Pick-up artists claim to use psychological tricks to manipulate women into close encounters. The story is that if you follow a certain procedure, or method, you’ll play off instincts and hidden desires and such that women aren’t consciously aware of.
I don’t know how much of that is true, but I’m pretty sure most people find it creepy.
But don’t we do it all the time in other circumstances?
If you nod your head yes while trying to get someone’s consent, they’re (allegedly) more likely to agree with you. If you use the right color button on a landing page, people are more likely to click on it. Some words are more likely to get an open on an email.
We manipulate people all the time.
Humans like to believe they’re in charge of their actions, but there’s a lot of weird stuff going on in our brains that can affect our decisions. I’ve been told that the taller candidate usually wins an election.
We’re rational animals, but maybe not as rational as we’d like to think.
Our ability to manipulate behavior is getting stronger all the time. We’re learning tricks and traps, and ways to make things into games. Websites and apps use lessons learned in the gambling industry to get people addicted. Uh … I mean to get “more engagement.”
Have we stopped to consider where to draw the line? Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
Showering and dressing nicely before a date isn’t creepy, but following a seduction playbook is.
How do content creators know when they’ve gone too far?
