Influence
Robert Cialdini
“The joy is not in the experience of a scarce commodity, but in possessing it.
What I like
I took a ton from this book and was enthralled within the first few pages, and enjoyed each salient and powerful chapter.
The writing is great. I found concepts easy to grasp, and the author does a great job including stories and academic studies to help support them.
I think anyone no matter who they are in their career can benefit from the wisdom in this book. For better or worse, putting the concepts to use is practical and easy to grasp.
What’s missing
I found some contents repetitive from what I’ve read about in other behavioral psychology, sales or advertising books.
Chapters are long, some of them really long, which can make it difficult to find a good stopping point.
Review
When I started my first design job I was working with a firm called Balance Innovation and Design. My mentor at the time was named Jon, and I learned a lot from him while working together. He had a bookshelf outside of his office with a number of different colored books on it, spanning topics like graphic design, psychology, UX design and methods, all sorts. When I asked him for a recommended book to read, he pointed to this book and said to me that Influence is one of those books that is filled with those tips and tricks that once they are learned, cannot really be unlearned or unseen. The book, as he described, contained tools that could be used to coerce or deceive people. I was a little intimidated by this prospect so early in my career- but finally about 6 years later I decided to crack it open and peek inside.
I love books that blur the lines between design and psychology- and this book had me enamored after the first few pages. The author paints a portrait of animal behavior and decision-making oftentimes being spurred by quick judgements. Click, run. Yes, there are little things that we as people look out for to make us make decisions quickly… and often times we act and make those decisions impulsively. If we spent as much time as possible making every decision we needed to throughout our day, we would be forever stuck in analysis paralysis. Do we trust something or trash it? Do we embrace someone or push them away? Do we buy something, or leave it in the dust? Dr. Robert Cialdini explores what influences our reflexive decision making to do one thing over another. To do this he dives into seven core topics including social proof, unity or togetherness, contrast, reciprocation, liking, commitment, and scarcity. Each of these things, and often-times, the combination of them, can yield some incredible outcomes when it comes to decision making. This book provides a plethora of evidence that suggests why a person can be driven to do something they otherwise would not do. Oh, think of the implications.
Many of the ideas in this book were not entirely new to me. Over six years since Jon introduced me to this book I have read quite a few books on product design, psychology and business. But what this book does that no other book has done is illustrate an argument with so much attention to detail why the concepts in this book are important and how they are used in the world. The book closes on a chapter that blasts those that would use the ideas in this book for nefarious purposes. As Jon told me, now that I am aware of this book’s contents, I cannot unsee it. I feel a lot more prepared now to deal with sales people than ever before.
Learnings
Fixed-action patterns are reflexive responses to features in an environment that ease decision-making.
Levers for influence are everywhere and can be thought of in terms of compliance- whereas one person does what another person wants.
People naturally reciprocate or feel indebted for gifts.
Another form of reciprocation is called rejection then retreat.
We are more likely to buy something from someone we like, especially if they have been referred to us from a friend, or if a celebrity that we like has recommended it.
We are more likely to like someone if they pay us a compliment or give us praise.
We like things that are associated with good things and dislike things that are associated with bad things.
Social proof states that we “view an action as correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it”.
The effectiveness of social proof can be optimized in a few different ways: firstly by making more people available to provide social proof, by adding uncertainty into the mix, and by making social proof evidence come from people like us (similarity).
The effects of the media combined with social proof are so strong that some people will imitate what they read or hear about, even if the outcome is fatal.
Social proof can be used with smaller, less popular, products by emphasizing that more and more people are joining the service or using the product each day.
The power of authority to guide behavior has been demonstrated to have alarming effects, as evident through the Milgram experiments and countless others.
We can amplify the effects of authority by enhancing their aura of expertise and trustworthiness.
Scarcity is another action that drives behavior, and people are more likely to react to potential losses than potential gains.
Psychological reactance is our human response to losing freedom, which makes us covet things even more than what’s rational.
“The joy is not in the experience of a scarce commodity, but in possessing it”
Once people make a stand, they encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to think and act upon that commitment.
People have a tendency to follow through on something when they write it down.
We are more likely to stand by commitments if we make them publicly known, even when we find out we were wrong.
When we make a commitment, it can impact our identity or how we behave.
People are more likely to align themselves and their actions in support of members of their group- which is called the unity principle.
A feeling of unity or we-ness can create a feeling in people to act in ways that supports their extended self.
Co-creation is another step towards unity, as people are more likely to assist someone who has shared in an experience with them, particularly one that required shared resources.
It’s possible to build community feeling between two groups, even by those who are fundamentally opposed to one another, through shared experiences.
“When we focus our attention on something, we immediately come to see it as more significant to us”