Influence

One of the government’s former behavioural scientists reveals how you can do what you want, whilst everybody tries to influence you into doing what they want.

Influence makes you think what you think and do as you do. You use it to change the thoughts and behaviours of others – just as others use it change yours.

We have been perfecting our influence for millions of years, but in the last 20 years digital technologies have revolutionised how influence works. We are now connected to old school friends and niche interest groups – but unwittingly also to organised criminals, terrorists and hostile states who infiltrate our societies. The course of history is being shaped: elections have been hijacked, lies spread about pandemics and the rapidly heating climate, and information has become as important as bullets and bombs to winning wars. More than ever, influence has become the crucial currency for commercial and political gain: If you don’t understand it, you will likely become its victim.

Written by a former government behavioural scientist working at the cutting edge of this field, Influence is a groundbreaking guide to the chaotic and murky world we live in. Through examining five key factors we are taken on a tour from the past to our real-world present, to build a picture of the major role influence plays in everyday life.

Influence provides a simple personal plan illustrating how you can use influence to achieve your goals – whether gaining that promotion, getting your friends to a music festival, or your children to eat their greens. But by understanding the nature of influence, you will also see how it is changing in the information age, enabling dangerous adversaries to gain power, leaving our societies in peril. Most importantly, by using the tools of influence you will be empowered to play your part in protecting us – it will be down to you and everyone you know.

Influence is a fascinating guide to how you can help by understanding it, using it and resisting it.

Review

'A fascinating and valuable guide' Will Storr, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Science of Storytelling

'In a world of disinformation, information warfare and shadowy influence, this book is essential reading' Carl Miller, author of The Death of the Gods, Winner of the Transmission Prize 2019, and co-founder of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos

About the Author

Justin Hempson-Jones is a behavioural scientist specialising in the theory and practice of social influence and behaviour change for defence and security. He formerly worked for New Scotland Yard, the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratories, and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). He now leads the behavioural science research and innovation company, Social Machines.