Robert B. Cialdini Quotes

With this single maneuver, Vincent engaged several important principles of influence. First, even those who did not take his suggestions felt Vincent had done them a favor by offering valuable information to help them order. Everyone felt grateful, and consequently, the rule of of reciprocation worked in his favor when it came time to decide on his gratuity. Besides hiking up the percentage of his tip, Vincent’s ploy also placed him in a position to increase the size of the party’s order. It established him as an authority on the current stores of the house: he clearly knew what was and wasn’t good that night. Moreover — and here is where seeming to argue against his own interests comes in — it proved him to be a trustworthy informant because he recommended dishes slightly less expensive than the one originally ordered. Rather than having appeared to try to line his own pockets, he seemed to have the customers’ best interests at heart.

The lesson applies as well to the politics of family as country. The parent who grants privileges or enforces rules erratically invites rebelliousness by unwittingly establishing freedoms for the child. The parent who only sometimes prohibits between-meal sweets may create for the child the freedom to have such snacks. At that point, enforcing the rule becomes a much more difficult and explosive matter because the child is no longer merely lacking a never-possessed right but is losing an established one.

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.

The differential phrasing might seem minor, but it is critical to achieving the company’s unitization goal. Providing advice puts a person in a merging state of mind, which stimulates a linking of one’s own identity with another party’s.

¿Existe algún mecanismo aplicable en toda clase de contextos del que puedan echar mano las entidades para provocar este tipo de comportamientos sincronizados y condicionar así a los distintos integrantes del grupo hacia los objetivos grupales? Pues sí. Se trata de la música.

it will be when prestige (both public and private) is low that we will be intent upon using the successes of associated others to help restore image.

They behave in accordance with what the contrast principle would suggest: Sell the suit first, because when it comes time to look at sweaters, even expensive ones, their prices will not seem as high in comparison.

Exodus 23:8–“And thou shalt take no gift; for a gift blindeth them that have sight and perverteth the words of the righteous.

The principles — consistency, reciprocation, social proof, authority, liking, and scarcity

there’s a telling answer to the question of what Albert Einstein claimed was so remarkable it could be labeled as both “the most beautiful thing we can experience” and “the source of all true science and art.” His contention: the mysterious.

During the Korean War, many captured American soldiers found themselves in prisoner-of-war (POW) camps run by the Chinese Communists. It became clear early in the conflict that the Chinese treated captives quite differently than did their allies, the North Koreans, who favored savagery and harsh punishment to gain compliance. Specifically avoiding the appearance of brutality, the Red Chinese engaged in what they termed their “lenient policy,” which was in reality a concerted and sophisticated psychological assault on their captives. After the war, American psychologists questioned the returning prisoners intensively to determine what had occurred. The intensive psychological investigation took place, in part, because of the unsettling success of some aspects of the Chinese program. For example, the Chinese were very effective in getting Americans to inform on one another, in striking contrast to the behavior of American POWs in World War II.

automatic-pilot device, like social proof, should never be trusted fully;

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

Cuando la gente actúa al unísono, no solo se ven a sí mismos como más parecidos, sino que después se evalúan unos a otros más positivamente.

Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.”2