5 simple steps to protect yourself from influence

What is Influence?

Influence is a vast topic, with its web often incredibly fine, nearly imperceptible, and complex to correctly identify and map out, making it difficult to define, explain, or attempt to counteract. This article is not meant to detail every aspect and effect of influence, as that would be far too long and tedious. Instead, it has two main purposes:

• The first is to provide you with a list of actions you can take to limit its effects.
• The second is to explain how to achieve this by offering explanations and examples.

For those who are in a hurry or need a structured outline, here are the 5 key steps to help protect yourself from influence in a digital context. This is a general process, so it may not apply to all types of influence. The goal here is primarily to combat beliefs, norms, and the acquisition of new knowledge through sharing, among other things. In this context, I recommend reading the related article on "how to become an influencer" and the effective techniques for appearing as an expert, often without contributing anything new, concrete, or original, which you can find on the blog.

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5 Steps in 2 Parts, Adaptable According to the Subject:

I) Question the Expertise of the Source

1. Who is speaking? What is their background and education?
2. What evidence is there to determine whether they truly know what they are talking about?

II) Challenge the Message

1. Does the person cite their sources or the origin of their claims or reasoning?
2. You need to dissect and analyze the message, examining the level of justification and the precision of the statements.
3. Even if they reference a scientific study, you must verify the seriousness of the study and its authors. Additionally, ensure the speaker has not misunderstood the scientists' conclusions to avoid a distorted analysis.

Three other important elements for other types of influence:

• You must know how to say NO.
• You need to be capable of resisting pressure to do something you don't want to, even from someone close.
• Finally, you must have the clarity to distinguish between honest, objective argumentation intended to persuade and manipulative tactics.

Philippe Breton has addressed these questions extensively and, in my view, quite pertinently.

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It's important to note that not every thought or idea can be scientifically proven, and we can sometimes agree with a concept simply because it makes sense or is well-argued, which doesn't necessarily make it true or false. We will delve deeper into these points.

Now, here's the guide to overcoming influence. The real issue at hand is freedom—freedom of thought. This freedom allows you to make decisions that are truly your own, at least as much as possible, when you use reason to confront cognitive biases.

This is especially true in the era of social media, social sharing, propaganda, marketing, disinformation, deep fakes, and freelance journalists driven solely by the number of clicks their article title generates (clickbait). Many online articles address influence and manipulation from the perspective of self-confidence, which is both ridiculous and reductive.

To generate clicks and, thus, revenue, many bloggers are willing to say anything as long as their text includes the right keywords and a word count tailored to Google's preferences to boost their online presence. As a result, quality declines because it is no longer essential for gaining visibility. According to SEMRUSH, "studies show that 59% of content shared on social media hasn't been read." This means that often, a catchy title is enough to boost your article's visibility.

This phenomenon can be linked to an experiment by the satirical website The Science Post, which published an article written entirely in lorem ipsum—essentially, gibberish—with only the title. That article was shared 50,000 times. Additionally, a piece in the Chicago Tribune referenced a scientific study from a collaboration between Columbia University and the French National Institute, although I was unable to locate it. If you're interested in this topic, you'll find many studies echoing these ideas—time spent on social media, maximum attention span per stimulus, and other fascinating insights into new digital habits.

I just hope the authors explored whether people’s exposure to too much fake news or irrelevant content influenced these behaviors. On that, we have no information...

This is why it has become increasingly difficult to access reliable and relevant information on the internet, even with tools like ChatGPT. Good information is buried under hundreds of misleading or false articles, copy-pastes, rewritten content, and everyone posting their version of a topic.

Sometimes, as I’ll show in an example soon, we can even find blatant plagiarism, with entire paragraphs, chapters, or articles copied wholesale, along with infographics.

And this shouldn’t be confused with the phenomenon of fake news—it adds up to the "social sharing" phenomenon.

The work of cross-referencing sources becomes even more challenging. This is why the first key point—questioning the quality and legitimacy of the source—is the cornerstone of any system designed to counter influence.

In my view, influence doesn’t necessarily stem from a lack of self-confidence or assertiveness during the process of acquiring new beliefs or knowledge. Rather, it arises from a lack of critical thinking and ignorance. We are all ignorant about something, but it’s the individual’s personal approach that makes all the difference. Let me explain: while a lack of self-confidence can affect your willingness to dig deeper or question what you are told, who today can claim to be knowledgeable in every field? Consequently, someone who feels ignorant and doesn’t take the time—or feels too inadequate—to understand certain topics might believe the first source they encounter and, without further inquiry, adopt that information as knowledge.

For example, if I face a medical study and convince myself I lack the skills to even understand the summary, I might not attempt to verify it and end up accepting a new piece of knowledge without questioning it.

It’s essential here not to confuse belief with knowledge.
Let’s quickly define belief according to Larousse: "the act of believing in the existence of someone or something."
Now, here’s a definition of knowledge: "to be aware of something, to consider it as true or real."

Belief is not necessarily tied to reality—it is the act of believing in something, which may have no connection to the truth or be impossible to prove. Knowledge, on the other hand, is based on reality, often demonstrated by science, like a chemical reaction, for example. Ideally, we consider it indisputable, though, of course, scientific knowledge or other truths are frequently questioned by new discoveries. Therefore, knowledge is considered true only until new evidence or proof to the contrary emerges in certain fields and on certain topics.

And yes, the concept of reality can be tied to individual perceptions, but let’s not overcomplicate things.

Ultimately, questioning and verification are the bridges to the knowledge closest to a certain truth at any given moment. This is easier to achieve in the present and future than it is to analyze past influences. Imagine the effort required to unpack everything that has influenced you since birth to form your current system of beliefs and knowledge! Thus, we focus more realistically on analyzing the present and future, even though certain past beliefs and limiting ideas may need reevaluation—such as in a career change.

It’s not only through advice, stories, or articles, where information is too quickly accepted as fact or truth, that ideas take root in our minds. They also become ingrained through education, organizations, rules, norms, and processes that govern our lives, which we cannot always combat. An example is the grading system in education and the competition it fosters, culminating in awards like the Nobel Prize.

Another insidious form of influence is that of a narcissistic abuser, a popular topic nowadays. From the start of the relationship, they influence their victim, who usually has no idea what’s happening, and eventually, the victim begins to accept behaviors and remarks that, upon reflection, they would later find unthinkable.

The issue is not simple, especially when we recognize that there can be both good and bad influence. I have an upcoming article on this question.

Socially, for instance, we might think that a "good" influence would be a friend encouraging a child toward civility and knowledge, as opposed to delinquency or ignorance. Obviously, this depends on individual values, but there’s no universal metric to assess or quantify the nature of influence or its impact.

Therefore, influence is a highly pernicious phenomenon—impossible to fully identify or control in its form and effects, and it can vary according to individual perceptions.

As a result, the recipe for counteracting influence might seem simple on the surface, but given the complexity of the phenomenon, it will demand considerable cognitive and time resources. You were primarily seeking a method for overcoming influence, not a deep dive into its mechanisms and effects. I’ll stop here and will write a longer article on the subject soon, which will expand on some of the points discussed here. You’ll find it on the blog.

Here are the two core principles I suggest implementing to protect yourself from influence, no matter its form or domain of action:

First Principle: Question the Expertise of the Source.
Just because someone calls themselves an expert or presents themselves as one doesn’t mean they are. However, they are likely trying to make you believe they are, and thus influence you. I recently read an interview with a renowned scientist that struck me. As he wisely said, "Real experts don’t introduce themselves as experts."

In my view, expertise comes from experience. The term specialist, on the other hand, is different because it refers to someone who is "specialized" in a specific field. I interpret it as having expertise in a particular domain. Words matter, even when the confusion is caused by the individual rather than a lack of humility.

Larousse defines an expert as someone who knows something very well through practice and a specialist as someone with deep knowledge in a field, offering an example: a doctor exclusively practicing in a specific medical discipline.

Specialist or expert, one must be cautious. A nutritionist doctor may write a book on a new diet, only for other doctors and nutritionists to critique it with valid arguments—these professionals would likely be specialists too. A specialist’s word doesn’t guarantee truth, and neither does that of a self-proclaimed expert.

In this context, deciding whom to trust is no easy task. It requires significant research to truly understand the subject, and even then, it doesn’t guarantee that what you end up believing is the truth or the closest approximation of reality.

How to Question the Expertise of the Source:
Follow a step-by-step approach. Let’s say the topic is personal development, and you’re reading a book on "letting go." A yoga specialist might feel inclined to write a book on the subject, believing that opening one’s seven chakras is the best way to achieve "letting go." A psychologist specializing in irrational demands and anxiety, like Albert Ellis, one of the fathers of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), also addresses the topic of "letting go." Didier Pleux, author and PhD in developmental psychology, discusses "letting go" in his book Expressing Anger Without Losing Control.

Each of these books offers different approaches to the subject, and depending on personal sensitivities, prior knowledge, or beliefs, they may all resonate and be valuable!

Among these three books, which source would you prioritize?
In which book are you most likely to find reliable information—credible in the sense of being based not on unverifiable beliefs but on professional experience and ideally scientifically validated knowledge?

It’s not as obvious as it seems. Especially considering that the chakra method might help some people let go in the long term, even though it cannot be scientifically proven. Here, we face the question of results tied to influence. However, at this stage, we can’t evaluate any results since we are still deciding whom to trust. So let’s move on—I’ll explore the question of results in the article on misconceptions about good and bad influence.

I don’t know how to answer this question, and there’s probably no answer, but as far as I'm concerned, being ignorant about the issue of chakras and considering it all as self-suggestion, mental manipulation, and an unverifiable phenomenon, I would tend to prefer other approaches, especially given my profile. However, if we focus on the actual results and imagine that yoga could be as effective in the long term as the other two approaches for the individual who chooses this method, then that's another story. It may seem reductive, but ultimately isn’t it only the result that matters in this context, even if it is based on unfounded beliefs, assuming there are no real downsides for the individual? We can draw a parallel here with the placebo effect.

The two other approaches from psychologists offer theories based on their clinical observation and reflection on these issues; they provide arguments and reasoning that make sense, but they are not supported by scientific experimentation that indisputably validates their theories. It’s a bit like trying to prove through experimentation the Freudian theory of the Oedipus complex! Good luck, especially since few analysts could claim to have clearly identified it in therapy. But that’s another debate.

In any case, we are faced here with three theories, regardless of their foundations. In such a situation, it would surely be wise to study and practice all of them, one after the other. This could allow you, depending on your testing protocol, to determine which one has genuinely helped you, if there is only one.

Let’s take another example that could arise after digging a bit deeper, on a topic I understand better: career change. We can also explore this further.

On one hand, we have the book on career change by American author and speaker Richard N. Bolles, “What Color Is Your Parachute.” Despite its basis in the RIASEC model, it is a heresy to adapt it to career guidance. You’ll find the details and explanation in my book “Overcoming Influence and Change,” as I can't repeat everything everywhere.

On the other hand, there’s a multidisciplinary English author like Joanna Penn, with her book “Career Change.”

When we focus on the expertise of the source, checking their education, career, and attempting to assess the legitimacy of their ideas, we can better identify which book to choose. Richard N. Bolles claims to have sold 10 million copies of his book worldwide. If you delve into the author’s education and professional experience, you’ll find he has a bachelor’s degree in physics and a master’s in general theology. Nothing that legitimizes his discourse at the level of career guidance; it’s hard to define what in his training or experience gives him the skills to explain to others how to find their way and what motivated him to do so. One might retort that this success and the lack of a connection between education and professional activity is peculiar, given the American market and its standards.

Moreover, this same phenomenon applies to Simon Sinek, who is primarily a marketing professional and has achieved great success with his career choice method “Start With Why” and “Find Your Why,” even though his concept has no foundations and even presents certain dangers. I refer you to my two articles on this topic available on the blog.

In the personal development or career guidance market, it is not expertise or specialization that allows your work to be highlighted. Joanna Penn states in her Amazon bio that she studied psychology without completing a master's degree and also holds a master’s in theology. She is a thriller author and has written numerous books on various subjects related to self-publishing aimed at new authors. In the midst of this, she recently wrote a book on career change. She has also written another book on artificial intelligence, blockchain, and virtual worlds—topics likely to be in demand currently.

There’s no need to go further for now.

Which author would you trust most on the topic of career change?

Your answer would probably be: N. Bolles, although ideally, I believe it would be wiser to consider “none” as the most judicious response.

Now we move to the second step, which is to question the discourse.

Here’s an example drawn from my aforementioned book, and I want to point out that to give universal value to the research I’m about to mention, we should consider that the perception of life among Americans is in every way similar to that of all other inhabitants of the planet and is also transgenerational and based on a sufficiently representative sample, something I do not specify in my work, to my detriment:

Bolles, Richard N. What Color Is Your Parachute? 2020 (p. 99) discusses the following study to explain the idea that money contributes to happiness. This study was published in the American journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and seemingly contradicts the proverb that money cannot buy happiness. Conducted by Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002, and his colleague from Princeton University, Angus Deaton, the study is titled: High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being, focusing on the well-being of 450,000 Americans surveyed in 2008 and 2009 for the Gallup-Healthways index.

If we focus solely on the title, the study discusses the impact on life evaluation, not happiness!

Bolles provides this analysis: “the less money they made, the more unhappy they tended to be, day after day. No surprise there. And, obviously, the more money they made, measured in terms of percentage improvement, the happier they tended to be, as measured by the frequency and intensity of moments of smiling, laughter, affection, and joy all day long, vs. moments of sadness, worry, and stress. So, money does buy happiness. But only up to a point.”

We can read verbatim: “So money buys happiness. Until a certain point.”

This has also been reported in the press.

Yet, in the authors’ summary of the research, we can read: “We conclude that high income buys life satisfaction but not happiness, and that low income is associated both with low life evaluation and low emotional well-being.”

This means that having a good salary increases your PERCEPTION of having a SATISFYING life, but NOT HAPPINESS.

We can also read in the study's summary: “The question of whether ‘money buys happiness’ comes up frequently in discussions of subjective well-being in both scholarly debates and casual conversation. The topic has been addressed in a vast and inconclusive research literature.”

In other words, we have not yet proven that a link exists between money and happiness.

Yet it seems so ingrained in our beliefs that even authors and works of the renown of Bolles’, which does not define its quality, seem to reach that conclusion and thereby reinforce these beliefs.

And without critical thinking, without checking the study yourself, because the author seems to know what they’re talking about and is apparently smart enough to analyze such studies, you get taken in. Or at least, the things are distorted, presented differently.

Beyond the specious use of research to support one’s discourse, if we limit ourselves to studying the proposed method, only advanced analytical work on Bolles’ book and probably on Penn’s (I haven’t read it) along with a significant knowledge of the world of career guidance and its methods would allow an individual interested in the subject or seeking help to identify that Bolles’ or Penn’s work presents some fundamental problems and that it would be better to choose another. I refer here not only to the distorted use of scientific studies to support his discourse and theories in Bolles’ work but also to the complex scaffolding of his method primarily based on the RIASEC test (a work personality test that dissociates six types) which is itself particularly lacking, influences thought, but most importantly, is not related to career guidance in the sense I believe it should be considered: making a life choice based on self-knowledge, priorities, desires, the search for meaning, and above all, I cannot emphasize enough, without being influenced.

I believe I can conclude now that it is necessary to have some prior knowledge on the subject to determine the real relevance of a statement, idea, demonstration, conclusion, concept, work, method, or theory, and thus to form your own opinion or make a choice.

That said, those who habitually read negative reviews on works first may already have some avenues for reflection, although reviews do not always reflect the reality of a work and we all have our own conception and appreciate “quality” differently.

We should not dismiss all contributions from multidisciplinary perspectives. For example, it can be interesting for a philosopher or an anthropologist to examine this topic with a particular viewpoint, but it would be more delicate to choose to follow a guidance method they decided to create.

There are unfounded beliefs that may not be harmful, and others that can be, particularly regarding issues of career guidance or life choices. Hence the need to be particularly vigilant.