Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade

Robert Cialdini’s 1984 book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion has sold over three million copies and has been translated into thirty languages. The book brought science to the art of persuasion, and set out the famed Six Principles of Influence: social proof, reciprocation, authority, liking, scarcity and consistency. There is a good 10 minute summary of the work here. [...] Someone recently recommended that I read his new book Pre-suasion. This book is about research into “Priming”. This is the idea that our decisions are substantially influenced by seemingly trivial items. For example, a company was introducing a new soft drink and had representatives stationed in a mall. Their job was to stop shoppers, explain the features of the new soft drink and attempt to gain the shoppers email address in exchange for the promise of a sample. The success rate was less than 33%. But when a Pre-Suasion question, “Are you adventurous?” was asked prior to launching into the discussion about the new soft drink, the results were astounding. First 97% of the people responded that there were in fact adventurous. They all had a better than average sense of humour as well . But what was really amazing was that once people had affirmed they were adventurous, the success rate shot up to 75%. A key message of the book is that we like those who are like us, be it liking the same sports or sharing a nationality. This is also a key message of the Humm-Wadsworth. [...] If two individuals share a dominant Humm Component, it is highly likely they will get along with each other. A wonderful example of this “liking” effect were the Lithuanian Jews who had escaped to Shanghai and Japan during WWII after gaining Japanese travel visas. The Japanese, post Pearl Harbour, had become allies of the Nazis who in turn demanded these Jews be killed. The Japanese asked the Jews why they were so hated by the Nazis. The answer by Rabbi Kalisch was telling, “It is because we are Asians, just like you.” Understanding the social power of saying the right thing at the right time saved a large group of Jews from death. Another interesting application discussed in the book is when to use “I think” or “I feel.” Normals and Engineers are logical in their decision making and “I think” is the best approach. By contrast the other five Humm components are emotional in their decision making and “I feel” is the best approach. This is a great example of Practical Emotional Intelligence in action. I found Pre-suasion to be a lively and engaging book. It’s a tour through social psychology. Note the actual book is 233 pages long but the references and end notes are about 150 pages.

In his now-classic "Influence", Robert Cialdini tagged along with vacuum salesmen, car dealers and other persuasion professionals to come up with the six psychological principles that were "deployed routinely in long-prospering influence businesses" -- reciprocation, liking, social proof, authority, scarcity, and consistency. Those principles are still solid gold. Prof Cialdini once again gets his hands dirty to uncover an even deeper level of influence: how to make compliance almost a foregone conclusion through what happens *before* the pitch -- or "pre-suasion, the process of arranging for recipients to be receptive to a message before they encounter it." Some of its principles: • Privileged moments: timing is huge. Get people at the right time, and compliance goes way up. • Channeled attention: things that you pay attention to automatically become more important. Channel attention to get results. • Primacy of associations: change the associations around a concept -> change the behavior. • Persuasive geographies: location predisposes to behavior, e.g. you're going to run more often if you live close to a park. The book is full of fascinating anecdotes illustrating the persuasive strategies that make you think at once "Holy cow that's like voodoo" and "Geez I'm glad I know about this so I don't fall for it" and "Y'know, I just may have to use that one someday." Jim, the top home alarm salesman would "forget" something from his car at the same point in every sales presentation, then get the homeowner's house keys "to let himself out." Now they implicitly trusted him *'cause he's got their house keys*. Cult recruiters ask people "Are you unhappy?" to get them to focus on their dissatisfactions. You put fluffy clouds on a furniture website's background, and people paid more; you put pennies, and people paid less. At a certain point, you have to ask yourself: can influence be this subtle? Are we all such chumps to fall for the key trick or the cloud trick? The answer is that nothing in this book is speculative or theoretical, no matter how zany it sounds. These are scientifically-verified findings based on observing what works. Bob Cialdini doth not mess around. The tools in this book are potent, and like a hammer, you can use them to build or to destroy. Marketers and advertisers are obviously going to have a field day with this book to manipulate us further. But you can also expand your awareness of these techniques to become more savvy about how you wish to be influenced -- or even better, to influence *yourself* towards greater happiness and well-being. Channel your attention towards gratitude and the blessings in your life. Arrange your environment such that you favor a healthier diet. Live close to a park, trail, gym, health food store and dear friends. "Presuasion", an instant classic about how the world works, can be your secret weapon to stack the deck of life in your favor. -- Ali Binazir, M.D., M.Phil., Happiness Engineer & author of The Tao of Dating: The Smart Woman's Guide to Being Absolutely Irresistible , the highest-rating dating book on Amazon for 4+ years

This is the sequel to the book Influence. It is also an excellent book teaching us that what we say directly before the message we want to deliver can directly influence how others will react to our message. It also has a section on how false confessions are provoked by some police interrogations. He also advises on how to best deal with a police interrogation so that you can be cooperative but not put yourself in a compromised position. For instance, he gives information that if you are being videotaped, it is wise to make sure the interviewer and the interviewed person have the same view on the tape such as from the side. If the video is directly on the person's face but not on the interviewer, someone looking at the video at a later date would tend to not get an impartial view of the interview. He gives an example of seeing a couple having a discussion where he was on one side of a restaurant where he could watch the couple interact while watching the male's face. Seeing only the male's face while listening to the discussion he felt the male was dominating the conversation. A short time later he realised that on the other side of the couple was another psychologist he knew who was watching the same couple but seeing only the female's face. The other psychologist had the opposite interpretation of the conversation thinking that the female in a submissive type of way controlled the result and was more dominant. Very interesting! Hans Boehnke

Great work! Amazing for nowadays' scenario.

Very solid read - solid reference data and compelling view of human behavioral

I would say this book was on my wishlist for a very Long Time and finally i got it

I had read Influence by the same Author many years ago and was impressed by its thorough research based content and easy read. That book is considered seminal for a reason and it helped people understand how human psychological biases are exploited by marketers and sellers of products, services or ideologies. It was an eye opener for many. This second book by the Author after almost 35-40 years is similarly ground breaking. While Influence described the persuasion steps taken during the selling process this book outlines the steps that can be taken before even the selling begins. Subtle cues and hints that will prime the prospect/victim's mind with the desirable (for us of course) state which will in turn help the selling pr persuasion process go smoothly. The book is based on solid multi decade research by the author and other renowned researchers in the Human psychology domain. Some of the research findings are mind boggling and difficult to believe in the first glance. Who can be benefited by this book? Almost any one who may ever need to convince/persuade other humans or ever need to sell either products, service or ideas to others. That encompasses vast canvass. If you are web designer, consultant, presenter, entrepreneur, marketer, salesman or even parent or spouse then you may use (of course ethically) some of the tips in this book for your advantage. The real danger is this knowledge is so potent that it can be misused to manipulate others. As Author says he wrote first book to warn the consumers on the tricks used by salesmen. But ultimately those techniques were used by salesmen for their advantage. He says that now he has written this book for any one who wants sell his ideas to others. He has thrown the towel and pretense. This book may become classic among marketers, app developers etc. I would also recommend his first book "Influence". Another good book I would suggest in the same genre is Hooked By Nir Eyal. This book will help you understand why you are addicted to social media apps.