Influence Quotes

“A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“Embarrassment is a villain to be crushed.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: Science and Practice

“Where all think alike, no one thinks very much. —WALTER LIPPMANN”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“Often we don’t realize that our attitude toward something has been influenced by the number of times we have been exposed to it in the past.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“There is a natural human tendency to dislike a person who brings us unpleasant information, even when that person did not cause the bad news. The simple association with it is enough to stimulate our dislike.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies? The result was that once again nearly all (93 percent) agreed, even though no real reason, no new information, was added to justify their compliance. Just as the “cheep-cheep” sound of turkey chicks triggered an automatic mothering response from maternal turkeys—even when it emanated from a stuffed polecat—so, too, did the word “because” trigger an automatic compliance response”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“persons who go through a great deal of trouble or pain to attain something tend to value it more highly than persons who attain the same thing with a minimum of effort.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“we all fool ourselves from time to time in order to keep our thoughts and beliefs consistent with what we have already done or decided”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: Science and Practice

“Freedoms once granted will not be relinquished without a fight.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“people seem to be more motivated by the thought of losing something than by the thought of gaining something of equal value.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“The idea of potential loss plays a large role in human decision making. In fact, people seem to be more motivated by the thought of losing something than by the thought of gaining something of equal value.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“The truly gifted negotiator, then, is one whose initial position is exaggerated enough to allow for a series of concessions that will yield a desirable final offer from the opponent, yet is not so outlandish as to be seen as illegitimate from the start.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. —ALBERT EINSTEIN”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“When our freedom to have something is limited, the item becomes less available, and we experience an increased desire for it. However, we rarely recognize that psychological reactance has caused us to want the item more; all we know is that we want it. Still, we need to make sense of our desire for the item, so we begin to assign it positive qualities to justify the desire.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“The customers, mostly well-to-do vacationers with little knowledge of turquoise, were using a standard principle—a stereotype—to guide their buying: “expensive = good.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“As a general rule, whenever the dust settles and we find losers looking and speaking like winners (and vice versa), we should be especially wary of the conditions that kicked up the dust—in”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“All things being equal, you root for your own sex, your own culture, your own locality…and what you want to prove is that you are better than the other person. Whomever you root for represents you; and when he wins, you win.”88”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“good-looking people are aware that other people’s positive evaluations of them are not based on their actual traits and abilities but are often caused by an attractiveness “halo”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: Science and Practice

“Our best evidence of what people truly feel and believe comes less from their words than from their deeds.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“Apparently we have such an automatically positive reaction to compliments that we can fall victim to someone who uses them in an obvious attempt to win our favor.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“Abraham’s willingness to plunge a dagger through the heart of his young son because God, without any explanation, ordered it. We learn in this story that the correctness of an action was not judged by such considerations as apparent senselessness, harmfulness, injustice, or usual moral standards, but by the mere command of a higher authority.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: Science and Practice

“our typical reaction to scarcity hinders our ability to think.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“It is much more profitable for salespeople to present the expensive item first, not only because to fail to do so will lose the influence of the contrast principle; to fail to do so will also cause the principle to work actively against them. Presenting an inexpensive product first and following it with an expensive one will cause the expensive item to seem even more costly as a result—hardly a desirable consequence for most sales organizations.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“First, we seem to assume that if a lot of people are doing the same thing, they must know something we don’t.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“Be as precise as possible about your need for aid.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“We will use the actions of others to decide on proper behavior for ourselves, especially when we view those others as similar to ourselves.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“The patrolman’s account provides certain insights into the way we respond to social proof. First, we seem to assume that if a lot of people are doing the same thing, they must know something we don’t. Especially when we are uncertain, we are willing to place an enormous amount of trust in the collective knowledge of the crowd. Second, quite frequently the crowd is mistaken because they are not acting on the basis of any superior information but are reacting, themselves, to the principle of social proof.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

“The rule says that we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided us.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion