Top

The Influential Mind

On sale

2nd August 2018

Price: £10.99

British Psychological Book Award - Popular Science category, 2018

Select a format

Selected: Paperback / ISBN-13: 9780349140636

Disclosure: If you buy products using the retailer buttons above, we may earn a commission from the retailers you visit.

Selected as a best book of 2017 by Forbes, The Times, Huffington Post, Bloomberg, Greater Good Magazine, Stanford Business School and more.

‘A timely, intriguing book’ Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take

This profound book will change your life. An instant classic’ Cass R. Sunstein, bestselling co-author of Nudge

Part of our daily job as humans is to influence others; we teach our children, guide our patients, advise our clients, help our friends and inform our online followers. We do this because we each have unique experiences and knowledge that others may not. But how good are we at this role? It turns out we systematically fall back on suboptimal habits when trying to change other’s beliefs and behaviors. Many of these instincts-from trying to scare people into action, to insisting the other is wrong or attempting to exert control-are ineffective, because they are incompatible with how the mind operates.

Reviews

New York Times Book Review
The Influential Mind covers the topic more fully and more authoritatively in a book whose title gives appropriately equal billing to thought, behavior and neurons . . . A witty survey of techniques to influence and guide human behavior
David Brooks, New York Times
Better facts tend to be counterproductive on hot-button issues like gun control. As Tali Sharot notes in her book The Influential Mind . . . The smarter a person is, the greater his or her ability to rationalize and reinterpret discordant information, and the greater the polarizing boomerang effect is likely to be
Nature
Advertising, politics, education - any juxtaposition of human and message involves influence. But why might a patently ill-informed demagogue sway more people than a scientist? In this perceptive study, cognitive neuroscientist Tali Sharot isolates seven factors central to influence
Cass R. Sunstein, Harvard University; former Administrator for the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and bestselling coauthor of Nudge
The Influential Mind will make you gasp with surprise - and laugh with recognition. Many of our most cherished beliefs about how to influence others turn out to be wrong; Sharot sets them right. Packed with practical insights, this profound book will change your life. An instant classic
Caroline Webb, author of How to Have a Good Day
This brilliant and timely book is essential reading for anyone who wants an intelligent, principled guide to getting their ideas heard and their hopes fulfilled. If you follow Tali Sharot's scientifically-backed guidance, you'll become one of those great communicators and changemakers that everyone raves about - persuasive and inspirational in equal measure
Caroline Webb, Author of How to Have a Good Day, CEO of Sevenshift, Senior Adviser to McKinsey & Company
This brilliant and timely book is essential reading for anyone who wants an intelligent, principled guide to getting their ideas heard and their hopes fulfilled. If you follow Tali Sharot's scientifically-backed guidance, you'll become one of those great communicators and changemakers that everyone raves about-persuasive and inspirational in equal measure
Steve Martin, New York Times bestselling co-author of Yes! 60 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion
Concisely written, compellingly presented, and eminently applicable
Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com & New York Times bestselling author of Delivering Happiness
A fantastic journey through the process of forming beliefs and ideas
Michael Norton, Harvard Business School, coauthor of Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending
The Influential Mind brilliantly unpacks the science of influence, offering guidance not only on how to influence others - but how to stop others from influencing us
Robert B. Cialdini, author of Influence and Pre-Suasion
In the arena of behavioral science, little has held more potential than the streaking advances in behavioral neuroscience and little has stood to gain as much from those advances as the study of social influence. With The Influential Mind, Tali Sharot has offered an account that makes the connection in a way that is both instructive and engaging
Daniel Finkelstein, The Times
In every chapter of this book about social psychology, its neuroscientist author manages an insightful and discomforting observation about the human mind
Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman, Oglivy & Mather
This book not only a primer on persuasion; it is far more valuable than that. It explains why so many of our well-meaning attempts to change people's minds can backfire so badly. Trump haters take note
David Eagleman, Stanford University neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author
With a scientist's vision and a writer's grace, Sharot unmasks the secrets of influence: how people make and change their minds-and why
Time
In the age of big data, it's easy to assume that cold, hard facts can drive change. Not so fast, argues cognitive scientist Tali Sharot, whose new book, The Influential Mind, explores how emotion tends to overpower reason when it comes to human decision-making
Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take
Take it from a leading neuroscientist: every day, we all miss opportunities to influence others. This timely, intriguing book explains why it's so difficult to shift the attitudes and actions of others - and what we can do about it
Science
Lucid and engaging . . . Sharot's treatment is particularly valuable for its balance between accessibility to the reader and solid grounding in scientific research. In today's "posttruth" environment, her efforts to increase awareness of the pitfalls of human reasoning, and how to overcome them, are an indispensable contribution from the coalface of cognitive scientific research