Robert Cialdini - Mastering the Seven Principles of Influence and Persuasion

What got you there? What got you, got you, what got you there? With Sean Delaney.

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. Cialdini 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. Cialdini, 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 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 first of all, my own gifts as an athlete are limited, but I did get an offer to play minor league baseball out of high school and was actually going to sign a contract with a scout who had come to my last game and he had a contract with him and his pen didn't work. So we walked to 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. He 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 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 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.

Yeah, I'm appreciative of that. Your work, 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 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 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 got here.

I'm not sure how you interpret the pen not working. I kind of do that as somewhat luck and 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, 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 Rupinsky at the time.

Marilyn.

Marilyn Rubinski. And we were at a stage in our relationship. We wanted to be together all the time.

And.

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 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 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 graduate 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.

Giving you 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 a university professor. I'm studying persuasion and social influence, mostly in my laboratory with college students 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.

Sorry. No, please continue.

I put one of those principles in each of the chapters of my book, Influence that I learned from these 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 this other activity. I. I think I could have done that years earlier and had a better experience 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 ended up distilling down?

Well, I did take with me tape recorders, 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 practiced and effective of the 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. It's something that I wish more younger people would do a lot more frequently. And earlier, has there been a specific story 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 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 his 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 salesperson and that explained all of the advantages of this particular kind of heat activated fire alarm system for the home and so on. And he would leave it in the car. So he would come in and do, do a first introduction with him and then give the couple usually a little test to see how much they knew about fire dangers in the home. And while they were taking the test, he would say, oh, he would slap his head, say, 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 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's what I love about your book, pre swaging. I remember the first time I picked it up. I was involved a lot more in the sales type process at that time. And it was just epiphany after epiphany, eye opening moment. I love how you're talking about how, 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 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. 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, 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 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 addition of influence, I would love if we could lightly touch on each one of the seven. I mean, we talk about reciprocity, commitment, consistency, social, pro, liking, authority, scarcity. And Then the newest 1/7 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 interactions with people. Even children understand that you are obligated to give back to others what they first give to you. We train them from childhood in that rule so that people 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, get some assistance or some service 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. So for, here's an example study done in 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, 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% more likely to buy candy. They had been given something. Now you might say, well, 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 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 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. There was a study done of negotiators who were bargaining 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% 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% 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 child. 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 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, shall have you know. It didn't say either of those. It said, this is one of our most popular items. And each one became 13 to 20% 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 to the opinions of genuinely acknowledged experts in a particular arena. So when there are experts who have 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 any messaging that we use. And the key is, I'm going to say two things. One is how can you increase the impact 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. 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 6700 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 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, scarcity really has big, big advantages, by the way. They found that of the two kinds of scarcity, limited number or limited time to get some offer limited number of items at a particular price, for example, outstripped 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 AB tests. So, and then 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 now, they will want to be consistent with that in the future. Oh, there's a great story about, from an acquaintance of mine about how he's gotten three better jobs in a role in job interviews. So in the interview you typically go in, there's some evaluator, 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 background or resume that made you think I would be a good candidate? 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 just love that story so much. 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 all 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 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 test or is fit with the, with the organization's value system, whatever it is. They argue with one another as to which is the strongest.

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 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 age woman, who they. They placed out 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, them more and bottom line, we say yes to them more. And that was the case in this instance.

Dr. Cialdini, I would love to know for you after these years, what was it about unity that just rose to the surface for you and you realized, you know what, this is one of those foundational principles.

You know, it was partially seeing the research that 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, were 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 was actually blown away by the extent to which that tribalism, the we ness of a communicator seemed to overrun all other factors in the message.

Yeah, it's funny you mentioned tribalism and 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 back of your book and you have something like 700 research studies cited. How do you even immerse yourself in that many research studies? I would love to know what your process is like.

I love this stuff. And so I'm always alert to these things. 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, 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 great study, for example, in which it was shown that simply showing subjects in an experiment pictures of two people standing together. Right. 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, say, how could this be? The subjects in this experiment were 18 month 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. Almost sends chills down your spine when you realize at such a young age the impact this has, that, 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, little tactics on a website. Just a slight change of verbiage. It's unbelievable how impactful that is. Is that what you found for the majority of these? That they're usually little changes?

Yes. They're things like flicking a switch that turns on big psychological effects. Like for example, an asterisk that says this is our most pop. Now you get 13 to 20% more purchase. Just a little thing. But I'll tell you my favorite. 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, 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 to your idea. It's like them and everybody else against your idea. 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. 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 previous editions.

Yeah. Dr. Chaudheen, 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. The new work, though, 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 influence, those tendencies in us with a small word or change of one sort or another. That's what stimulates for me. I want to go from understanding it to trig. 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? You told me that you have read the book Pre Suasion. So the book Influence is about what you put into a message to move people in your direction. Pre Suasion 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 post Suasion. 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.

I certainly hope that that comes to fruition and you bring another fantastic book to life. 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, I had a difficult situation that I was able to resolve by simply turning on the principle of unity. A while ago I had. 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 proofreading the final version, 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 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. And I also knew that this guy was sort of a irascible, sour guy inside my psychology department. You know, 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. So I 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 to talk about this. So I did. I waited a few minutes, I called him and he said, hey, Bob, 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 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 love it, how it can apply to real world. It's so funny. I almost view it as earlier in life, it was pre Cialdini and then it was post Chowdheeni. When I got 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 orders can be more successful. Of course, there wasn't any science to it. Right then when I was a kid in 19, I. I was 12 years old, 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 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 getting people to listen to you. No, this is actually advancing it in a systematic way into 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. 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. Daniel Kahneman 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 approach that is a logical, rational one that also works under different set of circumstances. Those would be 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. One of your big time fans, 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 with another when they are negotiating for themselves alone versus when they're negotiating for a group or a team? 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 raise, 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 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 arrange to, to try to get something. And then he would say, and what have the philosophers said about this? Oh, so now we think about another group of individuals who've, who've talked about this idea. 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 psychologists said about what are the. What are the studies that they've shown 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 an excellent story. An example of that. One of the things I was really intrigued about with the new book is kind of the examples between logic, rationality, and then kind of 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, spontaneous way versus you step to the side and you think through things differently. And what I've recognized is that the majority of the decisions that I make, indeed I have to make 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. 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 recommending here? What. What's the social proof in this situation? Is this thing 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, yeah, it's an authority. Or there's a lot of social proof. It's scarcity. 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 carefully in an analytical way, almost like I'm doing my budget for how much I can place here versus other sorts of places there. I really, I want to step back from those automatic, 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 making process. And unfortunately, too many people, I think 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. I know we're going to 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 were 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 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, two people, they sit highly on my bookshelf. That would, that would be a very intellectually stimulating conversation. But Dr. Cialdini, 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. And even just, I'm sure they're, they're very intrigued by influencer. 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 person, 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 caught me by the elbow. He said, bob, I found it. I found the single most effective influence approach. It is not to have 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 to 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. Your 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.