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Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials)
 
 
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Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials) [Paperback]

Robert B. Cialdini (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (391 customer reviews) |
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Book Description

Publication Date: December 26, 2006 | ISBN-10: 006124189X | ISBN-13: 978-0061241895 | Edition: Revised

Influence, the classic book on persuasion, explains the psychology of why people say "yes"—and how to apply these understandings. Dr. Robert Cialdini is the seminal expert in the rapidly expanding field of influence and persuasion. His thirty-five years of rigorous, evidence-based research along with a three-year program of study on what moves people to change behavior has resulted in this highly acclaimed book.

You'll learn the six universal principles, how to use them to become a skilled persuader—and how to defend yourself against them. Perfect for people in all walks of life, the principles of Influence will move you toward profound personal change and act as a driving force for your success.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Arguably the best book ever on what is increasingly becoming the science of persuasion. Whether you're a mere consumer or someone weaving the web of persuasion to urge others to buy or vote for your product, this is an essential book for understanding the psychological foundations of marketing. Recommended. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

For marketers, this book is among the most important books written in the last ten years. (Journal of Mariketing Research )

Influence should be required reading for all business majors. (Journal of Retailing )

This book will strike chords deep in the hearts and psyches of all of us. (Best Sellers Magazine )

The material in Cialdini’s Influence is a proverbial gold mine. (Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology )
See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: HarperBusiness; Revised edition (December 26, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 006124189X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0061241895
  • Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 1.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (391 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #444 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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More About the Author

› Visit Amazon's Robert B. Cialdini Page
Robert B. Cialdini
ROBERT B. CIALDINI, Ph.D
Influence, Negotiation, Communication, Management, Leadership, Sales

Harvard Business Review lists Dr. Cialdini's research in
Breakthrough Ideas for Today's Business Agenda.

"Influence" has been listed on the New York Times Business Best Seller List.

Fortune Magazine lists Influence in their "75 Smartest Business Books."

Extensive scholarly training in the psychology of influence, together with over 30 years of research into the subject, has earned Dr. Cialdini an international reputation as an expert in the fields of persuasion, compliance, and negotiation.

His books including, Influence: Science & Practice, are the results of more than 30 years of study into the reasons why people comply with requests in business settings. Worldwide, Influence has sold over 2 million copies. Influence has been published in twenty-five languages. His most recent co-authored book, Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive, has been on the New York Times, USA Today & Wall Street Journal Best Seller Lists. Additionally, CEO Read lists Influence in their 100 Best Business Books of All Time.

In the field of influence and persuasion, Dr. Cialdini is the most cited living social psychologist in the world today.

Dr. Cialdini received his Ph.D from the University of North Carolina and post doctoral training from Columbia University. He has held Visiting Scholar Appointments at Ohio State University, the University of California, the Annenberg School of Communications, and the Graduate School of Business of Stanford University. Currently, Dr Cialdini holds dual appointments at Arizona State University. He is a W.P. Carey Distinguished Professor of Marketing and Regents' Professor of Psychology, where he has also been named Distinguished Graduate Research Professor.

Media coverage of Dr. Cialdini and his research include:

* Dateline NBC
* CNBC
* CNN
* ABC
* Washington Post
* New York Times
* On Wall Street
* Forbes Magazine

* Chicago Tribune
* USA Today
* London Times
* Scientific American
* Los Angeles Times
* Psychology Today
* Selling Power

* Sales and Marketing Magazine
* Leader to Leader Magazine
* The Atlantic Journal
* The Denver Post
* The New York Times
* Harvard Business Review
* Fortune Magazine



Dr. Cialdini is President of INFLUENCE AT WORK, an international consulting, strategic planning and training organization based on the Six Principles of Influence.

Dr. Cialdini's clients include such organizations as Google, Advanta, IBM, Washington Mutual Group of Funds, Coca Cola, KPMG, AstraZeneca, Ericsson, Kodak, Merrill Lynch, Nationwide Insurance, Pfizer, Northern Trust, Prudential, The Mayo Clinic, Glaxo Wellcome, Harvard University - Kennedy School, The Weather Channel, the United States Department of Justice, and NATO.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
665 of 677 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As I sit here and write, I wonder why I did not draft this review long before now. I read Cialdini's book about five years ago and have been hooked ever since. It is simply a superb book about influence.

Cialdini believes that influence is a science. This idea attracted me. As a rhetorician, I have always thought of persuasion as more of an art. Cialdini, however, makes a first-rate case for the science point of view. But maybe most importantly, he makes his case in a well-written, intelligent, and entertaining manner. Not only is this an important book to read, it is a fun book to read too.

He introduces you to six principles of ethical persuasion: reciprocity, scarcity, liking, authority, social proof, and commitment/consistency. A chapter is devoted to each and you quickly see why Cialdini looks at influence as a science. Each principle is backed by social scientific testing and restesting. Each chapter is also filled with interesting examples that help you see how each principle can be applied. By the end of the book, I had little doubt that these are six important dimensions of human interaction.

I highly recommend this book to all professionals. It does not matter if you are a manager, sales person, pastor, or non-profit volunteer. The ideas in this book, once applied, will make it easier for you to accomplish your goals. In a video featuring the author, Professor Cialdini even goes so far as to promise that these principles can help you influence the most resistant of all audiences--your children.

With a claim like that, who wouldn't be intrigued?

My advice is to read this sooner rather than later. You will be quite glad you did.

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256 of 271 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Most books of applied psychology fall prey to one of two weaknesses: Either they lack scientific content (or over-simplify) or they present solid information in an academic manner that readers find difficult to absorb and apply. Robert Cialdini's book stands out brilliantly from these books. Combining wide and deep scientific scholarship with an engaging, lucid, and personal style, Influence may be the single best work on the topic. The intent of the book is to show how we can understand and defend against pervasive non-rational influences on our decision-making. Of course the same principles could be applied to market products or influence colleagues and rivals either in place of or in addition to genuine reasons. One sign of the range of the book is the fact that Cialdini doesn't get to the famous Milgram experiment on "Obedience to Authority" until p.208. The book concentrates on several factors that evolution and culture have drilled into us to produce compliance for good reasons, but which can be abused by "compliance professionals": reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity. Any reader will find the research results stunning and frightening. Fortunately, Cialdini concludes each compelling chapter with hints on "How to say no". No matter how intelligent you are, you have undoubtedly fallen for many of these techniques used deliberately or accidentally. How many poor business investment decisions, product purchases, or strategic moves have been influenced by non-rational factors? You have to read this book. Why? Because I've done you a favor with this review and you owe it to me; you can't say you're a rational person if you don't; everyone else is reading it; I'm attractive, friendly, well-dressed, similar to you, and you like me; I'm an psychology expert and I recommend it; and you need to buy it now before all copies are sold!
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267 of 286 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
The classic persuasion text
Cialdini is probably the most respected popular psychologist alive today, so any publication of his is worth its weight in gold, and could potentially earn the same! Read more
Published 2 days ago by James Taylor
great read
This book is a great read. It gives you different looks at how businesses or managers try and persuade you to purchase their product or have them buy into your idea. Read more
Published 3 days ago by znorthface
A Surprising Pleasure to Read
This book sat on my Wish List for years. I wish I had read it when I first heard about it. I heard that Cialdini was an academic who established foundational issues about what... Read more
Published 3 days ago by Theresa Quintanilla
Must have knowledge
This text, which is well known in the fields of hypnosis and NLP, is a real game changer for anyone who needs to be more persuasive in any negotiation setting - family, social or... Read more
Published 4 days ago by cosco
primary school cliches keep repeating itself
Very lousy book, it's about 300 pages that could be summarised in 2 pages, 2 pages not worthy of any cent. Read more
Published 5 days ago by Nikator
Soooooooooooo Applicable
The principles in this book help explain everything from the current housing crisis to the ability of salesmen to convince a buyer that their product is a great deal. Read more
Published 7 days ago by Hello
Influence
A very good book. It'll help you to improve your social skills. You'll understand how to say no, when somebody is annoying you to buy something without insulting that person.
Published 14 days ago by Viktor
Enlightening
I took two days to plow through this book, and came away enlightened with some new perspectives. I suppose that was the author's goal, so kudos to him for the good read. Read more
Published 16 days ago by Santa CruZin
A Must Read For Sales People and Business Owners
I recommend this book to all sales people and small business owners. An understanding of the psychology of why people do what they do is key to shaping your message, your product... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Scott Hoffman
Gave as a Gift to Husband - He liked it.
I bought this book for my husband as a birthday gift and he says that it is great reading and told me that I can read it only after he is finished. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Bizebeaver
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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First Sentence:
I GOT A PHONE CALL ONE DAY FROM A FRIEND WHO HAD RECENTLY opened an Indian jewelry store in Arizona. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
scarce cookies, luncheon technique, compliance practitioners, reciprocation rule, social proof, compliance tactics, shortcut response, compliance professionals, scarcity pressures, liking rule, initial favor, reciprocity rule, social evidence, scarcity principle, smaller request, trigger features, psychological reactance, automatic influence, suicide stories, contrast principle, canned laughter, suicide story, association principle
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Bad Cop, New York, Good Cop, United States, People's Temple, Jim Jones, Arizona State, Hell Week, Robert Young, Boy Scout, Chinese Communists, Joe Girard, San Francisco, World War, Amway Corporation, Angela Lansbury, Catherine Genovese, Marian Keech, North Carolina, South America, Dade County, Professor Phillips
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