Six Degrees of Social Influence: Science, Application, and the Psychology of Robert Cialdini

by Douglas T. Kenrick (Editor), Noah J. Goldstein (Editor), Sanford L. Braver (Editor)

Over the course of the last four decades, Robert Cialdini's work has helped spark an intellectual revolution in which social psychological ideas have become increasingly influential. The concepts presented in his book, The Psychology of Persuasion , have spread well beyond the geographic boundaries of North America and beyond the field of academic social psychology into the areas of business, health, and politics. In this book, leading authors, who represent many different countries and disciplines, explore new developments and the widespread impact of Cialdini's work in research areas ranging from persuasion strategy and social engineering to help-seeking and decision-making. Among the many topics covered, the authors discuss how people underestimate the influence of others, how a former computer hacker used social engineering to gain access to highly confidential computer codes, and how biology and evolution figure into the principles of influence. The authors break
new ground in the study of influence.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Business

208 pages, Hardcover

First published December 27, 2011

About the author

Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University. His research and writing integrate three scientific syntheses of the last few decades: evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, and dynamical systems theory. He is author of over 170 scientific articles, books, and book chapters, the majority applying evolutionary ideas to human cognition and behavior.

His father and brother both spent several years in Sing Sing, but he broke the family tradition and went to graduate school to study psychology. He studied social psychology under Robert B. Cialdini and received his Ph.D. from Arizona State University in 1976. He has edited several books on evolutionary psychology, contributed chapters to the Handbook of Social Psychology and the Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, and been an author of two multi-edition textbooks (Psychology, with John Seamon; and Social Psychology: Goals in Interaction, with Steven Neuberg and Robert B. Cialdini). He writes a blog for Psychology Today magazine, titled Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life. He has a forthcoming book of the same title.

Reviews

[Cristian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book consists of 14 Chapters, each an essay written by Cialdini's fellow researchers in his honor.
From summarizing findings about something, to proposing how social psychology research should proceed, there are various topics being treated in this book.
Since I'm no psychologist, I couldn't really appreciate chapter 12 at all, being way more technical than the rest of the writings. I also found chapters 1 and 14 to be more or less on the same line, though both more fathomable than chapter 12 (i.e. something probably only a social psychologist will be able to appreciate or be interested in).
Other than that, the remaining 11 chapters contained information that the casual reader would mostly be able to understand, discussing really interesting topics, or presenting studies to prove points in a more accessible way. If you have read Robert Cialdini's "Influence" or "Yes" (Cialdini et al.), and liked knowing about how the smallest things can persuade someone, and the different ways to achieve that or guard from it, you will probably like this book.
For those that haven't read those books, I'd say read them first (at least Influence), to have a notion of the basics and being able to appreciate more this book.

[Alina Yasnaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating glimpse into what our consciousness is like when it comes to our social interactions. This is a very useful book for anyone who attempts to communicate with groups of people or individuals.

[Stephen Antczak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth reading for the accounts of multiple experiments and how they relate to theory and to Cialdini's "full cycle" way of doing psychological science.

[Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of interesting tidbits, and some seriously solid work in the first half of the book