Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini Book Review
Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion is a fascinating study, which reveals about why and how we make decisions. It also provides facts about how marketers cause us to behave in often predictable ways which are beneficial to those marketers. Understanding the knowledge in the book, as a consumer, will help you avoid scammers and not being tricked by sales people.
The book provides insight about compliance strategies and lists six “weapons of influence”:
- Reciprocity
- Commitment and Consistency
- Social Proof
- Liking
- Authority
- Scarcity
Each approached was described in details. Robert B. Cialdini is a professor of Marketing and Psychology, who is an expert in the rapidly expanding field of influence and persuasion, and he knows what he is doing. The author used different case studies and examples done by professional psychologists, covering from politics, business, workplace and relationships; as a result, it is very informative and instructive, backed up by social research, also practical and easy to understand. The techniques which the author discussed in the books also resonate well with my own experience when it comes to salesmen or people who try to persuade me to buy something.
Reciprocity is about creating a sense of obligation, where Cialdini discussed the natural tendency of human to try to return a favor. In this chapter, he also talked about concession, a popular technique widely used in sales.
The second chapter talked about Commitment and Consistency, which mentioned the general desire of people to act and behave consistently, with what we say and we do. We are more likely to stick to our decision if we had publicly said or done things which leads to that decision.
Social Proof is also a powerful weapon of influence. It explains why we behave the same way like most people do. He used canned laughter in TV series as a strong example for this, which really made reflect on myself that I actually laugh more with this canned laughter when watching “Friends”
Like is obvious, which talked about how people are more easily persuaded by other people they like.
The next principle is Authority. It told us that as human, we have a strong sense of duty, as we have been taught to obey and respect “authority figures”, which makes us more likely to say yes when it comes to persuasion.
Last but not least, the author mentioned the famous technique in sales and marketing, scarcity. When something is scarce, it becomes more valuable, which generates more desire and demand to get it.
My emotional curve when reading this book is like a sine wave. The first three chapters of the book where the authors talked about Weapons of Influence, Reciprocity, Commitment and Consistency totally got me. The writing style is simple, yet effective, filled with practical examples, which really made me enjoy and even giggle sometimes. But when it comes to Social Proof, Liking and Authority, the information is still insightful, but the writing style doesn’t feel the same, which made these parts more academic and a little bit all over the place, and somehow repetitive. On the last chapter about Scarcity, he was back on track and really got me with the way he came from theory to practical examples. The last thing is 90% of the references are still from the mid-80’s or before, so the fundamental knowledge still can apply, but if there is another edition, I wish he would focus more on the present and future of communicating.
All in all, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion is an engaging read, which is worth reading and strongly recommended to understand the fundamental knowledge about how influence works on and a bit about social psychology.
