The Power of Persuasion

AlexisKai writes "The Ten-Second Review: Robert Levine's The Power of Persuasion: How We're Bought and Sold is an engaging, highly readable survey of the sophisticated methods of persuasion we encounter in various situations. From television to telemarketing and from self-deception to suicide cults, Levine takes a hard look at all the ways we attempt to persuade each other - and how and why they work (or don't). Robert Levine is a professor of psychology at Cal State Fresno; his previous books include The Geography of Time, about the differences in the perception of time and its passage in various cultures and cities around the world." For those with a longer attention span, AlexisKai's review continues below. The Power of Persuasion: How We're Bought and Sold author Robert Levine pages 278 publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc. rating 8 reviewer Colin Cannell ISBN 0471266345 summary An engaging, highly readable survey of the sophisticated methods of persuasion we encounter in various situations. From television to telemarketing and from self-deception to suicide cults, Levine takes a hard look at all the ways we attempt to persuade each other - and how and why they work (or don't).

The book is quite balanced in its approach and unusual in that it looks at the art of persuasion through the lens of psychological field research. Levine doesn't merely muse about the vagaries of the mind; he gets out there and investigates it. He takes a job selling knives from a "multi-level marketing" company. He interviews former car salesmen, entrepreneurs, and marketing directors. His students conduct experimental bake sales.

The Power of Persuasion is at its most interesting when it shows how human behavior frequently travels outside the lines of economic theory. Chapter 6, "The Hot Button," details the situations in which we're likely to do something irrational, like buy the most expensive of four very similar-looking toasters, because a decision-making shortcut in our brain has been tripped (in this case, we equate higher price with higher quality despite there being little evidence for that).

The Power of Persuasion covers a certain amount of ground that has already been covered by such books as Robert Steiner's Don't Get Taken and Gerald Zaltman's How Customers Think. What I liked about this particular book's approach is that it takes a position between the two previously mentioned: for the most part it neither condemns the act of persuasion nor celebrates it. Levine is usually content simply to observe how persuasion is done and occasionally marvel at the way, say, a door-to-door salesman often has greater insight into the human brain than a psychologist.

Levine's writing style is fairly consistent throughout the book. In each chapter, he takes a particular theme or area of the art of persuasion and breaks it down to show what psychological and cultural forces are at work. He does this through well-reasoned arguments interspersed with amusing anecdotes, factoids, and citations of interesting studies and statistics.

For example, in the first chapter, "The Illusion of Invulnerability," he uses the metaphor of Garrison Keillor's fictional Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above-average, to describe how people consistently underestimate the extent to which they are personally influenced by advertising and the likelihood that they would fall for deceptive claims and scams. He punctuates this with a story of how he was preparing a university course on the use of mind control in social psychology and became so wrapped up in his thoughts about totalitarian governments and secret police that a man claiming to be a chimney sweep was able to hoodwink him out of $250. After this, he said, he realized that "it's the people we're unprepared for who present the greatest threat. The fast-talking salesman puts us on alert. But the nice guys, the friendly thieves who sell beneath the threshold of our awareness, put us at their mercy."

The following chapters deal with other facets of persuasion, including:

• The illusion of authority, i.e. "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV."
• The use of generosity or kindness to create a sense of obligation.
• Contrasting what you're selling with something very similar or very different to create a "false dilemma" in the buyer.
• Moving from "Yes, I'll look at your brochure" to "Yes, I'll sign over my life savings to you" through a series of "gradually escalating commitments."
• One of my favorite chapters, and one that I identified with personally, is "$2 + $2 = $5," which takes a look at "The Ten Rules of Framing." Just like the lottery is "a tax on people who are bad at math," the rules of framing take advantage of the way we perceive numbers emotionally to subtly influence us toward decisions that don't necessarily make logical or financial sense.

Rule #1, for example, is "Separate Gains." Levine cites studies showing that people would prefer to win a $50 prize and a $25 prize rather than a single $75 prize. "This is because we respond less to the cumulative total of the gains than the fact that it is a gain," says Levine. "Every gain brings pleasure." This is why you always see Sports Illustrated offering you a "free" book, video, or football helmet mug, even though most of us would be better off if they would forget the video and just lower their subscription price. "The company wants you to file the gift in your unexpected windfall account," Levine writes, "where its perceived value is psychologically inflated, rather than mentally bunching it together with the other products into one big purchase."

In fact, I found a number of "hey, someone else wonders about that too" topics in The Power of Persuasion, such as the idea of the JND, or Just Noticeable Difference. This is the idea that you can quantify how much something can be changed before people notice that it has done so.If our product costs $5.49, and we raise the price to $5.59, will customers care? What about $5.99? Levine looks at how the JND is different at different price points and in different circumstances.

There are a few problems with the book:

• It includes some minor factual errors, such as the paragraphs in which Levine discusses the ad campaign that introduced "Infinity," which he describes as Toyota's luxury car brand. (I assume he means Infiniti, which is actually Nissan's luxury marque).
• The penultimate chapter is entirely devoted to an analysis of Jim Jones and the cult of Jonestown, whose members committed mass suicide in 1978. The analysis is interesting, and someone who hasn't studied Jonestown will find a good introduction here, but I wasn't convinced it deserved a chapter to itself. Levine's rationale appears to be that Jonestown represents the logical extreme, the "dark end of the dark side of persuasion," and there but for the grace of God go we, etc.
• The last chapter, "The Art of Resistance," turns toward the advocacy that I was so relieved not to find in the rest of the book. It contains advice on "asking disconfirming questions," avoiding groupthink, and being sure to practice "persuasion with integrity." This advice is very intelligent and well-founded, but most Slashdot readers will probably find themselves being told things they already know.

I would strongly recommend The Power of Persuasion to anyone whose job involves selling, who has ever wondered why in the world they bought that sweater/car/time-share, who lives in a capitalist economy, or who is just looking to fill a few hours with a fascinating book. It's an insightful, scientific look at a force that permeates the existence of anyone who has to interact with other people but that we rarely take the time to examine.

Besides being a cracking good read, it's fully footnoted, indexed, and so stuffed with information as to make a worthy addition to anyone's reference library. The next time you wonder what possessed you to pay $50 for a medallion commemorating the series finale of Friends, you'll know where to turn.

You can purchase The Power of Persuasion: How We're Bought and Sold from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

The Real Measure

[somethinghollow]

The real measure of how good this book is, I think, is whether or not the author persuaded you (the reader) to believe his points. ;)

Re:Best Pursuasion

[spood]

I'll probably get modded down for this, but often suggesting how the moderators should moderate comments persuades the moderators to moderate comments. So is this +1, Funny, +1 Insightful, or +1 Interesting?

Vacation timeshare sales pitches

[The I Shing]

A primo example of the "feeling of obligation" sales pitch that the author mentions is those vacation timeshare sales pitches that promise a free or discounted event ticket.

They're really common in Las Vegas and in the Orlando area. They have booths set up in hotels and in small buildings located in the parking lots of plazas in commercial districts.

They give you a nice little breakfast buffet at a nearby resort, and tell you that they'll only take 90 minutes of your time, and there's no obligation.

Four hours later you're signing one document after another, agreeing to pay thousands and thousands of dollars over the next ten years for something that's not worth jack squat, and then you go and get your stupid theme park tickets.

Stay away from those things, and if you do go to one, don't buy into it. You can buy them second-hand MUCH cheaper from someone else who got suckered. When they start trying to close the deal, you say, "Nope, not signing anything. Give me my discounted park passes now, please." If they hem and haw, and say that the deal they're offering is only good if you sign right there and then, you have to say, "Then I guess that's my loss. I'll take my discounted park passes now, please."

Don't let the mind control kick in.

And if you do sign up, you've got ten days to cancel, at least in Florida. But it's much easier to just not get suckered in the first place.

Re:Great (better?) book on influence/persuasion

[mentatchris]

I can vouch for the quality of Cialdini's book. I've read it at least half a dozen times. It's short, interesting, and accurate.

It actually looks like this book has borrowed quite a bit from Cialdini. I hope he is given credit.

Re:A-doo-doo-doo, A-daa-daa-daa

[An ominous Cow art]

He said it even better when he said "They all seem like game show hosts to me".

The #1 Tool

[solarlux]

I recently attended a get-rich scam revovling real-estate. (I wasn't interested but my wife wanted to check it out).

Man, those guys were slick! Almost every other sentence had the word "money" in it. After watching a series of testimonies by people who claimed to have made thousands of dollars in just days, the speaker conducted a pep rally to get everyone excited about how rich they were going to become. He gave helpful pointers on how to deal with all the extra money coming in, like, "after you make your first sale, reward yourself with a cruise...", etc, etc. It was really sad to watch, because the room was filled with people getting really pumped up and excited.

Needless to say, I wasn't able to stay the entire time, but I did a little research once I got home. According to a Washington Post article I found, the weekend Training Seminar they try to pull on these people was priced at $3000.

So just like the Big Tent Revival scam artists in times past collected large sum in exchange for divine promises, scam artists are still setting up camp with similar tactics to soak the poor and gullible.

Re:Tiny speech changes make big difference

[crasch]

Ugh. I detest the gratuitous use of the word "friend". Nothing turns me off faster than when I see an email from someone I don't know who uses it in the intro.

Dominating Meetings

[solprovider]

I recently had a meeting with someone who knew more about how to dominate meetings than about business.

We were selling software software through a reseller. The reseller dissolved, and the partner we knew took her client list to a startup being funded by a VC firm. As far as I can tell, the startup has 2 people: the entrepreneur and a "manager". The manager, Jeff, probably works for the VC firm as a roving manager.

We were lured to a meeting with the entrepreneur to "discuss future possibilities." The meeting time was changed at the last minute (we were already in the car) to the following day so that Jeff could be there.

We arrived at the meeting. The table seated 3 people per side, plus one person on each end. Each team had 3 people. If you want to work with people, sit on the sides so you are close. If you expect conflict, the ends are the power positions. Jeff already had his stuff at one end of the table, with the reseller next to him. So I took the other end, and my associates sat on either side of me.

The reseller greeted us, but Jeff did not appear for about 5 minutes. (Being late implies that everybody else should wait on you.) Then they announced that the entrepreneur would not be joining us.

They already had glasses of water, but my request for some was denied. That is just bad manners. Did Jeff think we would talk less if our mouths were dry? (Later, I left the room while Jeff was talking to have water brought for us.)

Jeff finally entered the room, and as he sat down, he suggested that "Why don't you move closer?" It was a good tactic to get me out of a power seat. (We did not move.)

Then he demanded the source code for the product we sold through the reseller. They wanted to cut us out, and could not support the program without the source. He was quite persuasive saying that he knew they had a right to it because of all his experience and analysis of the situation. I let my business manager debate with Jeff (which he said was fun but pointless), and Jeff never noticed he spent the entire meeting debating with a subordinate. Jeff offered a royalty on future sales, but my manager had Jeff admit they had little interest in selling software. Unfortunately for Jeff, ownership of copyright can only be transferred by written contract, and no such contract existed.

I had fun with Jeff. Even though I have been in the software business for over a decade, and own this company, I gave him the impression that I was the stereotypical unworldly programmer and acted like an egotistical brat. This caused Jeff to make a few mistakes. I did try to move the meeting back to the original purpose of building a partnership relationship, but Jeff dismissed the attempt. At one point, after I interrupted one of Jeff's attacks, he said he was thinking of offering me a job, but now he wouldn't. (If you have read my other posts, you know I would never consider a regular job, and I avoid working with people like Jeff.)

He kept trying to hire my technical assistant. The techie had worked for the reseller and knew the customer's infrastructure. We hired him when he left the reseller. I am uncertain why Jeff tried, since the techie did not talk much in the meeting, and does not have the source. I think Jeff was trying divide-and-conquer, but the techie had already met Jeff, and disliked him intensely.

Jeff "complimented" my business manager by suggesting he should go to college to become a lawyer because "he would be good at it." This happened as we were leaving, so I was able to contain the laughter until we were outside. My business manager has been working in this field since the 70s, and has held upper management positions at several large companies.

Jeff's fatal mistake was to threaten to have the customer's lawyer contact us. Later that week we received a nasty letter from this lawyer. I believe the letter was written by Jeff, since it contained several of the fallacies he used in the meeting. That letter opene