Reading Notes For:
📍 My reading notes for, Pre suasion, by Robert Cialdini. Best practices, the optimization of pre suasion six main roads to change, broad boulevards as smart shortcuts. We’ve seen how it’s possible to move others in our direction by saying or doing just the right thing immediately before we want them to respond.
If we want them to buy a box of expensive chocolates, we can first arrange for them to write down a number that’s much larger than the price of the chocolates. If we want them to choose a bottle of French wine, we can expose them to French background music before they decide. If we want them to agree to try an untested product, we can first inquire whether they consider themselves adventurous.
If we want them to feel warmly toward us, we can hand them a hot drink. If we want them to be more helpful to us, we can have them look at photos of individuals standing close together. Notice that whatever is just the right thing to say or do in a situation change depending on what we want of others there.
Learn An asking if they are adventurous might get them to try an untested product, but it isn’t going to make them more willing to select a highly popular item or make careful assessments. But isn’t there an overarching goal common to all would be persuaders? The goal of assent. After all, any persuasive communicator wants to spur audiences toward yes.
Are there concepts that are aligned especially well with the broad goal of obtaining agreement? I believe so. In my book Influence, one argued that there are six such concepts that empower the major principles of human social influence. They are reciprocation, liking, social proof, authority, scarcity, and consistency.
These principles are highly effective general generators of acceptance because they typically counsel people correctly regarding when to say. Yes, to influence attempts. In recognition of the mounting behavioral science evidence for persuasion, though, I’d like to extend my earlier contention. Let’s stay with the principle of authority to illustrate the expanded point.
Communicators stand to be more effective by highlighting the idea of authority not just inside their message, but inside the moment before their message. In this persuasive way, audiences will become sensitized to and thus readied for the message. Becoming authoritative evidence in the message, making them more likely to pay attention to it, assign it importance, and consequently, be influenced by it.
This chapter is not designed to focus primarily on the prices of persuasion. Instead, we take a step back and explore the specifics of why these six concepts possess such sweeping psychological force. This chapter is not designed to focus primarily on the process of pre suasion. Instead, we take a step back and explore the specifies of why these six concepts process such sweeping psychological force.
Reciprocation. People say yes to those they owe. Not always. Of course, nothing in human social interaction works like that burr often enough that behavioral scientists have labeled this tendency the rule for reciprocation. Shoppers at a candy store became 42 percent more likely to make a purchase if they’d received a gift piece.
In the United States, companies making sizable campaign contributions to lawmakers who sit on tax policy making committees see significant reductions in their tax rates. Requesters who hope to commission the persuasive force of the rule for reciprocation have to do something that appears daring they have to take a chance and give first.
Hotel guests in the United States encountered a card in their rooms asking them to reuse their towels. They read in addition either that the hotel had already made a financial contribution to an environmental protection organization in the name of its guests, or that it would make such a contribution after guests did reuse their towels.
The before the act donation proved 47 percent more effective than the after the act one. Still, supplying resources up front without the traditional guarantee of agreed upon compensation can be risky. There are three main features of this sort in order to optimize the return. What we give first should be experienced as meaningful, unexpected, and customized.
Meaningful and unexpected, the first two of these optimising features have been shown to affect the size of tips that food servers receive. Some diners in a New Jersey restaurant were offered a piece of chocolate at the end of their meals, one per person, from a basket carried to the table by the waitress.
Her tips went up 3. 3 percent compared with those from guests who weren’t offered chocolate. However, when other diners were invited to take two chocolates from the basket, the waitress’s tips rose by 14. 1%, what could account for the dramatic difference. For one, the second chocolate represented a meaningful increase in the size of the gift.
A doubling plainly meaningful is not the same as expensive as the second chocolate cost only pennies. The receipt of two chocolates was not only twice that of one chocolate, but also more unexpected. The clear cut impact of a gift’s unexpectedness became evident when the waitress tried yet a third technique after offering guests one chocolate from a basket and turning to walk away.
She unexpectedly returned to the table and offered a second chocolate to each diner. As a result, her average tip improved by 21. 3%. There’s a third element in the reciprocity optimizing triumvirate that, in my opinion, is more influential than the other two combined. Customise when a first favour is customised to the needs, preferences or current circumstances of the recipient, it gains leverage.
Giving restaurant visitors free food before they order should make them likely to purchase less, because they won’t need to spend as much on a meal. Although the obtained, reverse, outcome doesn’t make good logical sense, It makes good psychological sense. Visitors went to the restaurant because they were hungry.
An upfront gift of food activated not only the rule for reciprocation but a more muscular version, which states that people should feel especially obligated to reciprocate a gift designed to meet their particular needs. If a gift, favor, or service incorporates all three features of meaningfulness, unexpectedness, and customization, it can become a formidable source of change.
Abu Jandal, Osama bin Laden’s former chief bodyguard, who, following his capture, was questioned in a Yemeni prison in the days after 9 11. Attempts to get him to reveal information about Al Qaeda’s leadership structure appeared hopeless, as his responses consisted only of screeds against the ways of the West.
But when interrogators noticed that he never ate the cookies he was served with food, and learned that the man was diabetic, they did something for him that was meaningful, unexpected. At the next interrogation session, they brought him sugar free cookies to eat with tea. According to one of those interrogators, that was a key turning point.
We had shown him respect, and we had done this nice thing for him. So he started talking to us instead of giving us lectures. In subsequent sessions, Jandle provided extensive data on Al Qaeda operations, as well as the names of seven of the 9 11 hijackers. LIKING Back when I was infiltrating the training programs of various sales organizations, I heard an assertion made repeatedly with great confidence.
The number one rule for salespeople is to get your customer to like you. We were instructed to highlight similarities and provide compliments. Similarities? We like those who are like us. Infants smile more at adults whose facial expressions match their own. Waitresses coached to mimic the verbal style of customers doubled their tips.
Salespeople who mimicked the language styles and non verbal behaviors, gestures, postures of customers sold more of the electronic equipment they recommended. Compliments nourish and sustain us emotionally. They also cause us to like and benefit those who provide them. Researchers found that individuals who worked on the computer task and received flattering task related feedback from the computer developed more favorable feelings toward the machine, even though they were told that the feedback had been pre programmed and did not reflect their actual task performance at all.
Nonetheless, they became prouder of their performances after receiving this hollow form of praise. The number one rule for salespeople is to show customers that you genuinely like them. There’s a wise adage that fits this logic well. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
Social proof. People think it is appropriate for them to believe, feel, or do something to the extent that others, especially comparable others, are believing, feeling, or doing it. Two components of that perceived appropriateness, validity, and feasibility can drive change. Validity. After receiving information that multiple comparable others have responded in a particular way, That response seems more valid, more right to us, both morally and practically.
As regards the first of these dimensions, when we see evidence of the increased frequency of an action, it elevates our judgments of the act’s moral correctness. In addition to clarifying what’s right morally, social proof reduces uncertainty about what’s right pragmatically. Feasibility. I could reduce my next power bill to zero if I turned off all the electricity in my house and curled up on the floor in the dark for a month, but that’s not something I’d reasonably do.
A great strength of social proof information is that it destroys the problem of uncertain achievability. If people learn that many others like them are conserving energy, There is little doubt as to its feasibility. It comes to seem realistic, and therefore implementable. Authority. The channel through which information is sent is a form of consequential messaging itself, which affects how recipients experience content.
In addition, persuasion scientists have pointed to compelling support for yet a third claim. The messenger is the message. Of the many types of messengers, positive, serious, humorous, emphatic, modest, critical, there is one that deserves special attention because of its deep and broad impact on audiences, the authoritative communicator.
When a legitimate expert on a topic speaks, people are usually persuaded. The kind of authority we are concerned with here is not necessarily someone who is in authority, one who has hierarchical status and can thereby Command assent by way of recognized power, but someone who is an authority, and can thereby induce assent by way of recognized expertise.
Moreover, within this latter category, there is a type of a credible authority who is particularly productive. A credible authority possesses the combination of two highly persuasive qualities, expertise and trustworthiness. Trustworthiness. If there is one quality we most want to see in those you interact with, it is trustworthiness.
Trustworthiness. In a persuasion focused interaction, we want to trust that a communicator is presenting information in an honest and impartial fashion. Although the first of these points remains confirmed, a growing body of research indicates that there is a noteworthy exception to the second. IR turns out to be possible to acquire instant trustworthiness by employing a clever strategy.
Rather than succumbing to the tendency to describe all of the most favorable features of an offer or idea up front and reserving mention of any drawbacks until the end of the presentation, or never, a communicator who references a weakness early on is immediately seen as more honest. The advantage of this sequence is that, with perceived truthfulness already in place, when the major strengths of the case are advanced, the audience is more likely to believe them.
The tactic can be particularly successful when the audience is already aware of the weakness. Thus, when a communicator mentions it, little additional damage is done, as no new information is added except, crucially, that the communicator is an honest individual. Another enhancement occurs when the speaker uses a transitional word, such as however, or but, or yet, that channels the listener’s attention away from the weakness and onto a countervailing strength.
An information system salesperson might state, Our setup costs are not the lowest, but you’ll recoup them quickly due to our superior efficiencies. Elizabeth I of England employed both of these enhancements to optimize the impact of the two most celebrated speeches of her reign. I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, bar I have the heart of a king, and a king of England too.
She used it again in her final formal remarks to parliament members, many of whom mistrusted And though you have had, and may have, many mightier and wiser princes sitting in this seat, year you have never had, nor shall have, any that will love you better. Labelled her oration, The Queen’s Golden Speech.
Notice that Elizabeth’s bridging terms, but in year, took listeners from perceived weaknesses to interacting strengths. Scientific research showing that the weakness before strength tactic works best, when the strength doesn’t just add something positive to the list of pros and cons, but, instead, challenges the relevance of the weakness.
Scarcity, we want more of what we can have less of. Although there are several reasons that scarcity drives desire, our aversion to losing something of value is a key factor. After all, loss is the ultimate form of scarcity. I heard the CEO of a large brokerage firm make the point about the motivating power of loss by describing a lesson his mentor once taught him.
If you wake a multi millionaire client at 5 in the morning and say, If you act now, you will gain 20, 000, he’ll scream at you and slam down the phone. But if you say, If you don’t act now, you will lose 20, 000, he’ll thank you. But the scarcity of an item does more than raise the possibility of loss. It also raises the judged value of that item.
At one large grocery chain, brand promotions that included a purchase limit, only X per customer, more than doubled sales for seven different types of products. Consistency. Normally, we want to be, and to be seen, as consistent with our existing commitments such as the previous statements we’ve made, stands we’ve taken, and actions we’ve performed.
Therefore, communicators who can get us to take a pre suasive step, even a small one, in the direction of a particular idea or entity will increase our willingness to take a much larger, congruent step when asked. The desire for consistency will prompt it. This powerful pull toward personal alignment is used in a wide range of influence settings.
If one romantic partner agrees to pray for the other’s well being every day for an extended period, he or she becomes less likely to be unfaithful while doing so. After all, such behavior would be inconsistent with the daily, actively made commitment to the partner’s welfare. Organizations can raise the probability that an individual will appear at a meeting or event by switching from saying at the end of a reminder phone call, We’ll mark you on the list as coming then.
Thank you. To, We’ll mark you on the list as coming then, okay? Pause for confirmation. Thank you. Sometimes practitioners can leverage the force of the consistency principle without installing a new commitment at all. Sometimes all that’s necessary is to remind others of a commitment they’ve made that fits with the practitioner’s goals.
Dr. Neidert has developed as the core motives model of social influence. At the first stage, the main goal involves cultivating a positive association, as people are more favorable to a communication if they are favorable to the communicator. Two principles of influence, reciprocity and liking seem particularly appropriate to the task.
At the second stage, reducing uncertainty becomes a priority. A positive relationship with a communicator doesn’t ensure persuasive success. Before people are likely to change, they want to see any decision as wise. Under these circumstances, the principles of social proof and authority offer the best match.
At this third stage, motivating action is the main objective. That oh is, a well liked friend might show me sufficient proof that experts recommend, and almost all my peers believe that daily exercise is a good thing, but that might not be enough to get me to do it. The friend would do well to include in his appeal the principles of consistency and scarcity by reminding me of what I’ve said publicly in the past about the importance of my health and the unique enjoyments I would miss if I lost it.
