Influence: Science and Practice (4th Edition) by Robert B. Cialdini Buy at: Amazon

The psychology of influence, tricks used to sell you stuff and how to defend yourself.

Don't be put off by the way it reads like a psychology text book. I've found this an interesting and, in places, amusing read.

The basics: the mind has a bunch of triggers which are mostly useful in our day-to-day life; however, if you know about them they can be activated to, say, sell you something or get you agree to something you'd really rather not do.

This book is a study of the fundamentals behind various real-world influence practices. There are chapters on reciprocation, consistency, social proof, and so on, to classify a set of behaviours when are then explained with examples. This includes a bunch of psychology experiments that must border on the illegal.

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