The Influential Mind

Why is it so hard to persuade people—even when facts are on your side? In The Influential Mind, neuroscientist Tali Sharot explores one of the most perplexing questions of modern life: why data, logic, and reason often fail to change people’s minds. Drawing on decades of cognitive neuroscience research and her own groundbreaking studies, Sharot uncovers the deep biological and psychological mechanisms that shape how humans influence—and are influenced by—others.

Sharot argues that while we assume logic drives beliefs, it’s actually emotion, personal values, and the state of the human brain that hold the reins. If you’ve ever found yourself frustrated trying to convince a friend to vaccinate their child, a spouse to recycle, or a colleague to adopt a new idea, you’ve likely fallen prey to these misunderstandings about influence. Sharot’s insight is bold but invigorating: if you want to change how people think or act, you must first understand how their brains operate.

The Brain Behind Belief

Sharot begins by likening influence to a shared duty we all carry—whether we’re doctors, parents, or social media users. We naturally love sharing opinions because it activates our brain’s reward system. Yet, paradoxically, even as we share more information than ever before, our ability to persuade effectively is deteriorating. The reason? We approach persuasion from inside our own heads rather than stepping into the mind of the other.

This mismatch, she says, explains why political debates descend into shouting matches and public health campaigns fall flat. Our brains aren’t wired to respond to numbers or logic alone—they respond to stories, emotions, and perceived threats or opportunities. In this sense, the human brain functions on ancient circuitry designed for survival, not spreadsheets.

Seven Forces That Shape Influence

The book is organized around seven forces that govern how influence operates inside the brain: priors (existing beliefs), emotion, incentives, agency, curiosity, state (our emotional and physiological condition), and others (social influence). Each force can help or hinder persuasion depending on how it’s engaged. For instance, trying to confront someone’s deeply held belief with data often backfires, but aligning with what they already value can open the door to real change.

Emotion synchronizes brains and creates empathy, making leaders like JFK or storytellers like Susan Cain remarkably persuasive. Incentives trigger motivation—but only when they align with our brain’s approach-avoidance wiring. Agency, meanwhile, matters because humans rebel when they feel controlled and thrive when given choice. Curiosity drives us toward information, yet we avoid facts that threaten our happiness, a dilemma that explains why some refuse medical testing. Stress distorts perception and amplifies fear, while social context—from online reviews to cultural consensus—can override independent thought.

Why This Matters Now

Sharot’s work is especially urgent in an era of misinformation, polarization, and data overload. She blends engaging storytelling—a mother’s panic over vaccination debates, a neuroscientist’s insight into fear-based messaging—with concrete takeaways for daily life. Her message resonates: persuasion isn’t about overpowering others with evidence, but about aligning with how people want to think and feel.

By the end, Sharot reframes influence as a humane act of connection. To change minds effectively, you must communicate in a language the brain understands: hope, control, curiosity, and empathy. Influence, she concludes, begins not in argument, but in understanding—of the mind, the brain, and the fragile human need to believe we choose for ourselves.

Sharot opens with the story of two lawyers, Thelma and Jeremiah, locked in a yearslong marital debate about whether to live in France or the United States. Each bombards the other with data—cost-of-living charts, education ratings—but no one’s mind budges. Their story mirrors our natural bias: we don’t evaluate facts neutrally. We test them against our priors—our existing mental models of how the world works.

Confirmation Bias and the Boomerang Effect

Research shows that people absorb only evidence that supports what they already believe. In classic studies, both pro– and anti–death-penalty groups strengthened their convictions after reading the same mixed evidence. Information doesn’t bridge divides—it widens them. Sharot and Cass Sunstein replicated this with climate change data: participants adjusted beliefs only if new data agreed with their preconceptions. Confronted with dissonant facts, people often invent new counterarguments, an effect psychologists term the “boomerang.”

In a world of personalized Google feeds and social bubbles, this bias intensifies. Algorithms tailor search results to match your past behavior, literally feeding your priors back to you (“Google is always on my side,” Sharot quips). Social media creates feedback loops that validate our ideas, giving us the illusion that consensus supports us—when we are merely hearing our own echo.

The Brain and Motivated Reasoning

Neuroscientific experiments reveal why. When new information challenges our views, the brain’s error-monitoring systems partially shut down. But when data supports our prior beliefs, the brain’s reward networks light up. This asymmetry ensures that learning is emotionally filtered—facts that comfort us feel true; those that don’t seem flawed. Ironically, Sharot reports, highly analytical people are often the most biased because their intelligence allows them to rationalize their preferred conclusions more skillfully (Daniel Kahneman calls this “motivated reasoning”).

Building on Common Ground

If reason fails, what works? Sharot suggests finding points of agreement—a shared motive or overlapping concern—and building outward from there. In studies of vaccine hesitancy, messages emphasizing shared goals (“vaccines protect children”) were far more persuasive than myths-versus-facts arguments (“vaccines don’t cause autism”). The same strategy might help Thelma persuade Jeremiah by appealing to his values (family happiness) rather than attacking his national pride.

The lesson: beliefs rarely yield to confrontation. Instead of fighting head-on, find shared ground and reshape the conversation around mutual goals.

In essence, Sharot reframes persuasion from a battle of facts to an act of empathy. When you align with someone’s priors, you invite them to adjust their worldview—not defend it.

Facts may inform, but it’s feelings that move us. Sharot demonstrates that emotion doesn’t just color decisions—it synchronizes minds. When John F. Kennedy inspired Americans to “choose to go to the moon,” he didn’t win them over with engineering data but with emotion—hope, pride, and awe. Neuroscience backs this up: when people listen to powerful speeches, their brain activity literally “ticks in unison,” aligning language, imagery, and feeling across individuals.

The Emotional Conductor

Experiments at Princeton and the Weizmann Institute show that during emotional moments—suspense, laughter, surprise—audience brains synchronize most strongly. The emotion acts as a conductor, focusing attention and forming a shared psychological state. This is the essence of influence: emotion equalizes perception. Whether a film explosion or Susan Cain’s quiet TED talk, emotion creates unity where logic can’t.

Coupling and Contagion

Sharot introduces the concept of “brain coupling”—the state when a listener’s brain activity mirrors a speaker’s. The stronger the emotional bond, the tighter the coupling. Emotion is also contagious. A mother’s stress raises her infant’s heart rate; happiness spreads through Olympic crowds; even tweets transmit emotional tone. Social media, she notes, is the “amygdala of the Internet”—a network that amplifies our most reactive states. Positive tweets spark more positivity; negative ones ripple negativity through millions of screens.

Regulating Emotional Transmission

Sharot warns that your emotions always influence others—even without intention. Leaders who radiate calm inspire productivity; anxious parents breed anxious children. To communicate effectively, therefore, you must manage your own emotional state first. In her words, “our intuition tells us emotions are private. That instinct is wrong.”

Emotion doesn’t just make messages memorable—it makes minds unite. Influence others not by reason alone but by letting them feel what you feel.

The takeaway is powerful: when you craft a message—whether a speech, a negotiation, or a social media post—ask not just “What do I want them to know?” but “What do I want them to feel?”

We tend to think fear motivates action—but Sharot shows that fear often freezes us. Her example: U.S. hospitals where signs screamed “Employees must wash their hands!” Yet compliance hovered below 40%. When researchers replaced warnings with an electronic board showing real-time positive feedback (“You’re doing great!”), hygiene rates shot up to 90%. The conclusion was clear: immediate rewards ignite our brain’s Go system, while threats trigger paralysis.

The Brain’s Approach–Avoidance Law

Sharot explains that our brains evolved to move toward pleasure and away from pain, a rule that even chicks can’t overwrite—they starved in experiments where they had to move away from food to get it. Human brains follow a similar pattern: anticipation of reward activates action networks; fear activates “No Go” circuits. So when we’re told “work hard or you’ll fail,” we freeze. But “work hard and you’ll shine” sparks motivation.

Hope and Immediacy

Sharot brings the point home with relatable examples: Cherry, a wife who finally got her husband to exercise by complimenting his muscles, not warning him about heart disease; and managers who energize teams by reframing threats as goals (“Let’s win back this client” instead of “Don’t lose them”). Our brains crave immediate rewards—tiny dopamine bursts that confirm progress. Distant or uncertain punishments rarely motivate lasting change.

Sharot’s lesson is both scientific and strategic: if you want people to act—wash hands, exercise, engage—replace fear messages with hope, immediate feedback, or small wins. The human brain is wired to chase light, not flee shadows.

Few things are more demoralizing than losing control. Through psychology experiments and real-world stories—like taxpayers paying more when allowed to suggest where their money goes—Sharot reveals that agency is a powerful motivator. When we feel we’re making choices, the brain’s reward network lights up; when control is stripped away, frustration, fear, and resistance rise.

The Paradox of Power

From phobias to micromanagement, fear often stems from feeling powerless. Sharot recounts film director McG’s crippling fear of flying—not rational (planes are statistically safer than cars), but about control. Similarly, nursing home residents in classic studies lived longer and happier when given minor choices, like caring for their own plants. Even imagined control—believing you built a custom shoe or designed your IKEA shelf—increases satisfaction with the result. This “IKEA effect,” Sharot notes, shows that the *sense* of agency can be as rewarding as the reality.

Delegating Without Losing Influence

Interestingly, Sharot finds that people value control so highly they’ll make poorer decisions to keep it. Investors who insist on handpicking stocks lose money but gain a feeling of mastery. Her studies show participants prefer to make riskier “choices” themselves rather than delegate to experts, even when delegation pays more. Yet those who learn when and how to let go—while maintaining the *choice* to delegate—are happier and more effective. The trick, she suggests, is to guide others by broad framing while letting them decide the details.

If you want to influence someone, stop controlling them. Offer choices and shared ownership instead—because giving away control is, paradoxically, how you gain true influence.

Sharot’s conclusion: control satisfies a primal human drive. Whether leading teams or raising kids, people comply not when compelled—but when empowered.

Why do we crave information even when it’s useless—or avoid it when it terrifies us? Sharot illustrates this paradox with stories ranging from Harvard applicants ("hackers" who peeked at their acceptance letters early) to monkeys willing to give up water just to know if a reward was coming. The drive for knowledge, she explains, is wired deep into the brain’s dopamine system: information lights up the same reward circuits as food, sex, or success.

The Joy and Burden of Knowing

Information doesn’t just guide choices—it changes how we feel. Knowing good news (a promotion, a positive health test) triggers happiness, while uncertainty gnaws at us. Yet we also avert our eyes from painful truths: many at risk for Huntington’s disease or breast cancer refuse genetic testing because ignorance preserves hope. Sharot calls this the “mental calculator” effect: we weigh the utility of knowledge against its emotional cost.

Hopeful Framing and Selective Ignorance

People seek information that feels good and shun what hurts, even at a cost. Investors check portfolios when markets rise and “bury their heads in the sand” during downturns. Airlines learned the same lesson with safety videos: grim warnings about crashes failed, but cheerful dance-filled versions captured attention. The takeaway: to disseminate important knowledge, package it with hope and agency, not dread.

For leaders, educators, or communicators, this insight is critical. Curiosity thrives in positive expectation. If you want people to listen, make them glad they did.

Sharot shows how stress doesn’t just make us anxious—it changes what we learn. In calm states, our brains attend to reassuring information; under threat, we focus on danger. This helped our ancestors survive lions and, later, terrorist attacks—but today it distorts modern judgment. In experiments, people anticipating public speaking became suddenly better at absorbing bad news (like robbery rates) but ignored good news. Firefighters on high-alert shifts did the same.

From Panic to Paralysis

Threat floods the brain with cortisol, suppressing logic while amplifying the amygdala’s alarm system. People “play it safe,” avoiding risk even when risk is rational. Sharot illustrates with sports: when the University of California’s Golden Bears feared losses, their coach became overly conservative—and lost more. By contrast, tennis prodigy Michael Chang, facing the world’s top player in 1989, reframed pressure as opportunity (“to bring a smile to my people”) and triumphed against the odds. His brain, Sharot notes, overcame its fear circuits through reframing.

Reframing and Regulation

Studies at Caltech show high performers lower their amygdala activity by activating frontal control centers—literally calming their fear through cognition. Awareness enables this skill. Recognizing fear’s bias lets you consciously broaden focus and take calculated risks. As Sharot reminds us, humans uniquely can pause, reinterpret, and choose differently—turning instinctive fear into deliberate courage.

Her guidance for change-makers: before trying to influence others, gauge their stress state. An anxious mind hears warnings louder than hope. Time your message for calm—or craft it to restore control.

One of Sharot’s most captivating sections explores our instinct for social learning—the subconscious pull to copy others. Even infants imitate adults’ interactions: her own baby preferred her iPhone over toys, having seen her handle it constantly. This instinct once saved lives (copying others’ food choices ensured survival) but now leads to conformity and herd thinking.

The Copycat Mind

Sharot revisits Albert Bandura’s from the 1960s, where preschoolers mimicked an adult hitting a doll. Our brains are built to mirror social behavior—what others value, we value too. In her experiments, hungry students changed their snack choices when told others had chosen differently, even denying influence. Whether wine consumers abandoning merlot after the film Sideways or patients refusing kidneys others declined, social proof steers our decisions irrationally.

Ratings, Likes, and False Consensus

Online, this bias multiplies. Sharot cites studies where the first positive review boosts all later ratings by 32%—a cascade of influence born from a single voice. Our amygdala and hippocampus even encode others’ opinions into memory as our own, physically altering recall. Yet she also finds hope: one dissenting voice can break unanimity, restoring independent judgment.

We’re wired to conform—but also equipped to resist. Awareness and diversity of thought are antidotes to the brain’s social autopilot.

Sharot’s insight resonates in the digital age: beware echo chambers. Independence doesn’t mean isolation—it means thoughtful selection of which minds you let shape yours.

The myth of the “wise crowd,” Sharot argues, depends on a fragile condition: independence. Francis Galton’s classic ox-weighing experiment proved group averages can reveal truth—but only when individuals think alone. Once people start influencing each other, collective error multiplies. Editors once unanimously rejected both Marlon James and J.K. Rowling—proof that consensus can be catastrophically wrong.

Independence and Bias

Sharot illustrates this with a publishing scenario: if team members share their starting opinions aloud, everyone converges prematurely. Social consensus feels smart but erodes objectivity. Similarly, algorithms and markets amplify biases—the more we interact, the less independent our judgments. Even small misconceptions (“watchful CEOs increase profits”) can balloon into “truths” through repetition.

The ‘Equality Bias’ Trap

Because weighing expertise is cognitively demanding, people default to treating all opinions equally—a democratic impulse that backfires when not everyone is equally informed. Sharot calls this the “equality heuristic.” True wisdom lies in weighting expertise, not voting it. Sometimes, the wisest insight belongs to the minority: the 79th editor who accepted James’s novel or the 8-year-old who saved Harry Potter.

Finding the Surprising Popular Vote

Sharot ends with an ingenious idea from MIT: the “surprisingly popular vote.” Ask not just people’s answers but what they think most others will say—the response that’s more popular than expected often reveals truth. It identifies hidden experts amid noise. In essence, collective wisdom thrives when diversity, independence, and humility replace unanimity and echo.

Her message reminds modern readers—awed by ratings, polls, and trending hashtags—that popularity isn’t wisdom. The crowd may be loud, but truth often whispers from the edges.

Sharot closes her book where neuroscience meets science fiction: the idea that one day, influence might bypass words entirely. From language and printing to Internet and direct brain interfaces, human communication keeps closing the gap between minds. In Duke University labs, one mouse’s brain can now teach another which lever to press; at Harvard, a person’s thoughts can move a rat’s tail. Engineers are even connecting human brains via electrodes to transmit actions directly.

Brains as Communicating Machines

Experiments at the University of Washington demonstrated one person moving another’s finger across continents using brain-to-brain interfaces. Such technologies underscore a philosophical truth: influence is, at its core, neural transmission. Every word or gesture you use today already changes another’s brain chemistry. Direct interfaces merely make visible what has always been true.

The Ethical Horizon

Sharot ends with humility. She debates a philosopher who insists "You are not your brain"; she replies, “If my brain changes, so do I.” The future, she suggests, won’t just connect our devices but our minds—and understanding how influence works will be crucial for navigating it responsibly.

Influence isn’t manipulation. It’s communication aligned with our biology—a bridge between brains built on empathy, not control.

The takeaway: technology may amplify how we influence, but human principles remain timeless. To persuade, inspire, or teach, we must speak not to the intellect alone but to the brain’s deepest needs for hope, control, emotion, and connection.