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Anchoring

Presenting an extreme number or claim first so everything after seems reasonable by comparison. The first piece of information becomes your reference point — even when it's arbitrary or deliberately inflated. Works even when you know the anchor is irrelevant.

Tversky & Kahneman's anchoring heuristic (1974)

In-group/Out-group framing

AI detected as: Manichean Framing

Leveraging your tendency to automatically trust information from "our people" and distrust outsiders. Once groups are established, people apply different standards of evidence depending on who is speaking.

Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979); Cialdini's Unity principle (2016)

Appeal to authority

Citing an expert or institution to support a claim, substituting their credibility for evidence you can evaluate yourself. Legitimate when the authority is relevant; manipulative when they aren't qualified or when the citation is vague.

Argumentum ad verecundiam (Locke, 1690); Cialdini's Authority principle (1984)

Moral framing

Presenting a complex issue with genuine tradeoffs as a simple choice between right and wrong. Once something is framed as a moral issue, compromise feels like complicity and disagreement feels immoral rather than reasonable.

Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory; Lakoff's framing research (2004)

Direct appeal

AI detected as: Institutional Appeal As Neutrality

Explicitly telling you what to do — subscribe, donate, vote, share. Unlike subtler techniques, it works through clarity and urgency. Most effective when preceded by emotional buildup that makes the action feel like a natural next step.

Compliance literature (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004); foot-in-the-door (Freedman & Fraser, 1966)

Symbolic Juxtaposition

This technique was detected by AI but doesn't yet map to our curated glossary. We're tracking its usage patterns.

In-group/Out-group framing

Leveraging your tendency to automatically trust information from "our people" and distrust outsiders. Once groups are established, people apply different standards of evidence depending on who is speaking.

Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979); Cialdini's Unity principle (2016)

Direct appeal

Explicitly telling you what to do — subscribe, donate, vote, share. Unlike subtler techniques, it works through clarity and urgency. Most effective when preceded by emotional buildup that makes the action feel like a natural next step.

Compliance literature (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004); foot-in-the-door (Freedman & Fraser, 1966)