bookshelf
Influence: Science and Practice
Reviewed by Chuck Chakrapani
Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: Science and Practice (4th edition).
Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 2001,262 pages.
As marketing research professionals (and as consumers
ourselves), we have observed many curious things and per-
haps wondered:
• Why do some products that won't sell at a lower price sell
at a higher price?
• Why do salespeople tend to show the more expensive
items first?
• Why do free samples generate sales?
• Why is the most popular toy of the season suddenly
impossible to find right before Christmas? Is there a mar-
keting principle behind that?
• Why do those who solicit charitable donations start asking
about your general welfare?
• Why does eliciting minor commitments from customers
often lead to larger purchases later?
• Why do some salespeople make deliberate "mistakes" in
adding up figures?
• Why do "iow-ball" techniques work in marketing and sales?
• Why do testimonials from celebrities and authorities
induce consumers to buy?
• Why do politicians use "push polling" techniques?
• Why do laugh tracks work even In third-rate sitcoms that
are not funny?
• Why do corporations like to project a "likable" image by
advertising that they are good corporate citizens?
• Why are "limited time" offers effective?
• Why is the same marketing or advertising message work if
phrased one way but rejected if phrased in another way?
(n a sense we know why. Because they all work to the advan-
tage of those who try to market a product or persuade us to do
something we would not otherwise do. But the more fundamen-
tal question is why these techniques work at all in the first place.
What makes one comply with the request of another, be it a mar-
keter, a salesperson, or someone soliciting for a charity? in fact,
how do people influence other people in any walk of life?
To answer such questions, Robert Ciaidini, Regents' Professor
of Psychology at Arizona State University and a self-confessed
48 Fall 2001
patsy, went underground, instead of
confining his research to experimental
studies, he actually infiltrated (e.g., as
an employee) organizations whose very
existence depended on their ability to
persuade others to comply with their
objectives—such as advertising agen-
cies, public relations companies, sales
outfits, and fundraising agencies. This
gave him access to the special tech-
niques these organizations use to per-
suade others to comply.
Over a three-year period, Cialdini
uncovered thousands of such techniques. Yet all these techniques
fell into just six major categories; reciprocation, consistency,*
social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity. Each one of these tech-
niques is governed by a fundamental psychological principle thai
directs human behavior, thereby lending uncommon power to'
these tactics. Cialdini devotes a chapter for each one of these prin-
ciples and shows how they work, how they are used in practice,
and how they produce mindless compliance from people.
The result of all this effort is a scholarly work on influ-
ence—a book that sheds light on techniques expounded by writ-
ers from Machiaveili to Dale Carnegie, Yet \nfiuence is not your
average academic tome. It is an engaging read, and its informal
style hides the scholarly underpinnings on which it's based. The
lead article in this issue of MR provides a summary of the princi-
ples expounded in the book.
Marketing research, being a multidisciplinary subject,
touches upon a variety of subjects. It is difficult to be a good
marketing researcher without going on occasional, if not fre-
quent, excursions into related areas. For an excursion into social
psychology, marketing researchers can do no better than by read-
ing this book. While \nfluence does not directly deal with market-
ing research, it wouid bedifficuit for marketing researchers not to
generalize the learning to our discipline.
Reviewing the first edition of this now classic work, \ournal of
Marketing Research wrote, "For marketers, it is among the most
important books written in the past 10 years." Several years have
passed since that review appeared, but Ciaidini's influence. Science
and Practice, now in its fourth edition, continues to be among the
most important books marketers—not to mention salespeople,
politicians, consumers, and, of course, patsies of any genre—
can read.