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When prophecy fails: what really happened to the Seekers
In 1954 a group waited for a flying saucer that never came. The 1956 classic says they doubled down; a 2025 archival study argues the leader recanted. What people really do when a prophecy fails, from the Millerites to economists.
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High-control groups: how cults recruit and hold people
918 people died at Jonestown, yet only about 4% of Unification Church workshop attendees were full-time members two years on. How high-control groups recruit and hold people, the checklists, the scholarly critics, and the warning signs.
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Cambridge Analytica: what was real and what was hype
Cambridge Analytica took data on up to 87 million Facebook users under false pretences, and regulators proved it. The claim that it could steer voters by personality is another matter: the UK regulator found well-known methods and exaggerated marketing.
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Machines that argue back: AI chatbots as persuaders
AI chatbots can now out-argue people in some tests. In one study they cut conspiracy beliefs by 20%; in the biggest study, the most persuasive settings were also the least accurate. The double edge, the Zurich Reddit scandal, and how I keep my own AI honest.
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Fear as a lever: how fear narrows thinking
Fear narrows attention and makes us cling to protectors. Research shows fear appeals work, especially with a clear action. From the 1918 flu to the 2020 SPI-B paper, fear was held down or raised on purpose, by every kind of power.
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Say it again: repetition and the illusory truth effect
Hearing a claim again makes it feel truer, even when you know better. From Hasher's 1977 experiment to a headline copied on 362 sites in six hours, how repetition, slogans and repeated phrases work, and how to resist.
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Urgency, authority, scarcity: the six levers in every scam
Americans reported losing $20.9 billion to online crime in 2025. Most of it was handed over, not hacked. Cialdini's six levers mapped onto real scams, what phishing research found, and why a pause beats them all.
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What propaganda cannot do: the limits of persuasion
49 field experiments put the average effect of campaign contact on votes at zero, and the 2016 troll tweets show no measurable effect. Yet radio helped drive genocide in Rwanda. What propaganda can and cannot do, and why fearing it too much is a trap.
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How to talk to someone who believes something you don't
A 10-minute conversation with 501 voters shifted attitudes more than 14 years of social change, and it lasted three months. What deep canvassing, motivational interviewing and street epistemology show about talking across a disagreement.
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Outrage pays: what recommendation systems do to attention
Facebook once weighted an 'angry' reaction at five likes. Studies show moral outrage and attacks on the other side spread further. But the evidence on filter bubbles is mixed, and a big 2020 experiment found chronological feeds did not reduce polarisation.
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Everyone agrees: social proof and manufactured consensus
We judge what is right by what others seem to think. Asch showed how far people follow a group. Today the group can be faked: paid reviews, astroturf, documented sockpuppet networks of Russia, China and the US, and a reported Israeli-funded campaign.
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What it feels like to be persuaded
Persuasion rarely feels like a push. It feels like urgency, belonging, relief or the pleasure of certainty. Kahneman's System 1 and 2 and Cialdini's shortcuts explain why, with cases from shops, scams, groups and states.