# Books On How To Manipulate People

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-on-how-to-manipulate-people/100197>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [March 26, 2002, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-on-how-to-manipulate-people/100197 "2002-03-26T16:01:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-on-how-to-manipulate-people/100197/1 "2002-03-26T16:01:07Z")

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Does anybody know of any good books on the topic of “How to manipulate people”, using applied psychological principles? Any recommendations would be welcome.

Thanks.

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**Author:** ![quarx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/50afbb/32.png) [@quarx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quarx)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-on-how-to-manipulate-people/100197/2 "2002-03-26T16:12:07Z")

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Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” It’s old and trite in parts, but I think it gives a good overview on how to win people to your way of thinking.

I have other books in mind, but they’re designed for specific topics – in other words, the answer to your question largely depends on what you want to manipulate them into doing (I suppose that came out sounding a little creepy, but there you have it.). To get them to agree with you in a general sense, though, Dale gives some excellent, if somewhat obvious, advice.

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**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-on-how-to-manipulate-people/100197/3 "2002-03-26T18:14:32Z")

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Thanks, **quarx** , I’ll take a look at the Carnegie book.

I was also wondering about NLP and DHE. How effective are these tools? What is the difference between the two?? And which works better???

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**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-on-how-to-manipulate-people/100197/4 "2002-03-27T00:17:15Z")

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_Dress for Success_, ?  
_The Prince_, Machiavelli  
_Looking Out for #1_, Robert Ringer

I imagine quite a number of this type book are disguised as “self-help”.

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**Author:** ![Alma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Alma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alma)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-on-how-to-manipulate-people/100197/5 "2002-03-27T01:18:04Z")

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_Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion_  
or particularly,  
_Influence: Science and Practice_  
both by Robert B. Cialdini.

Not so much a how-to as understanding how it works. Really intersting and still helpful, I think.