Influence, New and Expanded: The Psychology of Persuasion

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I guess I shouldn't be surprised that such a popular book is so loaded with conventional wisdom and random assumptions presented as quasi-scientific. That consistency then led them down a path of minor forms of collaboration – without them really thinking about it as such.

Not a runaway train of rapturousness like 1776, Moneyball, or Outliers, but like Anna Karenina it seems to encompass all of life and address all of life's important issues. Interesting (but slightly saddening) how our tendencies to seek mental shortcuts in decision-making are consistently exploited by marketeers. The main thing though is the fascinating concepts explained in the book with principles which I think will be very useful for me in my life. As a reader, you may feel that you already know some of these tricks of the trade, but then author brings out specific edge cases where a particular influence approach may fail because you just are trying to blindly apply the technique without understanding those edge cases.Influence, the classic book on persuasion, explains the psychology of why people say "yes"—and how to apply these understandings. I see this stuff abused all the time, to spin democracies to go to war, to sell us products and services we don't really need and much, much more. Robert Cialdini dissects all the different tactics that marketers have known for years on how to get people to do things they initially had no desire for. This is a top-notch book on psychology, and seems quite comprehensive on the subject of how we are persuaded to do things.

In his almost story-like narrative, the author has at times over-communicated or repeatedly emphasized a particular phrase often to benefit of the reader. Which is all complete common sense and did not need to be made into a book at all, much less updated and sold again.For example, in one experiment, one or more accomplices would look up into the sky; the more accomplices the more likely people would look up into the sky to see what they were seeing. It panders to the audience by using overly simple language and repeating the same idea 5 times to make sure that the reader really understood. Making something sooooo drawn out and repetitive to the point of infinity I couldn't make it to the final chapters. The main point, as I take it, is that we are living in an age where we have access to more and more information all the time. Commitment and Consistency - If people agree to make a commitment toward a goal or idea, they are more likely to honor that commitment.