Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion — Robert B. Cialdini

Understand why people say “yes”

Quick Summary

As human beings, we often react automatically to certain events, because taking the time to think about each action we take would cost too much time and resources; however, if most of the time these automatic behaviors have their advantages, they are sometimes diverted from their original purpose by informed people who wish to exploit them to manipulate us; Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion deconstructs these behaviors and techniques to help us protect ourselves from them.

My Thoughts

This book is a great discovery.

It is dedicated specifically to marketing professionals, but everyone should read it to better understand our psychology.

Based on several experiences and his study, Robert Cialdini informs us about the seven influence techniques used by most salespeople, but not only.

Some of them are already known by the general public, but not all of them. There are some we don’t think about at all.

The book is quite long to read because there is a lot of information, but one thing is sure, it is not a waste of time. The reading is pleasant, and it is rarely repetitive. The tone is sometimes a little disturbing (a little arrogant), but that’s all.

There are several reasons to read this book:

• To become aware of the techniques used to manipulate us (and eventually use them in our turn?)
• To get tips on how to say no
• To dive into a multitude of studies that have been demonstrated and that can be really disconcerting (for example the famous Milgram experiment)

To Read or Not to Read?

This book is long to read, but you will learn a lot of things valuable in our society. If you’re a salesperson, read it now. If you’re not, you can still read it to know a bit more about our psychology and don’t fall anymore into the traps of the advertisers.

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