Influence (Robert B. Cialdini)

A book that gives insights into how those who want us to say 'yes' to something can use our innate response mechanisms to get us to do as they wish (well some of the time anyway).  Useful if your job involves persuading others, and also useful if you need to resist such persuasion.  Also full of quotable facts:



Locn. 151-52 A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do.
 Locn. 157-58 It seems that it was not the whole series of words, but the first one, “because,” that made the difference.
 Locn. 163-64 the word “because” triggers an automatic compliance response from Langer’s subjects, even when they were given no subsequent reason to comply.
 Locn. 183-84 In fact, automatic, stereotyped behavior is prevalent in much of human action, because in many cases it is the most efficient form of behaving, and in other cases it is simply necessary.
 Locn. 264-65 This last feature of the process allows the exploiters an enormous additional benefit—the ability to manipulate without the appearance of manipulation.
 Locn. 278-83 A nice demonstration of perceptual contrast is sometimes employed in psychophysics laboratories to introduce students to the principle firsthand. Each student takes a turn sitting in front of three pails of water—one cold, one at room temperature, and one hot. After placing one hand in the cold water and one in the hot water, the student is told to place both in the lukewarm water simultaneously. The look of amused bewilderment that immediately registers tells the story: Even though both hands are in the same bucket, the hand that has been in the cold water feels as if it is now in hot water, while the one that was in the hot water feels as if it is now in cold water.
 Locn. 289 sell the costly item first. Common sense might suggest the reverse:
 Locn. 348 rule for reciprocation.1 The rule says that we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided us.
 Locn. 381-84 Make no mistake, human societies derive a truly significant competitive advantage from the reciprocity rule, and consequently they make sure their members are trained to comply with and believe in it. Each of us has been taught to live up to the rule, and each of us knows about the social sanctions and derision applied to anyone who violates it.
 Locn. 417-18 representatives of strange or unpopular organizations—can greatly increase the chance that we will do what they wish merely by providing us with a small favor prior to their requests.
 Locn. 438-42 The unsuspecting passerby who suddenly finds a flower pressed into his hands or pinned to his jacket is under no circumstances allowed to give it back, even if he asserts that he does not want it. “No, it is our gift to you,” says the solicitor, refusing to accept it. Only after the Krishna member has thus brought the force of the reciprocation rule to bear on the situation is the target asked to provide a contribution to the Society. This benefactor-before-beggar strategy has been wildly successful for the Hare Krishna Society, 
Locn. 482-84 The beauty of the free sample, however, is that it is also a gift and, as such, can engage the reciprocity rule. In true jujitsu fashion, the promoter who gives free samples can release the natural indebting force inherent in a gift while innocently appearing to have only the intention to inform.
 Locn. 532-34 the Disabled American Veterans organization reports that its simple mail appeal for donations produces a response rate of about 18 percent. But when the mailing also includes an unsolicited gift (gummed, individualized address labels), the success rate nearly doubles to 35 percent.
 Locn. 542-43 it is the obligation to receive that makes the rule so easy to exploit. The obligation to receive reduces our ability to choose whom we wish to be indebted to and puts that power in the hands of others. Locn. 637 Another consequence of the rule, however, is an obligation to make a concession to someone who has made a concession to us.
 Locn. 660-64 the rejection-then-retreat technique. Suppose you want me to agree to a certain request. One way to increase your chances would be first to make a larger request of me, one that I will most likely turn down. Then, after I have refused, you would make the smaller request that you were really interested in all along. Provided that you have structured your requests skillfully, I should view your second request as a concession to me and should feel inclined to respond with a concession of my own, the only one I would have immediately open to me—compliance with your second request.
 Locn. 696-97 if the first set of demands is so extreme as to be seen as unreasonable, the tactic backfires.11 
Locn. 698-700 The truly gifted negotiator, then, is one whose initial position is exaggerated enough to allow for a series of reciprocal concessions that will yield a desirable final offer from the opponent, yet is not so outlandish as to be seen as illegitimate from the start.
 Locn. 818-20 Strangely enough, then, it seems that the rejection-then-retreat tactic spurs people not only to agree to a desired request but actually to carry out the request and, finally, to volunteer to perform further requests.
 Locn. 842-43 But it appeared to these subjects that they had made the opponent change, that they had produced his concessions. The result was that they felt more responsible for the final outcome of the negotiations.
 Locn. 848-50 Satisfaction. Even though, on the average, they gave the most money to the opponent who used the concessions strategy, the subjects who were the targets of this strategy were the most satisfied with the final arrangement. It appears that an agreement that has been forged through the concessions of one’s opponent is quite satisfying.
 Locn. 949-51 Once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment. Those pressures will cause us to respond in ways that justify our earlier decision.
 Locn. 970-71 Indeed, we all fool ourselves from time to time in order to keep our thoughts and beliefs consistent with what we have already done or decided.
 Locn. 1111-13 If I can get you to make a commitment (that is, to take a stand, to go on record), I will have set the stage for your automatic and ill-considered consistency with that earlier commitment. Once a stand is taken, there is a natural tendency to behave in ways that are stubbornly consistent with the stand.
 Locn. 1215-18 What may occur is a change in the person’s feelings about getting involved or taking action. Once he has agreed to a request, his attitude may change, he may become, in his own eyes, the kind of person who does this sort of thing, who agrees to requests made by strangers, who takes action on things he believes in, who cooperates with good causes.6
 Locn.  1218 could use this to gain slx cooperation by praising what team is now doing for common good. 
Locn. 1222-24 I am rarely willing to sign a petition anymore, even for a position I support. Such an action has the potential to influence not only my future behavior but also my self-image in ways I may not want. And once a person’s self-image is altered, all sorts of subtle advantages become available to someone who wants to exploit that new image.
 Locn.  1233 slx support needs to alter self image as one who works for greater team good
 Locn.  1281 tell team they are becoming known as a real force in cleaning date something that was said couldnt be done
 Locn. 1334-35 The prisoner experience in Korea showed the Chinese to be quite aware of an important psychological principle: Public commitments tend to be lasting commitments.
 Locn. 1338-39 Whenever one takes a stand that is visible to others, there arises a drive to maintain that stand in order to look like a consistent person.
 Locn. 1363-64 Should you ever find yourself as the foreperson of a jury under these conditions, then, you could reduce the risk of a hung jury by choosing a secret rather than public balloting technique.11
 Locn. 1463-65 “persons who go through a great deal of trouble or pain to attain something tend to value it more highly than persons who attain the same thing with a minimum of effort.”
 Locn.  1465 so we need to make jive difficult to be granted access to or maybe a group only after special effort
 Locn. 1478-79 those with the most dramatic and stringent initiation ceremonies were those with the greatest group solidarity.
 Locn. 1502-3 It appears that commitments are most effective in changing a person’s self-image and future behavior when they are active, public, and effortful.
 Locn. 1529-32 Social scientists have determined that we accept inner responsibility for a behavior when we think we have chosen to perform it in the absence of strong outside pressures. A large reward is one such external pressure. It may get us to perform a certain action, but it won’t get us to accept inner responsibility for the act. Consequently, we won’t feel committed to it. The same is true of a strong threat; it may motivate immediate compliance, but it is unlikely to produce long-term commitment.
 Locn. 1870 the principle of social proof. It states that one means we use to determine what is correct is to find out what other people think is correct.
 Locn. 1906-8 Sales and motivation consultant Cavett Robert captures the principle nicely in his advice to sales trainees: “Since 95 percent of the people are imitators and only 5 percent initiators, people are persuaded more by the actions of others than by any proof we can offer.”
 Locn. 2076-78 In general, when we are unsure of ourselves, when the situation is unclear or ambiguous, when uncertainty reigns, we are most likely to look to and accept the actions of others as correct. Locn. 2079-80 Those people are probably examining the social evidence, too. Especially in an ambiguous situation, the tendency for everyone to be looking to see what everyone else is doing can lead to a fascinating phenomenon called “pluralistic ignorance.”
 Locn. 2147-48 the state of pluralistic ignorance “in which each person decides that since nobody is concerned, nothing is wrong.
 Locn. 2248-49 The principle of social proof operates most powerfully when we are observing the behavior of people just like us.
 Locn. 2320-22 Newspaper stories reporting on suicide victims who died alone produce an increase in the frequency of single-fatality wrecks only, whereas stories reporting on suicide-plus-murder incidents produce an increase in multiple-fatality wrecks only.
 Locn. 2362-66 the average number of people killed in a fatal crash of a commercial airliner is more than three times greater if the crash happened one week after a front-page suicide story than if it happened one week before. A similar phenomenon can be found in traffic statistics, where there is evidence for the deadly efficiency of postsuicide-story auto crashes. Victims of fatal car wrecks that follow front-page suicide stories die four times more quickly than normal.
 Locn. 2373-75 When the newspaper detailed the suicide of a young person, it was young drivers who then piled their cars into trees, poles, and embankments with fatal results; but when the news story concerned an older person’s suicide, older drivers died in such crashes.
 Locn. 2455-59 No leader can hope to persuade, regularly and single-handedly, all the members of the group. A forceful leader can reasonably expect, however, to persuade some sizable proportion of group members. Then the raw information that a substantial number of group members has been convinced can, by itself, convince the rest. Thus the most influential leaders are those who know how to arrange group conditions to allow the principle of social proof to work maximally in their favor. Locn. 2661-63 “It would be impossible to overestimate its value. Phoning or calling on a prospect and being able to say that Mr. So-and-so, a friend of his, felt he would benefit by giving you a few moments of his time is virtually as good as a sale 50 percent made before you enter.”
 Locn. 2706-7 it is apparent that good-looking people enjoy an enormous social advantage in our culture. They are better liked, more persuasive, more frequently helped, and seen as possessing better personality traits and intellectual capacities. Locn. 3039-41 Gregory Razran. Using what he termed the “luncheon technique,” he found that his subjects became fonder of the people and things they experienced while they were eating.
 Locn. 3167-69 This finding tells me that it is not when we have a strong feeling of recognized personal accomplishment that we will seek to bask in reflected glory. Instead, it will be when prestige (both public and private) is low that we will be intent upon using the successes of associated others to help restore image.
 Locn. 3353-54 To Milgram’s mind, evidence of a chilling phenomenon emerges repeatedly from his accumulated data: “It is the extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority that constitutes the chief finding of the study.”
 Locn. 3612-13 By establishing their basic truthfulness on minor issues, the compliance professionals who use this ploy can then be more believable when stressing the important aspects of their argument.14 Locn. 3702-3 The idea of potential loss plays a large role in human decision making. In fact, people seem to be more motivated by the thought of losing something than by the thought of gaining something of equal value. Locn. 3992-94 we are most likely to find revolutions where a period of improving economic and social conditions is followed by a short, sharp reversal in those conditions.
 Locn. 3992-94 we are most likely to find revolutions where a period of improving economic and social conditions is followed by a short, sharp reversal in those conditions.
 Locn. 4271-74 Because technology can evolve much faster than we can, our natural capacity to process information is likely to be increasingly inadequate to handle the surfeit of change, choice, and challenge that is characteristic of modern life. More and more frequently, we will find ourselves in the position of the lower animals—with a mental apparatus that is unequipped to deal thoroughly with the intricacy and richness of the outside environment.