Methods of Persuasion Quotes

“Website aesthetics are crucial for a number of reasons. First, people use aesthetics as a heuristic for quality; if your website is aesthetically pleasing, they’ll assume your content is above average, and vice versa. This benefit leads to a second benefit: aesthetics will influence website visitors to actually evaluate your content, a decision that’s usually made within 50 milliseconds”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“the Chinese proverb: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“In order to create the greatest change in your target’s attitude, you need “insufficient justification”—your incentive must be small or nonexistent so that your target attributes his compliance toward a genuine desire to comply, not toward a desire to receive the external reward.”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“If you want people to perceive something more favorably, you should convey high expectations because those expectations will become a lens that will mold their perception.”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“Even though there’s only one reality surrounding us, people perceive and interpret that reality differently. Essentially, our perception is a lens through which we interpret reality; if you know how to alter that lens, you can change how people view and interpret reality.”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“Persuasion Is Not Manipulation.”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“The overall steps in METHODS include: Step 1: Mold Their Perception Step 2: Elicit Congruent Attitudes Step 3: Trigger Social Pressure Step 4: Habituate Your Message Step 5: Optimize Your Message Step 6: Drive Their Momentum Step 7: Sustain Their Compliance”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“Humans are marionettes. Attached to each of us are sets of strings that, when pulled in a certain direction, guide our behavior without our awareness.”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“your incentive must be small or nonexistent so that your target attributes his compliance toward a genuine desire to comply, not toward a desire to receive the external reward.”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“it caused them to “choke under pressure” (Ariely et al., 2009).”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“In social psychology, this less-leads-to-more effect explains that smaller rewards can often be more effective because people develop a congruent attitude of intrinsic motivation to resolve their inconsistent behavior (Leippe & Eisenstadt, 1994).”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“pay enough or don’t pay at all.”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“Perhaps the most direct reason why large incentives can be ineffective is that they sometimes increase anxiety levels.”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“Because social rejection shares the same brain circuitry as physical pain,”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“This principle can even help you when you’re applying for a job. Job applicants who indicate that they are considering other job opportunities (i.e., applicants who seem less available) are evaluated more favorably than candidates who don’t indicate whether they’re considering other job opportunities (Williams et al., 1993).”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“People’s initial exposure to your message will mold their perception for the remainder of your message. In order to maximize your persuasion, you need to create a strong initial impression so that you convey high expectations for the rest of your message.”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“We see what we expect to see. We hear what we expect to hear. We feel what we expect to feel.”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“To understand why mindsets are so powerful, you need to understand three concepts: schemas, priming, and spreading activation.”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“This experiment has been conducted across the globe, and although the percentages vary depending on the culture, the results are generally consistent: humans are psychologically compelled to obey authority figures to a very large and frightening extent.”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“we often adjust from an anchor point until we reach the outermost estimate within a range of plausible judgments”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

“Step 1: Mold Their Perception Step 2: Elicit Congruent Attitudes Step 3: Trigger Social Pressure Step 4: Habituate Your Message Step 5: Optimize Your Message Step 6: Drive Their Momentum Step 7: Sustain Their Compliance”
― Nick Kolenda, Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior