ABOUT THE BOOK

Why are you captivated by some people, but not others? Why do you recall some brands, yet forget the rest? In a distracted and overcrowded world, how do certain leaders, friends, and family members convince you to change your behavior? The answer: fascination.

Fascination is the most powerful way to influence decision-making. It’s more persuasive than marketing, advertising, or any other form of communication. And it all starts with seven universal triggers of fascination: Trust, Passion, Mystique, Prestige, Alarm, Rebellion, and Power.

Fascination plays a role in every type of decision-making, from which brands you purchase to which songs you remember, from which person you marry to which employees you hire. Anything can become fascinating, anything at all, if you activate the right triggers around it.

To explore and explain fascination’s irresistible influence, Sally Hogshead looks beyond marketing, discovering new answers in scientific theory, behavioral and social studies, historical precedents, and disciplines from neurobiology to evolutionary anthropology, as well as in-depth interviews and a national study of a thousand consumers. She uncovers deeply-rooted patterns for why, and how, we become captivated.

Hogshead reveals why the Salem witch trials began with the same fixations as “Sex and the City.” Olympic athletes experience a similar obsession as fetishists. A 1636 frenzy over Dutch tulip bulbs perfectly mimics the 2006 real estate bubble. And a billion-dollar “Just Say No” program actually increases drug use among teens, by activating the same “forbidden fruit” syndrome as a Victoria’s Secret catalogue.

Whether you realize it or not, you’re already using the seven triggers. The question is: are you using the right triggers, in the right way, to get your desired result? This book will show you.