Influence by Robert Cialdini

Since the dawn of humankind, humans not only survived but thrived because of interpersonal communication. The ability to communicate with one another has resulted in our superiority over all of Earth’s other creatures. Being able to ask another person to do something as simple as “take out the trash” is an impossible feat for all other species yet it appears to be innate for us. Likewise, people have the ability to understand and not comply with our requests. That’s where Cialdini and the science of persuasion comes in.

Dr. Robert B. Cialdini PhD

Robert B. Cialdini is the authoritative figure on persuasion. A Ph.D. graduate from Columbia University, Dr. Cialdini is president of Influence At Work, a company based on groundbreaking research on business applications of influence. Cialdini has done hundreds of studies with a team of psychologists on the subject of influence and persuasion. He published his findings over three books, most notably Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

What’s It About?

Influence is based around six main principles Cialdini has discovered over his years of research which he has dubbed the “weapons of influence”: reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority and scarcity. Throughout the book, he extensively covers these six weapons. The book is divided one chapter per weapon with several real life examples of each. Since this is a science based book, Cialdini cites the various studies with explanations, balancing dry information and examples.

I have read countless books with research, studies and facts, and found that a common problem arises between information quantity and quality of writing. Cialdini achieves a good balance. Each topic he covers has several studies which he explains in a very entertaining manner. Citing personal anecdotes, throwing in comedic expressions and having actual useful research kept me from putting this book down all weekend. In addition, he uses examples that affect our day to day lives.

Scientific Content

Many research studies and applications are obsolete and we have no applicable use for them, such as Freud’s theories on our secret sexual desire for our parents and urge to kill the parent of the same sex. Cialdini goes around this problem by using plenty real life examples and tells us how they work and how to deal with them. For example from his chapter on Social Proof,

“Advertisers love to inform us when a product is the ‘fastest-growing’ or ‘largest-selling’ because they don’t have to convince us directly that the product is good, they need only say that many others think so, which seem proof enough.”

This is a situation that is evident in our daily lives from the thousands of advertisements we are slammed with wherever we look. With such examples, Cialdini is not only showing us how we can deploy the persuasive research to our advantage, but also be able to pick out when we are trying to be manipulated.

Click, Whirr

At the end of each of his chapters, he dedicates one section on “How to Say No”. In it he covers how to negate other people’s attempts at persuading you using his six methods. Many of the techniques he presents can trigger automatic responses (or click-whirr as he calls them) which don’t require any substantial evidence to persuade and are instead used as a means of manipulation. For example, one of the first (and I personally find important) persuasion methods he talks about is the word “because”. Simply using the word “because” establishes an unconscious response that increases the likelihood of receiving an acceptance response as proven by the Xerox study.

In this study, a woman pretended that she needed to make copies while there was a line to use the Xerox machine. They wanted to cut the line and did it by asking to skip ahead of everyone else in three different ways. The first was by asking, “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” Phrasing the question in such a way resulted in a 60% “yes” response, 60% of the time a person was asked, they complied with the request. The next was to provide a reason by asking “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?”. In this case, 94% agreed to let her cut ahead. The key to this study came from the third phrasing of the sentence, “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I need to make copies?”. Even though she did not provide any ‘real’ reason for using the Xerox machine (of course she wants to make copies, what else is a Xerox machine for?), a whopping 93% of people asked let her jump ahead. This is the automatic response used in a manipulative way – creating persuasion by using these small words that trigger neurological responses that make us comply.

Reader Responses

Since this is a revised edition of the book, Cialdini also put reader submitted examples at the end of each chapter. These show real people using the principles they’ve just learned to persuade in their every day lives. My favorite example is from the section on the “contrast principle” which states that we see things completely differently when we view two different items in succession. For example, if we buy a suit for $495, a sweater costing $95 seems a lot cheaper as compared to the suit. If, on the other hand, we bought a pair of socks for $6, a sweater for $95 would seem very pricy. In the book’s example, a college student wrote a letter to her parents about how her dorm burned down, she fractured her skull, got married and became pregnant. At the end, she told them that not of it was true and that she is failing two courses and wanted them to see it in the right perspective. This is both an entertaining and informative example of how to use and apply the contrast principle in both business and non-business applications.

Examples To Connect

Since this is a scientific study of persuasion, Cialdini sources all his studies in addition to making small footnotes about particular studies. All of these can be found at the end of the book, as opposed to within the actual pages. Putting everything at the end makes reading the book a lot more reader friendly and doesn’t carry the dry textbook feel. Even when he presents straight forward facts, he adds commentary that makes the book seem a lot more enjoyable and also easier to remember.

Once again the predictions were strikingly accurate: When the newspaper detailed the suicide of a young person, it was young drivers who then piled their cars into trees, poles, and embankments with fatal results… This last statistic crushed me. I am left wholly convinced and, simultaneously, wholly amazed by it. Evidently, the principle of social proof is so wide-ranging and powerful that its domain extends to the fundamental decision for life or death.

This would be the equivalent of commentators when you are watching a sports game. You can see everything that is happening but without the commentators, the game just isn’t as interesting (unless you are at the actual game which is equivalent to performing the actual study). Cialdini provides his own incite on how he applies his own concepts to life.

To Read or Not To Read?

I believe this book should be required for all people in business. It teaches many vital concepts of influencing, negotiating and just plain communication that necessary for people. Additionally, all persons interested in psychology would be equality fascinated by the contents of Influence – especially those who are fond of social psychology. Even people outside of business and psychology would benefit from reading this book and putting its lessons into practice. Being able to communicate your point of view on any topic across any audience is advantageous in daily situations. This is a book I read more than once and recommend you do to.

Buy Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials)