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The Best Books on Manipulation You Must Read!
Table of Contents
Have you ever in your life wishing you had better persuasion? If you had more skill in this area, you could get a good discount, buy a better quality product, or even close a good deal with your potential customer. In this sense, we will cover in this article 9 books on manipulation for you to learn how to improve this skill and how to protect yourself from destructive manipulations that you can use to your advantage.
But after all, why study manipulation? This is a very controversial topic. However, manipulation in itself is neither bad nor good. It is just a skill that can be used for good or bad. You will be free to make your choices. However, we advise that you use this knowledge for productive and appropriate things. Try to use these new skills to sell your products well, highlighting all their benefits and qualities.
The negative connotation of the word manipulation is undeniable. However, it is not necessarily negative. Observe how teachers and parents manipulate children to do what is good for them, such as not going to dangerous places because there is a horrible monster.
Psychologists use manipulation to get information from their patients and then help them. It is possible to observe supervisors and managers sometimes using manipulation to motivate their employees and bring out the best in each one.
With this quick explanation, let’s talk about the manipulation that benefits your business, which is very different from advertising and sales manipulation. The mass media and politicians clearly use manipulation to achieve their goals, regardless of their personal values. And then there is the emotional manipulation carried out by people close to you. This, without a doubt, is the worst of all.
There are three types of manipulation: manipulation of individuals, masses, and cybernetics. Although the principles governing these may be similar, the execution will differ. If you want to improve yourself and become immune, read the best books on manipulation, we will present below.
Art of Manipulation: How to Get What You Want Out of People in Business, in Your Personal Life, and in Your Love Life by R.B. Sparkman
This book contains techniques, advice, and knowledge on manipulating people until they do what you want. This work will give you all the information you need on the subject. The author hopes that his readers will use the information learned from his book to protect themselves from manipulation.
Against them and that they will use manipulation ethically and kindly, never aiming to harm any person. However, the author is aware that if some readers wish to use the knowledge added in the book for evil, they will do so. Either for selfish reasons or to harm people. For this reason, the last chapter is the most critical part of the book: “You Get Out of Using People for Your Own Selfish Ends.”
You can buy this book in Kidlen’s version for $100.00 or in physical form for $800.00 from Amazon. The work has over 6 reviews.
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
This is not a simple book; it is dangerous work and should not be used to guide how to behave. If you have that goal, you will probably feel unhappy and alone. In the face of this explanation, the book is a powerful insight that will give you a new viewpoint on power. And then you will open your eyes to why some things happen.
With this unique insight, you will start to see something you have never noticed before and begin seeing people with a more critical eye. This is a must-read if you want to become immune to manipulation. For any right-minded person, this will be somewhat tricky reading.
However, the insight you gain will give you an immense advantage in your social interactions. You will notice who is manipulative and who has other complex personality types. Although long, its wealth of detail makes every page worth reading. You will be amazed by this book.
You can buy this book in the Kindle version for $16.99 or in physical form for $11.60 from the Amazon store. The book has over 55,000 reviews.
In Sheep’s Clothing: Understanding and Dealing With Manipulative People by George K. Simon Jr.
With this manual on interpersonal manipulation, you will learn about the nature of manipulative characters. The ways they act and their tactics for deceiving, manipulating, and controlling their victims are chronicled in this work. And, by the end, you will learn exactly the steps to deal with a manipulative person and take control.
The book is difficult for more sensitive people to read because there are many experiential examples. The so-called “aggressive dissimulator” has a particular focus made by the author in the book. This manipulator uses subtle manipulation techniques, always trying to maintain the posture of a good person, a good father, a friend, and a loving partner. These characteristics denote the so-called wolf in sheep’s clothing.
You can buy this book in the Kindle version for $10.99 or in an audiobook for $0.00 at the Amazon store. The work has over 2,000 reviews.
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
This is a book that does not necessarily deal directly with manipulations. First, it is a manual of productive and effective social interactions. It has enormous value for learning how to communicate with people in your daily life and build relationships. It also highlights the benefits of that good building with the promotions, connections, and favors you can get.
Although this book is not like the previous one, you will not be shocked. You will gain insight, clarity, and communication guidance to help you realize your desires and plans. You will find more about common sense than shocking material in this work. In any case, this is a read for you to read and re-read over and over again, learning something new each time.
You can buy this book in audiobook version for $0.00 and in physical form for $10.50 from the Amazon store. The book has over 81,000 reviews.
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini
The author of this work, Robert Cialdini, explains why people say yes and how you can use human nature to get people to say yes to your ideas and proposals. The focus of this book is mainly on the American audience.
In this sense, if you were not born or raised in the United States, some passages and examples in the book may need to be clarified or even incomprehensible. However, you will still be able to gain many insights into how good persuasion works.
There are 6 basic principles of persuasion listed in this book: commitment, reciprocity, consistency, like, social proof, and scarcity. Your learnings will go beyond these 6 principles of persuasion. You will also learn how to detect them and how not to be persuaded to do something you don’t want to do.
You can purchase this book in the Kindle version for $16.99 or in physical form for $17.89 from the Amazon store. The work has over 3,000 reviews.
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
To decision-making. Even though this book is not principally about manipulation itself. We put this one on the list because it is about how we make decisions and where the absences and weaknesses are in our thoughts and actions. Those who know where these characteristics are will know where to manipulate you.
To protect yourself from any manipulation, you need a vast knowledge of yourself, of your natural deficiencies, which are norms in anyone. Only by recognizing yourself will you be able to overcome and become more aware of and defend yourself from manipulation by other people.
You can buy this book in physical form for $17.89 and $11.99 paperback from the Amazon store. The work has over 5,000 reviews.
Manipulation in the digital medium: just as there is manipulation in relationships, friendships, and other interpersonal relationships, there is also manipulation by the digital medium. Knowing how to recognize and protect yourself from them is fundamental. The following two books listed deal with this current issue.
The Art of Deception by Kevin D. Mitnick
The author of the book, Kevin D. Mitnick, is a well-known hacker. After paying his debts, he changed his lifestyle and shared all his acquired knowledge with the world today. Through many stories of his life, Mitnick presents how attackers exploit their human weaknesses, where there are blind spots to extract the most sensitive information.
You can buy this book on Kindle for $10.00 and in physical form for $15.29 from the Amazon store. The book has over 800 reviews.
Social Engineering by Christopher Hadnagy
Social engineering is more than the psychological manipulation of the victim to perform or not perform actions. Such as revealing confidential information or convincing him not to tell his boss about his mistake. In this book, you will learn about all the pros and cons of social engineering, how to protect yourself, and how to use this knowledge beneficially.
You can purchase this book on Kindle for $21.00 and in physical form for $20.49 from Amazon. The book has over 800 reviews.
Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy by Martin Lindstrom
And finally, we leave you with a book that deals with the manipulation of the masses. You may have heard that some companies try manipulating their potential customers in public relations and marketing. If you want to avoid being convinced by such manipulations, read this book.
The tricks of marketers and advertisers will not be surprising after reading this book. You will learn how they do it to manipulate you into buying their product. How they use psychological and emotional manipulation to sell their products. After all, knowing their tactics and strategies is the only way to effectively protect yourself from mass manipulation.
You can buy this book on Kindle for $6.99 and in physical form for $18.99 from the Amazon store. The book has over 280,000 reviews.
Final Thoughts
Reading books on manipulation and persuasion can be excellent tools for everyday life. You can analyze your social relationships, from detecting if you have manipulative friends to your work to dodging advice from manipulators. Through these recommended books, you will learn far beyond the basics; you will become a true expert on identifying manipulation and possibly using it for good.
Paul Martinez is the founder of EcomSidekick.com. He is an expert in the areas of finance, real estate, eCommerce, traffic and conversion.
Join him on EcomSidekick.com to learn how to improve your financial life and excel in these areas. Before starting this media site, Paul built from scratch and managed two multi-million dollar companies. One in the real estate sector and one in the eCommerce sector.