This episode is also on Bilibili too.
This is my 10,000-word guide to Influence, breaking down the book’s seven psychological manipulation tricks.
The title Influence sounds a little harmless, but what it actually discusses are the principles and techniques of highly practical psychological manipulation. These techniques cleverly bypass our conscious awareness and interact directly with the psychological processes beneath intuition, emotion, and instinct, quietly changing our minds and behavior before we even notice. Smart manipulation isn’t about persuading people with reason; it’s about slipping past reason and taking control. To put it in the author’s own words:
“Every principle discussed in this book can cause people to produce a different kind of automatic, unconscious compliance—in other words, an impulse to answer without thinking.”
Influence introduces exactly these seven kinds of psychological manipulation.
1. Reciprocity
The first of the seven psychological manipulation tricks is reciprocity.
Reciprocity is a basic human instinct. When someone does us a favor, we automatically feel psychological pressure to repay them as much as possible. If we owe someone, it feels uncomfortable. Reciprocity evolved alongside human cooperation and is a deeply rooted instinct.
Because reciprocity involves exchanging benefits, it is naturally easy to exploit in order to extract benefits. The simplest, most direct trick is to give you a gift first and then ask you for a favor; this can make the request twice as effective. For example, giving people a small gift before asking for donations makes them more likely to donate. Or a store might first give a child a toy, making it easier for the parents to open their wallets for other products. In the United States, Amway had a sales strategy in which salespeople brought a set of cleaning products to customers’ homes and let them try everything for free. When the salesperson returned a few days later to collect the products, most customers bought a new set, because they felt that having used everything without buying would leave them owing the salesperson. In reality, the salesperson simply carried the trial set to the next customer’s home that very day.
Another example everyone has probably encountered: supermarkets offer all kinds of free food and drinks. That is also an exploitation of the reciprocity instinct. Free samples are often the most expensive ones; after eating and drinking, isn’t there just a tiny feeling of indebtedness, making you feel a little bad about walking away without buying a pack? You may say, I’m made of steel, my skin is thick, I can eat and drink for free with a perfectly clear conscience. Don’t be so confident! Research has found that free food samples in supermarkets can also increase sales of other products. In other words, after you finish that yogurt, the feeling that you owe someone a favor can take root in your subconscious and make you unconsciously buy more things. We think we’re hard-hearted, but in reality, our hearts are surprisingly soft.
Even smarter and subtler than gifts and free samples is the “rejection-then-retreat strategy,” a negotiation tactic frequently used by skilled negotiators. What is it? To get you to agree to a small request, I first make a larger, more exaggerated request. If you reject that exaggerated request, I retreat and make the small request. This maneuver greatly increases the chance that you will agree to the small request. Why? Because if you feel that I have already retreated once, you will feel that you too have an obligation to retreat once and accept my small request. Our subconscious feels that retreating is also a form of reciprocity, so this is a “reciprocal concession.” But in fact, you have fallen into my trap, because my initial concession was fake.
The power of this “rejection-then-retreat strategy” is enormous. All I have to do is hook you with a slightly larger request, and then even if the “small request” that follows is completely unreasonable, you may still agree out of politeness.
The author of Influence, Robert Cialdini, conducted this experiment himself. On a university campus, he asked passing students whether they would volunteer two hours every week as a juvenile offender counselor for at least two years. Naturally, everyone refused; the request was far too much. The researchers then immediately asked whether they would spend one day accompanying a group of juvenile offenders on a zoo visit. Surprisingly, many students agreed. Yet this second request was also extremely demanding. If people had been asked about it directly, most would have refused too. Clearly, the “rejection-then-retreat strategy” is remarkably powerful.
Of course, this method has limits. If the initial request is so extreme that it becomes completely irrational, the other person will realize you’re messing with them and flip the table on you.
Now that we’ve covered how to manipulate people with the reciprocity instinct, let’s talk about defense. What do you do when someone uses reciprocity to manipulate you?
Cialdini gives two points in the book.
First, as we just mentioned, these powerful psychological manipulation techniques bypass consciousness and speak directly to instinct and intuition. The sense of indebtedness you feel is generated automatically, and you may not even consciously notice it. So we are always vulnerable. But once the trick is exposed—once you know that this technique exists—you won’t be so easy to hook. Learning these concepts and cases, and understanding how these psychological manipulation tricks work, is itself a process of training your anti-fraud skills. That is why Cialdini strongly hints that you should read this book—there’s a whiff of selling and self-congratulation there, but the point is sound. Many psychological manipulation techniques work even when you don’t know about them: without realizing it, you follow someone else’s script. Once you know such methods exist, half their power disappears. It’s a bit like magic: while watching a magician perform, you marvel at the skill; after watching the reveal, you feel you’ve just been insulted by a magic trick.
So the first defense is obvious: “Knowledge is power.” This is a general defense principle that applies to all six of the remaining psychological manipulation techniques.
The second defense builds on the first. Once you recognize that someone is using reciprocity to set a trap, you should ruthlessly put away your sense of indebtedness. You don’t owe them anything; they’re simply using your feeling of indebtedness to make money. So if someone gives you any little freebie, don’t be polite and don’t feel any moral burden—just accept it calmly: at the supermarket, eat and drink until you’re full; if a salesperson comes to your door with samples, take the whole lot according to the invoice, then politely escort them out. Put bluntly, this second defense requires a thick skin: “As long as I don’t feel embarrassed, you’re the one who should be embarrassed.”
2. Social Proof
The second of the seven psychological manipulation tricks is social proof.
Social proof, put simply, is herd mentality. Herd mentality is also very easy to use for psychological manipulation. Give people a few hints that everyone chooses this way and does things this way, and they will automatically feel pressure to stay in step with everyone else.
At McDonald’s dessert counters, if a server tells customers, “What would you like today? The McFlurry is our most popular item,” McFlurry sales rise by 55%. If the employee follows up with, “The chocolate flavor is our customers’ favorite,” sales of that flavor rise by 8%. See? Tell people that something is popular, then tell them other people choose it too, and they will follow along and place an order.
Netflix originally kept which shows were popular on its platform under wraps, treating the information as a business secret. But in 2018, its attitude suddenly did a complete about-face: it began publicly announcing its most successful films and shows and even putting together various rankings.
Why do that? Because the company’s senior management discovered that popularity creates popularity. Once audiences know what other people love watching, they follow the crowd, join the conversation, and the snowball rolls downhill, turning something hot into a blockbuster.
This method is extremely common in business. A nightclub owner may hire people to form a long line outside, creating the false impression that the place is packed. A street performer may put a few bills in the tip jar first, making passersby think lots of people have already paid. Some overseas fundraising campaigns even arrange for shills: after the fundraiser finishes speaking, the shill is the first to stand up and donate.
Those methods are fairly blatant. The next few are much subtler.
The book gives an example:
A car dealer published a recruitment ad saying that because customer demand for the brand’s vehicles had recently increased substantially, the company needed to expand its sales team to keep up. After the ad was published, the dealer not only recruited salespeople; surprisingly, its car sales also surged.
How did that happen? The first reason, of course, was social proof. Besides job applicants, ordinary consumers also learned from the ad that this brand was selling well, so everyone followed the crowd and came to buy. More importantly, the information that sales were doing well was “accidentally” revealed by a recruitment ad. When people sense that the other party is deliberately revealing information to persuade them, they become alert. But if they believe the information is not being used to persuade them, their guard drops completely, making them more susceptible to information that appears to have slipped out by accident. In fact, this already contains a psychological defense against manipulation: be especially wary of information revealed “accidentally.” Phrases like “Oops, I let that slip” or “You weren’t supposed to see this” should set off alarm bells. Nine times out of ten, it’s a trap.
Let’s look at another example.
In places overseas where betting on horses is legal, bookmakers have a way to manipulate the odds. Suppose a seasoned bettor spots a horse with a strong chance of winning. He deliberately chooses a horse with very long odds—say, 25:1—that has virtually no chance of winning. When the betting window opens, he puts 100 US dollars on this weak horse. The odds displayed on the board immediately drop to 2:1, creating the illusion that “this horse is very popular.” Now social proof kicks in. Other people who don’t know much see the odds plunge and assume someone has inside information, so they put their money on the horse that seems to be the “most popular.” The snowball effect appears. At that point, the seasoned bettor returns to the window and places a heavy bet on the horse he actually likes. Since that horse is no longer the most popular, its odds have risen sharply, and he may win several times his original stake.
That’s enough examples of using herd mentality to manipulate people. Let’s switch to how to defend against it. How do we escape this kind of psychological manipulation? Cialdini mainly offers two suggestions.
First, just as I said earlier, now that we know people can use conformity to manipulate us, we need to stay alert: information like “XX is very popular” may well have been fabricated. Don’t blindly follow whatever is supposedly popular. It could be a trap.
The second suggestion concerns a very special case of conformity. This special case is called “pluralistic ignorance.” The classic example is this: you’re walking down the street and see someone lying by the roadside. It’s your first time passing through, so you have no idea what’s going on. Is this someone who needs help, or a drunk who lies here every day? So you look around, only to find everyone else apparently walking past as if nothing happened. You think, Oh, they probably all know he’s a drunk, so I might as well keep walking too. But in reality, they don’t know what’s going on either. They’re watching to see how everyone else reacts. You look at me, I look at you—in fact, everyone’s completely clueless. Yet everyone assumes the others know this person doesn’t need help, so they all walk away. That’s pluralistic ignorance: everyone is actually confused, but everyone thinks everyone else understands.
In this situation, the person who needs help becomes a victim of conformity. So if you happen to be that person in need of help, and let’s assume you can at least call for help, how do you break out of this situation?
The best method is to pick one person out of the crowd, look directly at him, and point at him: “You, sir in the blue jacket, I need help. Please call an ambulance.” Don’t make a vague appeal for help. The crowd may still fall into the cycle of me watching you and you watching me, until nobody dares to act. You have to clearly single out one person. That will dramatically increase your chances of getting help. Why? Because instinct is usually defeated by another instinct. Clearly assigning responsibility to one person uses the instinct of responsibility to overpower the instinct to conform. It works far better than a general cry for help.
3. Authority
Now let’s move on to the third of the “seven psychological manipulation tricks”: authority.
People are quick to trust authority, so as long as someone packages himself to look authoritative, he can easily persuade others to believe what he says and buy the products he recommends.
The book points out that the most persuasive kind of authority has two qualities: 1. looking highly knowledgeable, and 2. seeming trustworthy.
Expertise is easy enough to understand. The second point, trustworthiness, needs a little unpacking. Besides wanting authority figures to provide expert information, we also want them to be reliable sources of information. If an authority figure seems to be serving some interest, or gives the impression that he’s hiding something and isn’t being sincere, his persuasive power takes a serious hit.
So how can authority increase its trustworthiness? One extremely effective strategy is to mention the flaws in your position right at the beginning, instead of describing only its strengths. Once you put the weaknesses on the table first, the audience will immediately see you as sincere.
In court, lawyers who admit their side’s weaknesses before the opposing counsel does appear more credible and win more cases; in advertising, acknowledging a product’s flaws before emphasizing its advantages can often increase sales dramatically.
For example, a job candidate could say in an interview, “I don’t have a wealth of experience in this field, but I learn quickly.” That uses the same principle. Or a salesperson selling a software system might say, “Our software doesn’t have the lowest setup cost, but our system is highly efficient, so you’ll recoup the cost very quickly.”
Warren Buffett, the stock market sage, is a master of this strategy. At the beginning of his famous annual shareholder meeting, he will usually talk about a mistake he made over the past year or a problem the company encountered, and discuss what impact it might have on the company’s future. Unlike the standard practice in many corporate annual reports—covering up difficulties or making major problems sound minor—Buffett openly declares, first, that he fully recognizes the company’s problems, and second, that he is completely willing to expose them. The result is that when he goes on to present the company’s formidable strengths, the audience trusts the company much more deeply.
But this trick isn’t foolproof. Research shows that the strategy of “admitting negative information” works only after the negative situation has genuinely occurred. If you manufacture a mistake just so you can admit to it, the tactic may backfire.
There’s one more thing to clarify about authority. It’s not only high-status big shots whom we regard as authorities; many professionals qualify too. That’s why, in some scams, simply putting on a professional uniform can win a great many people’s trust. The book gives an example: a bank overseas hired white-hat hackers to simulate stealing confidential information in order to test the security of its own software systems. Guess how the hackers ultimately stole some of the confidential information? They didn’t use any sophisticated computer-hacking techniques at all. They dressed up as pest-control workers or pipe-repair technicians. Once they put on the appropriate uniforms and told the bank’s security guards and office managers that they needed to fumigate an office or repair pipes in the server room, the guards and managers escorted them without a second thought into restricted areas where outsiders couldn’t go. The hackers could then simply steal information from the bank’s internal computers, and could even carry away an entire server. What computer technology couldn’t accomplish, a uniform and a little performance of authority solved completely.
So how do we protect ourselves from people pretending to be authorities in order to win our trust? Cialdini says that when an authority figure tries to exert influence, we should ask ourselves two questions.
The first question is: “Is this authority figure actually an expert?” This directs our attention to two key pieces of information: the authority’s credentials, and whether those credentials are relevant to the subject at hand. In other words, first check whether the person’s qualifications are legitimate, then consider whether their expertise has anything to do with the topic—for instance, if a doctor recommends a stock to you, would you trust him even if it’s a pharmaceutical stock? Think it over.
The second question we should ask ourselves is: “Is this expert telling the truth?” Take a moment to consider whether the expert stands to benefit from our trust. Don’t forget that experts can use little strategies to make themselves look sincere, but performed sincerity can’t completely conceal the ultimate goal.
By now you should be feeling it: in the realm of psychological manipulation, the balance between spear and shield, attack and defense, is wildly lopsided. There are countless tricks for manipulating other people, and scammers are endlessly inventive. The defenses, by contrast, are often extremely plain: grasp a few fundamental points and use them to move mountains. That’s basically the whole game.
4. Commitment and Consistency
Now let’s move on to the fourth of the “seven psychological manipulation tricks”: commitment and consistency.
Commitment and consistency means that everyone has a desire to keep their words and actions consistent. Once we make a choice or a commitment, we feel an internal pressure to act according to that commitment and keep our words and actions consistent over time. So someone can exploit this by first inducing you to make a commitment. After that, the psychological pressure inside you will drive you to obediently act on the commitment you made earlier.
In my personal view, this is the most powerful of the seven tricks in Influence. It has the greatest variety of applications, some of them extremely subtle and nearly impossible to guard against. That’s why its power to manipulate people’s minds is so forceful.
The people who love exploiting commitment and consistency to manipulate us most are, naturally, businesses.
Before Christmas each year, American toy sellers run ads in the media for new toys coming out for Christmas. Then, on Christmas Day, parents excitedly take their children to the toy store to buy that toy, only to be told by the clerk nine times out of ten, “That toy is incredibly popular—it’s already sold out.” The child then starts rolling around on the floor, telling Mom and Dad, “You promised to buy me the toy.” Unable to resist, the parents buy a different toy. Then, after the Christmas shopping season has passed, the parents happen to visit the toy store with their child one day and see that the original Christmas toy is back in stock. The child starts rolling around on the floor again: “You promised you’d buy me this toy.” So the parents obediently open their wallets and buy the Christmas gift in the off-season.
See where the trick is? The businesses are exploiting the parents’ commitment and consistency—and they manipulate them twice in a row. Products sold to children have one distinctive feature: the parents are the ones who pay, so before buying, they usually first promise the child they’ll get the toy. That’s the commitment. Once there’s a commitment, the business is guaranteed a sale, because the parents feel intense psychological pressure to keep it. The business simply doubles down with a little out-of-stock trick and gets to charge the parents again. And whose fault is it? Parents, you foolishly made two commitments: 1. to buy a “Christmas gift” and 2. to buy “this toy.” You practically asked to be fleeced twice.
Businesses aren’t the only ones who use commitment and consistency; managers inside companies are good at it too. Amazon has a truly bizarre policy: every year it offers employees at its fulfillment centers a $5000 bonus to quit. Strange, right? When employees leave, the company has to pay substantial costs to recruit and train new people. Amazon’s own explanation is that offering dissatisfied or demoralized employees an attractive exit route can actually save money, because those employees in reality cost the company more in healthcare and are less productive.
But Cialdini cuts straight to the point in the book: this was probably a very clever psychological manipulation tactic on Amazon’s part. Once employees turned down the tempting payout and chose not to quit, they had effectively made a commitment to the company. Those who stayed became fiercely loyal. In effect, they were saying to themselves: “I turned down such a generous severance bonus and chose to stay, so I must be very happy with this company.” In other words, that 5000 bonus was really a feint in one direction and a strike in another. The 5000 check was actually manipulating the very people who never cashed it. Sneaky, and pretty ruthless.
Inducing someone to make a commitment can also work in a job interview. Can you manipulate an interviewer into promising to hire you? Surprisingly, yes. Before the interview even starts, you can seize the initiative and ask: “Before we begin, I’d like to know if you could answer one question. I’m curious: what about my background made you put me on the candidate list?” The moment the interviewer starts answering, they’re hooked. They’ve just said out loud some positive impressions they have of you. Put another way, before you’ve even started selling yourself, the hiring side has already made a commitment to hiring you.
When it comes to using the psychology of commitment and consistency to manipulate people, the most powerful move is probably the foot-in-the-door technique.
The foot-in-the-door technique originally referred to a sales tactic like this: a salesperson knocks on your door, but instead of pitching a product right away, asks whether they could have a glass of water. It’s such a tiny request—and you’re a nice person, of course you say yes—so you fetch them some water. The salesperson gets one foot over your threshold, chats with you while drinking, and before long makes a new request: could they come inside and tell you about our product?
Would you say yes? According to a series of studies by psychologists, most people would agree to this further request. If you want to get through someone’s door, first get a foot over the threshold; if you want someone to accept a bigger request, first find a way to get them to accept a trivial one. That’s the foot-in-the-door technique.
Why does the foot-in-the-door technique work? Again, it’s because of commitment and consistency. By agreeing to a small request, you’ve sent a signal that you accept the other person and are being friendly toward them. Then, when they make a more excessive request, you want to keep your image consistent, so your subconscious talks you into continuing to say yes. And just like that, the other person gets to keep pushing.
The foot-in-the-door technique starts with a small request and then moves to the real one. The rejection-then-retreat strategy mentioned earlier starts with a big request and then moves to the real one. They circle around from opposite directions and both work. Kind of fascinating, really.
Now that you know about the foot-in-the-door move, I imagine you won’t fall for it when a salesperson comes knocking. But the foot-in-the-door technique can actually be used so subtly that it catches you completely off guard.
Back in the 1960s, two psychologists ran a classic experiment. They sent researchers disguised as volunteers to a neighborhood in California, where they made homeowners a ridiculous request: put a huge “Drive Carefully” billboard in their front yards, so huge that it would almost completely block the view of the front of the house. When the request was made directly, only 17% agreed. But with one tiny adjustment, the agreement rate shot up to 76%. What was the adjustment? Two weeks earlier, a researcher disguised as a volunteer had visited and asked homeowners to put a tiny warning sign—just a few centimeters wide—on their front lawns. It said, “Be a Safe Driver.” The request was so trivial that almost everyone agreed. And it made a huge difference. Two weeks later, most of those homeowners actually agreed to put up the enormous billboard.
If the experiment had stopped there, you probably still wouldn’t find it all that surprising. It was basically the same as the salesperson asking for water. The surprising part was the next step. The researchers found another group of homeowners. This time, they first received a petition asking them to sign in support of “Protecting California’s Beautiful Environment.” Naturally, almost everyone signed. Then, two weeks later, a volunteer came to ask them to put up the huge billboard—and nearly half the homeowners agreed.
This is where it gets interesting. The commitment the homeowners had made weeks earlier had nothing to do with driving carefully. It was about an entirely different issue: protecting the environment. So why could a small request that seemed completely unrelated have such a big effect? The psychologist running the experiment explained it this way: signing the environmental petition changed how the homeowners saw themselves. They came to see themselves as public-spirited, civic-minded good citizens. “Well, if I’m this responsible a citizen, of course I should support driving carefully.”
This is the most subtle use of the foot-in-the-door technique. Someone gets you to make a commitment about A, and then you persuade yourself to accept an outrageous request about B.
Cialdini jokes that after reading this study, he became reluctant to sign any petition at all. Who knows whether he’d get caught by some completely unrelated request later on?
So let’s look at how to defend ourselves against manipulation that exploits commitment and consistency. It’s the same old strategy of using a tiny lever to move something huge. Cialdini says that when facing tactics based on commitment and consistency, we should pay attention to two kinds of bodily signals.
The first is a gut signal. Whenever we realize we’ve been tricked into agreeing to something we didn’t want to agree to, our stomach may clench. Our brains can overthink things in order to keep our commitment from falling apart, but the body is often more honest. Don’t miss this bodily alarm. If you feel your stomach tightening, stop and ask yourself whether you’ve been played.
The second signal is a signal from the heart. In the example just now, we saw that sometimes getting fooled is not obvious at all, so your gut won’t sound the alarm. In that case, ask yourself: “Now that I know what I know, if I could go back to the very beginning and choose again, would I still do this?” After asking, pay attention to whether some emotion—possibly a very faint one—rises up from deep inside. Is it negative? Does it make you feel uneasy? If so, immediately reconsider your current choice. We always feel something first, and only a split second later come up with a rational explanation for it. Rational reflection is important in everyday life, but when someone has lured us into a trap, that first emotional reaction is often the one that’s right.
5. Liking
Now let’s move on to the fifth of the “seven psychological manipulation tricks”: liking.
Liking means using other people’s affection for us to get something from them. First I find a way to make you like me, then I offer you advice or try to sell you something, and you’re more likely to accept it. Of course, I can also find a way to make you like my product directly.
The final three tricks—liking, scarcity, and unity—change relatively little compared with the earlier ones and are easier to spot, so we’ll wrap them up in a bit less space.
Let’s start with liking. How do you make a person or a product more appealing in someone else’s eyes? There are obvious methods and somewhat subtler ones.
The obvious methods include:
- Increase physical attractiveness. The better-looking someone is, the more people tend to like them. That’s human nature.
- Compliments—in other words, flattery—can also make people like you more. The remarkable thing about flattery is that even when people know you’re only flattering them to win their favor, they still like you. “Flattery never wears out,” as the old saying goes. That’s not just ancestral wisdom; modern psychological experiments have tested it and stamped it with approval.
- Offering help and showing concern will make people like you. This one doesn’t need much explanation.
There are obvious methods, and there are subtler tactics:
For example, increase similarity. People like people who resemble themselves. A common sales trick is to pretend to share an interest with the customer. Say you drive over to view a house. The salesperson warmly comes out to greet you and opens your car door. Meanwhile, they’re quietly inspecting what’s in your car. If they spot camping gear in the trunk, they casually bring up camping later in the conversation, making you think you’ve met a kindred spirit.
Everything we’ve discussed so far makes the person selling something more likable. Naturally, you can also make the product itself more likable. The most common way to make an object appealing is to exploit people’s tendency to transfer affection by association. It’s a powerful instinct: we unconsciously start liking B because we like A and B keeps showing up alongside it.
That’s why advertising so often links a product with things people already love to see.
For example, take a look at this ad on the screen. It’s a print ad for a watch brand.
Can you spot the positive things the watch is being associated with? The first is obvious: it’s paired with an attractive celebrity. The second is less obvious but has a strong psychological effect too. The position of the watch hands makes the watch look as though it’s smiling. That creates more happy associations while people look at the ad, which also helps raise their fondness for the brand.
So how do we defend ourselves against manipulation that exploits liking?
Again, use a tiny lever to move something huge. Cialdini says the ways of increasing liking are so varied that designing a counterstrategy for each one is pointless. We only need to watch for one thing: have we started liking this person with extraordinary speed and intensity? For example: “I’ve only known this salesperson for 20 minutes—how come I already feel like she’s family?” Once you notice that, you regain your sanity and remind yourself: what I’m taking home later is the car, not the cute woman selling it.
6. Scarcity
Now let’s move on to the sixth of the “seven psychological manipulation tricks”: scarcity.
People are especially sensitive to scarcity. When there are very few of a product left, or an opportunity is hard to come by, we instinctively feel that the product is especially valuable and the opportunity especially worthwhile: “What is rare is precious.” So some people deliberately create scarcity to manipulate our behavior and profit from it.
Some businesses use a simple, blunt tactic: just add “Only three left—buy now or miss out” after a product, and they can already stir up many people’s urge to place an order.
Other businesses take the scarcity principle to an even more extreme level. For example, research has found that when people watch something they want go from plentiful to scarce, the effect is stronger than when it is scarce from the start. So savvy businesses find ways to show consumers the process of their inventory gradually running out. Other research has found that when a resource becomes scarce because other people are competing for it, people become especially frenzied. We hate seeing something we want become less available—especially when it becomes less available because other people are snatching it away. So savvy businesses also often hire people to pretend to compete for products, making you watch helplessly as someone else takes what you want, and then rush to place an order.
So how do we protect ourselves when someone tries to manipulate us with scarcity?
Cialdini’s advice is similar to what he says about people manipulating us through liking: when someone uses the psychology of scarcity to manipulate us, we also experience a surge of emotion. This time, though, it isn’t the sudden rush of “liking someone.” Faced with scarcity, we feel a sudden surge of desire—the frantic urge to make something ours. As soon as we notice that feeling, we should remind ourselves that someone may be playing the scarcity game, and proceed with caution.
Cialdini says there is an important insight hidden here: if we place an order at that moment, our joy comes not from experiencing the scarce product, but from possessing it. “So we must remember: just because something is difficult to obtain doesn’t mean it will taste better, sound better, drive better, or work better.”
7. Unity
And finally, the seventh of the “seven psychological manipulation techniques”: unity.
Unity means that we are more willing to comply with people from our own group. If I see you as “one of us,” I’ll be more inclined to go along with what you ask. Naturally, people will exploit this, using the psychological suggestion that “we’re all one of us” to gain an advantage.
Pretending that we’re one big family can be done in fairly obvious ways or much subtler ones.
Let’s start with the obvious. Some companies make employees do synchronized exercises and chant slogans together every morning after everyone arrives. What is the point? There’s a bug in the human mind: we are especially likely to see people who move in sync with us as one of us. Almost every Indigenous tribe regularly gathers its members to dance together, and armies often drill soldiers to march in perfect unison. All these methods can bring people together. Employees doing exercises together has the same effect.
There are subtler ways to use the psychology of unity. In one study, consumers were divided into two groups. Both groups read the business plan of a fast-food restaurant they often visited. One group was asked to offer “suggestions,” while the other was asked to share “expectations.” Which group do you think later wanted to visit the restaurant more? The “suggestions” group. Between strangers, people are actually expected to be polite; usually only someone close to you—someone who is one of us—has the standing to offer you suggestions. So offering suggestions makes the person giving them see the other person as one of us.
This is actually a highly effective way to bring people closer. Some business managers encourage employees to offer them suggestions; in our own lives, we can also ask friends and colleagues for suggestions at the right moment. Volunteering advice to others can make you unpopular, but actively asking others for advice brings you closer to them. They feel that you are one of us because you asked them for advice.
The “Unity” chapter was expanded by Cialdini in this latest edition, and its style shifts a little from the earlier chapters, with more abstract discussion. In my view, the main points worth extracting and talking about are the ones above. Cialdini also doesn’t offer anything very concrete about how to protect ourselves. But after reading the whole book, I came up with a simple, blunt summary—
I think if you gather up all the strategies in these books for protecting yourself from other people’s attempts to manipulate your mind, they basically boil down to an almost shameless attitude: “Why should I care?”
You want me to let you get your foot in the door? Your request is a “Why should I care?”
You dress up beautifully to sell me a product? Your looks are a “Why should I care?”
You gave an inch, so I have to give an inch too? You do you—this is a “Why should I care?”
As I keep saying: as long as I’m not embarrassed, you’re the one who’s embarrassed.
That’s where we’ll leave this 10,000-plus-word interpretation of Influence. I hope these takeaways help you understand Influence a little better.
Written by: Zhichao Wei
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