HOW does human psychology, as described by Gilbert (and, to a lesser extent, these other authors) account for our ability to be manipulated? In other words, how does the mind itself enable its own manipulation?

TEXTS
Your essay must cite and analyze passages from:
➢Gilbert, Daniel. “Immune to Reality.” The New Humanities Reader, 6th edition,
edited by Richard E Miller and Kurt Spellmeyer, Cengage, 2019 pp.142-155
➢Tolentino, Jia. “Always Be Optimizing.” Trick Mirror. Random House, 2019 pp.
63-94.
➢Foer, Franklin. “Mark Zuckerberg’s War on Free Will.” The New Humanities
Reader, 6th edition, edited by Richard E Miller and Kurt Spellmeyer, Cengage,
2019 pp.103-114
PROMPT
Daniel Gilbert’s explanation of the “psychological immune system,” of which
people appear to be generally ignorant, raises questions about how much
control people have over their own mental states. Tolentino, in her
identification of “traps,” and Foer, in his anxiety over “manipulation,” each
discuss ways that individuals are subject to “self-delusion” (Tolentino, Gilbert)
or even “hacking” (Foer) and “cooking” (Gilbert). The forces that delude,
manipulate, hack, and cook are of course different in each case, but there
appears to be some symmetry between what human minds do and what
outside forces do to them. HOW does human psychology, as described by
Gilbert (and, to a lesser extent, these other authors) account for our
ability to be manipulated? In other words, how does the mind itself
enable its own manipulation?
Please note that this question asks you to describe processes and relationships
of significant complexity. A successful thesis will describe a specific
relationship or set of relationships between concepts from the texts. Your goal
is not to identify a set of ways that people are manipulated or decide whether
or not manipulation is a problem (so, this means, no theses that involve lists of
three things and no theses containing the words “people should” or “people
need to”, but rather to explain how and why the human brain allows for such
manipulation).
FORMAT
Double Space, Times New Roman, 12 pt. Font, number all pages
Your paper should have your name, the date, course name and section number, and a TITLE
on the first page
You must proofread carefully.
Quotations should be carefully transcribed, punctuated, and attributed.

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