Jawn Lam

Robert B. Cialdini

ThinkersBorn 1945Social psychologist

Works

  • Reciprocal Concessions Procedure for Inducing Compliance: The Door-in-the-Face Technique, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1975
  • Influence: How and Why People Agree to Things, 1984
  • Harnessing the Science of Persuasion, Harvard Business Review, 2001
  • Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, 2016

In Tactics of Organizational Politics

Ideas

Reciprocity and reciprocal concessions. People feel obliged to repay what others give them, including favors they did not ask for. The 1975 paper showed a related move: after refusing a large request, people were more likely to agree to a smaller one, which the authors explained as returning a concession with a concession. Caveat: A direct replication of the door-in-the-face study (Genschow and colleagues, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2021) reproduced the effect.

Commitment and consistency. Once people have taken a position, especially a public or written one, they feel pressure to act in line with it. Small early commitments can therefore make larger later ones easier to obtain.

Social proof. When unsure what to do, people look to what others like them are doing, and the more people seem to be doing something, the more correct it looks.

Authority and scarcity. People tend to defer to those who appear to hold legitimate expertise or position. They also value what seems rare, dwindling, or available only for a short time more highly.

Applying the principles at work. A practitioner article that pairs each of the six principles with advice for managers: uncover real similarities and offer genuine praise (liking); give what you want to receive (reciprocity); use peer power whenever it is available (social proof); make commitments active, public, and voluntary (consistency); expose your expertise and do not assume it is self-evident (authority); and highlight unique benefits and exclusive information (scarcity).

Liking. People are more easily persuaded by those they like, and liking grows with similarity and genuine praise.

Privileged moments and unity. What is focal in a person's attention just before a message arrives shapes how the message is received, so a communicator can create privileged moments in which an audience is more receptive. The book also adds a seventh principle, unity: people are more influenced by those they see as sharing an identity with them, being together or acting together.

What it explains

Cialdini's principles describe the routine pressures that make agreement easier to give than to withhold: a favor that has to be repaid, a position already taken, a room that seems to have decided, a signal of rank or urgency. Inside organizations they explain why the order and setting of a request can matter as much as its merits.

Tactics that draw on Robert B. Cialdini (143)

In Thinking Tools

Known for

A social psychologist who studied compliance in experiments and by training undercover as a salesperson, fundraiser, and telemarketer. Influence groups what he found into six principles: reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity; he proposed a seventh, unity, in 2016. Later editions carry the subtitle The Psychology of Persuasion.

Tools that draw on Robert B. Cialdini (1)

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