Influence Summary

Science and Practice

Author: Robert B. Cialdini
Publisher: Allyn & Bacon
Copyright year: 2001
ISBN: 0-321-01147-3

Author’s Bio: Dr. Robert Cialdini is Regents’ Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University and also consults widely in the subject of influence. He attributes his long-standing interest in the intricacies of social influence to the fact that he was raised in an entirely Italian family, in a predominantly Polish neighborhood, in a historically German city (Milwaukee) in an otherwise rural state.

Author’s big thought: Have ever found yourself saying “yes” to a telemarketer or to a child selling chocolate bars and then wonder why you have just agreed to subscribe to a magazine that you really aren’t interested in or buy a candy bar you really don’t want? In this book, not only will you find out what techniques were used to get you to say yes, but you will also learn some worthwhile ways to defend yourself from future requests.

Introduction

In his role as an experimental social psychologist, Cialdini began to research the psychology of compliance. At first the research took the form of experiments performed, for the most part, in his laboratory and on college students.

After a time, though, he began to realize that the experimental work, while necessary, wasn’t enough. It didn’t allow him to judge the importance of the principles in the world beyond the psychology building and the campus where he was examining them. It became clear that if he were to understand fully the psychology of compliance, he would need to broaden his scope of investigation. He would need to look to the compliance professionals-the people who had been using the principles on him all his life.

His purpose was to observe, from the inside, the techniques and strategies most commonly and effectively used by a broad range of compliance practitioners. That program of observation sometimes took the form of interviews with the practitioners themselves and sometimes with the natural enemies (for example, police bunco squad officers, consumer agencies) of certain of the practitioners. At other times, it involved an intensive examination of the written materials by which compliance techniques are passed down from one generation to another-sales manuals and the like. Most frequently, though, it took the form of participant observation.

One aspect of what he learned in this three-year period of participant observation was most instructive. Although there are thousands of different tactics that compliance practitioners employ to produce “yes”, the majority fall within six basic categories. Each of these categories is governed by a fundamental psychological principle that directs human behavior and, in so doing, gives the tactics their power.

This book is organized around these six principles. The principles-reciprocation, consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity-are each discussed in terms of their function in the society and in terms of how their enormous force can be commissioned by a compliance professional who deftly incorporates them into requests for purchases, donations, concessions, votes, or assent.

Finally, each principle is examined as to its ability to produce a distinct kind of automatic, mindless compliance from people, that is, a willingness to say yes without thinking first. The evidence suggests that the ever-accelerating pace and informational crush of modern life will make this particular form of unthinking compliance more and more prevalent in the future. It will be increasingly important for society, therefore, to understand the how and why of automatic influence.

Chapter 1: Weapons of Influence

Ethologists, researchers who study animal behavior in the natural environment, have noticed that among many animal species behavior occurs in rigid and mechanical patterns. Called fixed-action patterns, these mechanical behavior sequences are noteworthy in their similarity to certain automatic (click, whirr) responding by humans. For both humans and sub humans, the automatic behavior patterns tend to be triggered by a single feature of the relevant information in the situation. This single feature, or trigger feature, can often prove very valuable by allowing an individual to decide on a correct course of action without having to analyze carefully and completely each of the other pieces of information in the situation.

The advantage of such shortcut responding lies in its efficiency and economy; by reacting automatically to a usually informative trigger feature, an individual preserves crucial time, energy, and mental capacity. The disadvantage of such responding lies in its vulnerability to silly and costly mistakes; by reacting to only a piece of the available information (even a normally predictive piece), an individual increases the chances of error, especially when responding in an automatic, mindless fashion. The chances of error increase even further when other individuals seek to profit by arranging (through manipulation of trigger features) to stimulate a desired behavior at inappropriate times.

Much of the compliance process (wherein one person is spurred to comply with another person’s request) can be understood in terms of a human tendency for automatic, shortcut responding. Most individuals in our culture have developed a set of trigger features for compliance, that is, a set of specific pieces of information that normally tell us when compliance with a request is likely to be correct and beneficial. Each of these trigger features for compliance can be used like a weapon (of influence) to stimulate people to agree to requests.

Chapter 2: Reciprocation

According to sociologists and anthropologists, one of the most widespread and basic norms of human culture is embodied in the rule for reciprocation. The rule requires that one person try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided.

By obligating the recipient of an act to repayment in the future, the rule for reciprocation allows one individual to give something to another with confidence that it is not being lost. This sense of future obligation within the rule makes possible the development of various kinds of continuing relationships, transactions, and exchanges that are beneficial to the society. Consequently, all members of the society are trained from childhood to abide by the rule or suffer serious social disapproval.

The decision to comply with another’s request is frequently influenced by the reciprocity rule. One favorite and profitable tactic of certain compliance professionals is to give…