Our brain loves shortcuts, and they can be used to manipulate us.

When opportunities become scarce, we desire them more.

As we’ve just seen, people tend to look to others for guidance as to how to behave. And this tendency is strongest when the person observed is similar to ourselves, an effect that can be seen in how susceptible teenagers are to the opinions and fashion choices of their peers.

Our tendency to emulate others also produces a rather grim statistic: when

To protect ourselves against likability manipulation, a good step is to ask ourselves whether we have come to like someone or something unusually strongly in a short time. If so, this could be due to some form of manipulation, and alarm bells should ring.

This dynamic is also used by church ushers who “salt” collection baskets with a few bills before the service to make it seem like everyone is making donations. And it’s why companies often advertise products with lines like “best-selling” or “fastest-growing” – it makes customers feel like others are buying the products too.

Social proof becomes a p

We want to stay true to our word.

Have you ever wondered why sitcoms often have laugh tracks?

In fact, research indicates laugh tracks will make us laugh longer and more often, especially at bad jokes.

This is due to the principle of social proof , which states that we often decide what the correct course of action is by looking to others’ behavior. In the case of the laugh track, ev

Weathermen, for example, have gotten death threats for accurately predicting poor weather, simply because they are associated with it.

You know the old adage that people only want what they can’t have? Well, there is some truth to it. Parents, for example, often observe this phenomenon in their children: a toy will immediately become far more attractive if a child is expressly forbidden from playing with it

So when does scarcity become a powerful influence on our decision-making?

Two conditions need to be fulfilled:

First, we tend to want something more if its availability has decreased recently than if it has remained steady over time. This is why revolutions tend to happen when living conditions deteriorate sharply rather than when they are consistent