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Persuading Others: The 6 Universal Principals of Influence with Robert Cialdini, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing, Arizona State University, Author, Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade
There’s an interesting connection between my first book, which was called Influence, and this new book, which is called Pre-Suasion. The first book set for six universal principles of influence that, if you include them in your message, significantly increase the likelihood that people will say yes to your appeal. Pre-suasion says not only should you put those principles in the body of your message, you should also bring attention to them in the moment before you present your message.
So let’s talk about what those six principles would be. The first is reciprocity, the idea that people want to give back to those who have given to them. So, for example, there was a study done in a chocolate shop. If people received a little piece of chocolate when they entered the shop as a gift they were 42 percent more likely to buy chocolate at the counter before they left. People want to give back to those who give to them first. So that’s one principal.
Another is the principle of liking. People prefer to say yes to those they know and like. One thing we can do to increase the likelihood that people will like us is to find genuine similarities or commonalities that exist because we like those people who are like us.
A third is the principle of authority. We prefer to say yes to those ideas or those recommendations that are supported by genuine authorities, legitimate experts on the topic. Simply letting people know that someone who is not in authority, but an authority on the topic agrees with the communicator, were more likely to accept that communicator’s position.
A fourth his social proof, the idea that if a lot of other people are doing something it’s likely to be the right thing for me to do. There was a great study that was done in Beijing, China. Restaurant owners put a little note on certain of the items on their menu and significantly increased the likelihood that people would buy those items, purchase those items. And it wasn’t to say this is our chef’s special for tonight or these dishes are the specialties of the house. No, it was to say these are our most popular items. As a result each became 13 to 20 percent more popular. Entirely ethical. Simply pointing people to something that was true allowed them to reduce their uncertainty about what they should do there.
A fifth principle is the principle of scarcity, people want those things more that they can have less of. So whenever a supermarket does a promotion where it says only X amount of these items per customer, sales skyrocket for that set of items because they seem more scarce, more unavailable.
And finally there is commitment and consistency. People say yes to those requests that are consistent with what they have already said or done publicly. So, for example, one study showed that if at a doctor or dentist’s office, you know how you get a card at the end of your appointment for your next appointment? A problem is no-shows, people who don’t show up. Typically what that card has is the date and time already written down for the patient by the receptionist. If instead the receptionist gives the patient a blank card and has them write in the date and time of the next appointment, no-shows drop by 18 percent for that subsequent appointment because they’ve made an active public commitment to that date themselves rather than having it pushed on them.
So those are the six principles of influence. We can use them both inside a message but also before the message is sent as well.