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""Yes!" is the "Freakonomics" of social psychology. This book changed my way of looking at the world. This thinking is the real deal. Don't miss out!" -- Daniel Finkelstein, Comment Editor, "The Times" (London)
""Yes!" is the single best introduction to and distillation of research and wisdom on how to change people's minds, including your own." -- Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business, University of Southern California, author of "On Becoming a Leader" and coauthor of "Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls"
"If you had a team of bright guys looking for research that you can actually use to improve your effectiveness, and they wrote it up for you with wit and style, putting it in nifty little reports of three to five pages, would that be useful? YES! This book is the trifecta: first-rate research, lively writing, and practical advice. Read it, enjoy it, use it." -- Dale Dauten, nationally syndicated King Features columnist and author of "The Gifted Boss"
"This easy-to-read summary of the social-psychological research on persuasion really does tell people how to get to 'yes.' Since we are all selling something, including ourselves, all the time, everyone can, and will be, reading this amazing book." -- Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and author of "What Were They Thinking? Unconventional Wisdom About Management"
About the Author
Noah Goldstein is a protege of Cialdini's. He is an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He earned a Ph.D. in psychology under Robert Cialdini at Arizona State University in 2007, and he has published research with Cialdini in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Steve Martin is the UK-based co-director of Influence at Work. Prior to joining with Robert Cialdini's consulting group, he held a number of positions in sales, marketing, and management at several blue-chip companies.
Robert Cialdini is recognized worldwide for his inspired field research on the psychology of influence. He is a New York Times bestselling author. His books, including Influence, have sold more than three million copies in thirty-three languages. Dr. Cialdini is Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University and the president and CEO of Influence at Work, an international company that provides keynotes and influence training on how to use the lessons in Dr. Cialdini’s books ethically and effectively.
How can inconveniencing your audience increase your persuasiveness?
Colleen Szot is one of the most successful writers in the paid programming industry. And for good reason: In addition to penning several well-known “infomercials” for the famed and fast-selling NordicTrac exercise machine, she recently authored a program that shattered a nearly twenty-year sales record for a home-shopping channel. Although her programs retain many of the elements common to most infomercials, including flashy catchphrases, an unrealistically enthusiastic audience, and celebrity endorsements, Szot changed three words to a standard infomercial line that caused a huge increase in the number of people who purchased her product. Even more remarkable, these three words made it clear to potential customers that the process of ordering the product might well prove somewhat of a hassle. What were those three words, and how did they cause sales to skyrocket?
Szot changed the all-too-familiar call-to-action line, “Operators are waiting, please call now,” to, “If operators are busy, please call again.” On the face of it, the change appears foolhardy. After all, the message seems to convey that potential customers might have to waste their time dialing and redialing the toll-free number until they finally reach a sales representative. Yet, that surface view underestimates the power of the principle of social proof: When people are uncertain about a course of action, they tend to look outside themselves and to other people around them to guide their decisions and actions. In the Colleen Szot example, consider the kind of mental image likely to be generated when you hear “operators are waiting”: scores of bored phone representatives filing their nails, clipping their coupons, or twiddling their thumbs while they wait by their silent telephones—an image indicative of low demand and poor sales.
Now consider how your perception of the popularity of the product would change when you heard the phrase “if operators are busy, please call again.” Instead of those bored, inactive representatives, you’re probably imagining operators going from phone call to phone call without a break. In the case of the modified “if operators are busy, please call again” line, home viewers followed their perceptions of others’ actions, even though those others were completely anonymous. After all, “if the phone lines are busy, then other people like me who are also watching this infomercial are calling, too.”
Many classical findings in social psychology demonstrate the power of social proof to influence other people’s actions. To take just one, in an experiment conducted by scientist Stanley Milgram and colleagues, an assistant of the researchers stopped on a busy New York City sidewalk and gazed skyward for sixty seconds. Most passersby simply walked around the man without even glancing to see what he was looking at. However, when the researchers added four other men to that group of sky gazers, the number of passersby who joined them more than quadrupled.2
Although there’s little doubt that other people’s behavior is a powerful source of social influence, when we ask people in our own studies whether other people’s behavior influences their own, they are absolutely insistent that it does not. But social psychologists know better. We know that people’s ability to understand the factors that affect their behavior is surprisingly poor.3 Perhaps this is one reason that the people in the business of creating those little cards encouraging hotel guests to reuse their towels didn’t think to use the principle of social proof to their advantage. In asking themselves, “What would motivate me?” they might well have discounted the very real influence that others would have on their behavior. As a result, they focused all their attention on how the towel reuse program would be relevant to saving the environment, a motivator that seemed, at least on the surface of it, to be most relevant to the desired behavior.
In our hotel experiment, we considered the finding that the majority of hotel guests who encounter the towel reuse signs do actually recycle their towels at least some time during their stay. What if we simply informed guests of this fact? Would it have any influence on their participation in the conservation program relative to the participation rates that a basic environmental appeal yields? With the cooperation of a hotel manager, two of us and another colleague created two signs and placed them in hotel rooms. One was designed to reflect the type of basic environmental-protection message adopted throughout much of the hotel industry. It asked the guests to help save the environment and to show their respect for nature by participating in the program. A second sign used the social proof information by informing guests that the majority of guests at the hotel recycled their towels at least once during the course of their stay. These signs were randomly assigned to the rooms in the hotel.
Now, typically, experimental social psychologists are fortunate enough to have a team of eager undergraduate research assistants to help collect the data. But, as you might imagine, neither our research assistants nor the guests would have been very pleased with the research assistants’ sneaking into hotel bathrooms to collect our data, nor would our university’s ethics board (nor our mothers, for that matter). Fortunately, the hotel’s room attendants were kind enough to volunteer to collect the data for us. On the first day on which a particular guest’s room was serviced, they simply recorded whether the guest chose to reuse at least one towel.
Guests who learned that the majority of other guests had reused their towels (the social proof appeal), which was a message that we’ve never seen employed by even a single hotel, were 26 percent more likely than those who saw the basic environmental protection message to recycle their towels.4 That’s a 26 percent increase in participation relative to the industry standard, which we achieved simply by changing a few words on the sign to convey what others were doing. Not a bad improvement for a factor that people say has no influence on them at all.
These findings show how being mindful of the true power of social proof can pay big dividends in your attempts to persuade others to take a desired course of action. Of course, the importance of how you communicate this information should not be underestimated. Your audience is obviously unlikely to respond favorably to a statement like, “Hey you: Be a sheep and join the herd. Baaaaaaaah!” Instead, a more positively framed statement, such as, “Join countless others in helping to save the environment,” is likely to be received much more favorably.5
Besides the impact on public policy, social proof can have a major impact in your work life, as well. In addition to touting your top-selling products with impressive statistics conveying their popularity (think the McDonald’s sign stating “Billions and billions served”), you’d do well to remember to always ask for testimonials from satisfied customers and clients. It’s also important to feature those testimonials when you’re presenting to new potential clients who may be in need of some reassurance about the benefits that your organization can provide. Or better yet, you can set up a situation in which your current clients have the opportunity to provide firsthand testimonials to prospective clients about how satisfied they are with you and your organization. One way to do this is to invite current and potential customers to a luncheon or educational seminar and arrange the seating charts so that they can easily commingle. In this setting, they’re likely to naturally strike up conversations regarding the advantages of working with your organization. And if, while taking RSVPs for the luncheon, your potential attendees tell you they’ll have to call you back to let you know, just be sure to tell them that if your phone line is busy, they should keep trying…
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness.
This book is full of interesting and useful ideas about persuasion. It draws on findings from a wide range of research/experiments on decision making.
There are, however, a couple of aspects of its presentation that I find frustrating. First, the authors are often very brief when describing the experiments from which important lessons are drawn. With social science experiments such as these, where there are various factors that are difficult to control, I find it impossible to judge the validity, applicability, or limitations of their findings without considering the sampling methods, conditions under which the experiments are conducted, etc. It is true that the authors do provide footnotes that show where one can look up the papers presented by the various researchers. Assuming that a casual reader has access to all the academic journals concerned, it is unrealistic for him/her to make the enormous efforts to go through all of the very large amounts of background materials. The alternative would be to take the authors' words for granted, which is hardly the attitude to take when one considers evidence-based findings.
My second frustrations has to do with the authors' presentation of the 50 ideas as distinct lessons, without any attempt at grouping (say, based on related concepts or relative importance, etc). As such, I find it difficult when I try to remember the ideas, or refer back afterwards without having to flip through 50 chapters.
70% of social research cannot be replicated. Its junk. So packaged in a book is 50 cents worth of noise. I listened, so maybe the print is better- but nothing about statistical significance. So a 10% change with a 30% margin of error is just junk. Nothing about the research sample- what was the demographics studied? Sample size? Ave IQ of sample? Etc. Nothing. This was a stupid joke, "research" anecdote, and a an attempted zingy closer. This was nothing but trying to capitalize on Influence, which was a great book. Don't waste your time, just re-read Influence.
This is a good book. There are a lot of “wow, that’s interesting moments.” It will show things in a way you likely never saw them. It’s fascina and entertaining. Practical advice you can apply? Some. But ... there’s a good bit in this book I’ve never heard or read elsewhere and that’s why I recommend it.
Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2017
Verified Purchase
I'm a huge fan of Robert Cialdini and this book was fantastic. It was interesting to hear about more studies that prove many of the arguments Cialdini outlines in his other book, Influence.
Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2008
Verified Purchase
Goldstein, Martin, and Cialdini writes a simple, funny, and eye-opening book on pursuasion strategy. In fact, as the title suggests there are 50 different examples and strategies one can utilize to be more pursuasive in normal day-to-day interactions with other people.
The authors challenge the notion that persuasion as art. For them, it is science. One can hypothesize, test, and field it. In fact, the 50 ways (or examples) are real life experiences of how persuasive strategy has been implemented scientifically.
As the authors points out that the purpose of the book is to show the underlying psychological processes, therefore, enhancing one's persuasiveness by properly aligning one's efforts to influence other people.
For instance, the authors writes that if one would like to persuade others to do something, the first step is to ask a little thing to create a vested interest. Once, a person is vested, it is easier to convince them to do more later on. Another example is that the word, "because", is the most persuasive word in the English vocabulary that one ought to utilize the most when trying to convince others to help you.
The book is very easy to read and in fact, quite enjoyable. I recommend it to those who want to learn the Science of Persuasion.
As a marketing consultant and writer I read every persuasion book I can get my hands on. This is one of the most useful in the field that I've ever read.
I particularly appreciate the formatting. Each chapter begins with a scientific case study, followed by the relevant conclusions drawn from the study, then completed with ways the conclusions can be applied in a variety of circumstances. The effect on me was to spark tons of ideas for my clients.
The brief, yet concentrated chapters make for easy and engaging reading. I read the book the first time in one sitting, and not once did my attention wander. The formatting also means that you don't have to read the chapters sequentially -- you can open up to any chapter and get valuable, stand-alone content.
The most beneficial aspect of the book is the scientific research. Contrary to many other books in the field, you can feel comfortable with the empirical, rather than subjective, approach.
I've added this book to the core books on persuasion that I reference constantly.
Very similar information presented in a different format could be a book about evolutionary psychology or a book about etiquette. The fact is, it matters that we communicate with a sensitivity as to how we are likely to be perceived. This collection of little known scientific studies documents what the "people person" seems to know intuitively. That these nuances are received on a partially subconscious level makes them all the more powerful.
Cialdini divides social psychology into six divisions:
1) Social Proof Studies 2) Reciprocation Tendency 3) Authority Respecting 4) Commitment & Consistency Response 5) Scarcity Reaction, and 6) The Liking & Loving Response
As another reviewer has pointed out, the chapter titles are designed to create curiosity. If you need to get up early in the morning, resist reading the title to the next chapter.
An easy five stars for this extremely well-written and useful book.
a very entertaining and informative book on the art of persuasion - i was persuaded to buy it after the "look inside" on Amazon after all - find out how it's all done.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 27, 2019
Verified Purchase
This is an excellent little book. Although it is not presented as a management book, it is probably one of the best. Good, solid, practical, concise, succinct advice is imparted with very relevant anecdotes in support.
5.0 out of 5 starsHow can I persuade You to buy this Book !
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 8, 2011
Verified Purchase
As with any of Robert Cialdini's work, expectsations are high and if you need persuading , I've over 30 years in Retail Sales and Behavioural Coaching and still picked up 'Nuggets' of Influence techniques that work 'Now'...I convert more sales, create more interest and enjoy my work far more ..as these guys make persuasion and influence interesting , fun and a great challenge. Read this along with Dr Cialdini's other work and Kevin Dutton's brilliant 'Flipnosis' and your Influence and Persuasion expertise will multiply and the benefits will follow. These techniques are set out in 50 easy to read and understand short articles, so you can pick up and use anywhere..on anyone at anytime...brilliant
For less than a round of drinks ,you can have the skills that people will want , and conversations to keep the most difficult audience happy.
I'm at present studying psychology as a mature student and loved this book ,buy it today and gain the confidence to impress in all areas of your life.
Boring language, thankfully they tell a story in each of the 50 ideas. Would be nice if they included a summary at the end of each chapter to quickly explain the way you can persuade people, thankfully they do it at the end instead.
Some really good techniques in here. Is a bit if-y in the middle, is great at the start and end.
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