Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade (Cialdini, Robert B.)

Notes from relevant books on Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Defence, Development and Humanitarian Action.

Cialdini, Robert B.. Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade. Simon & Schuster, 2016.

These are my personal notes from this book. They try to give a general idea of its content, but do not in any case replace reading the actual book. Think of them as teasers to encourage you to read further!

Part 1: Pre-Suasion: The Frontloading of Attention

1: Pre-Suasion: An Introduction

The highest achievers spent more time crafting what they did and said before making a request.

they didn’t rely on the legitimate merits of an offer to get it accepted; they recognized that the psychological frame in which an appeal is first placed can carry equal or even greater weight.

Their responsibility was to present it most productively. To accomplish that, they did something that gave them a singular kind of persuasive traction: before introducing their message, they arranged to make their audience sympathetic to it.

To persuade optimally, then, it’s necessary to pre-suade optimally. But how?

what we present first changes the way people experience what we present to them next.

remarkable effects of merely launching a large number into the air and, consequently, into the minds of others. Researchers have found that the amount of money people said they’d be willing to spend on dinner went up when the restaurant was named Studio 97, as opposed to Studio 17;

observers’ estimates of an athlete’s performance increased if he wore a high (versus low) number on his jersey.

just after drawing a set of long lines on a sheet of paper, college students estimated the length of the Mississippi River as much greater than those who had just drawn a set of short lines.

Before beginning his sales effort, he established an aura of trust with the family. Trust is one of those qualities that leads to compliance with requests, provided that it has been planted before the request is made.

altering audience members’ associations with what we do or say next.

Instead, he only had to first become associated with the concept of trust, the (intensely positive) other associations of which would then become linked to him and his advice.

They can be called frames or anchors or primes or mindsets or first impressions.

participants in the sessions were nearly always informed that persuasion had to be approached differently in their particular profession than in related professions.

I identified only six psychological principles that appeared to be deployed routinely in long-prospering influence businesses. I’ve claimed that the six represent certain psychological universals of persuasion;

·      reciprocation,

·      liking,

·      social proof,

·      authority,

·      scarcity,

·      and consistency

Importantly different from Influence is the science-based evidence of not just what best to say to persuade but also when best to say it.

pre-suasive practices create windows of opportunity that are far from propped open permanently.

only-temporary receptiveness

The word moment, though, is more complex, as it evokes a pair of meanings. One connotes a time-limited period: in this case, the window of opportunity following a pre-suasive opener, when a proposal’s power is greatest. The other connotation comes from physics and refers to a unique leveraging force that can bring about unprecedented movement.

the factor most likely to determine a person’s choice in a situation is often not the one that offers the most accurate or useful counsel; instead, it is the one that has been elevated in attention (and thereby in privilege) at the moment of decision.

channeled attention leads to pre-suasion:

If people see themselves giving special attention to some factor, they become more likely to think of it as a cause.

naturally occurring commanders of attention:

·      the sexual,

·      the threatening,

·      and the different.

certain kinds of information that combine initial pulling power with staying power:

·      the self-relevant,

·      the unfinished,

·      and the mysterious.

mental activity: its elements don’t just fire when ready, they fire when readied.

2: Privileged Moments

deciding whether a possibility is correct, people typically look for hits rather than misses;

This was the outcome when members of a sample of Canadians were asked either if they were unhappy or happy with their social lives. Those asked if they were unhappy were far more likely to encounter dissatisfactions as they thought about it and, consequently, were 375 percent more likely to declare themselves unhappy.

Cult recruiters often begin the process of seducing new prospects by asking if they are unhappy (rather than happy).

frequently the factor most likely to determine a person’s choice in a situation is not the one that counsels most wisely there; it is one that has been elevated in attention (and, thereby, in privilege) at the time of the decision.

if you wish to change another’s behavior, you must first change some existing feature of that person so that it fits with the behavior.

It’s not necessary to alter anything at all except what’s prominent in that person’s mind at the moment of decision.

ruthlessness of channeled attention, which not only promotes the now-focal aspect of the situation but also suppresses all competing aspects of it—even critically important

Even though there are always multiple “tracks” of information available, we consciously select only the one we want to register at that moment.

Although it might seem that we are concentrating on more than one thing simultaneously, that’s an illusion. We are just rapidly alternating our focus. However, just as there is a price for paying attention, there is a charge for switching it: For about a half second during a shift of focus, we experience a mental dead spot, called an attentional blink, when we can’t register the newly highlighted information consciously.

whatever we can do to focus people on something—an idea, a person, an object—makes that thing seem more important to them than before.

numerous other ways for communicators to get an audience to assign special attention and, consequently, special import to an idea or item.

3: The Importance of Attention . . . Is Importance

anything that draws focused attention to itself can lead observers to overestimate its importance.

“the focusing illusion,” his answer is neatly summarized in the essay’s title: “Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.

“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.”

not to get caught up in a price war against an inferior product, because they’ll lose.

by placing fluffy clouds on the background wallpaper of the site’s landing page. That maneuver led those visitors to assign elevated levels of importance to comfort when asked what they were looking for in a sofa.

wallpaper that pulled their attention to the goal of economy by depicting pennies instead of clouds. These visitors assigned greater levels of importance to price,

press coverage—that it doesn’t so much tell people what to think as what to think about.

selecting the first practicable candidate that presents itself. This tendency has a quirky name, “satisficing”—a term coined by economist and Nobel laureate Herbert Simon—to serve as a blend of the words satisfy and suffice. The combination reflects two simultaneous goals of a chooser when facing a decision—to make it good and to make it gone—which, according to Simon, usually means making it good enough.

judgment-debiasing processes

4: What’s Focal Is Causal

The obligation comes from the helping norm, which behavioral scientists sometimes call the norm of social responsibility. It states that we should aid those who need assistance in proportion to their need. Several decades’ worth of research shows that, in general, the more someone needs our help, the more obligated we feel to provide it, the more guilty we feel if we don’t provide it, and the more likely we are to provide it.

The tendency to presume that what is focal is causal holds sway too deeply, too automatically, and over too many types of human judgment.

whomever’s face was more visible was judged to be more causal.

In sum, because what’s salient is deemed important and what’s focal is deemed causal, a communicator who ushers audience members’ attention to selected facets of a message reaps a significant persuasive advantage:

Are there any features of information that don’t even require a communicator’s special efforts to draw attention to them because, by their nature, they draw attention to themselves?

5: Commanders of Attention 1: The Attractors

I can see some of its logic. Certain cues seize our attention vigorously. Those that do so most powerfully are linked to our survival. Sexual and violent stimuli are prime examples

evidence from an earlier study), being asked about Valentine Street led the men to thoughts of a sexually linked lovers’ holiday: Valentine’s Day.

The men had to be exposed to a sexually linked concept, Valentine’s Day, before she could prompt them to act. An opener was needed that rendered them receptive to her plea prior to ever encountering it. In short, an act of pre-suasion was required.

Our analysis made us think that the popularity-based message would be the right one in any situation where audience members had been exposed to frightening stimuli—perhaps in the middle of watching a violent film on TV—because threat-focused people want to join the crowd. But sending that message in an ad to an audience watching a romantic film on TV would be a mistake, because amorously focused people want to step away from the crowd. When we tested this idea in an experiment, the results stunned me. An advertisement we created stressing the popularity of San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art (“ Visited by over a million people each year”) supercharged favorability toward the museum among people who had been watching a violent movie at the time; yet among those who’d been watching a romantic movie, the identical ad deflated attraction to the museum. But a slightly altered ad—formulated to emphasize the distinctiveness rather than the popularity of museum attendance (“ Stand out from the crowd”)—had the opposite effect. The distinctiveness ad was exceedingly successful among individuals who’d been watching the romantic film, and it was particularly unsuccessful among those who’d been viewing the violent one.

investigatory reflex. He understood that in order to survive, any animal needs to be acutely aware of immediate changes to its environment, investigating and evaluating these differences for the dangers or opportunities they might present. So forceful is this reflex that it supersedes all other operations.

a persuasion-oriented producer, writer, or director needs to be concerned principally with shots and cuts.

one way that marketers get us to pay selective attention to the value of their products: they ask us in some type of questionnaire to evaluate the quality of their offerings without asking us to evaluate their rivals’ comparable offerings.

distinctiveness, as we’ve seen, swings attention to the distinguishing factor, which in this instance led to cushion comfort’s greater perceived importance.

6: Commanders of Attention 2: The Magnetizers

behavior scientists call the next-in-line effect,

And unfinished tasks are the more memorable, hoarding attention so they can be performed and dispatched successfully.

pushes us to return to incomplete narratives, unresolved problems, unanswered questions, and unachieved goals—reflects a craving for cognitive closure.

greatest recall occurred for details of ads that the researchers stopped five to six seconds before their natural endings. What’s more, better memory for specifics of the unfinished ads was evident immediately, two days later, and (especially) two weeks later,

“So, Mr. Maugham, do you enjoy writing?” “I enjoy having written.”

the most successful of the pieces each began with a mystery story. The authors described a state of affairs that seemed perplexing and then invited the reader into the subsequent material as a way of dispatching the enigma.

Part 2: Processes: The Role of Association

7: The Primacy of Associations: I Link, Therefore I Think

In the family of ideas, there are no orphans.

to convince others to accept a message, it is necessary to use language that manages the recipients’ thoughts, perceptions, or emotional reactions.

research program designed to answer the question “What is language principally for?”

we should think of language as primarily a mechanism of influence;

the intent is not so much to explain our position to others as to persuade them to it.

linguistic devices that researchers have identified for driving attention to one or another aspect of reality.

He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word.

The results are alarming: prior exposure to the violence-linked words led to a 48 percent jump in selected shock intensity.

If you want to change the world, change the metaphor.

channeling recipients to sectors of reality pre-loaded with a set of mental associations favorable to the communicator’s view.

Because to bring a wild beast under control, it’s necessary to catch and cage it.

Because to bring a virus under control, it’s necessary to remove the unhealthy conditions

individuals who have held a warm object briefly—for example, a cup of hot (versus iced) coffee—immediately feel warmer toward, closer to, and more trusting of those around them.

People who learn that they have a birthday, birthplace, or first name in common come to like each other more,

There is much positivity associated with getting something with ease,

cognitive poetics

company’s shares was greater if the company’s name (top graph) or stock ticker code (bottom graph) was easy to pronounce.

8: Persuasive Geographies: All the Right Places, All the Right Traces

learning process, perfecting the tactic as they go.

“medical student syndrome.” Research shows that 70 percent to 80 percent of all medical students are afflicted by this disorder, in which they experience the symptoms of whatever disease they happen to be learning about at the time

9: The Mechanics of Pre-Suasion: Causes, Constraints, and Correctives

it’s possible for a communicator to move recipients into agreement with a message before they experience it. The key is to focus them initially on concepts that are aligned associatively with the yet-to-be-encountered information.

underappreciated characteristic of mental activity: its elements don’t just fire when ready; they fire when readied.

After passersby on the street received a mood-enhancing free gift of high-quality writing paper, they rated their cars and TVs as working better.

although the typical interrogation lasts for less than an hour, interviews generating false confessions average sixteen hours.

Part 3: Best Practices: The Optimization of Pre-Suasion

10: Six Main Roads to Change: Broad Boulevards as Smart Shortcuts

major principles of human social influence. They are reciprocation, liking, social proof, authority, scarcity, and consistency.

communicators stand to be more effective by highlighting the idea of authority not just inside their message but inside the moment before their message.

states that those who have given benefits to us are entitled to benefits from us in return.

They must begin an interaction by providing initial gifts, favors, advantages, or concessions without a formal guarantee of compensation.

what we give first should be experienced as meaningful, unexpected, and customized.

two specific ways to create positive feelings got the most attention. We were instructed to highlight similarities and provide compliments.

Parallels in language style (the types of words and verbal expressions conversation partners use)

Waitresses coached to mimic the verbal style of customers doubled their tips.

Indeed, we seem so charmed by flattery that it can work on us even when it appears to have an ulterior motive.

more influential pre-suasive mechanism is at work. Similarities and compliments cause people to feel that you like them, and once they come to recognize that you like them, they’ll want to do business with you.

principle of social proof.

In addition to clarifying what’s right morally, social proof reduces uncertainty about what’s right pragmatically.

The merit is the message”)

“The medium is the message”—

“The messenger is the message.”

the first stage, the main goal involves cultivating a positive association,

At the second stage, reducing uncertainty

At this third stage, motivating action is the main objective.

11: Unity 1: Being Together

The relationships that lead people to favor another most effectively are not those that allow them to say, “Oh, that person is like us.” They are the ones that allow people to say, “Oh, that person is of us.”

It’s about shared identities.

Neuroscientists have offered an explanation for the confusion: mental representations of the concepts of self and of close others emerge from the same brain circuitry. Activating either of those concepts can lead to neuronal cross-excitation of the other concept and the consequent blurring of identities.

two categories of factors that lead to a sense of we-ness—those involving particular ways of being together and particular ways of acting together.

a real sense, then, these rescuers didn’t so much say yes to the needy strangers as to their own relatives and neighbors.

He began by requesting the help of individuals who would have a difficult time saying no to him—his relatives and neighbors—and then pressed them to do the same among their relatives and neighbors. It was this strategic leveraging of existing unities that made him more than a compassionate hero. It made him an inordinately successful one as well.

“Because,” he said calmly, “we are Asian, like you.”

there is another kind of unitizing effect available to those seeking elevated influence. It comes not from being together in the same genealogy or geography but from acting together synchronously or collaboratively.

12: Unity 2: Acting Together

Thus, human societies, even ancient ones, seem to have discovered group bonding “technologies” involving coordinated responding. The effects are similar to those of kinship: feelings of we-ness, merger, and the confusion of self and other.

that although we normally try to “resonate” (harmonize) with members of our in-groups, we typically don’t with out-group members.

Members of teams that had pre-suasively marched together were 50 percent more cooperative toward their teammates than were those who had just walked together normally.

those who had sung and walked together in time with music were over three times more likely to help their partner than were those who did not have a pre-suasive joint musical experience.

The first, a quote from Voltaire, is contemptuous: “Anything too stupid to be spoken,” he asserted, “is sung.” The second, an adage from the advertising profession, is tactical: “If you can’t make your case to an audience with facts, sing it to them.”

What would you say is the percentage of contemporary songs with romance as their subject? According to a recent systematic count, it’s 80 percent, the vast majority. That’s amazing. Romance isn’t at issue the vast majority of the time when we speak or think or write, but it is when we sing.

some were asked for any “advice” they might have regarding the restaurant, whereas others were asked either for any “opinions” or “expectations” they might have. Finally, they indicated how likely they’d be to patronize a Splash! restaurant. Those participants who provided advice reported wanting to eat at a Splash! significantly more than participants who provided either of the other sorts of feedback.

14: Post-Suasion: Aftereffects

Americans in several states were surveyed online regarding their political attitudes and beliefs. Half saw a small American flag at the top left corner of the survey questionnaire as they began to answer its questions; the other half saw no flag. Exposure to the American flag in this subtle way caused participants to become more favorable to McCain’s Republican Party and its politically conservative ideology. Moreover, when participants were resurveyed after the election, the researchers learned that those who had encountered a US flag on the prior questionnaire had voted for McCain at a significantly greater rate than the other participants. Finally—and perhaps most remarkably—a full eight months after the election, participants who had made contact with their flag during the long-past survey were still embracing more Republican-oriented attitudes, beliefs, and judgements.

pre-suasive openers can produce dramatic, immediate shifts in people, but to turn those shifts into durable changes, it’s necessary to get commitments to them, usually in the form of related behavior.

The most effective commitments reach into the future by incorporating behaviors that affect one’s personal identity. They do so by ensuring that the commitment is undertaken in an active, effortful, and voluntary fashion,