Cialdini believes that influence is a science. This idea attracted me. As a rhetorician, I have always thought of persuasion as more of an art. Cialdini, however, makes a first-rate case for the science point of view. But maybe most importantly, he makes his case in a well-written, intelligent, and entertaining manner. Not only is this an important book to read, it is a fun book to read too.

He introduces you to six principles of ethical persuasion: reciprocity, scarcity, liking, authority, social proof, and commitment/consistency. A chapter is devoted to each and you quickly see why Cialdini looks at influence as a science. Each principle is backed by social scientific testing and restesting. Each chapter is also filled with interesting examples that help you see how each principle can be applied. By the end of the book, I had little doubt that these are six important dimensions of human interaction.

I highly recommend this book to all professionals. It does not matter if you are a manager, sales person, pastor, or non-profit volunteer. The ideas in this book, once applied, will make it easier for you to accomplish your goals. In a video featuring the author, Professor Cialdini even goes so far as to promise that these principles can help you influence the most resistant of all audiences--your children.

With a claim like that, who wouldn't be intrigued?

My advice is to read this sooner rather than later. You will be quite glad you did.

246 of 259 found the following review helpful:

Deep AND readable; I'm persuaded!  Jan 02, 2003
By Max More "Max More"
Most books of applied psychology fall prey to one of two weaknesses: Either they lack scientific content (or over-simplify) or they present solid information in an academic manner that readers find difficult to absorb and apply. Robert Cialdini's book stands out brilliantly from these books. Combining wide and deep scientific scholarship with an engaging, lucid, and personal style, Influence may be the single best work on the topic. The intent of the book is to show how we can understand and defend against pervasive non-rational influences on our decision-making. Of course the same principles could be applied to market products or influence colleagues and rivals either in place of or in addition to genuine reasons. One sign of the range of the book is the fact that Cialdini doesn't get to the famous Milgram experiment on "Obedience to Authority" until p.208. The book concentrates on several factors that evolution and culture have drilled into us to produce compliance for good reasons, but which can be abused by "compliance professionals": reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity. Any reader will find the research results stunning and frightening. Fortunately, Cialdini concludes each compelling chapter with hints on "How to say no". No matter how intelligent you are, you have undoubtedly fallen for many of these techniques used deliberately or accidentally. How many poor business investment decisions, product purchases, or strategic moves have been influenced by non-rational factors? You have to read this book. Why? Because I've done you a favor with this review and you owe it to me; you can't say you're a rational person if you don't; everyone else is reading it; I'm attractive, friendly, well-dressed, similar to you, and you like me; I'm an psychology expert and I recommend it; and you need to buy it now before all copies are sold!

263 of 282 found the following review helpful:

Required Reading for the Intelligent Consumer  May 09, 2000
By Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!"
The human mind is a wonderful thing, capable of the most wonderful thought processes and ideas. Yet the brain is on automatic pilot for most situations. That allows the conscious mind to really focus. The drawback is that some people will use our conscious inattention to sneak one by us, like a fastball pitch to a hitter looking for a change-up.

Influence, the book, is very useful in this regard, because it uses interesting examples to help us be aware of our own tendency to let automatic pilot thinking take over.

Since I first read this book many years ago, I have been watching to see if the circumstances I see support or invalidate Professor Cialdini's points. By a margin of about 9 to 1, Cialdini wins.

Given that we are easily manipulated by our desire to be and to appear to be consistent with our past actions and statements, swayed by what the crowd is doing, and various other mechanisms, the only way we can be armed against unscrupulous marketing is to be as aware of these factors are the marketers are.

At the same time, I appreciated how the book explores the ethics of when and how much to apply these principles. Without this discussion, the book would come off like Machiavelli's, The Prince, for marketing organizations. That would have been a shame. By dealing with the ethics, Professor Cialdini creates the opportunity to educate us intellectually and morally. Well done!

I have read literally dozens of books about marketing and selling, and I find this one to be the most helpful in thinking about how influence actually works. Even if you will never work in marketing, you will benefit from reading this book in order to better focus your purchases and actions where they fit your needs rather than someone else's.

53 of 54 found the following review helpful:

Useful and interesting.  May 11, 2001
By Mike Baum
*Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion* is one of the most useful books I have read in a long time. Its author, Robert Cialdini, a psychology professor at Arizona State University, applies his technical background to the task of explaining in everyday terms a subject that impacts all of us: persuasion, and the psychological principles that make it work. Sales professionals are a natural audience for this book; they will find in it the explicit theory and scientific research behind what they have already been doing for years by instinct and trial-and-error. For the rest of us, this book is a powerful defense against those manipulators who seek to exploit our psychological vulnerabilities to get us to comply with their desires.

Cialdini's basic theoretical perspective is that, to deal with a complex world, our brains have automatized responses to various phenomena. In the long-run and in general, these mental mechanisms are practical tools, enabling us to live in society harmoniously and to make decisions quickly and with minimal effort. In specific cases, however, they can misfire, leading to bad decisions. Hence our vulnerability to people who know how these mechanisms work when we do not.

After introducing his subject, the author tackles six of these "weapons of influence" in six chapters. He first explains what they are and how they are used, utilizing personal anecdotes, scientific studies and vivid real life examples to make his case. Much of this is fascinating stuff. For example, according to Cialdini, some of the very techniques advertisers and salespeople use today were used during the Korean War to seduce American POWs into collaborating with their Chinese captors. And the Hare Krishna Society, its fundraising efforts in the 1960s frought with public relations problems, owed its dramatic turnaround in the 1970s to the adoption of solicitation tactics based on shrewd psychology. Cialdini then rounds off each chapter by suggesting what we can do to defend ourselves. He is not a behavioral determinist; half of not falling prey to our unconscious responses is simply being aware that they exist and then taking action to circumvent them or to leverage them in our favor.

For the record, I must state that this book is not perfect. Cialdini sometimes interprets human psychology in ways that I do not believe are warranted given the studies he cites. But endnotes and an ample bibliography are included for readers who are interested in doing further research. Taken with a grain of salt, I believe *Influence* is a worthy read--whether you are a sales professional, or someone who is unwilling to be an easy mark for one.

53 of 55 found the following review helpful:

SEMINAL.  May 21, 2003
By Shashank Tripathi
This is most certainly not only a book about negotiation, it is for anyone interested in a gripping read about human psychology and our subconscious response to external stimuli. An interesting example: if you are at a party and you begin talking with a member of the opposite sex whom you find moderately attractive, it is very likely that your initial assessment of this person will decrease when a "beautiful" girl or guy ambles over to join the conversation. Obviously the first person did not morph into someone physically different, but did become comparatively less appealing when smothered in the shadow cast by the "beautiful" person.

While "Getting to Yes" and "You can negotiate anything" were flush with such interesting real-life nuggets and the best on offer in their time, "Influence" would rate as my personal favorite that conceptually digs deep into the art of persuation.

For one thing, Cialdini's writing style is entertaining and exudes common sense. Which makes it worth the ride for just about anyone interested in an intelligent read. I'd even venture to say that he comes across as accessible as Thomas Schelling ("Strategy of Conflict", "Choice and Consequence") in the kinds of intuitive but compelling examples that he uses to illustrate his points.

For another, this is one of the rare books that explain the *psychology* of WHY and HOW human beings/animals respond the way they do. What is different about his hypotheses? Cialdini breaks down his analysis into 6 broad principles consciously or subconsciously employed by people to persuade their counterparts (consistency, reciprocation, social proof, authority, liking, and scarcity) and then discusses each of these principles in term of its ability to elicit "automatic, mindless compliance" from us. And if you do not feel that simply being aware of such compliance tactics is defense enough, he goes on to offer useful, practical shields in a scattering of sections such as "How to Say No".

This is an incredibly useful book that one can only hope does not fall into the hands of one's adversary. Clearly required reading for anyone involved in the business of persuasion (marketing/sales, diplomacy, strategy etc) and highly recommended for everyone else.

See all 379 customer reviews on Amazon.com