Review of the book "Petit traité
de manipulation à l'usage des honnêtes gens" by Hamid Bouchikhi,
Professor at the Strategy and Management department of ESSEC.
I must admit it. Despite its success in the bookstores and the publication
of many editorials, I did not want to read Petit traité
de manipulation à l'usage des honnêtes gens [Brief Treatise
on Manipulation for Honest People], without really knowing why. I finally understood
that the title explained my resistance to this book to a large degree.
The
title is certainly an important factor in the fact that thousands of people purchased
this book. However, it can also smack of manipulation. In choosing the title,
the authors used a “manipulative technique” that they describe in
the book, namely labeling. Allow me to explain. Since
most people consider themselves honest, buying a book intended for
honest people will naturally reinforce the idea they have of themselves.
If a book must be judged by its sales performance, then this book surely deserves
our admiration. Would it have been so popular without the two key words “manipulation”
and “honesty?” Imagine that it had been published under the title
"A few probabilistic techniques to influence human behavior."
Yet, this title corresponds more faithfully to the scientific content of
the book.
The principal merit of the book resides in a light-hearted and
accessible approach to serious questions more often addressed in esoteric language.
As the book progresses, the authors invite us to examine the results of experiments
in which ordinary people were made to do things they would not have done on their
own initiative. Who would take the initiative of giving twenty cents to a stranger
in the street? No one. How many would give twenty cents if the stranger asks straight
out? A few. How many would give the twenty cents if the stranger starts by asking
the time before asking for the money? Many more.
The manipulation techniques
described in the book are variations on the same theme, i.e. free consent to do
trivial things, such as giving the time to a stranger, creates a context where
it is difficult to refuse more constraining requests.
The many experiments
related in the book incontestably show that human beings can be persuaded to do
things that they wouldn’t have done on their own. This demonstration has
its limits, however. First, all of the described experiments concern behaviors
that have no great consequences for the individuals involved. Would such startling
results be obtained if people were asked to do very costly things, things contrary
to their values, or against their deep sense of identity? Second, the book teaches
us little about the meaning that manipulated individuals attribute to their actions.
Taking account only of the researcher’s perspective of human behavior ignores
the fact that behavior is not possible unless it has meaning for the person who
displays it.
The book aptly illustrates the interest and limits of the “stimulus-response”
pattern underlying the behaviorist paradigm in human sciences, and does a good
job of describing this for the layman. The stimulus-response pattern certainly
underlines the statistical regularities in human behavior, but is incapable of
providing theoretical explanations. The authors are aware of the limitations of
experimental observation and recognize that they lack theoretical explanations
for the observed behaviors. It is unfortunate that this book abandons the scientific
work just where it could have started.
In conclusion, no one can deny two
obvious facts – human beings can be influenced, but they are also irremediably
mysterious and unpredictable. This book opens an interesting window on the first
part of the proposition, but carefully avoids the second. Readers who want to
form a more subtle opinion will have to look to other branches of the human sciences.
Managers and marketing experts tempted to directly apply the methods of influence
described in this book should keep in mind that no one has ever been able to manipulate
a person, a group or a nation forever. Observation of human behavior and history
shows that the feeling of being or having been manipulated can cost a great deal
to apprentice manipulators.
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