Cass Sunstein is a Harvard Law School professor and one of the most cited legal scholars in the world. He founded the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School, served in the White House during the Obama Administration, received the Holberg Prize from the government of Norway, and has written dozens of books on topics ranging from behavioral science to constitutional law.
What’s the big idea?
Hidden forces shape our decisions all the time—whether that comes in the form of peer pressure, marketing strategy, or cultural norms. Manipulation is silent, pervasive, and dangerous. We need to find ways to protect ourselves from influences that guide our actions without giving us a fair shot at making deliberate choices.
Below, Cass shares five key insights from his new book, Manipulation: What It Is, Why It’s Bad, and What to Do About It. Listen to the audio version—read by Cass himself—below, or in the Next Big Idea App.
1. Manipulation undermines your freedom to choose.
Manipulation isn’t just persuasion—it’s trickery that prevents people from exercising their capacity for deliberation. It might stir emotions, hide crucial information, or bury key terms in fine print so you can’t make a truly informed choice. The danger lies in how it quietly strips away your agency, making you act without genuine reflection.
2. Sludge is manipulation by a thousand cuts.
“Sludge” refers to needless barriers—endless forms, hold times, or bureaucratic hoops—that make it hard to get what you want or to escape a bad deal. Companies often make signing up effortless, but impose exhausting obstacles when you try to cancel or change terms. This “easy in, hard out” design is manipulation on steroids.
3. We need a right to not be manipulated.
Societies already protect people from fraud and deception, but there’s no legal safeguard against manipulation itself. That’s a problem because manipulation can waste your time, drain your money, and damage your well-being without breaking existing laws. It’s time to create a clear, enforceable right that shields people from such exploitation.
4. The Barbie Problem: buying what we wish didn’t exist.
Some goods are bought not out of love, but because social norms make them feel unavoidable. Think of Barbies, cigarettes, certain social media platforms, or any items that most people purchase yet many privately wish would disappear altogether. Companies exploit social pressures to manipulate us into consumer choices that don’t reflect our true preferences. Getting people to buy products they deplore or regret purchasing is a serious problem that we need to find a way to reduce.
5. Social norms can trap us.
Once a product exists, refusing it can send an unwanted signal: in some communities, turning down a drink implies you’re no fun; skipping a trendy app makes you seem out of the loop. To avoid that social penalty, we comply—even if we’d be happier without the product entirely. This is manipulation by peer pressure, and is extremely hard to resist because of how certain choices signal specific social perceptions of you.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.