Related category
Influence
The Psychology of Persuasion
Why do people agree to requests that they might reject under more deliberate conditions? In Influence, social psychologist Robert B. Cialdini explains how familiar cues can trigger rapid compliance. The 2007 revised edition organizes its account around six principles: reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity. Each principle can support legitimate cooperation, but each can also be engineered by sellers, fundraisers, negotiators, advertisers, and others seeking agreement. Cialdini combines research from social psychology with observations of persuasion in everyday and commercial settings, emphasizing both how influence works and how readers can recognize questionable uses of it. The result is an accessible framework for examining decisions that may feel personal and spontaneous but are often shaped by context. Its central value lies not in promising immunity from persuasion, but in making common influence patterns easier to notice, evaluat…