Quotes from Robert B. Cialdini

The aim is to get someone to want to buy quickly, without thinking too much about it.

The drop from abundance to scarcity produced a decidedly more positive reaction to the cookies than did constant scarcity.

Knowing what I now know, if I could go back in time, would I make the same choice?

When the newspaper detailed the suicide of a young person, it was young drivers who then piled their cars into trees, poles, and embankments with fatal results; but when the news story concerned an older person's suicide, older drivers died in such crashes. l advised, then, to take special care in our travels at these times.

Once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment. Those pressures will cause us to respond in ways that justify our earlier decision.

In large measure, who we are with respect to any choice is where we are, attentionally, in the moment before the choice.

Psychologists have long understood the power of the consistency principle to direct human action.

The second important thing to understand is that we, too, have our preprogrammed tapes; and, although they usually work to our advantage, the trigger features that activate them can be used to dupe us into playing them at the wrong times.

Social scientists have determined that we accept inner responsibility for a behavior when we think we have chosen to perform it in the absence of strong outside pressures. A

the main purpose of speech is to direct listeners' attention to a selected sector of reality. Once that is accomplished, the listeners' existing associations to the now-spotlighted sector will take over to determine the reaction. For

The rule says that we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided us.

When it comes to freedoms, it is more dangerous to have given for a while than never to have given at all.

If a gift, favor, or service incorporates all three features of meaningfulness, unexpectedness, and customization, it can become a formidable source of change.

Every day in every way, I'm getting better. —EMILE COUE

frequently the crowd is mistaken because they are not acting on the basis of any superior information but are reacting, themselves, to the principle of social proof.

Pyne: I guess your long hair makes you a girl. Zappa: I guess your wooden leg makes you a table.

revolutionaries are more likely to be those who have been given at least some taste of a better life.

The obligation to receive reduces our ability to choose whom we wish to be indebted to and puts that power in the hands of others.

tactic can be particularly successful when the audience is already aware of the weakness; thus, when a communicator mentions it, little additional damage is done, as no new information is added—except, crucially, that the communicator is an honest individual. Another enhancement occurs when the speaker uses a transitional word—such as however, or but, or yet—that channels the listeners' attention away from the weakness and onto a countervailing strength.

In this case, because we know that the things that are difficult to possess are typically better than those that are easy to possess, we can often use an item's availability to help us quickly and correctly decide on its quality.

The house I got them spotted for looks really great after they've first looked at a couple of dumps.

to make it climb, make it rhyme. Within

There's an implication for influence: persuaders would be wise to match the System 1 versus 2 orientation of any appeal to the corresponding orientation of the recipient. Thus, if you are considering a car purchase primarily from the standpoint of its emotionally relevant features (attractive looks and exhilarating acceleration), a salesperson would be well advised to convince you by using feelings-related arguments.

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.