Influence: Science and Practice (4th Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Lessons from a Master
Review: Robert Cialdini is the true master of the science of persuasion. If you're involved with putting together marketing campaigns, or making sales calls, or writing advertisements, or just getting your kids to clean their rooms, this is a book you must read.

Cialdini is Regents Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University. Normally, that would mean that he would write like an academic and be interested in the arcane debates of his specialty. Fortunately for us, neither of those is true.

Dr. Cialdini writes persuasively (of course) and clearly about the practical aspects of persuasion. His books on this subject have sold more than a quarter of a million copies under slightly different titles and over several editions. They will all help you persuade people more effectively.

Cialdini lays out basic tools of influence. Actually, he calls them "weapons" of influence, but I like the term "tools" better. The tools are: Reciprocation; Commitment and Consistency; Social Proof; Liking; Authority; and Scarcity.

The book deals with each of these in turn. Cialdini offers engaging examples and practical applications for what you're reading.

This is simply the very best book there is on the subject by the very best expert on the subject. You'll enjoy the book and you'll improve your ability to persuade people if you follow Cialdini's suggestions. You'll also be able to spot ways that you are being influenced. Either of those outcomes is reason enough to make this book a must-read.


Rating:
Summary: Required Reading for the Intelligent Consumer
Review:
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.



Rating:
Summary: GREAT BOOK TO LEARN FROM
Review: I think this book might not need more reviews, it is an established stuffs used by academia and professional as their base of learning about influence. This is the 4th edition and a bit of change from previous edition, as this one is more inclined toward business.

I still want to state that this is one of the few books that "influence" me in the way i see things in life. Life is never fair, and being able to learn those weapons of influence we can learn to avoid the trap and use it as we see fit.

Weapons are as good or bad as the intent we use it for. Learning this will be your weapons to make your success easier to achieve. This is a great book for sales person, leader, negoiator, and team player, as well as the average people in business and social life.

Highly recomended for everyone to learn from.

Rating:
Summary: Influence - is it useful for technical professionals?
Review: This is a fine book. So why the low rating, you ask. Like me, you may have read this same author's book entitled <Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion>. I bought this one expecting a different book. Not so. Pretty much the same stuff with a different title. So, if you've read one, don't mess with the other, is my advice. And if you've read neither, go the used book route and save yourself money.

Rating:
Summary: PROTECT YOURSELF by reading this book!!!
Review: +++++

This well-referenced book first published in 1985 and authored by Robert Cialdini, an experimental social psychologist, deals with the dynamics of interpersonal influence processes.

Specifically, this book deals with the compliance of "automatic influence" which Cialdini defines by a question: "Just what are the factors [or principles] that cause one person to say yes [without thinking first] to another person?"

The principles mentioned in the above question are the subject of this book and, in fact, this book is organized around them. There are six principles discussed. Cialdini calls these principles "weapons of influence."

Each principle or "weapon" has a well written and thorough chapter devoted to it. Parts of these chapters are occasionally humorous. As well, each chapter has plenty of examples to illustrate each principle.

However, just knowing these principles is not enough! You have to know the practical techniques or "compliance tactics" that are based on these principles in order to get the desired result of automatic compliance. This book is packed with these techniques as well as examples of how they're used.

Why bother to learn these principles and techniques? Answer: to protect yourself. Protect yourself? From whom? To protect yourself from "compliance professionals" (for example, sales people, fund raisers, and advertisers) who utilize these principles and their associated tactics to help them get their own way. Where money is at stake, having them get their own way could be costly. Cialdini suggests ways of thinking to defend yourself against such people after you realize a specific technique is being used on you.

Of course, the compliance pros aren't the only ones who know about and use these principles and tactics. We all use them and fall victim to them to some degree in our interaction with neighbors, friends, spouses, and so on.

A handy feature of this book is the summary sections at the end of each chaper. These effectively highlight the main ideas in each chapter.

After reading this book, you'll be able to answer questions such as these:

(1) Imagine you're a lawyer representing someone who broke his leg in a store and is suing the store for $25,000.00 in damages. What would you do during the trial to make the jury see that this amount is reasonable, even a small, reward?
(2) Why is the "free" sample really not so free?
(3) What is there about written promises that make them so effective?
(4) Which naturally occurring conditions of city life reduce the chances of bystander intervention in an emergency?
(5) What is the evidence that we tend to say "yes" to similar others in an automatic fashion?
(6) What is the relationship between size and status in our society? Why did this relationship develop in this way?
(7) During one mid-1980's Christmas season the most sought after toy in the U.S. and Canada was the Cabbage Patch doll, which was said to be in very limited supply. Why were people reported to have spent as much as 35 times the regular price for this doll at public auctions to own a doll that cost much less at department stores?
(8) How can each weapon of influence be used in an exploitive way and how can each be used in a non-exploitive way?

In conclusion, don't be easy prey to compliance professionals! Learn about the principles or weapons of influence and their associated compliance tactics. Most importantly, learn the ways to defend yourself against such weapons and tactics. This book explains all this and more!!

+++++