I've been reading a book titled Influence: The psychology of persuasion by Robert Cialdini lately, about various methods by which people - typically unscrupulous ones - get us to agree to do or buy something we didn't initially want to do or buy. I wouldn't classify myself as a pushover, per se, but I do have a tendency to give people too many chances to make my life difficult and I figured this would hep me to at least be aware of when I fall for fallacious entreaties.
While I'm only about halfway through the book, it has already been eye-opening and informative. One section talks about what the author calls the fallacy of pluralism: nobody wants to appear flustered or at a loss, so we constantly side-eye what others are doing and take our social cues from what seems to be the status quo. In most cases, this is perfectly fine: you can judge how to interact with a new ticket counter by how others approach it, or that a clown getting in your personal space at a work party is funny rather than something to be offended at, that sort of thing.
While I'm only about halfway through the book, it has already been eye-opening and informative. One section talks about what the author calls the fallacy of pluralism: nobody wants to appear flustered or at a loss, so we constantly side-eye what others are doing and take our social cues from what seems to be the status quo. In most cases, this is perfectly fine: you can judge how to interact with a new ticket counter by how others approach it, or that a clown getting in your personal space at a work party is funny rather than something to be offended at, that sort of thing.
