Invisible Influence

Jonah Berger, the bestselling author of Contagious, explores the subtle, secret influences that affect the decisions we makefrom what we buy, to the careers we choose, to what we eatin his latest New York Times bestseller that is a rare business book thats both informative and enough fun to take to the beach (Fortune.com).If youre like most people, you think your individual tastes and opinions drive your choices and behaviors. You wear a certain jacket because you liked how it looked. You picked a particular career because you found it interesting. The notion that our choices are driven by our own personal thoughts and opinions is patently obvious. Right? Wrong. Without our realizing it, other peoples behavior has a huge influence on everything we do at every moment of our lives, from the mundane to the momentous. Even strangers have an impact on our judgments and decisions: our attitudes toward a welfare policy shift if were told it is supported by Democrats versus Republicans (even though the policy is the same). But social influence doesnt just lead us to do the same things as others. In some cases we imitate others around us. But in other cases we avoid particular choices or behaviors because other people are doing them. We stop listening to a band because they go mainstream. We skip buying the minivan because we dont want to look like a soccer mom. By understanding how social influence works, we can decide when to resist and when to embrace itand learn how we can use this knowledge to exercise more control over our own behavior. In Invisible Influence, Jonah Berger is consistently entertaining, applying science to real life in surprising ways and explaining research through narrative. His book fascinates because it opens up the moving parts of a mysterious machine, allowing readers to watch them in action (Publishers Weekly).