Tag

persuasion

Entries tagged with persuasion - exploring this theme across cognitive biases, logical fallacies, mental models, and more.

15 concepts

Appeal to Common Sense

Using 'it's just common sense' as a substitute for evidence or argument, treating intuition as self-evident truth.

Using feelings rather than evidence to persuade - bypassing the argument and going straight for the heart.

We give disproportionate weight to the opinions of people we perceive as authorities - even outside their expertise.

When correcting someone's false belief makes them believe it even more strongly.

We grow to like people we've done favours for, not just people who've done favours for us.

The pull to adjust your beliefs, behaviours, or opinions to match those of the group around you.

When someone breaks from expected behaviour, you don't just notice - you react more strongly than the behaviour itself would normally warrant.

The way information is presented changes how we respond to it - even when the underlying facts are identical.

Repeat something often enough and people start to believe it - not because it's true, but because it's familiar.

The range of ideas the public considers acceptable at any given time - and how that range can be deliberately shifted.

The instinct to resist or do the opposite when you feel your freedom of choice is being threatened or taken away.

Feeling worse off based on who you compare yourself to, not on what you actually have.

The rhetorical strategy of making a claim more believable, more familiar, and more powerful simply by saying it again and again.

We look at what other people are doing to decide what we should do - especially when we're uncertain.

The practice of engaging with the strongest possible version of someone's argument, rather than the weakest - the opposite of a straw man.