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Influence by Robert Cialdini

Influence by Robert Cialdini

by Parker · 90 things on Twos

Influence by Robert Cialdini summary
Material self-interest: that people want to get the most and pay the least for their choices
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein
When we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do.
"You get what you pay for." aka expensive = good
Automatic, stereotyped behavior is prevalent in much of human action, because in many cases it is the most efficient form of behaving, and in other cases, it is simply necessary
“Civilization advances by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them.” - Alfred North Whitehead
The contrast principle: if the second item is fairly different from the first, we will tend to see it as more different than it actually is
Clothing stores instruct their sales personnel to sell the costly item first
The rule for reciprocation: we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided us
People are more willing to do a favor for someone they like
People we might ordinarily dislike can greatly increase the chance that we will do what they wish merely by providing us with a small favor prior to their requests
The free sample: a small amount of the relevant product is provided to potential customers for the stated purpose of allowing them to try it to see if they like it. It is also a gift and, as such, can engage the reciprocity rule
Another person can trigger a feeling of indebtedness by doing us an uninvited favor
“There is an obligation to give, an obligation to receive, and an obligation to repay.” - Marcel Mauss
We are trained from childhood to chafe, emotionally, under the saddle of obligation. For this reason alone, then, we may be willing to agree to perform a larger favor than we received, merely to relieve ourselves of the psychological burden of debt
A person who feels responsible for the terms of a contract will be more likely to live up to that contract
People who are satisfied with a given arrangement are more likely to be willing to agree to further such arrangements
A favor rightly follows a favor—not a piece of sales strategy
"It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end." - Leonardo Da Vinci
Just after placing a bet, they are much more confident of their horse’s chances of winning than they are immediately before laying down that bet
It is, quite simply, our nearly obsessive desire to be (and to appear) consistent with what we have already done
In most circumstances consistency is valued and adaptive. Inconsistency is commonly thought to be an undesirable personality trait
Once a stand is taken, there is a natural tendency to behave in ways that are stubbornly consistent with the stand
The tactic of starting with a little request in order to gain eventual compliance with related larger requests has a name: the foot-in-the- door technique
Once he has agreed to a request, his attitude may change, he may become, in his own eyes, the kind of person who does this sort of thing, who agrees to requests made by strangers, who takes action on things he believes in, who cooperates with good causes.
Be very careful about agreeing to trivial requests
You can use small commitments to manipulate a person’s self-image. And once you’ve got a man’s self-image where you want it, he should comply naturally with a whole range of your requests that are consistent with this view of himself.
What people truly feel and believe comes less from their words than from their deeds
Set a goal and write it down. Whatever the goal, the important thing is that you set it, so you’ve got something for which to aim—and that you write it down.
Public commitments tend to be lasting commitments
Whenever one takes a stand that is visible to others, there arises a drive to maintain that stand in order to look like a consistent person
The more effort that goes into a commitment, the greater is its ability to influence the attitudes of the person who made it
Persons who go through a great deal of trouble or pain to attain something tend to value it more highly than persons who attain the same thing with a minimum of effort
Commitments are most effective in changing a person’s self-image and future behavior when they are active, public, and effort- ful
We should never heavily bribe or threaten our children to do the things we want them truly to believe in. Such pressures will probably produce temporary compliance with our wishes. However, if we want more than just that, if we want the children to believe in the correctness of what they have done, if we want them to continue to perform the desired behavior when we are not present to apply those outside pressures, then we must somehow arrange for them to accept inner responsibility for the actions we want them to take
Use a reason that will initially produce the desired behavior and will, at the same time, allow a child to take personal responsibility for that behavior. Thus, the less detectable outside pressure such a reason contains, the better. Selecting just the right reason is not an easy task for parents. But the effort should pay off. It is likely to mean the difference between short-lived compliance and long-term commitment
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
We experience our feelings toward something a split second before we can intellectualize about it
"Where all think alike, no one thinks very much." - Walter Lippmann
The principle of social proof: one means we use to determine what is correct is to find out what other people think is correct
“Since 95 percent of the people are imitators and only 5 percent initiators, people are persuaded more by the actions of others than by any proof we can offer.” - Cavett Robert
The principle of social proof works best when the proof is provided by the actions of a lot of other people
The principle of social proof says the greater the number of people who find any idea correct, the more the idea will be correct
When we are unsure of ourselves, when the situation is unclear or ambiguous, when uncertainty reigns, we are most likely to look to and accept the actions of others as correct
It is almost a matter of psychological survival, if one is surrounded and pressed by millions of people, to prevent them from constantly impinging on you, and the only way to do this is to ignore them as often as possible. Indifference to one’s neighbor and his troubles is a conditioned reflex in life in New York as it is in other big cities
In times of uncertainty, the natural tendency is to look around at the actions of others for clues. We can learn, from the way the other witnesses are reacting, whether the event is or is not an emergency.
Your best strategy when in need of emergency help is to reduce the uncertainties of those around you concerning your condition and their responsibilities. Be as precise as possible about your need for aid. Do not allow bystanders to come to their own conclusions because, especially in a crowd, the principle of social proof and the consequent pluralistic ignorance effect might well cause them to view your situation as a nonemergency.
Pick out one person and assign the task to that individual. Otherwise, it is too easy for everyone in the crowd to assume that someone else should help, will help, or has helped
The principle of social proof operates most powerfully when we are observing the behavior of people just like us
Widely publicized aggression has the nasty tendency to spread to similar victims, no matter whether the aggression is inflicted on the self or on another
The most influential leaders are those who know how to arrange group conditions to allow the principle of social proof to work maximally in their favor
We prefer to say yes to the requests of someone we know and like
Good-looking people have an advantage in social interaction
A halo effect occurs when one positive characteristic of a person dominates the way that person is viewed by others. And the evidence is now clear that physical attractiveness is often such a characteristic
We automatically assign to good-looking individuals such favorable traits as talent, kindness, honesty, and intelligence
Attractive people are more likely to obtain help when in need and are more persuasive in changing the opinions of an audience
We like people who are similar to us. This fact seems to hold true whether the similarity is in the area of opinions, personality traits, background, or life-style
We are more likely to help those who dress like us
The information that someone fancies us can be a bewitchingly effective device for producing return liking and willing compliance
We are phenomenal suckers for flattery
There is a natural human tendency to dislike a person who brings us unpleasant information, even when that person did not cause the bad news
People do assume that we have the same personality traits as our friends
Whenever our public image is damaged, we will experience an increased desire to restore that image by trumpeting our ties to successful others
They are individuals with a hidden personality flaw—a poor self-concept. Deep inside is a sense of low personal worth that directs them to seek prestige not from the generation or promotion of their own attainments, but from the generation or promotion of their associations with others of attainment
"Follow an expert." - Virgil
We are trained from birth that obedience to proper authority is right and disobedience is wrong
Once a legitimate authority has given an order, subordinates stop thinking in the situation and start reacting
"The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost." - G. K. Chesterton
Scarcity principle—that opportunities seem more valuable to us when their availability is limited
People seem to be more motivated by the thought of losing something than by the thought of gaining something of equal value
The “limited-number” tactic, when the customer is informed that a certain product is in short supply that cannot be guaranteed to last long
The “deadline” tactic, in which some official time limit is placed on the customer’s opportunity to get what the compliance professional is offering
Whenever free choice is limited or threatened, the need to retain our freedoms makes us desire them significantly more than previously
When our freedom to have something is limited, the item becomes less available, and we experience an increased desire for it
Juries make larger awards to victims if an insurance company will have to pay
Revolutionaries are more likely to be those who have been given at least some taste of a better life. When the economic and social improvements they have experienced and come to expect suddenly become less available, they desire them more than ever and often rise up violently to secure them
When it comes to freedoms, it is more dangerous to have given for a while than never to have given at all
Freedoms once granted will not be relinquished without a fight
The parent who grants privileges or enforces rules erratically invites rebelliousness by unwittingly establishing freedoms for the child
People see a thing as more desirable when it has recently become less available than when it has been scarce all along. We should not be surprised, then, when research shows that parents who enforce discipline inconsistently produce generally rebellious children
Not only do we want the same item more when it is scarce, we want it most when we are in competition for it
The joy is not in experiencing a scarce commodity but in possessing it. It is important that we not confuse the two
Whenever we confront the scarcity pressures surrounding some item, we must also confront the question of what it is we want from the item. If the answer is that we want the thing for the social, economic, or psychological benefits of possessing something rare, then, fine; scarcity pressures will give us a good indication of how much we would want to pay for it—the less available it is, the more valuable to us it will be. But very often we don’t want a thing purely for the sake of owning it. We want it, instead, for its utility value; we want to eat it or drink it or touch it or hear it or drive it or otherwise use it. In such cases it is vital to remember that scarce things do not taste or feel or sound or ride or work any better because of their limited availability
As soon as we feel the tide of emotional arousal that flows from scarcity influences, we should use that rise in arousal as a signal to stop short. Panicky, feverish reactions have no place in wise compliance decisions. We need to calm ourselves and regain a rational perspective. Once that is done, we can move to the second stage by asking ourselves why we want the item under consideration. If the answer is that we want it primarily for the purpose of owning it, then we should use its availability to help gauge how much we want to spend for it. However, if the answer is that we want it primarily for its function, then we must remember that the item under consideration will function equally well whether scarce or plentiful
Very often in making a decision about someone or something, we don’t use all the relevant available information; we use, instead, only a single, highly representative piece of the total. And an isolated piece of information, even though it normally counsels us correctly, can lead us to clearly stupid mistakes—mistakes that, when exploited by clever others, leave us looking silly or worse
Despite the susceptibility to stupid decisions that accompanies a reliance on a single feature of the available data, the pace of modern life demands that we frequently use this shortcut
We employ the factors of reciprocation, consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity so often and so automatically in making our compliance decisions
We are likely to use these lone cues when we don’t have the inclination, time, energy, or cognitive resources to undertake a complete analysis of the situation
With the sophisticated mental apparatus we have used to build world eminence as a species, we have created an environment so complex, fast-paced, and information-laden that we must increasingly deal with it in the fashion of the animals we long ago transcended