Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion
Becoming better or more successful by reading about biases seems difficult. After reading Kahneman, Ariely, and others, I've sort of come to the conclusion that a lot of people naturally behave in a way that exploits others' biases. These people gain a slight edge (or many) in life. However, learning to avoid or exploit biases is very difficult - unless you just have the kind of personality that already benefits from many biases.<p>For example, Steve Jobs could be thought of as having a personality which benefits from many biases. A few that I remember instantly: overconfidence bias (others believe you more if you're confident) and halo effect (one positive thing, like good looks, makes people think that you're good in other things too). Probably many others. Any one of these alone - probably wouldn't result in much. He hit a delicate balance, and his personality just worked out. He probably didn't know anything about bias research, and emulating the success of his personality by studying biases would be nigh impossible. Of course, biases aren't the sole reason for his success, but can explain parts of his life, and how he influenced people.<p>So studying biases helps us a little. You learn to understand human behavior a little better. You can maybe fine-tune some parts of your personality. Most stereotypical geeks for example, probably don't act confidently enough. But changing your behavior radically to avoid or exploit biases is still very difficult.