In this course we’re going to learn a lot about the psychology of human judgment and decision-making. That will be interesting and useful in its own right.

But my personal interests lean toward the ethical and the philosophical. The more I learn about the emotional and situational factors that influence our ordinary beliefs and judgments at a nonconscious level, the more I’m compelled to revise my understanding of what it means to be a rational agent, and consequently what it means to be a critical thinker, and what critical thinking education should look like.

With your help, I’m going to use this course as a platform for working out my views on these questions.

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If you bring up the topic of mind control in the context of interpersonal relations, you’re inevitably going to divide people. But I think the questions that naturally arise are important ones.

Consider what you think about the three scenarios I describe below.

Scenario 1:

Derek is a young man preparing to meet a young woman, Carla, for a lunch date. He was introduced to her briefly at a party the previous night. He likes her and wants to make a good impression.

Derek takes time to shower and shave, style his hair and pick a nice flattering shirt. He greets Carla outside the restaurant, holds the door open for her and they go inside. Derek compliments Carla on her shoes. As they wait for a server he begins a conversation about the most recent episode of Game of Thrones, which he had overheard Carla discussing at the party. They talk about their mutual appreciation for the show and various theories for how the story will unfold. Derek asks Carla several leading questions about her background and interests, and shares a humorous story about a mutual friend. Overall, the two have an enjoyable and engaging lunch date.

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What do you think about Derek’s overall conduct in this scenario? Positive? Negative? Neutral?

Now let’s consider another version of this story.

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Scenario 2:

Derek is a young man preparing to meet a young woman, Carla, for a lunch date. He was introduced to her briefly at a party the previous night. He likes her and wants to make a good impression.

Derek has recently finished reading Dale Carnegie’s classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People, first published in 1936. He is also familiar with social psychologist Robert Cialdini’s seminal work on persuasion and influence, summarized in his 2001 book Influence: Science and Practice.

Dale Carnegie has a section in his book titled “Six Ways to Make People to Like You”. Here are his six rules:

Rule 1: Become genuinely interested in other people.

Rule 2: Smile.

Rule 3: Remember that a person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound.

Rule 4: Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.

Rule 5: Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.

Rule 6: Make the other person feel important— and do it sincerely.

Robert Cialdini’s book surveys six proven principles of persuasion. One of these is the principle of “liking”: people are more easily persuaded by people who they like. The chapter on “liking” discusses factors that can cause us to like someone. Here is the list:

Physical Attractiveness – “Research has shown that we automatically assign to good-looking individuals such favorable traits as talent, kindness, honesty, and intelligence.”

Similarity – “We like people who are similar to us. This fact seems to hold true whether the similarity is in the area of opinions, personality traits, background, or lifestyle.”

Compliments – “…we tend, as a rule, to believe praise and to like those who provide it, oftentimes when it is clearly false.”

Contact and Cooperation – “…becoming familiar with something through repeated contact doesn’t necessarily cause greater liking. […we must be] working for the same goals…we must ‘pull together’ for mutual benefit.”

Conditioning and Association – “[Compliance professionals are] incessantly trying to connect themselves or their products with the things we like. Did you ever wonder what all those good-looking models are doing standing around in those automobile ads?”

Derek is familiar with all of these principles. He wants Carla to like him, and sees that some of them can be applied to his upcoming date.

Derek does a quick Google search of Carla and finds her profile on Facebook. He skims through the entries and notes some of the topics and links in which she shows an interest. He notes a link that she shared on Game of Thrones theories, and reads the associated story.

Derek plans his date with Carla. He thinks through how we wants to present himself and how the conversation should go (clean up, remember to smile, compliment her shoes, share a funny story, bring up Game of Thrones, pay attention and listen, …).

Derek also knows that physiological arousal in human beings can be triggered by dilated pupils. Pupils dilate during sexual arousal, and experiments show that seeing someone with dilated pupils can trigger a mirroring physiological response, which can make the person with the dilated pupils appear more attractive to you.

Under dimmer lighting, our pupils naturally widen. Derek knows this. When he and Carla enter the restaurant he looks for a booth that is more dimly lit and leads her there, hoping that he will benefit from the pupil dilation response over the course of their lunch date.

The remainder of the lunch date unfolds as described in scenario 1.

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Now, what do you think about Derek’s overall conduct in this scenario? Any different from the version described in scenario 1?

The common response when I present these scenarios is that almost everyone has no problem with scenario 1. In fact, Derek’s conduct on this date seems admirable to many people. One friend of mine said “I only wish my son had social skills like that”.

By contrast, many people have a strong reaction to scenario 2. They believe there is something objectionable about Derek’s attitude and behavior as he prepares for his date with Carla.

“Derek googling Carla to get information on her that he can use to his advantage … that’s just creepy.”

“In the second scenario, it doesn’t seem like Derek is treating Carla like a person. He’s treating her like an object that he can manipulate to get what he wants.”

“He’s being intentionally manipulative. He’s fooling her into thinking they’re having a spontaneous, genuine conversation, when it’s really not.”

“Derek is running a “pick-up artist” playbook, and I find it all offensive.”

However, not everyone is so judgmental:

“There’s nothing wrong with learning how human behavior works, and applying that knowledge. Why not use what you know to your advantage?”

“We plan conversations in our heads all the time, when we anticipate talking to someone and we’re a little bit anxious about it. I do that practically every time I walk into a faculty meeting.”

“If we can assume that Derek isn’t intentionally lying to her about anything just to get her to like him, and is genuinely interested in Carla as a person, I don’t see a problem with any of this.”

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I find this range of responses fascinating. They point to something important about how we view ourselves, and how want to view ourselves. I confess that it’s not yet clear to me exactly what that is.

Now, just to add a new spin, consider this third scenario.

Scenario 3:

Derek has had difficulty all his life with social skills and “reading people”. He often failed to pick up on social cues, and that lead to frustration and isolation. Derek considers himself as operating at the high functional end of the autistic spectrum.

As a highly intelligent teenager, Derek decided to undertake a study of human social behavior, with the goal of “cracking the code” of normal human social interaction. He read self-help and psychology books, kept notebooks in which he wrote down the patterns he found were associated with pro-social behaviors, wrote out checklists of what to do or consider in different scenarios, and worked hard at practicing these skills.

Over time Derek’s social skills improved dramatically, and he learned to function well with other people, acquire and maintain friends, and so on. But because of the way Derek’s brain works, he still has to anticipate and plan social interactions in a more conscious and deliberate way than most people. He hasn’t internalized these principles in the intuitive, unconscious way that most people do.

At the party, Derek noticed Carla and was attracted to her. He wanted to ask her out, but was naturally anxious about this prospect. To prepare, he consciously implemented some of the social strategies he had learned, based on his research and experience.

The rest of the date plays out as described in scenario 2.

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Now, what do you think about Derek? Is he still a manipulative creep, or are you less judgmental of his behavior?

Almost everyone I ask, when given this third scenario, is more understanding and sympathetic to Derek.

“Now I wouldn’t describe him as manipulative. Actually, there’s something charming about how hard he’s working to impress Carla.”

“The difference for me is now we understand his underlying motives better. He’s had to struggle to learn social skills that the rest of us take for granted, and this is just his way of compensating.”

“I still don’t like the pupil arousal thing, I still find that weirdly manipulative. But I don’t have as much of an issue with him planning out the date in the way that he did.”

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What do you think of these cases? What do you think they tell us about the factors that matter to us when judging what forms of “mind control” are acceptable and what forms are not?

I invite you to share your thoughts in the discussion section below.