Whether you are looking to persuade an audience to buy a product, make your boss see you as the obvious choice for that promotion, or simply understand how the elites of a society structure media to make you believe a particular narrative, you have been delving into the broad field of “social science”.

Social science is defined in a Google search as “the scientific study of human society and social relationships”. Fairly broad.

But if you are interested in my work then you probably are looking for something more specific than mere data on human society and social relationships, right?

You want to come to understand that data in such a way that you are able to use it to gain power over others.

There are a few different academic fields out there which are all specifically based on applying knowledge of the mechanics of the human mind towards the control of people.

On the whole this group of fields is referred to as “applied psychology” — a subsection of social science that organizes human behavioral tendencies in such a way that they can be used as predictors of future actions.

Within the field of applied psychology, we have 4 major fields of study, all closely related but specializing in a different aspect of social control.

These fields are:

SOCIAL ENGINEERING

SOCIAL SKILLS

SOCIETAL ENGINEERING

PSYOPS (PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS)

Social engineering is a terms which once embraced all aspects dealing with the control of human interactions, but has recently taken on a much more specialized meaning.

In modern parlance, social engineering specifically refers to “the use of deception to manipulate individuals into divulging confidential or personal information that may be used for fraudulent purposes”.

It has become a term heavily associated with cyber security — a way for criminals to get their hands on information that would be impossible or extremely difficult to collect through purely electronic means. By conning the people in charge of the data systems they wish access to, these ne’er-do-wells are able to accomplish their mission despite the firewalls, password protection, double authentication, or whatever other cyber security solutions have come along — by tricking people, not machines.

Social engineering is studied by criminals and security professionals alike, each needing to know the latest techniques to gain an advantage over the other.

Despite its broad sounding name, social engineering has actually become quite a specialized field.

Next up we have “social skills”, which deals with exactly what you would think — learning the customs and rules of social interaction so that you can better get along with others. Such skills are built up to better facilitate proper communication and have as their end goal being “well liked”.

This field deals with a person’s reputation, his intimate relationships, friendships, and professional dealings.

Things like how to structure a conversation, how to appear interested in a person and how to not be boring would fall under this category.

Societal engineering, the field that I study and disseminate, is what social engineering was supposed to be until the cyber security field co-opted the word.

Societal engineering deals with the application of psychological principles towards the control of entire societies. I call it the “applied science of group control” as that is what it is, most simply. It could even be referred to as “culture building”, for that is what one is doing when he is changing the hearts and minds of a population.

Anyone who could rightly be called a “social media influencer” would actually fall into this category. It makes for an extremely interesting study to pay attention to these modern rockstars, with their millions of views and followers, and look for the persuasive subtleties in their material.

Not all of the internet attention grabbers are interested in becoming culture warriors, for sure, but nevertheless anyone who attracts any sort of meaningful attention is moving the culture in one direction or another. There is a cultural contribution there, simply by virtue of the amount of eyes and ears that are consuming the content. After all, people emulate what they see and like.

The field of societal engineering looks into how to best present material so that it impacts the most people in the most influential way, thereby creating the greatest cultural change with the least effort.

The last field on our list is psyops, short for psychological operations. This is the field of social influence as it applies to war.

It covers things like propaganda, espionage, 007 type spy missions, military morale and the training of allied (or perhaps enemy) troops.

Any action that deals with improving the state of mind of “us” and weakening the state of mind of “them” would fall under the banner of psyops.

Missions conducted and covered up by intelligence agencies such as the CIA would also be covered here.

Drug use used to change the mind of a soldier or prisoner of war would be included.

The plot of Christian Bale’s Batman Begins would fall under psyops as well (Putting hallucinogens in the water supply of a major city, with the intention of freaking everyone out and creating a mass panic).

These four sub-fields within applied psychology are each used in a different context, but with the same basic aim — change the minds of a target audience to better align with your goals.

Each field has its own merits, and it only falls to your own personal ambitions to determine which of these fields you need to pursue.