The Six Principles of Persuasion
How can we influence other people? This is a question that may arise in a variety of contexts. Maybe you are a real-estate agent trying to sell a house, or perhaps you are running for council mayor and need to convince the public to vote for you or maybe you just need to persuade your friends to watch the movie you want to see. Whatever the case, good or bad, significant or trivial, we could all benefit from knowing how to persuade people in some way or another. Researchers have been studying the psychology of persuasion for years, however one psychologist by the name of Robert Cialdini has identified six universal principles of persuasion.
Reciprocity: Have you heard of the saying ‘If you scratch my back I'll scratch yours’? Well it turns out there is a lot of truth to this age-old saying when it comes to the psychology of persuasion. We tend to do things for people who do things for us. If your coworker shouts you a coffee one day, you may feel inclined to shout them one the next, if you invite your friend to a party then they may feel obliged to invite you to theirs. In one study, a waitress gave customers a mint at the end of their meal, it was found that their tip went up by approximately 3%. If the waitress gives two mints the tips go up by 14% and if the waitress turns to walk away form the table and then turns back and says “for you nice people, here’s an extra mint” tips go up by approximately 23%. This is a simple strategy that can be used in a variety of contexts and appears to work most effectively when the ‘gift’ is personalised and unexpected.
Scarcity: When was the last time you were browsing through your favourite online shop, not really looking to buy anything … that is, until you saw that there was only two of those beautiful coats left in your size. Suddenly you feel a pressing need to buy that coat and it is only afterwards that you realise you have three other coats in that exact colour. If this sounds like you then you are not alone. Simply put, people want more of the things that they can have less of; we might even find ourselves acting impulsively in these situations to obtain these things. This principle can be used and is used in a variety of contexts, particularly within business. For example, you might hold a promotion that has a ‘limited time offer’ or run a webinar that is capped at 100 participants.
Authority: People tend to follow the advice of people who they perceive as experienced, credible, knowledgeable experts in a particular topic. For example, physiotherapists who display their medical diplomas on the wall of their office are more likely to have their patients comply with the recommended treatment program. It appears that it is important for people to know what makes us qualified in order for them to trust the advice we give them and for us to persuade them in any particular direction. This can be done directly such as within the physiotherapist example, or, as is more commonly done, indirectly through other people. For example, if you are going to be getting your appendix out the nurse might reassure you by saying, “don’t worry, Dr. Dogood has been performing these operations for over twenty years, he knows what he’s doing!”
4. Consistency: This principle refers to the fact that people want to be consistent with what they have previously said or done, no one wants to be labeled as a hypocrite. So how do we use this principle within the psychology of persuasion? By holding people accountable. One restaurant tested out this very principle in an attempt to reduce the amount of people not turning up to their bookings. When these people initially phoned the restaurant to make their bookings the receptionist would say ‘If you have to change or cancel your reservation, please call’. She instead changed this to ‘Will you please call if you have to change or cancel your reservation?’ and even waited until people said yes. By simply changing these two words the amount of no-shows dropped from around 30% to approximately 10%.
5. Liking: It’s no surprise to most of us that we tend to say yes to people that we like, but the question is … how do we get someone to like us? It appears that there are three important factors at play here; we tend to like people who are similar to us, who give us compliments and who work with us towards mutual goals. In one study, students were required to read an opinion piece written by another student, however in one condition the ‘author’ had similar characteristics and values to the individual and in the other they did not. In the condition in which the participant perceived himself or herself as similar to the author, they were more likely to agree with the claims they made … even if they were far fetched. It appears that if you’d like someone to be reciprocal with you, you should firstly pay them a few compliments and identify some similarities.
6. Consensus: When in doubt, we often look to the thoughts, behaviours and actions of others to guide our own. Perhaps one of the more comical examples of this is the elevator experiment in which the individual joining the group inside the elevator would mimic whatever the others were doing, even if it violates their perceived social norms e.g. looking at the back or taking their hat off. What this suggests is that we may be able to persuade people in a particular direction by pointing out that other people are also making these decisions.
So there you have it, Cialdini’s six principles of persuasion, which can be applied to a variety of aspects of personal and professional life. Use them wisely!