In order to gather material for this book, psychologist Robert Levin had to temporarily abandon the familiar life of an armchair scientist and immerse himself in the environment of those who made deception their profession.
In order to gather material for this book, psychologist Robert Levin had to temporarily abandon the familiar life of an armchair scientist and immerse himself in the environment of those who made deception their profession. In an effort to discover how the mechanisms of persuasion work, he talked with professional scammers and dexterous merchants who are able to sell almost any product to a gullible buyer, with patented “psychics” and leaders of totalitarian sects. The results were impressive: no matter what the masters of manipulation tried to “sell” to their victim – a fake watch, a used car, or a candidate for high political office, their methods were distinguished by amazing monotony and at the same time incredibly effective. Having studied in detail this meager but effective arsenal, Levin developed and described his own methods of “anti-manipulation” that allow him to successfully resist pressure and maintain common sense in any circumstances.
Dialectics, 432 p.