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

Mysteries are powerful, Cialdini says, because they create a need for closure. "You've heard of the famous Aha! experience, right?" he says. "Well, the Aha! experience is much more satisfying when it is preceded by the Huh? experience." By creating a mystery, the writer-astronomer made dust interesting. He sustained attention, not just for the span of a punch line but for the span of a twenty-page article dense with information on scientific theories and experimentation. — Chip Heath

Our best evidence of what people truly feel and believe comes less from their words than from their deeds. — Robert 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

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

to the psychologist Robert Cialdini, people can capitalize on this norm of reciprocity by giving what they want to receive. Instead — Adam M. Grant

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

So the next time a salesman gives you a free gift or consultation, or makes a concession of any sort, duck. Don't let him press your reciprocity button. The best way out, Cialdini advises, is to fight reciprocity with reciprocity. If you can reappraise the salesman's move for what it is - an effort to exploit you - you'll feel entitled to exploit him right back. Accept the gift or concession with a feeling of victory - you are exploiting an exploiter - not mindless obligation. — Jonathan Haidt

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

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

We will use the actions of others to decide on proper behavior for ourselves, especially when we view those others as similar to ourselves — Robert Cialdini

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

Robert Cialdini, author of one of my favorite books, Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion, writes: "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 — Lior Suchard

At the beginning of each lecture I say, 'Here's a set of events unexplainable by common sense, and I promise you'll be able to solve this mystery at the end of class.' — Robert 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

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

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

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

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

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

Appreciation involves being alert to the positive aspects of the current situation and feeling thankful for what one has and for one's circumstances. This requires not only a positive perspective in the present but also conscious awareness of features in the surround. The latter, in fact, is something that may be surprisingly rare. Especially when we are engaging in routine activities, we often do so mindlessly (Langer, 1997) or as though we were on automatic pilot (Cialdini, 1993). If we learn to bring our attention to the current state, we can choose to focus on positive aspects of the situation and to remind ourselves of the potential sources of good feelings that might otherwise pass unnoticed. — Sandra L. Schneider

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

The obligation to receive reduces our ability to choose whom we wish to be indebted to and puts that power in the hands of others. — Robert Cialdini

There is a group of people who know very well where the weapons of automatic influence lie and employ them regularly and expertly to get what they want. They go from social encounter to social encounter requesting others to comply with their wishes; their frequency of success is dazzling. — Robert 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

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

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

There's a difference between a mystery and a question. Questions demand answers, but a mystery demands something more valuable-explanation. — Robert Cialdini

By concentrating our attention on the effect rather than the causes, we can avoid the laborious, nearly impossible task of trying to detect and deflect the many psychological influences on liking. — Robert 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