Why Do People Say "Yes?" The "6 Weapons of Influence"

I'll second that, and it goes beyond mere marketing. For example, you're outside at some group event, say, a concert, and you find yourself having a heart attack. What do you do? Do you call for help? "Help, I'm having a heart attack!" That might work, but what works better, according to research, is to call out to a single individual. "You, sir, in the red shirt, yes you! Help me, I'm having a heart attack." This is due to the phenomenon known as "pluralistic ignorance," where a group of people will collectively do nothing in response to some threat/problem, because they're collectively looking around at each other to see what to do (and they see each other doing nothing but looking around...) By singling out someone, you break through the group psychology.

The book emphasizes the subconscious and automatic nature of influence techniques. You may think "oh, I'm rational and can't be manipulated," and you would be wrong. Only becoming aware of them can you have some hope of avoiding them.

People do act rationally. But it's a small minority of the time!

Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration. We tend to act rationally a lot of the time. But those are often "no brainer" situations where there is little question about the best option. The 6 factors in the article come in to play when decisions are less clear.