over 6 years ago
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January 2011
Author Cialdini began the research that would lead to this book when he got tired of being taken advantage of. He’s not unintelligent, yet he would find himself talked into buying things he didn’t want at all. What was happening?
It turns out that there are some basic ways that humans are influenced, and most people follow them without questioning. Some are just the easy way to deal with situations, while some actually create discomfort when one refuses to follow the social conventions. Cialdini breaks it all down into six methods of getting people to do things the way the user wants them to: reciprocation- if someone does something for you, no matter how small, you must then do what they want you to do, hence all those charities that send you return address labels; commitment and consistency-if they can get you to establish yourself as something, say, someone who likes to go out to dinner by asking you about your habits in a survey, then ask you to buy a coupon book for dining out, you are more apt to buy the thing rather than risk the image built in the survey; social proof- if other people think a certain way, so should you- the canned laughter on sitcoms is the most common use of this; liking- this comes into play in ploys like Tupperware parties, where because the person benefiting is your friend you feel you *have* to buy something, it is brought into play by having the seller be someone attractive and dress like and have similar values to you; authority- 9 out of 10 doctors recommend this drug!; and scarcity- hurry, only 10 left! -or limited edition items.
We’ve all seen these ploys; we’ve all fallen prey to them. The author gives a few suggestions as to how to prevent yourself from doing so in the future. Basically it comes down to being willing to break social rules, like the one of reciprocity. One must remember to think about every interaction where someone wants something from you, rather than running on auto pilot.
It’s an interesting book. Not only does Cialdini have a lot of studies to back up his thesis, but he’s an entertaining writer.
It turns out that there are some basic ways that humans are influenced, and most people follow them without questioning. Some are just the easy way to deal with situations, while some actually create discomfort when one refuses to follow the social conventions. Cialdini breaks it all down into six methods of getting people to do things the way the user wants them to: reciprocation- if someone does something for you, no matter how small, you must then do what they want you to do, hence all those charities that send you return address labels; commitment and consistency-if they can get you to establish yourself as something, say, someone who likes to go out to dinner by asking you about your habits in a survey, then ask you to buy a coupon book for dining out, you are more apt to buy the thing rather than risk the image built in the survey; social proof- if other people think a certain way, so should you- the canned laughter on sitcoms is the most common use of this; liking- this comes into play in ploys like Tupperware parties, where because the person benefiting is your friend you feel you *have* to buy something, it is brought into play by having the seller be someone attractive and dress like and have similar values to you; authority- 9 out of 10 doctors recommend this drug!; and scarcity- hurry, only 10 left! -or limited edition items.
We’ve all seen these ploys; we’ve all fallen prey to them. The author gives a few suggestions as to how to prevent yourself from doing so in the future. Basically it comes down to being willing to break social rules, like the one of reciprocity. One must remember to think about every interaction where someone wants something from you, rather than running on auto pilot.
It’s an interesting book. Not only does Cialdini have a lot of studies to back up his thesis, but he’s an entertaining writer.
