Robert Cialdini - Mastering the Seven Principles of Influence and Persuasion

[Music]
i'm sean delaney and on this episode of
the what got you there podcast i sit
down with robert cialdini
master of influence and persuasion who
is out with his newest
updated and expanded book of influence
the psychology of persuasion
and in his previous work dr chaldini has
gone through the six
universal principles of persuasion and
if you want to know what the seventh is
then tune into this episode dr chaodini
welcome to what got you there how are
you doing today well i'm doing well
i'm looking forward to our chance to
interact yeah there's there's going to
be a lot of fun pathways during this
conversation but i would love to start
at a place
around why are we not having a
conversation about you being in the
major league baseball hall of fame
i think uh first of all my own
gifts as an athlete are limited but i
did get a
an offer to play minor league baseball
out of high school and
was actually going to sign a contract
with a
a scout who had come to my last game
and uh he had a contract with him and
his
his pen didn't work so we walked through
his car
to get another pen and while we were
walking he said to me
so let me ask you something kid
are you any good at school i said yes
you said good enough to get into college
yes
good enough to finish college yes
and do you like school yes
and he said go to school kid
that's where your strength is and that's
what you like
i know you want to be mickey mantle or
willie mays i was a center fielder
but you it's unlikely you'll reach that
but what you've told me
tells me not just that you should follow
your dream or your passion
you should follow your passion that
you're good at
and that man changed my life because
we wouldn't be talking today we wouldn't
be
reflecting on my work on my book and so
on
we would have an entirely different
set of interactions if we ever met i
i might be a minor i might have been a
minor league baseball player for a while
ended in a small town
maybe maybe even a city des moines iowa
we might meet because i'd be the
manager of the sporting goods store
in des moines iowa where we might meet
not like this and i'm appreciative of
that
your work as you as you know has just
been foundational for me i'm wondering
though
17 18 19 year old kid i mean was that
hurtful at the time what was always
going through your head when it seems
like
your dream could have been crushed at
the time
he put me back in touch with reality
i knew that
i don't know how much of a baseball fan
you are i couldn't hit a good slider
i couldn't hit a good slider and i was
going to see a lot more
good sliders moving up the line i was
i was flattered to get that contract
but he was right he was right
and he put me in touch with reality
and didn't just say don't
he gave me an alternate reality that i
was also passionate about i've always
been
curious about human behavior and going
to school and being a researcher and a
psychologist and so on
that was another door that he opened or
recognized that was open to me
and that's how i i got here i i'm not
sure how you
interpret that the pen not working i
kind of view that as somewhat locked in
serendipity so i'm wondering for you i
mean someone who understands influence
so well
what influence has luck and serendipity
had on your life
well once i got into school i was
working with a researcher who was
studying
animal behavior and i was going to go to
graduate school to get a phd in animal
behavior that's where all my research
was with this guy and
i had never taken a class in social
psychology
which turned out to be what i eventually
got a phd in
right but i had a mad
crush on marilyn rapinski at the time
marilyn marilyn robinski and we were at
a stage in our relationship we wanted to
be together all the time
and she was taking a social psychology
course
and there was by serendipity by luck
an empty seat next to marilyn
and i filled that seat just to be close
and by yet the end of the term i was
more enamored of social psychology
than of maryland as these things go you
know in college
and that piece of luck
besides the the pen that wouldn't work
that serendipity moved me into a place
that allowed me to exercise whatever
talents and gifts i had for
understanding and researching human
behavior
then i realized that i i wanted not to
go to study
animals i wanted to study human behavior
sent me in a different route altogether
it seems like
everyone i've ever encountered who's
reached a high level of excellence or we
can even call it mastery
has spent a deep amount of time in in
deep immersion in their work and i'm
wondering for you
was there an early period where you just
went all in on this and you really
thought your learning curve
just accelerated yeah and it was in
graduate school right so now i'm in grad
school and the first
year of graduate school was pretty much
working on the research
programs of my major professors the
people who were my advisors and
helped me learn the skills of doing
academic research into human behavior
but once i finished that first year they
kind of turned it over to me
and said okay you've shown us that you
know how to do this
now it's up to you and suddenly
all the all the opportunities all the
freedoms
all the choices were mine and
that caused me i think to really
blossom as somebody who was
not just able to do this stuff but so
excited about the chance to find out
what i was most
curious regarding human behavior
yeah yeah giving you that that
empowering moment it sounds like
i'm wondering what were you doing at
that time to actually fully dive in and
even increase that learning curve well i
was in graduate school and
had just in the first year i had
completed a master's thesis
and now my question was well what should
i study beyond
what i just looked at what other
opportunities
are there to answer questions that
i'm not just the only one who's curious
about
but that people would love to do
that's what set me out and then there
was another
big place where this happened and it was
now i'm in
i'm i'm a university professor uh i'm
studying persuasion and social influence
mostly in my laboratory with college
students
in on a campus
and recognizing that while i was
learning
some things with these laboratory
experiments you know
you say something this way in a
persuasive appeal
and this many people say yes to it you
say the same thing
this way and now this many people say
yes to it
you know that was intriguing and so on
but the things i was studying
i wasn't sure that they were powerful
outside of the laboratory
the thing i really wanted to answer as a
researcher and a scholar
was what are the things that caused
people to say yes to requests to move
them
in the directions you're asking them to
move
in the naturally occurring situations we
all
experience where we're trying to move
people
our friends our neighbors our family
members our
clients our customers our superiors and
so on
in our direction for that i needed to
get outside of the lab
outside of the college campus and what i
did was to
enroll in as many training programs
as a kind of spy of sorts with disguised
identity
disguised intent nobody knew i was a
university professor
looking to understand and learn from
influenced practitioners so i joined the
training programs
of sales organizations marketing
organizations
advertisers recruiters fundraisers
to see what they were saying worked for
them
because their livelihoods
depended on the success
of the strategies they were using so
they had to know what really worked
outside
of the laboratory where i was
investigating it
and what surprised me was how small the
footprint was
of those things they all used
systematically i initially counted just
six
things now i counted hundreds of
tactics but i thought the great majority
of them
could be categorized in terms of just
six
universal principles of influence that
everybody was using
to get people to move in their
directions profitably
i put one of those principles in each of
the chapters
of my book influence that i learned
from these um undercover activities
i would love to know being in the
laboratory setting versus getting out
there in the real world
hindsight now would you have gone into
some of those actual programs earlier
i would just love to know how you think
through the balance between the two
you're exactly right i think
the greatest mistake i made
professionally
was not getting out of the lab and
into the naturally occurring environment
where the influence wars are being
fought every day
after all i could have done it two or
three years earlier
but to be honest
i was intimidated
by the idea that i wouldn't get tenure
i wouldn't get promoted because i
wouldn't be doing
laboratory experiments that i could
publish
immediately right i was spending two and
a half years
in in this in this other activity
i think i could have done that years
earlier and had a
better experience uh earlier
in my career that's really fascinating
and we're going to get into these
principles here in a minute but i would
love to know when you finally do get out
in the field
were there certain things you were just
doing that allowed you to absorb
so much more of this great wisdom that
you end up distilling down
well i did uh take with me
tape recorder so i was recording
everything i was taking notes
on everything that they were training us
to do
because they worked well and then
whenever they gave us the chance to go
along with an established pro
let's say on a sales call right i would
jump at those opportunities to see
what the most um
practiced and effective of of the
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influence professionals were doing when
they
got into a situation where they had to
improvise what did they
say how did they handle something like
that
and i learned from that as well
i love going to the people who are most
advanced know the most to be able to
learn uh
it's something that i wish more younger
people would do
a lot more frequently and earlier has
there been a specific story that stuck
with you
with one of those people who might have
been a great salesman or a great
marketer that still sticks with you
today
yeah there was a guy we it was a
a firm that was selling uh
very expensive heat activated fire alarm
systems for the home and i
would go along with several of them to
see how they did it but this one guy was
the champion he was the one who
sold the most contracts every month
compared to all of uh his uh
contemporaries so i was especially
interested in what he did
and what he did that everybody else
failed to do there was a
book that we would take into a home
where people would schedule themselves
for an appointment
with the the the salesperson and
uh that explained all of the advantages
of this particular kind of uh
heat activated uh uh
fire alarm system for the home and so on
and
um he would leave it in the car
so he would come in and do do a first uh
introduction with him and then give the
couple
usually um a little test to see how much
they knew
about uh fire dangers in the home and
while they were taking the test he would
say
oh he would slap his head he said i
forgot
some information in the car would you
mind
if i went out let myself out and let
myself back in
while you're doing the test and of
course they were saying they were doing
the test and he just
of course of course let me unlock the
door for you right so
and i asked him about it i saw him do
this three times
in one day right
why did you do this and
he said he wouldn't tell me at first
the third time when i asked him he said
finally he said all right look
bob who do you allow in
and out of your home only somebody you
trust
right i want to be associated in the
minds of those
those couples with trust
before i ever begin the appeal
and showing them the materials all the
sales materials that everybody else
would bring in right from the beginning
this guy did what i call pre-suasion
before he ever made his case
he persuaded people to be in a state of
mind
that was going to foster and
advance his case because he had arranged
to be
seen as a trustworthy source
brilliant absolutely brilliant that
that's what i love about your book
pre-suage and i i remember the first
time i picked it up
um i was involved a lot more in the
sales type process that time and it was
just epiphany after epiphany eye-opening
moment
i i love how you're talking about how
you were studying what he was doing
if someone was sitting with you for a
while and studying you
what do you think it is that you do
really well at this stage that someone
younger could learn from
so it's going to require making contact
with three of the principles of
influence that i think
really move people powerfully in our
direction
and that so but the thing that i try to
do now
whenever i enter a situation
uh where i'm meeting people for the
first time i don't have a lot of
experience
with them i expect the best
from them right
that allows me to be generous
with them and
that generosity has three
powerful consequences first of all
one of the principles of influence is
liking
they like me more for being generous
with them
another principle of influence is
reciprocity
we give back to others what they have
first given to us
so they become more generous with
me they give me things
right and as a result of seeing
themselves
giving me things giving me information
giving me
great deals giving me something in
return
they see themselves as a partner
with me not an adversary
a partner they see themselves committed
to me as someone they want to
do exchanges with and people then
after they've made a commitment to
someone behave in ways that are
consistent
with what they have already committed
themselves to so those are
three of the principles of influence
liking reciprocity
and commitment and consistency you do it
all
by allowing yourself
by thinking the best of the people that
you're with not people you know
might be tricky or just deceptive no no
people you you don't know
come in believing the best about them
it allows you to be generous and then
that generosity
triggers all the other principles yeah
well the seven total principles now with
the updated edition of influence
um i i would love it we could lightly
touch it on each one of the seven i mean
i
we talk about reciprocity commitment
consistency social proof
liking authority scarcity and then the
newest one seventh is unity which i
would love to dive into
but are you okay with diving into each
one and just doing a little bit and do
it
absolutely let's start with reciprocity
because it's very
it occurs very early in our uh
interactions with people
even children understand that you are
obligated to give back to others what
they first give to you
and we train we train them from
childhood in that rule
so that people uh who receive
are much more likely to say yes to you
after you've given them something
so this is a suggestion i make to people
who want to be influential
if you want to go in if you go into a
room with a number of people you want to
be influential with the people there
um get some assistance or some
uh service from from those people
you should not ask yourself first
who can help me here the first thing you
should ask is
whom can i help here whose
outcomes can i enhance whose
circumstances
can i elevate they will stand ready
to do the same for you right
so for here's an example a study done in
um southern california
a candy shop researchers
did a little experiment where they asked
the manager
one week to greet all of the
people who came into the shop warmly
when they entered
and introduce and escort them to the
candy counter where they could make
choices but for half of them
right the researchers also asked the
manager to give them a small piece of
chocolate
before they went to the candy counter
those people were 42 percent more likely
to buy candy
they had been given something now you
might say oh maybe they just like the
chocolate
it turns out if you look at the data
most of them didn't buy
chocolate they bought some other candy
so it wasn't
that oh they liked the chocolate so much
it wasn't what they had been
given it was that they had been given
so ours are the lesson for us we always
give first
that's one way to get people to want to
give to us
second principle is the principle of
liking we've already talked
talked about that one but one clear way
to get people to feel
more rapport with us is simply to point
to genuine similarities that exist
between us right there was a study done
of negotiators
who were bargaining over in over email
they didn't know anything about each
other
and under those circumstances they were
likely to
have deadlocked stymied negotiations
where nobody
won nobody everybody just walked away
with nothing
right 30 percent of the time if
before they began the negotiation
they sent information back and forth to
one another about
their hobbies their interests where they
grew up
you know that sort of thing where they
went to school
stymied negotiations dropped from 30
percent to 6
why because inside that information
people encountered commonalities
oh really you're a runner i'm a runner
you're an only child i'm an only god
those were the things
that drove the willingness to give the
other person grace so
one of the things we can do before we
ever try to influence anybody
identify commonalities parallels
similarities and raise them to the
surface
next principle is the principle of
social proof the idea that when people
are uncertain
they don't look inside themselves for
answers
they look outside and one place they
look
is to their peers people like them
so there was a a study done
in beijing china shows you the
cross-cultural reach
of uh the idea of what are the other
people like me
doing in this situation restaurant
managers in beijing put a little
asterisk
next to certain items on their menu
now what did the asterisk stand for
it didn't say what you normally see
this is one of the specialties of the
house
or this is our chef's selection for this
evening shalom
you know it didn't say either of those
it said
this is one of our most popular items
in each one became 13 to 20 percent more
popular for its popularity
right so the implication for us we all
have
most popular models or features or
payment plans or ideas
we just need to let people know about
that
and that gets them off the fence
it reduces their uncertainty and they
move
toward us the next principle is similar
in this sense it's the principle of
authority
another thing we do another place we
look
when we're uncertain is to the opinions
of gen
genuinely uh acknowledged experts
in a particular arena so
when there are experts who have
uh opinions that fit with
what it is that we are offering or what
it is that we are suggesting
we need to find those
voices and include them
as testimonials in our in any messaging
that we use right uh and the key
is i'm going to say two things
one is how can you
increase the impact of an
of an expert voice multiply it
find two experts who are saying
that what you have or your idea is a
good
thing and you multiply
the impact as a result the second thing
about it
is in your presentation especially if
it's an online presentation
put those testimonials first
don't put them in the body of your
message or down
lower at the end first so that that
expert authority
is there from the outset so people are
believing
everything you say from the outset
with the aura of authority on your side
next principle is the principle of
scarcity uh people want more of those
things they can have
less of so people are very willing
to move in our direction to the extent
that what we have available to them is
scarce
rare or dwindling in availability
there was a study done of 6
700 online
commercial sites websites
and in terms of a b tests that were done
on those
sites and which features
of an appeal were most likely to turn
a person from a prospect into a convert
get a conversion to to customer
scarcity was at the top
if you had a limited number of items
at a particular price or a limited
time in which to move to get that item
right that's what most produced
yes from people once again you get them
off the sidelines into the game
by giving them a reason for moving
in this case it was if you don't
you might lose this valuable thing
and as a consequence um scarcity really
has
uh big big advantages by the way
they found that of the two kinds of
scarcity
limited number or limited time
to get some um offer right
limited number of items
at a particular price for example
outstrip limited time why
because if there's a limited number
competition
now enters the in the psychological
environment
you mean if i don't these other people
might might get it with a limited time
no you can go whenever you want in there
oh i don't have to do it right now
right and as a consequence a lot of
people forget to do it or never do do it
within that time they never purchase
what you have to offer
but limited number with other people
in this in the mix the top of
all of the a b tests
so and then uh the the sixth principle
is commitment and consistency
the idea that people want to be
consistent
with what they have already done said or
done
in your presence so if you can get
people to take a small step
in your direction right now
they will want to be consistent with
that in the future
right um oh there's a great story
about from a acquaintance of mine about
how he's gotten
three better jobs in a row
in uh job interviews right so
in the interview you typically go in
there's some evaluators sometimes a team
of evaluators
and you're what you're supposed to say
is i'm very glad to be here that you
invited me today
and i want to answer all your questions
right
he adds one more
thing he says but before we begin i'm
curious
why did you invite me today what was it
about my
uh my background that or resume
that that made you think i would be a
good candidate
and now he says he hears people
say all kinds of positive things about
him
before the interview begins
and he learns what it is that they
thought was the
most important for them so he can build
on that
when it's his turn but in the meantime
now people want to be consistent with
what they have already said and he said
three straight better jobs in a row
i absolutely i i just love that story so
much and and you can see
why it works so well i'm thinking about
this when i've interviewed people and
it's like if i was just rattling off
reason after reason of why i brought
them in you can exactly see why it would
work
yes right and he said in some instances
you actually get people uh arguing with
one another
as to which feature of him is better it
was his background
or it's his training or it's his scores
on some
tests or is fit with the uh with the
organization's
value system whatever it is they argue
with one another
as to which is the strongest
i i have a feeling a lot of the
listeners who are in that job market are
going to be implementing this technique
at least i hope they do yeah
and then finally is the seventh
principle of influence which i've added
uh when i've recognized the power
of what we call unity that is the idea
that we share with other people
an identity some kind of social identity
to the extent that if we communicate
that shared identity they consider
us one of them
not like them one
of them of them so there was a study
done on a college campus
researchers took a young woman college
aids
woman who uh they they placed at a busy
intersection of paths on campus a lot of
students walking by
when a student walked by she asked them
if they would contribute
to the united way and she was getting
some donations
but if she added one more sentence
she increased donations by 250
the sentence was i'm a student here too
now they're being asked by one of them
and inside the boundaries of those
in groups those what i'm calling
we groups all barriers to influence come
down
we trust those people more we believe
them more
we want to cooperate with them more and
bottom line we say
yes to them more and that was the case
in this instance yeah dr chaldenia i
would love to know for you
after these years what was it about the
unity that just rose to the surface for
you
and you realize you know what this is
one of those foundational principles
you know it was um partially
seeing the the research that
uh was coming out of the academic
arena of persuasion science that let me
know that
people who had that kind of quality who
could be
considered one of us
right we're having remarkably
powerful effects in the academic
research that was being done
on this but as well
as i think you can recognize and
all of your viewers can recognize
we're seeing tribalism in our society
now so that people are responding
to those who they feel loyal to
inside their groups their ethnic groups
their religious groups
their political parties and so on
and so i was i i was actually
uh blown away by uh
the extent to which that tribalism
the weakness of a communicator
seemed to overrun all other factors
in the message yeah it's funny
you mentioned tribalism in the number of
research studies
i've looked a lot into tribalism coming
from a team sports background and
understanding just the connection there
and then i went to the the back of your
book and you have something like
700 uh research studies cited
how how do you even immerse yourself in
in that many research studies i would i
would love to know what your process is
like
i love this stuff and so i'm always
alert to these things um
you know when when they come across my
desk i i subscribe to a lot of academic
journals and i'm online and
and i get uh you know the the access
to these things and anything that
that hits me in one of two ways that
sort of knocks me out how powerful this
is or that puzzles me
how could this be that this worked
the way it did you know that gets me
to zero in on it and learn as much as i
can
about how this could be that it would
have
this kind of effect or even be there in
the first place
right there was a a a a a great study
uh for example um in
in which uh it was shown that simply
showing subjects in an experiment
pictures
of two people standing together right
uh then when the research
after they saw a series of these then
the when the researcher got up from
the table where they were doing the
study in the laboratory and pretended
to drop
some items on the floor those
people were
300 more likely
to help the researcher pick those things
up
if they saw pictures of people standing
together as opposed to pictures of
people standing apart
just that now here was the thing that
made me scratch my head and say how
could this be
the subjects in this experiment
were 18 months old infants
this tendency to want to be
together to help somebody when you have
the
image of togetherness in your mind and
now we're talking about unity here
right togetherness right
that was so powerful that it's there in
babies that really made me
zero in to try to understand oh i see
what it is
it's unity it's this sense of
connection and bonding that leads to
these
powerful effects yeah it almost sends
chills down your spine when you realize
at such a young age the impact this has
that'll stick with you
another thing that's just so apparent in
all of your books
is so many of these things are just such
little changes
like little tactics on a website just a
slight change of verbiage
it's unbelievable how how impactful that
is
is that what you found for the majority
of these that they're usually little
changes
yes they're they're things like flicking
a switch
that turns on big psychological
uh effects like uh for example
uh an asterisk that says uh this is our
most pop
now you get eight 13 to 20 more perch
just a little thing uh but i'll tell you
my favorite
um you know when you're in a situation
where you've got a new idea
or an initiative or a plan and you would
like to get buy-in
from your colleagues before you advance
it so that you can
point to social proof all of my all of
the people
you know uh i've shown this to really
like it
so how do you get buy-in for an idea you
show them an
outline or a blueprint of your idea
right typically what we do is we
ask for their opinion on this
that's a mistake when you ask for
someone's opinion
you get a critic that person literally
takes a half step back from you
psychologically
and goes inside themselves to see
where they stand relative your to your
idea
it's like them and everybody else
against your idea right
if instead you change one word and
instead of asking for their opinion
you ask for their advice
they take a half step toward you
and they partner with you
inside your idea to find the best way
to structure that idea right
so now it's you and that person
against everybody else
if you change the word opinion
to advice you get significantly more
favorable responses holding constant
what you've said the research shows it's
the same idea
but if you ask for advice you get a more
favorable reaction than if you ask for
opinion
so little things like that and that's
what this new book is
that i really tried to do with the new
edition of the book
include the exact words
you say the exact sequence of the words
that you
employ much more than in preview edition
editions yeah dr i actually thought you
did a tremendous job at that so you
already know how much i've gone through
your previous books and just notes notes
notes distilling them down uh the the
new work though
it was just fantastic and both throwing
in the seventh principle of unity
but then the examples throughout and you
were talking a few minutes ago about
like when your curiosity strikes when
an example like that comes across your
decks you had this line i love and
it is both personal bane and
professional blessing that whenever i'm
confused by some aspects of human
behavior
i feel driven to investigate further and
i think that almost seems like that's at
the root of you right like
you're just so intrigued that
intellectual stimulation
when you get a study like that that
comes across your desk and you're
reading that
like what is that like for you i mean
it's a
it's a eureka experience first of all
wow
this really happened because i can see
they did the
science correctly they conducted this
research in a rigorous
sound controlled fashion and they got
this result
okay now how do we unpack it
in terms of human psychology
the tendencies the strong powerful
influences that are inside us that drive
our behavior
how did they release those
those influence those tendencies in us
with a small word or change of one sort
or another
uh that's what stimulates uh for me i i
want to go
from understanding it to tree how did
they
trigger it how do you make this
powerful principle of human behavior
actionable
implementable so that somebody
who uses it ethically will benefit both
groups both sides i'm wondering for you
i know
incredibly busy right now with the
release of the book but is there a big
question
that you're at that early stage where
that curiosity is just
spiked and you're trying to figure out a
little bit more into it
you know what it is uh you you've told
me that you
you uh have read the book pre-suasion so
the book
influence is about what you put into a
message
to move people in your direction
persuasion
is about what you put into the moment
before you send your message to put
people in a mindset
right to be more receptive to your
message
before they ever encounter it right
there's one last place postswage
what do you do after you've sent your
message
and even have people moving in your
direction
that solidifies their change that makes
it durable
that makes it persist that would be
i think the next arena
to think through systematically and
fully and then write about
well i i i certainly hope that that
comes to fruition uh
and you bring another fantastic book to
life um
i'm wondering you talked about that last
phase now diving
so deep into unity has your life changed
because of some of the things you
unpacked with that how you approach life
now is it slightly different
yes so for example um i had a
difficult situation uh that i was able
to resolve
by simply turning on the principle of
unity a while ago i had
uh i was finishing a project and had to
submit it
the writing up this project had to
submit it
the next day there was a deadline and as
i was proof reading the final
version i noticed there was one section
that was
missing a piece of evidence that really
would
make the case would be convincing i just
didn't have that
that quality of evidence in there but i
knew
that a colleague of mine had done a
study
the year before and he did have some of
this
the kind of evidence that would have
allowed me to really seal the deal with
this
section uh and i also knew that this guy
was sort of a
irratible sour guy inside my psychology
department
you know and we knew him let's call him
tim not his real name
we knew tim to be that kind of difficult
guy to get along with
so but i needed him to help me to get
the
the data that he had done out of his
archives
get get them into shape and send them to
me that very day
so i could complete the project before
the next day
the and and uh so i
um wrote him an email explaining
what i needed from him because of this
deadline
and said i'll call you after you've had
a chance to read this
uh to talk about this so i did i waited
a few minutes i called him
and uh and he said hey bob i i know why
you're calling and the answer is no
i'm sorry you say you're a busy man i'm
a busy man you say you have
deadlines i have deadlines
so i can't be responsible for your poor
time management
skills i'm sorry
and before i had read about
the unity principle i would have said
come on kim i really need this i
i have this deadline tomorrow he had
already said no to that
right so this is what i said
you know tim we've been in the same
psychology department now
for 12 years i really appreciate it if
you do this for me
i said we are a we group we are
of the same category
we share an identity
i had the information that afternoon
i i love it how it can apply to real
world it's
it's so funny i almost view it as
earlier in life it was
pre chaldini and then it was pro post
child you know when i got that to read
it i viewed these books
as foundational pillars that other
knowledge can be built on top of
i'm wondering for you are there
foundational pillars or
books or ideas that you built some of
the knowledge you have off of as well
yeah we we have to go way back to
aristotle
and his rhetoric right the first
systematic
treatment he was talking about orators
but how orators can be more successful
of course there wasn't any science to it
right then when i was a kid
in 19 i was 12 years old
and there was a book
called hidden persuaders about
how the advertising industry
used psychological strings that they
would
strum in people with their ads that
resonated with the the human tendencies
that people had to like something or
want something or say yes to something
and i remember thinking oh
this is beyond just orators and
and and and getting people uh you know
to
listen to you no this is actually
advancing it
in a systematic way into
into the the process of moving people
in a direction that actually gets them
to give you their money
that's powerful if you can get people to
give you
resources by how you present a message
wow right so those were the two initial
books and then of course there are a
whole range of books
now that are out and i would say
probably
the one i would point to is daniel
kahneman's book thinking fast and slow
um daniel conrad won the nobel prize in
economics
and that details two
forms of methods methodology
for getting people to say yes to you
system one
right where you use things like
cues and images and single words that
have associations that move people
versus another kind of logic
approach that is a logical rational
one that also works under different set
of circumstances
right so those would be the uh
the the books that really took me in the
direction that i find myself
now yeah kahneman's thinking fast and
slow a foundational pillar for me as
well he's got another book coming out on
signal versus noise
you mentioned a minute ago about doing
something so well you get people to give
you money
um one of your big time fans uh one of
the people who shaped me a lot is
charlie munger who actually ended up
giving you
shares in berkshire hathaway after
reading your book just to show you how
influential
you've been on him he's a very wide red
cross-disciplinary thinker do you ever
find yourself
exploring ideas outside your specific
domain
and if so do they help you out or what
are those ideas you're exploring
you know i do because of the
mentoring of one of my major professors
in graduate school
a man named john tebow and
when we would sit in a meeting with john
let's say on
some research question that he wanted to
investigate maybe it's
how do people negotiate um
with another when they are negotiating
for themselves alone
versus when they're negotiating for uh
a group or a t a team they're they're a
representative
of someone is there are there
differences
in how you have to arrange yourself or
argue and so on the kinds of
arguments you you raise or the
strategies you use
and he would say let's say that's the
question
he would say now what if the great
novelists of our time
said about this so now we would be
completely thinking uh far afield
out on the peripheries well what have
the great
novelists the great minds in the way
that they have
structured situations and showed us
how that situation of being responsible
for others
affects the way that they bargain or
negotiate or arranged
to try to get something and then he
would say
and what if the philosophers said about
this
oh so now we think about another group
of individuals who've
who've talked about this idea right
then he would say what have the other
disciplines besides social psychology
said about this
what if our fellow researchers in
communication or economics or political
science or sociology
what have they said about this what do
we know about that
and then finally he would say now what
if our
fellow social psychologist said what are
the what are the studies that they've
shown uh uh that reflect on this
and it occurred to me
we are ending
where every other mentor i've ever
experienced
would begin the process
looking outside of our
silo outside of that small space that
we've been focused on
to get inspiration
and ideas outside of our arena
and that's what charlie munger is great
he's wonderful
at being a renaissance man and knowing
about things he reads constantly
knowing about things all over the map
that he brings to bear
on a question that's that's an excellent
story
an example of that one of the things i
was really intrigued about with the new
book
is kind of the the examples between
logic
rationality and then kind of that that
internal just feeling towards it so i'm
wondering
how you think through this paradox in
your own life
well you know both of those things it's
kind of system one versus system two as
kahneman says where you you react in an
emotional
uh spontaneous way versus you step to
the side
and you think through things differently
and uh what i've recognized is that
the majority of the decisions that i
make
indeed i have to make in
in system one strategy i just don't have
the time
or capacity to think through the pros
and cons of every decision
i have to make if i did
i would be standing frozen
calculating and calibrating while the
time
for choice sped by and away right
so no most of the time i have to move
automatically i need my shortcuts
and that's what i've considered those
seven principles of influence to be
they are shortcuts that allow me to move
quickly and usually correctly by saying
well what are the authorities uh uh
recommending here what what's the social
proof in the situation
is this thing real truly scarce is this
action truly consistent with something
i'm committed to
already you know in my value system
i right all i need to do
is see oh it's an authority or there's a
lot of social proof
it's scarcity i i i'm in competition i
better get it before it's too late these
kinds of things
normally steer me right i need that
but there are certain times as well
let's say when i'm trying to think
through something
very uh carefully in an
analytical way almost like i'm doing my
budget for how much i can
uh place here versus other sorts of
place
there i really i want to step back from
those
automatic res uh uh spontaneous
emotional choices and make the rational
ones
typically they're the ones that are the
biggest
for me you know the kind that involve
big investments of one sort or another
i don't want to make those based just on
an emotional response
yeah this is so helpful because the
world we're living today cognitive
overload is just so immense
that decision decision-making process
and unfortunately too many people i
think that they don't
root their quick decisions on
foundational principles and truths
that's why your work is so important so
these quick decisions can be based on
real actual truths
um i know we're gonna wrap up here in a
minute and we're going to get everyone
linked up with the book but i would love
to know
if you're going to do this long form
conversation spending an evening having
dinner
talking with anyone dead or alive just
not a family member or friend
who would you love just to sit down with
you know right now
it would be two of the
uh protogenitors of
behavioral science
two nobel prize winners
daniel kahneman and richard thaler yeah
right those two folks have really
changed the way we have to think about
the process of choosing well
yeah to two people they they sit highly
on my online bookshelf
that would be a very intellectually
stimulating conversation
but uh dr chaldini i want to make sure
we can leave the listeners with any
final parting words bits of advice or
tips that they should take away
um and even just i'm sure they're
they're very intrigued by influencers
they're going to pick this one up
anything you want to leave them with
yeah i think it is
there's a mistake that a lot of people
make when they ask me the question so of
the principles
which is the most powerful which is the
one i should
make my favorite i should use that one
all of the time right and i answer it by
describing an experience that a
colleague of mine had marketing
professor
who set about to find the single most
effective
persuasive approach or strategy
right and he spent two years in the
process and i saw him at a conference
and he uh caught me by the elbow he said
bob i found it
i found the single most effective
influence approach it is not to have
a single influence approach that's a
fool's game
right to think that the same
tactic or procedure or principle
is going to work in every situation with
every audience
with every history that you have with
that audience
that's just naive no you have to
change the situation you have to change
your approach
based on the characteristics of the
situation in front of you
and for me to be ethical
what already exists in that situation
can you point to true scarcity use that
can you point the true authority
use that can you point to true social
proof that's the one you use
that way you not only get to be
effective
you get to be ethical in the process
you're informing
people into ascent you're not tricking
them
or coercing them in any way
so the books influenced revised and
updated edition
the psychology of persuasion dear dr
robert cialdini once again i mentioned
this has been a dream conversation for
me so i cannot thank you enough for
joining us on what got you there
well i have to say i enjoyed it
thoroughly
[Music]
you