The fundamental difference between ethical persuasion and psychological manipulation is to do with transparency and freedom. Ethical persuasion is providing information and context which helps an individual make a conscious, self-generated choice that aligns with their own values. In contrast, psychological manipulation seeks to bypass and/or influence the conscious mind, a variety of different techniques to influence a person’s behavior without their full awareness or consent. While persuasion to some degree respects the integrity of the individual, manipulation treats the human being as a predictable mechanism to be programmed.

In terms of individual freedom, "ethical persuasion" is on thin ice. But to compete in a world of others who could not care less and just want to see results, caring is better than not caring. And if a marketing person actually cares, they will probably be good at tip-toeing along the line between effectiveness and total freedom for the consumer. It's a complicated subject.

The first paragraph of this article basically answers the question that is the title. But, because you clicked on this, i'll give you a bit more than that on the topic of influence. The more self aware you are, the more constantly aware of everything you consume, the less it all generally works on you. Obviously i don't think anyone can get to a point where they become somehow immune to propaganda or influence, but we can become much better at recognizing it for what it is and at fighting it.

The big thing here is generally that if you are aware that something is trying to market something to you, you probably won't buy it. On the whole this is why the people giving away free bibles on the street don't go far, because unless you're already interested, their presence, and their attempts to give you the bible and talk to you about it is mostly just going to ensure you never read their bible. That is obviously one example but this general principle that generally if someone knows they are being marketed to, they won't like it seems to be true. Of course we have come to expect "buy this" "best bank ever" etc, but both we and the people making those posters or digital banner ads know that they're just making people aware of their product, "brand consciousness" or whatever. It's not really going to persuade you internally one way or another. Because it's an ad! We know what they are.

Actual, effective communication does not present as or let the consumer know that it is communication. Which presents an interesting internal idea of what communication is, because we usually assume that we are relatively in control of our communication; what we say, what we take in, how we enterpret it, etc. If we don't know that some random things that just randomly came up and that everyone likes and that you suddenly now like actually had teams of people spending lots of money to get to this point, then everything just seems cool and great and there's no problem. And again, this is where awareness comes into the picture. Being aware of things, every-thing, even if it's normal, or expected, or whatever,

It's possible for these things to happen because there's never really anything objectionable; things stay generally in the unconscious, and that's mostly the point. If people start thinking about their situation, what is happening, how things are happening, then everything is over. The effectiveness at this phase is near-zero. Potentially even worse, because if you know that not only are you being sold to, but that you're being manipulated, you're likely not to buy whatever is being sold, ever.

One thing that can be concretely said is that there are several thousand people in PR, marketing, online store, communication, etc who are basically drooling at the idea of you finding whatever they're promoting, and directly what they are promoting will be optimized by a kind of research most people don't even know exists. Which is a whole different topic. But if you've ever been on an online shop, and it's trying to get you to spin a wheel or add things to the cart when you press checkout; you've seen the result of this research, and it might have even worked on you.

And here's another thing; this disarming, informal voice i use when writing actually is somewhat manipulative. People like reading things in this format, and for one reason or another, it works. While i'm not "putting it on" because this is how i naturally write and speak, i think there is an expectation that, on some unconscious level, when someone is speaking like this, they are speaking honestly, and whatever narrative there is to be pushed is to be pushed in the news, press releases, more formal stuff. But narrative can be pushed through any format. Just wait until i tell you about what techniques are used in TV!

It's an interesting thing though; when we go in-depth, we can find little things that actually have a big impact, and it's interesting to also consider just how deep it goes. So, i'll give you an example. If i were to write my name out for something official, i'd do something like;

Quinlan G. Wingfield, FRSA

Where's the persuasion in that? Well, maybe more than you might expect. Firstly, i have a middle name, while i'm not faking it or anything, research shows that people think you're smarter when you have a middle name. And i have post nominals too, beginning with "F", which would imply being a fellow of something, which usually requires some kind of achivement or continued work or study to get to.

And all that is just encoded in the name!

So again, imagine just how much else could be done. And, in fact, it is done. In this situation, i'm being honest. All my cards are face-up on the table. But if i wanted to be.. dishonest; just imagine what could be done. And just imagine if this kind of manipulation was a profession that thousands were in, all dedicating their professional lives to trying to manipulate people. Imagine..

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