Books/Influence

Subtitle: The Pyschology of Persuasion
Author: Robert Cialdini

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion is one of the most popular psychology books for non-psychologists. This is a review/summary of the revised and expanded edition from 2021. The new edition adds an additional principle of influence: Unity and also adds new examples for the Internet age. Some of the examples in this edition were provided by readers of the first edition.

Summary

Introduction

Prof. Robert Cialdini has always wondered why it is that one way of stating a requests elicits a positive response from people while the same request stated in a different way gets rejected. As an experimental social psychologist, he was not satisfied with conducting experiments involving university students in the laboratory. So, he spent 3 years infiltrating the ranks of compliance professionals -- people whose entire livelihood depends on persuading you -- salespeople, fundraisers, marketers, recruiters etc.

The principles of persuasion have the ability to produce an automatic, unthinking response from people, i.e. mindless compliance. They can be divided into categories:

• cultivating a positive relationship: reciprocation, liking and unity
• reducing uncertainty: social proof, authority
• motivating action: consistency, scarcity