The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others

Tali Sharot

Sep 2017 · Macmillan Audio · Kuchazwe ngu-Xe Sands

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A cutting-edge, research-based inquiry into how we influence those around us, and how understanding the brain can help us change minds for the better.

In The Influential Mind, neuroscientist Tali Sharot takes us on a thrilling exploration of the nature of influence. We all have a duty to affect others—from the classroom to the boardroom to social media. But how skilled are we at this role, and can we become better? It turns out that many of our instincts—from relying on facts and figures to shape opinions, to insisting others are wrong or attempting to exert control—are ineffective, because they are incompatible with how people’s minds operate. Sharot shows us how to avoid these pitfalls, and how an attempt to change beliefs and actions is successful when it is well-matched with the core elements that govern the human brain.

Sharot reveals the critical role of emotion in influence, the weakness of data and the power of curiosity. Relying on the latest research in neuroscience, behavioral economics and psychology, the audiobook provides fascinating insight into the complex power of influence, good and bad.

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Tali Sharot is the author of The Optimism Bias and is the director of the Affective Brain Lab at University College London. Her papers on the neuroscience of optimism, emotional memories, and cognitive dissonance have been published in Nature, Science, Nature, Neuroscience and Psychological Science. She has also written for The New York Times and Time Magazine. Sharot has conducted research at the University of California, Harvard University and the Weizmann Institute for Science and is currently a visiting professor at Harvard Medical School.