ABSTRACT
Persuasion is often influenced by behavioral factors clashing with purely rational behavior. This is the argument put forth by the Behavioralists, who posit that the pursuit of rational thought processes, developed over the course of many years, can be, and often is, constantly influenced by non-rational cognitive influences. This is not to make light of the fact that individuals, as decision-makers, may not always act fully rational as theory often purports as an infallible truth. In fact, from a certain perspective, such seemingly non-rational behavior is interwoven into the larger mosaic of the human condition as a function of being socialized to cooperate over thousands of years – constituting an iterated series of serial, social conditioning.
Rather than debating whether individuals should behave more rationally or not, this chapter explains what cognitive tendencies, particularly biases, exist as hidden forces in human behavior within a persuasion context. Thus, this chapter casts a light on the blind side of hidden biases.
