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tracyksmith_reads's review
5.0
This is an excellent book that explains the "weapons of influence" that compliance practitioners use against us. I did not expect to find this book to keep my interest as well as it did. The information provided therein is something we can all use to learn.
ghada_mohammed's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
4.0
An insightful and comprehensive guide to compliance principles, the automated patterns of behaviour that we adapt to navigate the increasingly complicated aspects of modern life.
The author illustrates how these seven principles (contrast, reciprocity, consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity) could be triggered, prompting the individual to engage in a stereotyped pattern of behaviour that is often subconscious, aiming to judge an event, a person, or an item by only the most apparent of its many characteristics. He also offers examples of how these patterns could be utilised in marketing to achieve greater sales, or similarly exploited by compliance professionals to make profit from unsuspecting targets.
All in all, a very delightful and compelling read. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in behavioural psychology, marketing, and/or the tactics of con artists.
The author illustrates how these seven principles (contrast, reciprocity, consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity) could be triggered, prompting the individual to engage in a stereotyped pattern of behaviour that is often subconscious, aiming to judge an event, a person, or an item by only the most apparent of its many characteristics. He also offers examples of how these patterns could be utilised in marketing to achieve greater sales, or similarly exploited by compliance professionals to make profit from unsuspecting targets.
All in all, a very delightful and compelling read. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in behavioural psychology, marketing, and/or the tactics of con artists.
ikanlabu's review
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
Influence is a good book to understand the mindplay behind natural "manipulation.".
I find it very informative when I am working in marketing, which always includes human relationships. I can easily spot one when buying and apply it when selling.
Most of the influences in this book were already applied everywhere. I think knowing them now is more beneficial than not knowing them at all.
Nevertheless, the points in this book are clear, and the citations backing them are legit.
nana_banana's review against another edition
1.0
Short review: I really do not understand why this book continues to be rated so highly. This book is just a bunch of outdated, loosely supported stories to illustrate some very basic societal tendencies. It may have been new information back when it was first published in 1989, but I cannot understand why it continues to be held up as one of the “best books for marketers” in 2024. Time to retire this outdated piece of trash. Save yourself the trouble of reading this and read a summary of the principles online somewhere if you really want to get anything out of this book. You’ll save yourself 8 hours of reading useless garbage.
Long review: First of all, the author says the same exact thing about 10-20 times per chapter. Seriously, this book is the most repetitive thing I think I've ever read. He'll even go back and RESTATE the same studies or personal stories multiple times within the same chapter. Dude, we literally read that two pages back. I don't need a refresher. It feels like the author was trying to hit a word requirement or was getting paid by the word, because you could say everything he was trying to say a quarter of the pages. Heck, you could say it in an outline.
The connections between everything in this book are so loose and bizaar. Reading this book was like listening to your buzzed uncle at thanksgiving blather on about his conspiracy theories, but he keeps forgetting what he already told you so you hear the same stories over and over again until he eventually forgets what he was even trying to tell you and so he moves onto his next idea.
I am not buying the author's claim that he has somehow isolated the single psychological principle behind any given story/study/event in these books. He's consistently finding studies and pulling tiny parts from them that support his ideas, but many of these studies aren't replicable or were not even testing for the psychological phenomena he's referencing. Example, he references both Kitty Genovese and the Milgram experiments. Both of which have been debunked as cultural myths by now. When I tried to look up most of the studies he referenced, they usually pointed back to a single paper from the 60s or 70s or nothing at all. The majority of his supporting information was personal anecdotes that conveniently supported his principles perfectly. I was constantly eye rolling as I read about his friend who did this or that, or the girlfriend who felt such and such a way.
This book is outdated, sexist, and frankly racist. The way he talks about Tupperware parties had me gagging and in Chapter 3 he refers to the Tsonga tribe as “being from the back regions of the primitive world.” Chapters 6 and 7 are full of thinly veiled racist comments about black families and children. Don’t get me started on the offensive boiling down of his opinions on the People’s Temple. You can tell from the tone of the passages in this book what the author thinks of anyone who isn’t a white male, and it’s time to stop holding this book up as some amazing source of information for marketers. This book is trash.
The title of this book is "psychology of persuasion" and there's really not much in here at all about persuasion. When I think persuasion, I think of convincing others with reasonable, rational arguments, but every chapter of this book is about tricks used to stimulate *irrational* behavior to persuade others. It could be called "how to trick other people into doing things by exploiting conditioned societal responses."
I constantly see this book listed as one of the best books for modern marketers to read, but I didn’t anything remotely helpful for a marketer in 2024. The focus is always door-to-door salesmen, car salesmen, and MLM parties and absolutely nothing in here directly reflects modern business, especially digital business. Maybe that was helpful in 1989 but anything this book is just a sales manual for scummy, unethical sales people.
Y'all I could go on but I feel like I'm writing my own book here. This book is trash. Don't waste your time.
Long review: First of all, the author says the same exact thing about 10-20 times per chapter. Seriously, this book is the most repetitive thing I think I've ever read. He'll even go back and RESTATE the same studies or personal stories multiple times within the same chapter. Dude, we literally read that two pages back. I don't need a refresher. It feels like the author was trying to hit a word requirement or was getting paid by the word, because you could say everything he was trying to say a quarter of the pages. Heck, you could say it in an outline.
The connections between everything in this book are so loose and bizaar. Reading this book was like listening to your buzzed uncle at thanksgiving blather on about his conspiracy theories, but he keeps forgetting what he already told you so you hear the same stories over and over again until he eventually forgets what he was even trying to tell you and so he moves onto his next idea.
I am not buying the author's claim that he has somehow isolated the single psychological principle behind any given story/study/event in these books. He's consistently finding studies and pulling tiny parts from them that support his ideas, but many of these studies aren't replicable or were not even testing for the psychological phenomena he's referencing. Example, he references both Kitty Genovese and the Milgram experiments. Both of which have been debunked as cultural myths by now. When I tried to look up most of the studies he referenced, they usually pointed back to a single paper from the 60s or 70s or nothing at all. The majority of his supporting information was personal anecdotes that conveniently supported his principles perfectly. I was constantly eye rolling as I read about his friend who did this or that, or the girlfriend who felt such and such a way.
This book is outdated, sexist, and frankly racist. The way he talks about Tupperware parties had me gagging and in Chapter 3 he refers to the Tsonga tribe as “being from the back regions of the primitive world.” Chapters 6 and 7 are full of thinly veiled racist comments about black families and children. Don’t get me started on the offensive boiling down of his opinions on the People’s Temple. You can tell from the tone of the passages in this book what the author thinks of anyone who isn’t a white male, and it’s time to stop holding this book up as some amazing source of information for marketers. This book is trash.
The title of this book is "psychology of persuasion" and there's really not much in here at all about persuasion. When I think persuasion, I think of convincing others with reasonable, rational arguments, but every chapter of this book is about tricks used to stimulate *irrational* behavior to persuade others. It could be called "how to trick other people into doing things by exploiting conditioned societal responses."
I constantly see this book listed as one of the best books for modern marketers to read, but I didn’t anything remotely helpful for a marketer in 2024. The focus is always door-to-door salesmen, car salesmen, and MLM parties and absolutely nothing in here directly reflects modern business, especially digital business. Maybe that was helpful in 1989 but anything this book is just a sales manual for scummy, unethical sales people.
Y'all I could go on but I feel like I'm writing my own book here. This book is trash. Don't waste your time.
yapsherlyn's review
4.0
It is a very technical and realistic book that opens my eyes to the world of persuasion that is happening in our everyday lives. It had definitely changed the way I see people, their intentions, their techniques and my reaction.
I appreciate the content as I can see the huge effort in writing it with examples and readers' reports to give a better sense of the logic.
I appreciate the content as I can see the huge effort in writing it with examples and readers' reports to give a better sense of the logic.