Influence: Science and Practice

Robert Cialdini is the person who may have a greater influence on the theory and practice of the principles of persuasion for the next ten years. Robert Cialdini is honest and ethical.

This topic is just fascinating - the hidden pushes and pulls that affect our decision making, even when we believe we are reasoning. One such example (p.146) is the 1974 Canadian study that found politicians who were more attractive got 2.5 times the number of votes. Despite the evidence of favoritism, 73% of Canadian voters denied "in the strongest possible terms" that their votes had been influenced by physical appearance; only 14% even admitted the possibility! (See the study by Efran & Patterson, 1976 and another by Budesheim & DePaola, 1994.)The book does a wonderful job of keeping the subject light despite that it is chock full of references to studies. There are even cartoons are scattered throughout the chapters. Pictures from real life also are mixed in. Included are "defenses" that are meant to help us avoid the pitfalls, but I'm not sure they'll be entirely helpful or not because I personally thought a lot of these tactics would be very obvious to me. Summaries of the chapters are included, which serve as good refreshers if it's been a while since you've read the book (and need to write an Amazon review :] ).I think even anyone with a healthy dose of cynicism or business sense will read this and be surprised that these tactics work. One such example is of Detroit's Joe Girard, deemed greatest car salesman by Guinness Book of World Records for selling an average of 5 cars per day, who describes a technique he used: every month he sent a holiday greeting card (for Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving, whatever) to each of his 13,000 customers, with nothing but the words "I like you" and his signed name. (p.150) "Could a statement of liking so impersonal, obviously designed to sell cars, really work?: Joe Girard thought so, and a man as successful as he was at what he did deserves our attention." It was at least one of the techniques he used to earn himself hundreds of thousands of dollars per year as a car salesman.There's only one bit I came across in this entire book that I disagreed with, and it was from the chapter on authority, in which the author claims that normally authority figures (specifically and namely included are politicians and doctors) have earned the right to have "the word" on subjects they speak on. Politicians? Ha! Doctors? Like the ones who vouched for smoking being healthy when cigarettes came out? Think again.  Trust Us We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future  Other than that one tiny bit that caught my eye, the rest of the book is very informative and even fun to read.I'll leave you with one unbelievable example from the very beginning that tells how a shop owner accidentally relieved herself of the trouble of selling a certain variety of turquoise jewelry. She left a note instructing her employee to reduce them to 1/2 price. The employee misread and raised the price by 2 instead; the pieces sold almost immediately. This is due to the fact that people without better knowledge of a particular good will use the price alone to determine the quality or value of that good. This also worked for Chivas Regal Scotch Whiskey, which was a struggling brand until it's owners decided to raise its price substantially above its competitors!

"Influence" by Robert Cialdini is one of the most wonderful and influential books I've ever read! Other books have been written on the topic, but Cialdini's is the best and most influential of them all."Influence" deals with the study of persuasion, compliance, and change - a subject that has application for every area of life. Cialdini presents the latest research on influence in a compelling way, clearly stating the 6 principles of influence and providing wonderful illustrations of each principle from advertising, psychology and other fields. If we understood these 6 principles better, we would be less subject to manipulation from others (for example, the manipulation to buy things we don't need or to buy more than we need). We might, in turn, also be able to understand how to influence others for good.The 6 principles of influence are:1. The Rule of Reciprocation: "We should try to repay in kind what another person has provided us."2. Commitment and Consistency: "Once we make a choice or take a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment."3. Social Proof: "We determine what is correct by finding out what other people think is correct."4. Liking: "We most prefer to say yes to the requests of people we know and like."5. Authority - we have a deep-seated sense of duty to authority6. Scarcity - something is more valuable when it is less availableI find that in my own life, these 6 principles are remarkably powerful and have the ability to explain a lot of the behavior I observe as a father, teacher, and priest. We would all benefit from memorizing and mastering these six principles. They are simple but extremely powerful. My daughter read this book when she was 14 or 15, and I had to wrestle with her to get it back because she loved it so much! I only hope she doesn't begin using the principles against me!One of the best parts of the book is the wonderful examples of each principle that Cialdini provides. An experiment to demonstrate the principle of authority, conducted by Stanley Milgram, is the classic example. In this experiment, two volunteers show up to help with an experiment, purportedly to test the effect of punishment on learning and memory. A researcher in a lab coat with a clipboard explains the experiment to the volunteers and that one is to take the role of the Teacher, who will administer increasingly higher levels of electric shock to the other volunteer, the Learner. Every time the Learner got a question incorrect, the Teacher was to administer a higher level of shock. However, the real experiment was to test how willing the Teacher was to administer pain to the innocent Learner, who was not really another volunteer but an actor pretending to be in increasing stages of pain. The results shocked everyone, for Milgram discovered that about two-thirds of the subjects were willing to administer the highest level of electric shock. The reason? Their deep-seated duty to authority.Influence is filled with many such fascinating and useful examples of how our lives are influenced by others. I highly recommend the book to all readers, for influence is something common to us all, for good or for evil.

Really wanted to put a higher grade to this book but:1/ Book presentation is quite bad. It is not a competition to put so much content in one page. Poor presentation is surprising on a book on persuasion!2/ Overall it is very dry.It is really a pity as content is very informative and examples are often entertaining. With a bit of editing work, I would have put 4 stars.I went through the entire book and was happy when I finished it. I found out this book thanks to Scott Adams.

Das Buch gibt einen sehr guten Einblick in die menschliche Denkweise. Die vielen plastischen Beispiele helfen das zu verstehen und zu verinnerlichen. Lieferzeit war über ein Monat und das Buch wurde fünf Tage später als versprochen geliefert. Der Händler bietet sehr rudimentäres Track & Trace an. Allerdings war der Preis dafür attratktiv.

If you are in the business of selling something or convincing others to take action, this book is invaluable. You will need to re-read it and make notes to get the full benefit of the book. Many internet gurus cite this book and it's easy to see why!

Really good book. Makes you aware of a lot of things, even if you don't actively use them yourself - helps you be aware of people using the same tactics against you. Very important skills to learn. I would highly recommend this book for everyone. It's written in an interesting way that makes you want to actually keep reading.

A must for all sales professionals, or anybody who would want to be more persuasive (which is everybody!!). This book has concrete examples, scientifically proven, on how people react depending on each situations. A two thumbs up recommendation.