Instant Genius - The science of manipulation

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

Why do we humans seem to be so easily influenced or even fooled? On one hand this can be done for entertainment, in a Las Vegas stage magic show for example, but on another it can be used for more nefarious purposes such as con artists tricking people into sharing their bank account details. In this episode, we speak to science writer and BBC Science Focus contributor Brian Clegg to talk about his latest book: Brainjacking – The Science of Influence and Manipulation. He tells us how our emotions can make us susceptible to being tricked, the role advances in technology such as AI are increasingly playing in our ability to manipulate others and how the whole phenomenon stems from our love of a good story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals, because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. This podcast is sponsored by name, audio, and focal. Streaming has made music more accessible than ever, but true listening is about more than ease. It's about quality.

British audio experts name audio, alongside French acoustic specialist focal, combine handcrafted tradition with cutting-edge innovation and high-end materials, delivering digital precision with analogue warmth. So you can experience exceptional sound at home. Music just as the artist intended. Visit name audio.com to learn more. Hello and welcome to Instant Genius, a bite-size master class in podcast form. Every Monday and Friday, you'll hear a world-leading scientist and experts talking about the most fascinating ideas in science and technology today. I'm Jason Goodyear.

Commission editor at BBC Science Focus. Why do we humans seem to be so easily influenced, or even fooled? On the one hand, this can be done for entertainment, in a Las Vegas stage magic show, for example. But on the other, it can be used for more nefarious purposes, such as con artists, tricking people into sharing their bank account details. In this episode, we speak to science writer and BBC science focus contributor, Brian Clegg, to talk about his latest book,

Brainjacking, the science of influence and manipulation. He tells us how our emotions can make us susceptible to being tricked. The role advances in technology, such as AI, are increasingly playing in our ability to manipulate others, and how the whole phenomenon stems from our love of a good story. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks very much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Today we're talking about your book, Brainjacking. So that's an interesting title. What exactly do you mean by it?

I'm talking about something that I think is totally central to the nature of being human, which is the way that we use story, stories in the broadest sense, to affect other people's brains. And some have argued that this really is what distinguishes us from the other animals, that we're able to shape other people's thoughts by telling them stories. And obviously these days, stories in the broad sense doesn't just mean sit down, I'm going to tell you a story. It means written work. It means the internet.

It means video, TV, film, all the different media through which we use. influence other people. What I think is fascinating is just how this is changing with modern technology, but also the different ways that we can do this brainjacking, often for good. You know, it can sound like if you're influencing other people's brains, you're shaping other people's brains, it's negative because everything from education to scientific research being passed on is all a form of brainjacking. Let's have a look at one of the main places we get information from. News outlets. So, So we obviously have a choice about where we can see our news. So what can we say about that?

I think it's easy to label people's views on a particular news outlets. In practice these days, I think people actually have a broader selection of news outlets than perhaps we sometimes think. But what's happening is a range of brainjacking. And something I major on in the book is it comes basically at three levels, brainjacking. So there's informing, whereas if you're like, like neutral information, there's influencing where I'd say that you are using logical argument, right or wrong, to change people's brains, and there's manipulating where I'd say you're using

emotional methods in order to have an impact. And I think one thing that does vary between outlets is the degree, you know, where they sit on that spectrum, if you like, from informing to manipulating. I think it's fair to say pretty well all news outlets, at least aim to influence, they almost all have a particular focus. They almost all have a particular political stance. And even if, like the BBC, for instance, they attempt to be neutral, I mean, in practice, they probably are somewhere on the scale around the influencing side. And you can decide for yourself whether that's good or bad, I guess. You mentioned there the influence of technology on this, which we'll talk about in a bit. But one big thing people talk about is clickbait.

Yeah. So what exactly is that? it's interesting. Clickbait essentially is where you put forward a hook something that is going to excite people into clicking through to read the main story. And fascinatingly, they often are then disappointed. Probably 9 tenths of clickbait is actually disappointing when you get there. But the fact is we continue to do so because it promises something novel, something exciting, something that might stray into. to the various emotional influences that we may have. So it may imply something about, you know, somebody's been misbehaving in some way. It may be something that's weird, that's wonderful,

that's fascinating. So it's always trying to use that manipulative aspect, the emotional aspect, to do that. Again, I do emphasize that these are not pejorative terms. You know, charities use manipulation in order to get us to give money to that charity all the time. One of my favorite examples of manipulative brainjacking is the TV program Mr. Bates versus the post office. And this was able to change people's minds in a way that documentaries, articles in newspapers and magazines, a radio series were not able to on the scandal of the Post Office Horizon system, where sub-pester musters were accused of fraud incorrectly. And it was because it was manipulative, that it was so successful. That was the only reason that it was able to change people's

minds because it has that emotive, emotional content. So sticking with news for a moment, in the book you draw a distinction between misinformation and disinformation. So what is the difference? Well, this is a fairly standard distinction. It's not always easy to know which is which, but misinformation is essentially telling somebody something that's wrong. But you don't, don't know it's wrong. Disinformation is when you tell somebody something that's wrong and you do know it's wrong, but you're using it for your own purposes, whether they be political or financial gain or whatever. And the reality is, of course, we do see a lot of it these days, you know, this idea of my truth, as it were, being different from the absolute truth. Misinformation and

disinformation is rife. And I think one thing that can be useful is just thinking a little bit about what we can do to deal with that. And I'd say broadly what the three things we need to look at is, if you hear a piece of information, it sounds a bit dodgy, think, okay, what's the evidence, what has been given to me as evidence that this is really true, what are the sources, so where is this information coming from, and what is the quality?

And that can apply both to the sources and to the actual information, because unfortunately even universities have been known to produce rather low quality, research sometimes. So having ways of looking at that. So for instance, if they're doing a study, is it five people or five thousand people and various other ways you can look at the quality of the study? So misinformation, disinformation is out there. It's something that we do need to think about, but it's also something we can, if you've got the time, and that is quite important, something we can hopefully counter to some extent. Moving on from that, in the book you write

about deception. So what makes us so susceptible to being fooled or tricked? I think it part, it's because, you know, if we look at the nature of brain jacking, this idea of telling stories to other people to shape the way they behave, it has done us very well in the past. You know, it's what has enabled us to achieve what we have achieved so far. And a degree of trust is necessary if you are going to be able to act cooperatively with other people. And so on the whole, by default, we kind of start off in a position of, yeah, I'm going trust you until you do something or say something that clearly makes me not. And so we are open relatively easily, I'd suggest, to deception. And of course, some people are very good at using the

tools of brain jacking, using this influencing and manipulating, in order to mislead us. Because deception generally is about, you know, making us believe that one thing's true, where something else is actually the case. And again, as with all these things, it doesn't have to be negative. There's some perfectly nice deception, if you like. If you enjoy watching a stage magician, you know, they are indulging in deception. It's what their job's about, but it's very entertaining. Even things like, I mentioned, is that, you know, the old BBC spaghetti harvest broadcast they had on panorama, I think was about 1957 or something like that, where they showed spaghetti growing on trees. Now, nobody would suggest that that is something horrible and deceptive in the sense of negative sense,

but it was a form of deception. So it can be entertaining, but anything from a con trick, you know, confidence trick through, for instance, the way tobacco companies in the past have frankly tried to deceive us about the relative lack of problems with cigarettes and so on. There are various different ways, you know, that deception is used in order to get through to us. And I guess the most common one, most of us have experienced is probably fishing, you know, where you get those emails or text messages supposedly from your bank or whatever, and it's actually something very different. So let's stick with that. So we're talking about con artists. What are

some common techniques that they use? I think if you're talking about there are different types of con. I don't know if you like me, I was a big fan of the BBC TV series Hustle, the drama series, which sort of portrayed the cons from the viewpoint of fictional con artists. And there's a whole range, you know, a short con, which is just a really very simple and quick way of fooling people, but the really fascinating ones of the long cons where they spend a lot of time and effort building the con in order, hopefully, to get a lot of money out of somebody. And again, what they're using is this influencing and manipulating aspect of brainjacking. So what they will do is try to establish a relationship. Relationships are so important in how we treat the information that we're given.

which is why, incidentally, things like social media influencers do influence because they build, if you like a fake relationship with their audience. And similarly, what the con artist tried to do is actually build a relationship as if there's somebody, you know, passing on some good news, you know, I've had this experience. And they will allow usually the mark, the person who's, they're trying to get the money out of, to have a little win. So they feel, yes, this is working. This is great.

I'm making money out of this. And there's a risk there because, of course, the person being conned could walk away at this point. But there's a good con artist. They'll then come back and have the huge opportunity where you're going to win even more. And our natural inclination is, hey, yeah, this sounds good. It worked the first time.

Let's go for it again. And that's where they then take all your money. So hopefully no one listening has been conned before. But they will have seen adverts. You know, we're bombarded with them these days. So what tricks do advertisers use? Advertising is fascinating. You know, it goes back a long way.

at least to Roman times. And initially advertising was very much at the informing stage of brainjacking. So the first advertising mostly was about here we are, find us. So if you think for instance of pub signs, they're not there to say this pub is better than another pub. It's a form of advertising that tells you there is a pub here. And you see that happening through the development of marketplaces. Again, it's a place to go that's basically advertising saying this is where we are,

this is where you come to bite. Where it starts to change is where they're trying to influence and manipulate. And I think the real place where it changed hugely was towards the end of the 19th century. The most beautiful example to me is Lydia Pinkham and her vegetable compound. So Lydia Pinkham was an American woman who had made this pick me up that was supposed to be particularly good for what then described as women's problems. And she was incidentally the inspiration for the Lily the Pink song. And she sold this vegetable compound that was supposed to help women feel better.

It probably did because it was 18% alcohol, which wasn't particularly mentioned at the time. But the way she did it was fascinating because it absolutely ties to what these social media influencers do now. Her advertising was personalised. So first of all, her picture was shown, which hadn't really been done before. You saw the person you were buying this off.

You had a start of a relationship by seeing literature as a person. And then she also said, write into me with your problems and I will help you. So she would write back and tell them how to deal with these problems at a time when women, frankly, were not treated well by doctors, who were almost all men, and paid very little attention to anything that was female-related. And so she had a natural audience. She built that relationship. It was if you were writing to somebody a friend who would help you. Interestingly, when things started to taper off a bit was when it was discovered that she'd been dead about 20 years, but it was still writing back to people.

It was explained that basically her daughter-in-law was doing it, so it was still Mrs. Pinkham. It just happened not to be the one you thought you were writing to. But it was this building up of a relationship, so you've got that emotional connection exactly the same way that Mr. Bates, first of the post office, did it. to then get through to us to say, yes, this is a product I want to buy. And I think that development, the way that advertising has moved from the informing through to manipulation is very clear. So in modern times, we have data collection and targeted ads. How do they work?

Well, of course, the targeted ads, it comes up time again with brainjacking. There's pluses and there's minuses. In a sense, targeted ads feel like they ought to make sense. So, you know, if you're seeing advertising, surely it's better to see advertising about stuff you're interested in than advertising about stuff you're not interested in. It kind of makes sense. But the unfortunate thing, I guess, from the viewpoint of the recipient of the advertising, is that you don't necessarily want the advertisers to know enough about you to be able to do it well.

most of us would like to keep our personal life reasonably personal, not to be sharing information. And you certainly find these days that, for instance, online, some of the browsers now will tell you what information is being shared about you from one website to another. And it can be quite shocking, just the volume of information about you that is shared in the background, unless you stop it, there are usually software ways to cut this down now. But this targeted advertising, I guess most infamously, came up in terms of the Cambridge Analytica company, where it was alleged that they helped influence the first Trump presidency, the first election of Donald Trump, through targeted advertising on Facebook. The interesting thing is that research afterwards has shown actually it pretty much didn't happen, partly because they actually didn't have the information that they originally claimed they had,

and partly because the mechanism actually didn't work particularly well. So it's probably the case that it didn't have that much influence in terms of that particular election. But there's no doubt that targeting advertising is something that from the advertiser's viewpoint is very useful and that from the recipient's viewpoint has the potential of sharing information about you that you don't really want to be shared. So you've mentioned emotional manipulation. A lot of products these days are sold with celebrity endorsements or they're sort of aspirational. You know, if you're this sort of person, you need to have these sort of products. What's going on there?

I think many of us, particularly when we're younger, looking for role models. And the use of celebrities is often attempting to tie into that. Aspiration, I guess, you know, it's just a nature of human beings, if you like. So that's not particularly surprising. And again, it doesn't have to be bad, but I think when we are looking at young people, the targeting of adverts to young people, whether there's particular use of celebrities and of aspiration, I guess, almost to be more adult-like. There are significance concerns that have been adverts that have been withdrawn because of doing that.

So I think we have to be particularly careful with children. And that applies to all the kind of brainjacking that goes on with children. which is a huge amount when you come down to it, because of course, in the end, all of education is an attempt to shape their brains and how we do that education just as much as how we advertise with a particular celebrity or whatever

is going to have an influence on the way they think in the future. Another common technique is the use of so-called science, whether in running shoes or anti-aging face creams and so on. So what can we look out for there? I think on the whole, the simple answer to that is just ignore it in the sense that the vast majority of the science is at best dodgy. When they do the science bit for your face cream,

and they point out that it's got some particular chemical formulation within it, the reality is almost always. That is something that could be done just as easily with a much simpler and cheaper substance. You know, if you're talking about the ability to add water to the skin or whatever, there are all sorts of fancy things that do it now where a perfectly simple hydration system would work just as well. there's very little of this science that has any real impact.

So to be honest, that's something I'd say it's very easy. It isn't science that's of any use. Some people never stop being part of what's happening around them. They stay curious, engaged, connected to ideas and to others. That's what defines life at Villa Gardens in Pasadena. It's a community shaped by conversation, culture, and a shared sense of curiosity. So when the conversation turns to what's next, it doesn't feel like stepping away. It feels like staying exactly where you belong.

Explore your options at villa gardens.org, a non-profit life plan senior community within the Front Porch family. This podcast is sponsored by Name, Audio and Focal. With over 100 years of combined expertise, Name and Focal have been bringing music to listeners just as the artist intended. Since day one, this mantra has shaped every innovation in hi-fi design, technology and acoustic engineering, balancing craftsmanship and tradition with pioneering thinking. Name Audio pushes cutting-edge technology to ensure digital precision whilst sustaining Pratt, pace, rhythm and timing, the elusive quality that makes music feel alive and gives it emotional texture. Today, in partnership with French acoustic specialist's focal, name audio,

create systems that deliver exceptional sound and unforgettable listening experiences at home. Try it for yourself at a focal powered by name boutique. Visit focal powered by name.com for more information. So let's move on to something called Nudge Theory. What is that? And what are some examples of it in action? So nudging comes from a book called Nudge that were published in the mid-2010s. And Nudge puts forward the idea that you can make use of a sort of influence on people that they almost don't realize is there, but that will make a change of decision.

So it's pushing them towards a particular choice, but there is never supposedly any actual force involved. There is no way that it is supposed to actually deal with a problem by, say, punishing people for not to. doing or whatever, it just encouraged you in the right direction. And it's certainly true that some example of this can work. Now, the best known example is opt in or opt out for organ transplants. So many countries have moved from you opt in to be an organ donor to being opt out if you don't want to be an organ donor. As it happens in that particular instance, it hasn't actually have much influence because unfortunately most of the blockages to organ donation aren't so much getting enough volunteers but actually the system behind it. So doing the transplants, matching up the organs

to the transplants are more of an issue. But when that system is better, then yes, this is an improvement. Perhaps more effective one has been the workplace pensions nudge. So again, switching from opt-in to opt-out so that workplace pensions become something of a standard. So, yes, it's fine, it's good. To be honest, it's been around for a lot longer than this book. Popular Psychology books sometimes try to make it sound as they've invented something new, but the fact is nudging has been around for a long time. The Behavioral Insights Unit in the UK, which sometimes called the Nudge Unit,

points out that one of the early nudges in the UK was starting to paint white lines down the middle of the road. So when cars were first introduced, roads didn't have lines down the middle. Carts and horses didn't really bother because they were going so slowly. But cast also didn't bother because that's what everybody did. And you got a lot of crashes because they were all over the road. Once they started painting white lines, doesn't do anything, doesn't force you to do anything. But that nudging to stay on the right side of the road, the correct side of the road, had an effect. It influenced people. And in fact, good design does this too. One of my favorite examples, is designers love symmetry. So if you look at a lot of doors, they will have nice pull handles on both sides of the door, even though you're supposed to push one side and pull the other. And I've actually stood and watched one afternoon, a particular door, where this was happening, just person after person, come up to the door,

they pull the pull handle, it doesn't work, and then they push. We've got a cafe just down the road for a nice little cafe, glass doors, pull handles on both sides, and they've actually had to put a sign on the door saying, push on the side you're supposed to push the pull handle, people still pull it even though there's a sign. All you need to do is put a push plate on instead of a pull handle and it works. That's a nudge. That's a beautiful nudge in action. Some of the other ones that have been suggested to work are, shall we say, exaggerated. There was a famous one in the book, for instance, about

reduction of littering in Texas through a campaign that made it seem kind of macho not to litter. And the says this was done entirely without any threats or whatever. In practice, actually, there was a $2,000 fine instituted for littering. There were pick-up campaigns. It wasn't just the nudge. So it's been rather exaggerated sometimes what the nudging can actually do. But the fact is, it's quite an interesting way of making subtle changes. And of course, governments love it because it's cheap. So we've talked about social media and the internet, etc. So let's talk about branding. This is interesting because lots of these influencers actually refer to themselves as a brand. So why is this notion of branding so effective? In a sense, branding is about giving

personality, giving a personal connection to something. Traditionally, it's, you know, obviously originally branding just referred to physical products, but it has become much wider. we then get to the virtual products and now, as you say, even people refer to their branding. And you can see this, you know, for instance, with some authors where if you look at the book, there's a huge author's name on it and somewhere on it there's a title of what the book is. But it's the author's name, the branding, that is pulling people through. And again, as it often does, it is coming back to this human connection that the more we can relate to a brand. And if you remember Lydia Pinkham with her picture, that was a brand.

It was Mrs. Pinkham was the brand. They're really not so much the vegetable compound itself. So it's giving attributes almost to an object in a way that we can relate to it. So it becomes part of the story. And I think branding as a tool, branding as an attribute associated with advertising is really important. One of the leading experts on brands said, if you want a short definition of what branding means, it means seduction. It's a way of building a relationship that will pull you in. Another seismic shift that's happened in technology recently is AI.

You know, we have things like chat, GBT and deep fakes. Well, obviously, from the deep fake aside, this is offering an opportunity to manipulate because essentially what it was, What it's doing is a deep fake is typically either video or audio that purports to be an well-known individual saying something or doing something that isn't actually true how it tends to be used to influence, perhaps in a political situation, where you might see a candidate for election saying something that sounds atrocious or doing something that appears wrong. So deep fake is a really quite scary mechanism in order to enhance our ability. to brainjack in a negative way. So it's absolutely disinformation. And unfortunately, as the technology gets better, all the predictions are going to get worse.

So, for instance, there's been a suggestion that where now deep fakes are essentially, say, a video you watch, before long the technology would enable a deep fake to be interactive. So you don't just watch it. You can actually have a conversation. And as you have a conversation, then the storytelling is enhanced.

The ability to brainjack is far. greater than just somebody, you know, a recording of somebody talking is less influential than an interaction with somebody where you can speak to them. So that is quite worrying, let's face it, in terms of its ability to brain jack. And then you mentioned something like chat GPT. So here we've got these large language models that can generate text. Now, obviously, this potentially raises concerns in part because we don't really understand where this is all coming from, where the information is coming from. It's usually scraped from the internet, and it may well come from sources that aren't themselves particularly safe or good. So we go back to this idea of evidence,

sources and quality. We don't know the quality. We don't know the sources usually that CHAPGT is getting its information from. What we do know is that if it has any holes, in its information, it will just make stuff up. The most infamous thing from an academic viewpoint is that it tends to make up references because it doesn't really understand what it's doing. There's no intelligence in artificial intelligence. It doesn't understand, it doesn't comprehend what it's actually doing. It knows that you should have references. So it just makes up something that looks like a reference that backs up what it's saying. But it doesn't know that it has to be real, that it has to come from a good source. So it is, you know, yeah,

It's a tool. It's useful tool for some things, but we have to be aware of its limitations. Otherwise, it can result in brainjacking that's happening that we really don't want because it is disinformation because it is totally misleading. Thank you for listening to this episode of Instant Genius, brought to you from the team behind BBC Science Focus. That was science writer Brian Clegg. To discover more about the topics we've just discussed, check out his latest book. brainjacking, the science of influence and manipulation. If you liked what you just heard, then please do consider subscribing to Instant Genius on your preferred podcast platform. The current issue of BBC Science Focus magazine is out now. Pick up a copy wherever you buy

your favourite magazines or download us on your app store of choice. You can also find us on Apple News or at sciencefocus.com. This podcast is sponsored by name, audio and focal. The texture and emotional depth of music can be lost through digital sources or poor signal. Name Audio believes you can have digital precision with analog warmth. Alongside French acoustic specialist vocal, Name creates high-end audio systems combining innovation with craftsmanship so you can listen to music, just as the artist intended. Discover more at name audio.com. There's a moment when you start to wonder, what's the right next step. Not about changing who they are, just finding the right kind of support. At Kingsley Manor, life stays expressive, connected, and full of character, shaped by people

who have lived interesting lives and aren't finished yet. So it doesn't feel like a change. It feels like a continuation. Explore your options at canesley manor.org, a non-profit month-to-month senior community within the Front Porch family.