From the Editor; March / April 2010; Scientific American Mind; by Mariette DiChristina; 1 Page(s)

I didn’t need it, but it was the perfect thing for anyone who considered herself artistic and liked to make detailed drawings, I had to agree. The art supplies salesperson smiled ingratiatingly at me as our conversation morphed into a pitch I literally felt I couldn’t refuse. We had struck up a chat about art, and he somehow found a way to make an expensive pen-and-ink set seem indispensable by echoing back to me things I had said I valued in my drawings and in my tools. When he would point out its virtues, he’d say, “Don’t you agree?” Yes, I did. And at the end, I forked over $25—at the time, more than I would spend for a week of groceries as an undergrad—and I could not figure out what he had done to make me buy that set. He literally had changed my mind.

Now I know more about why that happened and even have some ideas about how to make it happen myself with other people—and so will you when you read the cover story by psychologist Kevin Dutton, “The Power to Persuade.” Dutton provides several simple secrets that confer surprising influence.