Review: Influence by Robert B. Cialdini -- How to sell without being evil

There is a fine line between marketing and manipulation. One that is sometimes tempting to cross over. The difference between a car salesperson who points out honestly the car they are selling you is likely to become unavailable soon and the one that makes up someone trying to buy it and if you don’t pay full price now, you won’t get it. And since it turns out that authors have to be marketers if they want to make money it is tempting to visit the dark side. It’s not as if I’m trying to take someone’s life savings. A book costs only a couple of dollars, but I also believe that right and wrong even on the small scale.

“Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert B. Cialdini explains many levers you can pull to engage people’s automatic responses and in most cases gives examples both of how marketers and manipulators use it. What made this book interesting was that it is less focused on how to sell than most books on marketing. Instead, it explains how things works, but focuses on the moral considerations. For example, I have decided that lying and calling myself doctor is probably not moral, but using limited time coupons is perfectly acceptable inside my moral framework.

The Different types of Influence

There are many ways to influence people. Robert focuses on those that cause a nearly automatic response often pointing out that even when people know they are being manipulated it can be difficult for them to ignore.

One of the most powerful is reciprocity. Human society is built around the idea people can give favors and expect favors in return. There are hundreds of examples most of us never consider. And there are almost as many examples of people using this against us. One example used in “Influence” is that of the Moonies. They often stand around in airports and give people flowers. They then ask for a donation and get far more money than they did before they started to give out flowers. What is interesting is that so many people—who give them money—throw the flowers away that other Moonies pick the flowers out of the trash so they can reuse them. This proves that a gift need not be asked for or wanted. People simply want to rid themselves of the feeling of obligation. This is also used in less sketchy ways with things like free samples.

Another major type of influence is the consistency principle. Once a person makes a decision, they will want to stick with that decision even if it means doing something they otherwise wouldn’t. This works more broadly than I would have expected, but it makes sense. One example used in “Influence” was that of people who were asked to put a sign up in their yard promoting driver safety. Those who had agreed to a much smaller request related to driver safety earlier were far more likely to allow the intrusive sign to be put up. The Chinese also used this by convincing prisoners of war to make extremely minor concessions and then used that concession that to get them to make bigger concessions. They would even have people simply write things they didn’t believe in order to get the ball rolling.

Another major form of influence is authority. There have been many studies about authority in the past. One you have likely heard of involves having people administer electric shocks to someone begging for them to stop while an authority figure tells them to continue. Nearly everyone continues.

But there are others. One had nurses being told to give an excessive amount of medicine by a stranger who told them he was a doctor. The nurses would, far more often than not, start to follow the orders even though they had no reason to believe the person was a doctor, and they knew the prescription was excessive. They were, of course, stopped before they could actually hurt anyone.

There are many other ways to influence people, but I will withhold those and focus on the scarcity principle. People care more about things when there are less of them. This is the heart of virtually all collecting, but it is used in many other areas as well. “Limited quantities available” is one of the more common tactics. It often works even when we know that the limited number is likely far more than the demand. This, according to Robert B. Cialdini, is even more acute when a resource that was once plentiful becomes scarce.

One important point is made multiple times throughout the book is that these levers are valuable and not something that people should want to give up. We typically listen to authority because actual authorities know more than we do. Not listening to them can lead to real problems. We want to be consistent because there is value in doing something that works. And as I mentioned, reciprocity is vital for human society to exist. Even the scarcity principle, while less valuable in modern society than it once was, still has its value and as a society we’d be well served by thinking about the growing scarcity of resources like water before it becomes a bigger problem.

Conclusion

This book is less focused on how to market than it is on simply understanding the different types of influence. Because of that, it may seem less useful. But I trust someone who isn’t telling me how to make a million dollars more than someone who is. And my integrity is worth protecting. Part of that is understanding the correct ways to do things. This book recognizes that difference. It doesn’t say all marketing is bad. But it also doesn’t give you permission to do anything to get a sale.

It also holds value for people who want to understand how other people are manipulating them. I would suggest reading it before you make any major purchases, like a house or a car, so you can recognize the ways you’re being manipulated. Giving 3 dollars to a Moonie because they gave you something you didn’t even want may annoy, but buying a car or a house because of being manipulated can have far more deleterious effects.