Reading Notes on 'Influence': Analyzing Campus Life Through Psychological Principles

I’ve been reading “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” recently, and I’ve found that many principles in the book are essentially part of what makes us human, seemingly etched into our genes and social environment. What we can do is probably just reasonably guard against being exploited by these principles.

Our Instinctive “Switches” and How We’re Being Toyed With

The first chapter of the book mentions a “trigger feature” concept, using the turkey mother as an example: her only basis for protecting her chicks is the “cheep-cheep” sound. Chicks that can’t make the sound get eliminated, while a stinky skunk model that can make the sound gets protected by her. This shows that instinct can help us survive most of the time, but it’s also easily exploited to toy with us.

This reminds me of my days toying with grasshoppers and locusts. You wear camouflage green, hiding in thick grass—I couldn’t see or touch you. But the evil human child (still using this method to catch them in the tiny patches of grass at school even in high school, haha) has mastered your instincts! I slide my foot back and forth in the grass, and before long, you jump out on your own, landing obediently in my palm. I’m practically a master of animal psychology!!!

We can’t analyze every person and every event we encounter each day from every angle. We don’t have the time, energy, or ability. So we rely on fixed notions and shortcuts to understand things, based solely on certain key features, and then make mindless reactions to triggers. (My own translation 😍)

But ultimately, we still need to find a “balance.” Over-collecting information about life will destroy our inner peace, while going completely with the flow might leave us fooled beyond recognition. Most important is defining what matters most to yourself—that’s how you prevent purposeless burnout.

The fittest is the best.

The Strange Circle of Imitation: The Power of Social Proof

An important principle in the book is “Social Proof,” and the cases of imitation it triggers always feel both extraordinary and logical. Everyone changing lanes together on the highway, someone needing help on the street but being ignored… behind these bizarre events might simply be imitation.

During the college entrance exam preparation, classmates also imitated whatever they saw: buying exercise books that they never used, or reading textbooks out loud along with others. There might be intrinsic motivation, but often they lost their own personalized design and planning. Of course, it’s precisely this social proof that gives people the motivation to compete, making them start to climb out of their comfort zone and start dreaming.

Simple principles, but life is so complex.

Examining My School Through the 7 Principles of “Influence”

I tried using the theories in the book to analyze my school and found these principles everywhere:

• Contrast: The school encourages students to compare effort levels with others, or use one-dimensional grades to measure their own changes. I personally experienced an annoying day-student application, where the dumbest thing I heard was: “If you tried this in freshman or sophomore year, I’d say sure, but… now…” At the time, I started questioning the speaker’s philosophy, and only now realize he was using the contrast principle.

• Shortcut: Encouraging students to simply memorize poetry while skipping analysis of author background, historical context, multiple meanings, ambiguities, and other factors; encouraging summarizing question types and teaching by templates, while also saying the new college entrance exam will counter templates—conducting teaching that neither teachers nor students enjoy.

• Reciprocity:

  “If you don’t do homework, why should I teach seriously?”

  Our homeroom teacher even said: “You need to build good relationships with teachers, so they’ll teach with enthusiasm and won’t just go through the motions.”

  I don’t think that’s necessary. First, if all you want is the knowledge in their heads, why torture yourself to please them? Just learn the knowledge. Furthermore, much of the “authority’s” knowledge probably isn’t worth wasting your life force on.

• Social Proof: I don’t think this needs much elaboration, haha. In that environment, you can mindlessly go through a day of useless work to numb yourself without feeling tired.

• Consistency (Commitment and Consistency): “You need to work hard for the college entrance exam. Since you have a study plan, you must stick to it, and there might be good rewards.” Under this kind of indoctrination, students make sacrifices (time, energy, family, etc.), then start finding other reasons to support themselves hiding in simple yet busy “effort,” intoxicated by the self-image of “this is just how I am.” Even if you later remove the original motivating factor of “good rewards,” students can still coast along in “click, run” mode for a while, thinking: “Maybe I just wasn’t working hard enough?”

• Authority: Simply put, authority says “We are right, you are wrong.” Then I have to think about it for a long time and still can’t find a balance point. Now I’m ready to use a moderate attitude of “the highest good is like water, benefiting all things without contending” to look at it—mental peace is most important.

• Scarcity:

  “Score higher, get scarcer things!”

  “Going against the current, if you don’t advance, you retreat, so work hard, work harder, keep improving your pursuits, don’t be confused! Otherwise, you’ll lose out.”

Conclusion

Although sometimes when I’m in a bad mood, everything looks annoying—like I just find our homeroom teacher really off-putting (but we have a principle: “praise specifically, criticize vaguely” 🤣🤣🤣)—complaining is useless, so it’s better to do some more beneficial thinking.

Actually, there are big differences among teachers. Some teachers say:

“No matter where you are or what you’re doing, people who know how to have fun are the happiest—just like Su Dongpo when he was exiled. Look how he knew how to enjoy himself.”

“Either your body or your soul should always be on the road—golden quote, writing it down.”

“In the midst of busyness, you need your own way to relax, whether it’s calming down to feel the breeze or watching the expressions of passersby and guessing their mood.”

But some teachers project a very hyped-up energy that’s not conducive to calm, focused study.

In the end, “even the most annoying person has something worth learning from, including being shameless,” which reminds me of “When walking with two others, I will certainly find teachers among them.” Knowing these psychological principles gives me more confidence to face this complex world. Reasonable moderation is how you wield this double-edged sword! 😯