Influence: Science and Practice

I have read this book twice in both graduate level psychology and communication classes. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion PROS: 1. I love this book and how it explains social influence: the psychology of persuasion to consumers. 2. This book explains how those trying to sell/market products easy influence / persuade you when you really don't want to. 3. EVERYONE should read this book to understand how psychological influence will cause you to purchase an item you don't want or need. 4. Plus, this will allow you NOT to get sucked in by manipulators trying to sell you something that you don't need or can't afford. (Great example was the vacuum someone sold my Mama)! 5. This is an easy read and should be read by everyone before heading to the mall or opening the door to salesman. 6. Chapters in the book (again, a very easy and fun read): Persuasion Principles: Principle 1: The Good Deal Principle Principle 2: Reciprocity Principle 3: Commitment and Consistency Principle 4: Social Proof Principle 5: Authority Principle 6: Liking Principle 7: Scarcity THIS IS USED IN EVERYDAY LIFE! IF YOU DON'T PURCHASE: AT LEAST CHECK OUT FROM LIBRARY AND READ! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED TO EVERYONE TO UNDERSTAND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INFLUENCE AND TO SAVE TIME AND MONEY! Don't get influenced and fooled again! Great book and read!

This topic is just fascinating - the hidden pushes and pulls that affect our decision making, even when we believe we are reasoning. One such example (p.146) is the 1974 Canadian study that found politicians who were more attractive got 2.5 times the number of votes. Despite the evidence of favoritism, 73% of Canadian voters denied "in the strongest possible terms" that their votes had been influenced by physical appearance; only 14% even admitted the possibility! (See the study by Efran & Patterson, 1976 and another by Budesheim & DePaola, 1994.) The book does a wonderful job of keeping the subject light despite that it is chock full of references to studies. There are even cartoons are scattered throughout the chapters. Pictures from real life also are mixed in. Included are "defenses" that are meant to help us avoid the pitfalls, but I'm not sure they'll be entirely helpful or not because I personally thought a lot of these tactics would be very obvious to me. Summaries of the chapters are included, which serve as good refreshers if it's been a while since you've read the book (and need to write an Amazon review :] ). I think even anyone with a healthy dose of cynicism or business sense will read this and be surprised that these tactics work. One such example is of Detroit's Joe Girard, deemed greatest car salesman by Guinness Book of World Records for selling an average of 5 cars per day, who describes a technique he used: every month he sent a holiday greeting card (for Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving, whatever) to each of his 13,000 customers, with nothing but the words "I like you" and his signed name. (p.150) "Could a statement of liking so impersonal, obviously designed to sell cars, really work?: Joe Girard thought so, and a man as successful as he was at what he did deserves our attention." It was at least one of the techniques he used to earn himself hundreds of thousands of dollars per year as a car salesman. There's only one bit I came across in this entire book that I disagreed with, and it was from the chapter on authority, in which the author claims that normally authority figures (specifically and namely included are politicians and doctors) have earned the right to have "the word" on subjects they speak on. Politicians? Ha! Doctors? Like the ones who vouched for smoking being healthy when cigarettes came out? Think again. Trust Us We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future Other than that one tiny bit that caught my eye, the rest of the book is very informative and even fun to read. I'll leave you with one unbelievable example from the very beginning that tells how a shop owner accidentally relieved herself of the trouble of selling a certain variety of turquoise jewelry. She left a note instructing her employee to reduce them to 1/2 price. The employee misread and raised the price by 2 instead; the pieces sold almost immediately. This is due to the fact that people without better knowledge of a particular good will use the price alone to determine the quality or value of that good. This also worked for Chivas Regal Scotch Whiskey, which was a struggling brand until it's owners decided to raise its price substantially above its competitors!

If you have never taken a Social Psychology class, then this book should be a must read. Even if you are not into psychological manipulations, you would want to be aware of when and how you are manipulated. Knowledge is power and knowledge of human psychological tendencies is as valuable as any. Written by a PhD in Psychology, this book provides numerous examples of Psychological studies. Although lacking examples of cutting edge research, the book nonetheless provides a empirically tested and credible insights into human influence and behavior. Pop-psychology this book is not and NLP and its controversial methods, fortunately, are not even mentioned. The Psychology researches are explained in layman's terms and the author purposesly wrote this book to be unlike Psychology textbooks. Nevertheless, this book isn't always interesting and can sometimes be pedantic. The author seemed to have cherry-picked the best and most useful Psychology knowledge of influence and put them in a very readable format. The author spends 80% of the book on expounding 8-10 core concepts involving Psychology of influence. I can't say, however, that I have read anything new in this book that I haven't read in my college Social Psychology class. But I am still glad I read this book since reading this book was a great refresher.

Study material

The quality of the paper and cover it's not good enough

Really good book. Makes you aware of a lot of things, even if you don't actively use them yourself - helps you be aware of people using the same tactics against you. Very important skills to learn. I would highly recommend this book for everyone. It's written in an interesting way that makes you want to actually keep reading.

Das Buch gibt einen sehr guten Einblick in die menschliche Denkweise. Die vielen plastischen Beispiele helfen das zu verstehen und zu verinnerlichen. Lieferzeit war über ein Monat und das Buch wurde fünf Tage später als versprochen geliefert. Der Händler bietet sehr rudimentäres Track & Trace an. Allerdings war der Preis dafür attratktiv.

Really wanted to put a higher grade to this book but: 1/ Book presentation is quite bad. It is not a competition to put so much content in one page. Poor presentation is surprising on a book on persuasion! 2/ Overall it is very dry. It is really a pity as content is very informative and examples are often entertaining. With a bit of editing work, I would have put 4 stars. I went through the entire book and was happy when I finished it. I found out this book thanks to Scott Adams.