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Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Revised Edition by Robert B. Cialdini (2006)
, 11 Feb 2016
I was finishing this book when one of my brothers played one of the tricks mentioned in the book without he knowing that it would not work on me. He had bought an antique book written by a distant relative of ours, and he thought it expensive, because it is expensive in the part of the world where he lives and because his partner wouldn't be happy about him expending so much money on this sort of thing. When I asked him about the price he told me something relatively high but after talking for another five minutes or so he told me that the price he had mentioned before wasn't real, it was quite cheaper. He added that he had done so the second figure would appear lower than it is in this way. The contrast principle. It made me giggle.
Cialdini's "Influence" is a classic of Applied Psychology, Social Psychology, Behavioural Economics, and of Marketing and Business. It is, above all, a serious book of Psychology by a reputed psychologist. Originally published in the 1980s, this review is about the revised edition.
This is a book about compliance and manipulation in general. The book offers detailed answers to two main questions 1/ what are the factors that cause one person to say yes to another person? And 2/ which techniques most effectively use these factors to generate compliance? Besides, there are many interesting, every-day sort of questions, that are posed and answered in the book. Just to mention a few:
Cialdini wants normal people, no matter we are a seller or not, to understand how our psyche works, because the trickster can be tricked and our psyche works using mechanisms that can be exploited and manipulated easily against us by anybody, for good and for evil. This is not a book on how to use or manipulate people and isn't directed to marketers or sellers specifically. A good part of Cialdini's work was done by infiltrating training programs from sales people and Cialdini mostly address the majority of people who don't use compliance techniques. However, he doesn't hold a grudge, nor want us to, against "compliance practioners" as he calls them (sales operators, fund-raisers, charities street workers, recruiters, advertisers, real-estate and travel agents, among others) are just people using the knowledge of our psyche without lying or masquerading anything. When they do, Cialdini advices war:
"Influence" is an useful book, not only to be learn and be aware of the tricks that compliance professionals play on us, but also of the ways people use them in our private lives to get something from us even if it is just approval, lack of a reprimand, or just sex. Most importantly the section "How to say no" in each chapter tell us, exactly, what to do or how to recognise the manipulators, the psychological anchors discussed in the chapter, and how to respond and react so our decision is o-u-r decision.
The book reads well, in simple English and is very entertaining and easy to understand.You will certainly get a few aha! moments as you can put into perspective what happened while booking a time with your hairdresser, your beauty salon, dealing with a charity worker that stops you in the street with a compliment, while a shop attendant shows you different stuff, dealing with a travel agent, dealing with your Real Estate agent, or while certain TV ads that do not make sense rationally but do make sense, totally, to your subconscious.
My favourite chapters in the books are those on Consistency and Direct Deference, purely because I was way more aware of reciprocation, liking, authority and scarcity; however, many of the specifics on how and why they work are still fascinating. I also love Cialdini's comparison between tribal practices and hell-week practices in University fraternities and the military, and the Readers's Report section at the end of each chapter, which includes letters from readers describing how some of the things mentioned in the book were applied to them.
There are too many people including quotes in their books, but the ones Cialdini uses at the beginning of each chapter are spot on, as they summarise each chapter to perfection.
***
Cialdini's "Influence" is a classic of Applied Psychology, Social Psychology, Behavioural Economics, and of Marketing and Business. It is, above all, a serious book of Psychology by a reputed psychologist. Originally published in the 1980s, this review is about the revised edition.
This is a book about compliance and manipulation in general. The book offers detailed answers to two main questions 1/ what are the factors that cause one person to say yes to another person? And 2/ which techniques most effectively use these factors to generate compliance? Besides, there are many interesting, every-day sort of questions, that are posed and answered in the book. Just to mention a few:
- Why should the voting of a Jury member be secret while the Jury is discussing a case?
- Why does a commitment made in public or by writing have such a powerful effect on the person who makes it?
- Why do we need to shout help and ask for specifics when we really need help?
- Why people commit more suicides after listening about suicides or disasters in the media?
- Which factors cause a person to like another person?
- Why do some people associate themselves so closely to their sport team that if their team is consistently losing they feel as losers as well?
- Which tricks do car sellers play to trick us to buy something right here right now?
- Why a TV commercial with a renowned actor playing a doctor selling pills has the same power as if he was a real doctor?
Cialdini wants normal people, no matter we are a seller or not, to understand how our psyche works, because the trickster can be tricked and our psyche works using mechanisms that can be exploited and manipulated easily against us by anybody, for good and for evil. This is not a book on how to use or manipulate people and isn't directed to marketers or sellers specifically. A good part of Cialdini's work was done by infiltrating training programs from sales people and Cialdini mostly address the majority of people who don't use compliance techniques. However, he doesn't hold a grudge, nor want us to, against "compliance practioners" as he calls them (sales operators, fund-raisers, charities street workers, recruiters, advertisers, real-estate and travel agents, among others) are just people using the knowledge of our psyche without lying or masquerading anything. When they do, Cialdini advices war:
"I would urge forceful counterassault. There is an important qualification, however. Compliance professionals who play fairly by the rules of shortcut response are not to be considered the enemy; on the contrary, they are our allies in an efficient and adaptive process of exchange. The proper targets for counteraggression are only those individuals who falsify, counterfeit, or misrepresent the evidence that naturally cues our shortcut responses (...) The real treachery, and the thing we cannot tolerate, is any attempt to make their profit in a way that threatens the reliability of our shortcuts."Sadly enough, the same sort of people and behaviours that Cialdini wanted us to counterassault are using the book as a 'Bible', so much so that "Influence" is, to this day, the number one business and marketing book out there.
"Influence" is an useful book, not only to be learn and be aware of the tricks that compliance professionals play on us, but also of the ways people use them in our private lives to get something from us even if it is just approval, lack of a reprimand, or just sex. Most importantly the section "How to say no" in each chapter tell us, exactly, what to do or how to recognise the manipulators, the psychological anchors discussed in the chapter, and how to respond and react so our decision is o-u-r decision.
The book reads well, in simple English and is very entertaining and easy to understand.You will certainly get a few aha! moments as you can put into perspective what happened while booking a time with your hairdresser, your beauty salon, dealing with a charity worker that stops you in the street with a compliment, while a shop attendant shows you different stuff, dealing with a travel agent, dealing with your Real Estate agent, or while certain TV ads that do not make sense rationally but do make sense, totally, to your subconscious.
My favourite chapters in the books are those on Consistency and Direct Deference, purely because I was way more aware of reciprocation, liking, authority and scarcity; however, many of the specifics on how and why they work are still fascinating. I also love Cialdini's comparison between tribal practices and hell-week practices in University fraternities and the military, and the Readers's Report section at the end of each chapter, which includes letters from readers describing how some of the things mentioned in the book were applied to them.
There are too many people including quotes in their books, but the ones Cialdini uses at the beginning of each chapter are spot on, as they summarise each chapter to perfection.
SOME CRITIQUE
>>> Cialdini is a bit reiterative at times, goes for pages unnecessarily, and although I loved most of the examples that Cialdini mentions, there are too many and he could have cut a few without the book losing interest or quality.
>>> Probably because the book was written in the 1980s, some stuff is really well-known nowadays and doesn't need of long explanations, or won't surprise anybody. I would say that people with a basic degree of education would not be saying what what what?! when reading about the bystander factor, the halo effect and the good cop-bad cop dynamics, or that our titles are something that can be used to trick people and that people who don't have them will attach to those to get a bit of the spark.
>>> Cialdini is a bit reiterative at times, goes for pages unnecessarily, and although I loved most of the examples that Cialdini mentions, there are too many and he could have cut a few without the book losing interest or quality.
>>> Probably because the book was written in the 1980s, some stuff is really well-known nowadays and doesn't need of long explanations, or won't surprise anybody. I would say that people with a basic degree of education would not be saying what what what?! when reading about the bystander factor, the halo effect and the good cop-bad cop dynamics, or that our titles are something that can be used to trick people and that people who don't have them will attach to those to get a bit of the spark.
>>> The book has not aged well with regards to a few points:
1/ Some contextual facts that were common in the 80s are are no longer in use, or even legal in some parts of the world, like door-to-door sales. We live in the world of the Internet, online stores, publicity everywhere we look at, constant spam and marketing on networking sites, and the use of our private meta-data by corporations to sell us things or know what we want to buy. I would have loved seeing an analysis on how the shortcuts presented in this book have morphed to adjust to the needs of the online world and market, if some of these shortcuts are now more prominent than others, and if new shortcuts have been added to the six mentioned here.
2/ The bibliography used and referenced is still mostly from the 70s and 80s, with a few additions from the 90s. It would have been great adding a modern bibliography in a "further reading" sort of chapter when the book was revised.
3/ The use of some vocabulary is no longer OK. Referring to primitive cultures is no longer acceptable or accepted without discussion and calling animals infrahumans it is an anthropocentric adjective that doesn't connect with the reality of the environment and the planet we live in. I would call a shark or alligator a suprahuman!
4/ Some social practices have changed dramatically in the last decades, even though Cialdini thought that they would not as they have a function in the human psyche. Well, it seems no longer. For example the hell-week practices in Universities, which were in decline in my University before I entered mine and banned when I was in. They might be alive in the American Fraternity Societies, but there is something called Open University that works quite well, is everywhere and expanding, and people don't need to be part of a group or enter any building that often. The world is quite different nowadays more than people in the 80s would have imagined.
1/ Some contextual facts that were common in the 80s are are no longer in use, or even legal in some parts of the world, like door-to-door sales. We live in the world of the Internet, online stores, publicity everywhere we look at, constant spam and marketing on networking sites, and the use of our private meta-data by corporations to sell us things or know what we want to buy. I would have loved seeing an analysis on how the shortcuts presented in this book have morphed to adjust to the needs of the online world and market, if some of these shortcuts are now more prominent than others, and if new shortcuts have been added to the six mentioned here.
2/ The bibliography used and referenced is still mostly from the 70s and 80s, with a few additions from the 90s. It would have been great adding a modern bibliography in a "further reading" sort of chapter when the book was revised.
3/ The use of some vocabulary is no longer OK. Referring to primitive cultures is no longer acceptable or accepted without discussion and calling animals infrahumans it is an anthropocentric adjective that doesn't connect with the reality of the environment and the planet we live in. I would call a shark or alligator a suprahuman!
4/ Some social practices have changed dramatically in the last decades, even though Cialdini thought that they would not as they have a function in the human psyche. Well, it seems no longer. For example the hell-week practices in Universities, which were in decline in my University before I entered mine and banned when I was in. They might be alive in the American Fraternity Societies, but there is something called Open University that works quite well, is everywhere and expanding, and people don't need to be part of a group or enter any building that often. The world is quite different nowadays more than people in the 80s would have imagined.
***
RENDERING FOR KINDLE
The book has a word index at the end, but it is not linked in the Kindle edition of the book. The author advises using the search tool to find them. Well, Kindle's search tool is not the most accurate sensitive sort of search tool. Kindle books should be sold cheaper if indexes or features that were in the hard-copies are not available in the electronic edition.
This is a great reading overall, informative, entertaining and useful for our daily life, to notice things to stop us from buying something we don't want to buy right now or just not to act in a way that feels is not you but we are being pushed into and is not in our best interest. Entertaining and eye-opening this might be a bible for manipulators, but also a bible to counter-attack those who want to bend our will for their own benefit. We should learn about how influence works because
automated stereotyped behaviour works better now than in the 80s, as the pace of modern life is
faster and more stressful, and we have less time and energy to pause and think for a second to ask ourselves what we really want. This being the case, we can be manipulated more easily today than 30 years ago.
The book has a word index at the end, but it is not linked in the Kindle edition of the book. The author advises using the search tool to find them. Well, Kindle's search tool is not the most accurate sensitive sort of search tool. Kindle books should be sold cheaper if indexes or features that were in the hard-copies are not available in the electronic edition.
***
Posted in
Applied Psychology,
Business,
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion,
Marketing,
Psychology,
Revised Edition,
Robert B. Cialdini
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