Read How to Win Friends and Influence People by Carnegie. Most of what we need to know about human interaction can be found there. He set out to write a book on how to get along with people, visited universities, studied books he was told to study, didn’t find anything satisfying.
Weird book in that you can start on any given page, he wrote it that way on purpose. Not something you can read and just say, “OK, got it.” Takes practice and thought and more practice.
Haven’t had social interaction problems since I was a small child. Figured out how to get along and not get my ass literally beaten by my peers. And no, I don’t mean cowering. But still, every story in that book resonates with me. I’ve either been-there-done-that or seen it work. It should be taught in school at some point in our development.
Final note: People have often taking the title as, “How to Manipulate People”. Only if you’re a sociopath.
HubertManne@piefed.social 6 days ago
If its the guy I think it is he was pulled out of cult in the old fashioned deprogrammed way which messed him up further for some time and he went into psychology specifically studying cults and how the individual mind reacts. He sought to develop a healthy way to bring people out of cults so essentially yeah. Its basically saying put in extra effort because its like the person is in a cage. You would put extra effort to get someone out of imprisonment like that and you sorta gotta with the mental equivalent.
PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au 6 days ago
Coincidentally I saw this not long ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJU3AuF3AWs&t=6526s
There is quite a lot of backstory going back through all the extensive extensive video obviously, but basically this woman’s mom consulted with a lot of expert help and sorted out exactly how to strategically break her daughter out of the cult.
“She still believed in Jordan’s mythology, she still loved him and missed him, but she was realizing that the most stressful thing in her life was him, that she dreaded his letters and phone calls. Her month at home eventually passed and it was time for her to return to Virginia to be with Jordan. Don’t worry. It was all part of her mother’s plan, which Abby has since dubbed ’operation catch and release.’”
deafboy@lemmy.world 5 days ago
I love these weird micro-cult stories, thank you for posting this!
What made it extra weird for me was the fact that I grew up among people obsessed with tolkien and larping, ocasionally being labeled as a cult by the general public, except they actually pulled off the fantasy/scifi convention part. And they are still going strong for more than a decade. It was a humbling experience for me as a young adult to see my peers exhibit such dedication, discipline and organization skills just for the sake of building something together.
Seeing how the same drive can backfire under different conditions was quite a ride!