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Changing Minds
So what's it all about?
The ChangingMinds website started as a repository of learning about all forms persuasion and influence that reaches back over 20 years and more. As an inveterate learner and qualified teacher, David Straker went from writing books to writing directly to the web -- and now the site has many visitors every day.
Is it really the book of the site?
Of course you cannot squeeze over 3000 web pages into 300 paper pages, so it's not a direct clone. Yet many of the methods and principles have been shoe-horned into a very readable space.
It is much more than the site
It is not a cut-and-paste job. Far from it. It took 18 months and many hours to especially write every single page. Sure, there will be some familiarity if you have read all the way through the website, but there's plenty of new stuff too.
In many ways it goes beyond what you will find in these web pages. For example, it contains:
A completely new persuasion framework
A simple, yet powerful model of how the mind works
Many diagrams and tables
Additional persuasion principles and methods
At the same time, it is written in the same friendly and readable style as the site.
Bite-sized learning
The web has been written with limited-length pages for bite-sized learning and easy digestion. The book follows this principle, and each page and section can easily be read alone, making it a very 'dippable' volume. In one go, you can read a page, a part of a page or a whole section.
Applied, applied
And yes, it is applied. It is about the actual practice of changing minds and contains many, many direct techniques you can use.
Whilst it is grounded in academic research and experience, it is not constrained by this. It is important that you understand what you are doing, but above all, it is about how to do it.
Tell me about the new persuasion framework
In studying many different disciplines of persuasion, a common underlying structure has emerged. It is simple, yet powerful and provides a deep understanding on which you can base your persuasions.
Sorry, but it's not detailed here -- you'll have to buy the book to learn more about it!
And now in it's second edition
The book has now been revised into a second edition, with various corrections and new additions. Now there's even more about changing minds for you to discover!
The ChangingMinds website started as a repository of learning about all forms persuasion and influence that reaches back over 20 years and more. As an inveterate learner and qualified teacher, David Straker went from writing books to writing directly to the web -- and now the site has many visitors every day.
Is it really the book of the site?
Of course you cannot squeeze over 3000 web pages into 300 paper pages, so it's not a direct clone. Yet many of the methods and principles have been shoe-horned into a very readable space.
It is much more than the site
It is not a cut-and-paste job. Far from it. It took 18 months and many hours to especially write every single page. Sure, there will be some familiarity if you have read all the way through the website, but there's plenty of new stuff too.
In many ways it goes beyond what you will find in these web pages. For example, it contains:
A completely new persuasion framework
A simple, yet powerful model of how the mind works
Many diagrams and tables
Additional persuasion principles and methods
At the same time, it is written in the same friendly and readable style as the site.
Bite-sized learning
The web has been written with limited-length pages for bite-sized learning and easy digestion. The book follows this principle, and each page and section can easily be read alone, making it a very 'dippable' volume. In one go, you can read a page, a part of a page or a whole section.
Applied, applied
And yes, it is applied. It is about the actual practice of changing minds and contains many, many direct techniques you can use.
Whilst it is grounded in academic research and experience, it is not constrained by this. It is important that you understand what you are doing, but above all, it is about how to do it.
Tell me about the new persuasion framework
In studying many different disciplines of persuasion, a common underlying structure has emerged. It is simple, yet powerful and provides a deep understanding on which you can base your persuasions.
Sorry, but it's not detailed here -- you'll have to buy the book to learn more about it!
And now in it's second edition
The book has now been revised into a second edition, with various corrections and new additions. Now there's even more about changing minds for you to discover!
- GenresPsychology
298 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
8 people are currently reading
253 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 3, 2019
Hidden Gem
I have been on this quest of understanding human nature to help protect myself from the games that people play. Especially in the work force. This has resulted in me reading certain types of psychology and some strategy books.
What I dismissed were books on dealing with persuasion. When I think of persuasion, I think of jobs that deal with sales which I do not like or jobs that require its employees to meet quotas. It obviously turns out that we persuade others in different ways. Those ways of persuasion could be in such a way that our judgement and decision making process is manipulated to do something for someone else. As a result, I missed out on some valuable information.
Changing Minds - In Detail by David Straker discusses how we persuade and interact with others by use of our senses. The book is primarily split into four parts: How we think and how that is associated with persuasion, how people interact with others, discusses the Core Process—a system used for persuasion and how the information is commonly used.
I learned a few tidbits about how the subconscious works and how that could be used for learning in general.
The authors website Changing Minds has a very VAST amount of information regarding the topics of persuasion and psychology and that because the study of psychology is so large, it personally will help narrow down the relevant topics of interest to me.
If you are wanting to learn about persuasion and psychology to use with good intent, I would like to recommend this book.
I do hope the author will release an updated version of this book.
This book has such valuable information that first, it will be read again, second, will be used as reference material regarding social interactions and third, has been added to my favorites list.
I found quite a few grammatical errors but the book but will not be penalized.
Dictionary/Reference Review Word Count: 28
Grammatical Error Word Count: 84 (1 possible error)
I have been on this quest of understanding human nature to help protect myself from the games that people play. Especially in the work force. This has resulted in me reading certain types of psychology and some strategy books.
What I dismissed were books on dealing with persuasion. When I think of persuasion, I think of jobs that deal with sales which I do not like or jobs that require its employees to meet quotas. It obviously turns out that we persuade others in different ways. Those ways of persuasion could be in such a way that our judgement and decision making process is manipulated to do something for someone else. As a result, I missed out on some valuable information.
Changing Minds - In Detail by David Straker discusses how we persuade and interact with others by use of our senses. The book is primarily split into four parts: How we think and how that is associated with persuasion, how people interact with others, discusses the Core Process—a system used for persuasion and how the information is commonly used.
I learned a few tidbits about how the subconscious works and how that could be used for learning in general.
The authors website Changing Minds has a very VAST amount of information regarding the topics of persuasion and psychology and that because the study of psychology is so large, it personally will help narrow down the relevant topics of interest to me.
If you are wanting to learn about persuasion and psychology to use with good intent, I would like to recommend this book.
I do hope the author will release an updated version of this book.
This book has such valuable information that first, it will be read again, second, will be used as reference material regarding social interactions and third, has been added to my favorites list.
I found quite a few grammatical errors but the book but will not be penalized.
Dictionary/Reference Review Word Count: 28
Grammatical Error Word Count: 84 (1 possible error)
July 21, 2019
This book is similar to that of 'How to Win Friends and Influence Others' in genre however its dense theory makes it a good reference book covering many other topics. This is great for the manager or any other interested in learning about people. I highly recommend it!
Check out the website it's based off of for a better feel: www.changingminds.org
Want to see more? Check out my complete list below!
>> shorturl.at/bcsEH <<
Check out the website it's based off of for a better feel: www.changingminds.org
Want to see more? Check out my complete list below!
>> shorturl.at/bcsEH <<
March 23, 2019
Exceptional.
Read
July 9, 2021great thoughts
July 17, 2014
Good book
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews