This thoroughly intriguing volume explains the many ways our thoughts are manipulated through temptation, distraction, misdirection, and more. From politics to sales, education, romance, and parenthood, everyone plays—wittingly or not—the roles of manipulator or manipulated. Thought Manipulation: The Use and Abuse of Psychological Trickery offers a thorough understanding of the art of manipulation, leading readers on a fascinating journey into the gray areas of ethics, politics, leadership, advertising, psychotherapy, and intimate relationships. The book explains how manipulation works, exploring morally questionable tricks, such as temptation, distraction, and misdirection and introducing manipulative strategies, both simple and sophisticated. At the same time, the author allows that manipulation is not always a bad thing as any effective change in decision-making and human behavior cannot be achieved without employing it to at least a certain degree. Manipulation operates in an infinite variety of guises and situations. Sapir Handelman explains how we can resist such effects, with a focus on ethics and freedom of choice.

This thoroughly intriguing volume explains the many ways our thoughts are manipulated through temptation, distraction, misdirection, and more. From politics to sales, education, romance, and parenthood, everyone plays—wittingly or not—the roles of manipulator or manipulated. Thought Manipulation: The Use and Abuse of Psychological Trickery offers a thorough understanding of the art of manipulation, leading readers on a fascinating journey into the gray areas of ethics, politics, leadership, advertising, psychotherapy, and intimate relationships. The book explains how manipulation works, exploring morally questionable tricks, such as temptation, distraction, and misdirection and introducing manipulative strategies, both simple and sophisticated. At the same time, the author allows that manipulation is not always a bad thing as any effective change in decision-making and human behavior cannot be achieved without employing it to at least a certain degree. Manipulation operates in an infinite variety of guises and situations. Sapir Handelman explains how we can resist such effects, with a focus on ethics and freedom of choice.

Informed by Erik Erikson's concept of the formation of ego identity, this book, which first appreared in 1961, is an analysis of the experiences of fifteen Chinese citizens and twenty-five Westerners who underwent "brainwashing" by the Communist Chinese government. Robert Lifton constructs these case histories through personal interviews and outlines a thematic pattern of death and rebirth, accompanied by feelings of guilt, that characterizes the process of "thought reform." In a new preface, Lifton addresses the implications of his model for the study of American religious cults.

SUCCESS through MANIPULATION Get it, before it gets you! Do you realize you are being manipulated, or are you oblivious? Do you know who or what is manipulating you? Can you identify the manipulation? If you can identify it, can you do anything about it? How is manipulation affecting you? Can you change these effects? Can you use them to your advantage? Success through Manipulation delves deeply into how you think and how your mind reacts to your environment, friends, family, work, and much more. Learn how to stop reacting, become consciously aware and take control of your mind. Manipulate your thinking and become more successful.

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this multi-million-copy New York Times bestseller is the definitive manual for anyone interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control – from the author of The Laws of Human Nature. In the book that People magazine proclaimed “beguiling” and “fascinating,” Robert Greene and Joost Elffers have distilled three thousand years of the history of power into 48 essential laws by drawing from the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Carl Von Clausewitz and also from the lives of figures ranging from Henry Kissinger to P.T. Barnum. Some laws teach the need for prudence (“Law 1: Never Outshine the Master”), others teach the value of confidence (“Law 28: Enter Action with Boldness”), and many recommend absolute self-preservation (“Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally”). Every law, though, has one thing in common: an interest in total domination. In a bold and arresting two-color package, The 48 Laws of Power is ideal whether your aim is conquest, self-defense, or simply to understand the rules of the game.

The Thinker’s Guide to Fallacies introduces the concept of mental trickery and shows readers how to discern and see through forty-four different types of fallacies. Focusing on how human self-deception and manipulation lie behind fallacies, this guide builds reasoning skills and promotes fairminded, logical thought, discussions, and debate. As part of the Thinker’s Guide Library, this book advances the mission of the Foundation for Critical Thinking to promote fair-minded critical societies through cultivating essential intellectual abilities and virtues across every field of study across world.

“Engrossing . . . [An] expedition through the hidden and sometimes horrifying microbial domain.” —The Wall Street Journal Parasites can live only inside another animal and, as Kathleen McAuliffe reveals, these tiny organisms have many evolutionary motives for manipulating the behavior of their hosts. With astonishing precision, parasites can coax rats to approach cats, spiders to transform the patterns of their webs, and fish to draw the attention of birds that then swoop down to feast on them. We humans are hardly immune to their influence. Organisms we pick up from our own pets are strongly suspected of changing our personality traits and contributing to recklessness and impulsivity—even suicide. Germs that cause colds and the flu may alter our behavior even before symptoms become apparent. Parasites influence our species on the cultural level, too. Drawing on a huge body of research, McAuliffe argues that our dread of contamination is an evolved defense against parasites. The horror and revulsion we are programmed to feel when we come in contact with people who appear diseased or dirty helped pave the way for civilization, but may also be the basis for major divisions in societies that persist to this day. This Is Your Brain on Parasites is both a journey into cutting-edge science and a revelatory examination of what it means to be human. “If you’ve ever doubted the power of microbes to shape society and offer us a grander view of life, read on and find yourself duly impressed.” —Bookforum “Fascinating—and full of the kind of factoids you can’t wait to share.” —Scientific American “Humorous, inspiring, and macabre, this is infectious reading in the tradition of giants like Robert S. Desowitz and Jared Diamond.” —Michael A. Huffman, Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University