained how, after she had been working there for a few months, she began to wonder whether she herself were insane. Many patients spoke with convincing sincerity when they were in fact speaking nonsense; reading this book might give you a similar feeling. We are shown an alternative world, a parallel world where people are not accountable for human suffering.

Although the cohesion of the book could be put on trial, we have many strands, more strands than are presented in similar books about guiltless manipulators. All of these strands are explained well, offering us some degree of protection against the worst elements of human nature.

When you read about how highly manipulative people work, you begin to realise the feeling of power that they must feel. They understand exactly how the rest of us work, yet because they lack empathy, they can work most people in much the same way that a puppeteer operates a puppet. These people have no emotional feeling for others, nor do they possess any sense of responsibility for their actions, yet ironically they would probably tell us that this shortfall `sets them free'. Again, as I mentioned in my review of Martha Stout's book, after reading this kind of literature we will tend to find ourselves looking around and trying to put various people we don't get along with into the `without conscience' bracket. Robert Hare suggests that at some point in our lives we will run into this type of character, but not with great frequency - it won't be every other relationship ex or every other boss. It is important to distinguish the many shades of nasty human nature. Hare also asserts that diagnosis should only be carried out by those fully qualified to do so.

Knowledge is protection, and here is the appropriate knowledge, but in addition to the `dark stories' there is a wealth of interesting material on broader aspects of human behaviour. For example, we learn how we unconsciously judge people on the basis of facial features, and similarly, we learn how we unconsciously respond to various other stimuli. We are also shown a number of cognitive loopholes. In fact, the parts that discuss attraction and cognitive perception might provide ideas that we could use in a productive way.

I've given this book five stars because of the breadth of interesting information presented and because of the clarity of the explanations, but had I been looking for a well organised book on persuasion in terms of sales and marketing I would probably have been very disappointed.

Perhaps foolishly, I bought this book hoping for a look at some of the science of persuasion and if 'split-second persuasion' was indeed possible. Instead, the book reads like a late-night TV infomercial. It was painful to read, and I felt like I needed to bathe once finished.

If you really want this book, I'll give you my copy (you pay for postage; I've wasted more than enough money on this book).