Robert B. Cialdini Quotes

It is much more profitable for salespeople to present the expensive item first, not only because to fail to do so will lose the influence of the contrast principle; to fail to do so will also cause the principle to work actively against them. Presenting an inexpensive product first and following it with an expensive one will cause the expensive item to seem even more costly as a result — hardly a desirable consequence for most sales organizations.

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.

the correctness of an action was not adjudged by such considerations as apparent senselessness, harmfulness, injustice, or usual moral standards, but by the mere command of a higher authority.

Civilization advances by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them. –Alfred North Whitehead

The press may not be successful most of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling them what to think about.

Once again we can see that social proof is most powerful for those who feel unfamiliar or unsure in a specific situation and who, consequently, must look outside of themselves for evidence of how best to behave there.

frequently the crowd is mistaken because they are not acting on the basis of any superior information but are reacting, themselves, to the principle of social proof.

civilization advances by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them.

The patrolman’s account provides certain insights into the way we respond to social proof. First, we seem to assume that if a lot of people are doing the same thing, they must know something we don’t. Especially when we are uncertain, we are willing to place an enormous amount of trust in the collective knowledge of the crowd. Second, quite frequently the crowd is mistaken because they are not acting on the basis of any superior information but are reacting, themselves, to the principle of social proof.

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

You use your cuts to get people to swing attention to the parts of your message you really want them to focus on.

But the rule for reciprocation, which states that those who give first are entitled to receive in return,

But it comes down to this: in deciding whether a possibility is correct, people typically look for hits rather than misses;

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. — ALBERT EINSTEIN

Psychologists have long understood the power of the consistency principle to direct human action.