“We know that people’s ability to understand the factors that affect their behavior are surprisingly poor,” (11) writes Cialdini in the opening pages of a book appealing to those interested in psychology and marketing. According to Cialdini, “A central theme of this book is that small changes in the way that requests are made can often lead to some startlingly big results” (151). The cited examples of persuasion are derived from studies published in peer-reviewed journals, mainly in the discipline of psychology. While some of these studies may’ve been confirmed in multiple experiments, there’s no clear mention of sample sizes and replication. Therefore, the findings should not be taken as clear-cut facts, which is how Cialdini presents them. The hyped-up title of the book suggests reductive contents, and Cialdini fails qualify any of his statements, both of which are concerning to an informed reader. Nevertheless, there are many interesting concepts and studies discussed in this highly readable and often humorous book. Below are some nuggets contained in the text:
• Sales of the same product were boosted when the sentence “Operators are waiting please call now” was changed to “If operators are busy, please call again” (10).
• Social proof appeals (similar to the bandwagon effect) are surprisingly effective, as shown in a hotel experiment in which guests were not asked to reuse their towels but prompted to “Join countless others in helping to save the environment” (13).
• “[T]he more similar the person giving the testimonial is to the new target audience, the more persuasive the message becomes” (17).
• The social proof appeal can accidentally inspire bad behavior when many instances of rule breaking are cited, such as an Arizona National Park sign that actually encouraged visitors to steal: “Your heritage is being vandalized every day by theft losses of petrified wood of 14 tons a year, mostly a small piece at a time” (21). A better approach would be to reframe these statistics so visitors focus on the vast majority of rule-followers who steal no wood.
• Offering too many choices of products may result in consumers purchasing less (31).
• “To ensure that your offer is seen as the valuable proposition it actually is, the customer needs to be shown the true value of your offer. So, no longer should your message read, ‘Receive a free security program.’ Instead it becomes, ‘Receive a $250 security program at no cost to you’” (37).
• “According to decision researcher Itamar Simonson, when consumers consider a particular set of choices for a product, they tend to favor alternatives that are ‘compromise choices’—choices that fall between what they need, at a minimum, and what they could possibly spend, at a maximum” (39).
• “For the most part, research has demonstrated that fear-arousing communications usually stimulate the audience to take action to reduce the threat. However, this general rule has one important exception: When the fear-producing message describes danger but the audience is not told of clear, specific effective means of reducing the danger, they may deal with the fear by ‘blocking out’ the message or denying that it applies to them” (42).
• The “norm of reciprocity” is a universal phenomenon, in which people who receive feel obliged to give (47).
• “Social scientist Randy Garner . . . found that placing a personalized sticky note on [a] survey did more than simply persuade people to respond to the survey at higher rates: Those who filled out the survey with the handwritten sticky note returned it more promptly and gave more effortful, detailed, and attentive answers to the questions” (51-53).
• “The more personalized you make the request, the more likely you’ll get someone to agree to that request” (52).
• Behavioral scientist David Strohemetz conducted an experiment in which servers gave mints to customers with their checks: “This research clearly shows the value of giving gifts that are . . . unexpected, and personalized” (55).
• “[W]hat happens to the influence of those gifts and favors as time passes? . . . According to researcher Francis Flynn, the answer to the question depends on whether you are the favor-doer or the favor-receiver. / Flynn asserts that immediately after one person performs a favor for another, the recipient of the favor places more value on the favor than does the favor-doer. However, as time passes, the value of the favor decreases in the recipient’s eyes, whereas for the favor-doer, it actually increases” (60-61).
• People are more likely to agree to larger or inconvenient requests when they’ve already taken “one small step” in the direction of the request. “The evidence suggests that after agreeing to the [initial] request, the residents came to see themselves committed to [the] cause” (64-65).
• “The labeling technique involves assigning a trait, attitude, belief, or other label to a person and then making a request of that person consistent with that label” (69).
• “[A]fter most (if not all) . . . people have publically stated that they’ll perform the socially desirable behavior, they’ll be motivated to behave consistently with the commitment they just made” (73).
• “Why are commitments that are written (and therefore active) so much more successful at eliciting participation? People make judgments about themselves based on observations of their own behavior, and they infer more about themselves based on their actions than on their nonactions. In support of this explanation, Cioffi and Garner found that those who volunteered actively were more likely to attribute their decisions to their own personality traits, preferences, and ideals than were those who volunteered passively” (77).
• “Stephanie Brown . . . conducted a study showing that people’s preference for consistency becomes greatly strengthened as they get older. This is likely the case because inconsistency can be emotionally upsetting, and older people have greater motivation to avoid emotionally upsetting experiences” (80).
• Requesting a small favor from someone you don’t get along with can have positive consequences. If the person obliges, he/she may see you in a different light, as the positive act of a favor can cause an incongruity in that person’s negative perception of you. After all, if he/she helps you, you can’t be that bad (84-85).
• “[W]hen you want assistance from others, simply pointing out that even a small offering would be acceptable and worthwhile to you is likely to be an effective strategy” that will not necessarily result in smaller contributions (85).
• “[B]ehavioral scientist Patrick Laughlin and his colleagues have shown that the approaches and outcomes of groups who cooperate in seeking a solution are . . . better than the average member working alone” and are superior to those of the best problem-solver in the group (100).
• Disagreement within a group makes for more creative approaches to problem solving, but the person who disagrees must be genuinely invested in his/her point of view (and not just playing devil’s advocate)” 104.
• When training people, focusing on real-world situations, in which mistakes were made, is more effective than explaining ideal standards of behavior (108).
• “Two-sided” persuasion is most effective when small flaws are clearly connected to larger strengths (115).
• “Social scientist Fiona Lee and her colleagues suggest that organizations that attribute failures to internal causes will come out ahead not only in public perception, but also in terms of the profit line” (120).
• “A substantial amount of psychological research has shown that we’re most likely to relate to others with whom we share personal characteristics, such as values, beliefs, age, and sex” (124-125).
• “In fact, social psychologists Tanya Chartrand and John Bargh argue that matching the behavior of others creates feelings of liking and strengthens bonds between two people” (134).
• When trying to create better interactions and experiences “try to follow the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin: ‘Search others for their virtues.’ Many of us spend too much time finding faults in the people we deal with in our everyday lives. If, instead, we try to search their character for what we like about them, we’ll like them more; and, as a result, they’ll like us more” (139).
• The scarcity principle states that “People show a greater desire for an object or opportunity when they learn that it is unique, available in limited quantities, or obtainable for only a limited time” (141-142).
• People, by nature, are loss adverse and persuasion from this angle can work well (148).
• When making a request, the word “because” can have a positive effect on people’s willingness to comply—even when the reason that follows is neither logical nor important (151).
• “Additional research by [Daniel] Oppenheimer has shown that using overtly complex language . . . can produce the exact opposite of the intended effect: Because the audience has difficulty interpreting the language, the message is deemed less convincing and the author is perceived to be less intelligent” (162).
• When people were asked to rate the accuracy of aphorisms or short statements, most favored those that rhyme. “The researchers explained that rhyming phrases are characterized by a greater processing fluency: They’re mentally processed more easily than non-rhyming phrases. Because people tend to base accuracy evaluations, at least partly, on the perceived fluency of the incoming information, the rhyming statements are actually judged as more accurate” (165).
• “[T]he characteristics of objects are not perceived in a vacuum, but rather in comparison to others,” (167) which is something to be conscious of when creating a message or request.
• “The message is clear: People will be more likely to stick with programs and tasks if you can first offer them some evidence of how they’ve already made progress toward completing them” (173).
• “Names that fall into the unexpected descriptive category or the ambiguous category create a sense of mystery and intrigue that leads potential customers to consider the positive aspects of your goods and services” (176).
• Social psychologist Jennifer Lerner found that “Sad buyers were willing to purchase [an] item for around 30 percent more than were emotionally neutral buyers. And sad sellers were willing to part with the item for around 33 percent less than were their emotionally neutral counterparts. What’s more, the researchers found that the carryover of the emotion . . . into their economic decisions occurred completely outside the subjects’ awareness—they had no idea they had been so deeply affected by these residual feelings of sadness” (189).
• “When the stakes are high, people usually have enough cognitive resources and motivation to mentally reject statements that sound false. But when people are tired, they’re more likely to be in a heightened state of gullibility because of the diminished cognitive energy and motivation associated with exhaustion” (194).
• “You might be surprised to learn, however, that there’s a drug called 1, 3, 7-trimethylxanthin that could make you more persuadable if you take it and make you more persuasive if you give it to others . . . Th[is] drug . . . is more commonly known as caffeine, and these ‘trimeth labs’ are more commonly known as coffee shops” (197).
• “Because people from individualistic cultures tend to give greater weight to their own personal experiences, consistency with one’s previous experiences is often a more powerful motivator of people from countries in North America or Western Europe. And because people from collectivistic cultures tend to give greater weight to the experiences of close others, the behavior of close others is often a more powerful motivator of people from countries in Asian, Eastern Europe, South America, and Africa. What this means is that if you are asking an American, Canadian, or Briton for a favor, you are likely to be more successful if you point out that it fits with what that person has done before. But when asking a favor of people from more collectivistic countries, the research suggests that you will be more successful if you point out that it fits with what that person’s peer group has done before” (211).
• There are two “central functions” of communication: informational and relational. “Although both functions are clearly important to people in all cultures, social psychologists Yuri Miyamoto and Norbert Schwartz argued that individualistic cultures place a greater emphasis on the informational function of communication, whereas collectivistic cultures place a greater emphasis on the relational function” (213-214).