man manipulated man to his detriment, with all of this made possible by man’s

intrinsic thinking flaws.

 

I immediately sent copies of Cialdini’s book to all my children. I also gave

Cialdini a share of Berkshire stock [Class A] to thank him for what he had done

for me and the public. Incidentally, the sale by Cialdini of hundreds of

thousands of copies of a book about social psychology was a huge feat,

considering that Cialdini didn’t claim that he was going to improve your sex

life or make you any money.

 

Part of Cialdini’s large book-buying audience came because, like me, it wanted

to learn how to become less often tricked by salesmen and circumstances.

However, as an outcome not sought by Cialdini, who is a profoundly ethical man,

a huge number of his books were bought by salesmen who wanted to learn how to

become more effective in misleading customers. Please remember this perverse

outcome when my discussion comes to incentive-caused bias as a consequence of

the superpower of incentives.

 

With the push given by Cialdini’s book, I soon skimmed through three much used

textbooks covering introductory psychology. I also pondered considerably while

craving synthesis and taking into account all my previous training and

experience. The result was Munger’s partial summary of the non-patient-treating,

non-nature vs. nurture-weighing parts of non-developmental psychology. This

material was stolen from its various discoverers (most of whose names I did not

even try to learn), often with new descriptions and titles selected to fit