Robert B. Cialdini Quotes & Sayings

Embarrassment is a villain to be crushed. — Robert B. Cialdini

There is a natural human tendency to dislike a person who brings us unpleasant information, even when that person did not cause the bad news. The simple association with it is enough to stimulate our dislike. — Robert B. Cialdini

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

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 — Robert B. Cialdini

Research has shown that we automatically assign to good-looking individuals such favorable traits as talent, kindness, honesty, and intelligence (for a review of this evidence, see Langlois et al., 2000). — Robert B. Cialdini

The principle of social proof says so: The greater the number of people who find any idea correct, the more the idea will be correct. — Robert B. Cialdini

The researchers thought that recipients of precise offers are much more likely to believe that the person making that offer has invested time and effort preparing for the negotiation and therefore has very good reasons to support the precise offer they are making. — Robert B. Cialdini

The truly gifted negotiator, then, is one whose initial position is exaggerated enough to allow for a series of concessions that will yield a desirable final offer from the opponent, yet is not so outlandish as to be seen as illegitimate from the start. — Robert B. Cialdini

We like people who are similar to us. This fact seems to hold true whether the similarity is in the area of opinions, personality traits, background, or life-style. — Robert B. Cialdini

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

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

Often we don't realize that our attitude toward something has been influenced by the number of times we have been exposed to it in the past. — Robert B. Cialdini

The patrolman's account provides certain insights into the way we respond to social proof. First, we seem to assume that if a lot of people are doing the same thing, they must know something we don't. Especially when we are uncertain, we are willing to place an enormous amount of trust in the collective knowledge of the crowd. Second, quite 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. — Robert B. Cialdini

The feeling of being in competition for scarce resources has powerfully motivating properties. — Robert B. Cialdini

Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies? The result was that once again nearly all (93 percent) agreed, even though no real reason, no new information, was added to justify their compliance. Just as the "cheep-cheep" sound of turkey chicks triggered an automatic mothering response from maternal turkeys - even when it emanated from a stuffed polecat - so, too, did the word "because" trigger an automatic compliance response — Robert B. Cialdini

once we realize that obedience to authority is mostly rewarding, it is easy to allow ourselves the convenience of automatic obedience. — Robert B. Cialdini

people seem to be more motivated by the thought of losing something than by the thought of gaining something of equal value. — Robert B. Cialdini

Since 95 percent of the people are imitators and only 5 percent initiators, people are persuaded more by the actions of others than by any proof we can offer. — Robert B. Cialdini

The customers, mostly well-to-do vacationers with little knowledge of turquoise, were using a standard principle - a stereotype - to guide their buying: expensive = good. — Robert B. Cialdini

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

audiences have been successfully manipulated by those who use social evidence, even when that evidence has been openly falsified. — Robert B. Cialdini

The automatic, fixed-action patterns of these animals work very well the great majority of the time. For example, because only healthy, normal turkey chicks make the peculiar sound of baby turkeys, it makes sense for mother turkeys to respond maternally to that single "cheep-cheep" noise. — Robert B. Cialdini

Where all think alike, no one thinks very much. - WALTER LIPPMANN — Robert B. Cialdini

When our freedom to have something is limited, the item becomes less available, and we experience an increased desire for it. However, we rarely recognize that psychological reactance has caused us to want the item more; all we know is that we want it. Still, we need to make sense of our desire for the item, so we begin to assign it positive qualities to justify the desire. — Robert B. Cialdini

Knowing what I now know, if I could go back in time, would I make the same choice? — Robert B. Cialdini

Once again we can see that social proof is most powerful for those who feel unfamiliar or unsure in a specific situation and who, consequently, must look outside of themselves for evidence of how best to behave there. — Robert B. Cialdini

Now, during the tourist season, she first tries to speed the sale of an item that has been difficult to move by increasing its price substantially. — Robert B. Cialdini

Freedoms once granted will not be relinquished without a fight. — Robert B. Cialdini

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. — Robert B. Cialdini

Persons who go through a great deal of trouble or pain to attain something tend to value it more highly than persons who attain the same thing with a minimum of effort. — Robert B. Cialdini

once a person's self-image is altered, all sorts of subtle advantages become available to someone who wants to exploit that new image. — Robert B. Cialdini

WHO WE ARE IS WHERE WE ARE Whenever — Robert B. Cialdini

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. — Robert B. Cialdini

No psychic powers; I just happen to know how several of the big toy companies jack up their January and February sales. They start prior to Christmas with attractive TV ads for certain special toys. The kids, naturally, want what they see and extract Christmas promises for these items from their parents. Now here's where the genius of the companies' plan comes in: They undersupply the stores with the toys they've gotten the parents to promise. Most parents find those things sold out and are forced to substitute other toys of equal value. The toy manufacturers, of course, make a point of supplying the stores with plenty of these substitutes. Then, after Christmas, the companies start running the ads again for the other, special toys. That juices up the kids to want those toys more than ever. They go running to their parents whining, 'You promised, you promised,' and the adults go trudging off to the store to live up dutifully to their words. — Robert B. Cialdini

There's a critical insight in all this for those of us who want to learn to be more influential. The best persuaders become the best through pre-suasion - the process of arranging for recipients to be receptive to a message before they encounter it. To persuade optimally, then, it's necessary to pre-suade optimally. But how?

In part, the answer involves an essential but poorly appreciated tenet of all communication: what we present first changes the way people experience what we present to them next. — Robert B. Cialdini

we all fool ourselves from time to time in order to keep our thoughts and beliefs consistent with what we have already done or decided — Robert B. Cialdini

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

A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do. — Robert B. Cialdini