Influence The Psychology Of Persuasion Summary

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion; A Book Review From the commercials on TV, to parenting, to the con artist, this world is full of persuasion. Every day people are influenced to do things that they otherwise wouldn’t do, even going to the extent of changing someone’s perceptions of themselves. In Robert Cialdini’s book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (2007) influence from all aspects of life, even nature, are covered in brilliant stories that allow the reader to connect with this fascinating novel. Inside its pages lies the information on how people are influenced as well as a couple of tips and tricks on how to avoid it. Robert Cialdini’s book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion explains persuasion through something he

A “click whirr” is simply an innate response and the reaction that comes out of it. Cialdini likes to describe it as the trigger features (what causes the response) clicks a button, this then sets the tape whirring creating the response. This example is first shown through turkeys. Female turkeys are known the be amazing mothers but this maternal instinct is driven by one trigger feature. The noise of a baby chick. Without this noise the mother turkey will not care for her young, this shows that the sound of turkey chicks is a female turkeys trigger feature. Cialdini stresses the fact that trigger features work because they are shortcuts that do tend to work, sometimes too well. In the instance of the turkeys they work to know if a chick is healthy or not, but if this sound is played in a stuffed body of a main predator suddenly this is shot out the window and she will mother it. This same principle of the innate “click whirr” response works in humans to. This can be seen in stores all over. The human principle of more equals better is seen in stores everywhere. If an item isn’t selling a merchant can raise the prices and it may sell faster. If it doesn’t they can easily lower the price to the original and say it is on sale. These price tricks are a “click whirr” response of humans. If something is more expensive it is seen as

The rule of reciprocation is an extensive example of a “click whirr” because it covers many aspects of our life. Take, for example, a sample at a grocery store. Most people feel the urge to buy what they sample because they view it as a gift. The presence of a gift is a click, the whirr is to return something of a similar value. With this principle, it is plain to see that these sample stations are a great ploy to earn money. But it’s not just grocery stores that take advantage of that, many charities to as well. A simple gift is meant to stimulate people’s natural reciprocation to donate money. A unique study mentioned in Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion is the experiment performed by Dennis Regan, a professor at Cornell University. This study showed that if people had been given a 10₵ coke they would buy more 25₵ raffle tickets if asked later. Now, many factors influenced this, if people liked him more they paid more, but there was no difference in raffle ticket purchases, whether he was liked or otherwise, if they had been given a coke. This shows peoples’ reactions to the rule of reciprocation. However, there is many other driving forces of influence that take advantage of our “click whirrs,” one being consistency. Like people want to be even they also want to be consistent. If they agree to a point they