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The Power of Persuasion
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.
As pointed out on the Howard Stern show this morning, tiny changes in speech can make a big difference in the perception of the audience, like between "friends" and "friend" (group vs. individual).
On that note, friend, I'd like to ask you to visit my artist interview. See? It works!
stuff |
Sting said it best already...
"Poets, preists, and politicians
Have words to thank for their positions."
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
"Virus of the Mind".
See http://www.memecentral.com/votm.htm.
As a sidenote, there is also thhis nice (e)mail chain-letter debunking page:
http://www.memecentral.com/antidote.htm
IMHO, the everything's-a-meme-thought is a bit exaggerated today, but it is still interesting.
If you come up to me and say "My, what a nice pair of shoes you're wearing!"
I'll think:
You want to sell me something..
You want money for nothing..
You want someting
I think it's worse for us Americans because everyone is trying to sell us something!
I once took a class from an Asian Chi Gong master. During his lesson he said that he had videos on sale. All of us just groaned under our breath. To make a long story short, he was sincere and wanted us to buy the videos to remember his lessons. Nothing else! He was the exception.
I'm still jaded and I haven't been wrong since. We're continually being bombarded to spend our precious income on shit in America. Companies are demanding that we buy their crap in order for us to be happy and to keep "our" economy working. My friends, who really care about me (I think), say supportive things, I just think they want something! I thought it was just me, but I'm beginning to think that it's a side-effect of living in America. Watch out, anyone who says nice things to you wants to sell you something!
Makes me want to shave the rest of my hair off, move to Thailand, and become a Buddhist Monk!
But seriously, if you want that question answered, don't look in this book. Instead check out doubleyourdating.com and sign up for the free newsletter. Just reading the free content that comes through a couple times a week can be very eye-opening, especially in "the geek set" the members of which are probably amongst the most likely to fail over things like being too nice. Check it out, you have nothing to lose other than time spent reading.
I heard one of those pitches once too. And what threw a red flag for me was: "This deal is only good today. Once you walk out that door, I can't legally offer you a price this low again." First of all... against the law to offer me a discount price after I leave? Secondly, the time limit and pressure shows that the salesman doesn't want you to have time to think things over. WHOOP WHOOOP Sirens should be going off in your head!
After an hour long tour (which was actually enjoyable) and listening to the sales pitch, I started to feel a tiny bit pursuaded. And that feeling made me so uncomfortable (knowing that his smooth talking had even slight power over my thought process) that I got up and left. Although as soon as I did, the salesman informed me that a new deal had just opened up. It was for half the original price, and he couldn't legally offer it to me once I walked out the door...
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
I saw that... that was dang crazy.
/. regularly and realizes that all the nerds use linux. The next thing the kid does is he gets his older, non-nerd, but better at computers (than a 12 year old) to install linux on their family PC... the kid is now officially a nerd.
offtopic from your post but i don't want to post 2 comments..... i read the reviewed book, and there was an interesting section on how people who want to be classified as something, they will do whatever other people who are classified as that do.
now just as an example (this was actually an example in the book)... a 12 year old kid thinks he's good at computers, so he considers himself a nerd. He visits
There was another section on how people like to stand out... which can be compared to the people here on slashdot who use windows and love microsoft products. The same can be said to the people who use linux and talk about it outside of slashdot (like their communities, where everyone else uses windows server stuff)
sorry that was just a long random rant and my own personal review of the book... mod me down
Perhaps in some cases a student may learn better from a good teacher than a good doer, but at least with the doer, the student can always learn from example.
:)
Plus, "persuasion" might even be considered a form of teaching, so the best doer may in fact be the best teacher.
All in all, the AC has a good point. Ultimately, though, the fact that it isn't a #1 best seller might be more illustrative of the limits of the power of persuasion and its haphazard effects than of the author's abilities.
I can't stand sales pitches.
It's gotten to where I find something cynical to say about every TV commercial I watch, even the story lines in TV shows. People have told me how cynical I am, but I feel like I have to fight against this seething mass of industrial psychology that's shoved onto us at every opportunity.
Why don't they teach this stuff in school, so we can be educated enough to make it go away?
I'm wondering if this kind of despair hits anyone else here on slashdot. Does being a code geek create a greater sense of distance between ourselves and the external influences on our lives, so that it bothers us that much more when we're fed a sales pitch?
In a professional sense I am just taking a bribe to buy their widgets for production
Seriously, though, how can his tricks work if you know what he is doing?
What is the mechanism with which he is able to circumvent your logic?
NLP is a rudimentary form of hypnosis.
If you can find a early 'Grinder and Bandler' book to skim through you will get the best examples out there.
There's an element of groupthink in that idea too -- that if others are doing it, so should I. They don't wield the con-man kind caliber of persuasion this book seems to favor, but they play on the idea that you'll be smarter, more attractive and a better person if you buy their brand. People will build emotional affinity with a company vastly out of proportion with the usefulness of that company's products.
I think discerning readers who read both will get a better idea of one of the problems of our times: if we turn on, tune in and veg out, someone is going to try to take advantage.
I know this site doesn't go into as much depth as a book could, but it's a good start. I honestly think that this material should be the basis of a required course in high school, or at least interwoven into english and/or history courses. The widespread use of propaganda is perhaps the greatest threat to democracy today.
When I was in college, I lived in a really cheap apartment. I don't know if they somehow aimed for the neighborhood, but my phone and mailbox were constantly bombarded with every scam imaginable. Maybe the previous residents collectively got that address on all the wrong mailing lists, I don't know.
Anyway, this one called me up and offered me a $50 gift certificate (to Wal*mart!) if I just saw some presentation. Easy $50, I figured. And I'm certainly too strong and smart too buy into one of these deals.
Anyway, my usual bad habit of arriving aggregriously late worked in my favor, and I wasn't let in to see the "main presentation". Instead, I was moved directly to a salesman who would work on individual prospects after they had seen the main presentation and not decided to buy.
And, I have to say, it was weird -- I really did start to feel a tiny but persuaded. The salesman told me that the offer was just for me, just for now, and that strangely made me not want to miss out on it. Of course, a totally different part of my brain told me that was why it had to be complete bullshit -- which I wisely listened to.
Still, I'll always remember that weird feeling I had, despite my best intentions and clear good sense contradicting it, so that perhaps if I ever feel it again I'll know for sure to discount it at all costs.
When someone tries to convince you of something they usually come at it with a million little assumptions in their head about what your arguments are going to be and what their counters are. The best way to totally de-rail someone trying to convince you of something is, to use their own assumptions against them. Destroy all the preconceptions they have and they'll be so confused that you're likely to gain the upper hand.
sales enders I've used:
"Don't you want to save money?"
"No, I'm not really concerned with my budget."
"Please vote for candidate X."
"I don't believe in voting."
"Everyone should vote!"
"Oh yeah, tell me why."
"Who makes the decisions you or your girlfriend?"
"I let her decide every single aspect of my life. I'm basically just a pathetic sycophant."
Try them out, at least it will spice things up a bit!
Robert Cialdini who, like Levine, is a social psychologist
I think the best advice is, if you are in university, to take a Social Psychology course. If you don't have the prerequisites or don't want to do the homework, just sneak into the lecture hall (like I did). It's facinating stuff.
I've tried NLP (Ross Jeffries), double your dating, and U.S.S. (Undercover Sex Signals), and I've found U.S.S. to be the best of the bunch. And as far as I can tell, the only one that actually works. U.S.S. By Leil Lowndes is the only "how to date hot chicks" manual based on actual experiments in psychology. Though the others claim to be, I haven't found any evidence. The gist of U.S.S. is that there are certain signals a woman gives off when she is interested in a man. The goal of U.S.S. is to learn those signals and some other science of love, and you will never be rejected again. This is also the only one who's writer/creator also has a version for women, "How to make anyone fall in love with you". Though it's not completely woman centric, it's the closest. Here are the amazon links: U.S.S. How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You I've tried "Double Your Dating" but I've found it to not be much better than most anything out there on dating. David DeAngelo seems to have tried to use the persuasion science of Cialdini, but as you get further into the material, you realize it's all about numbers. Though the numbers game does work, it really isn't a good self esteem builder. Especially for those most likely to be reading about dating on slashdot. If you want to see for yourself, check out doubleyourdating.com. The last on the list is the worst of the bunch. Speed Seduction based on NLP (neurolinguistic programming) by Ross Jeffries is the closest thing to a cult that I have ever been associated with. A friend of mine introduced me to Speed Seduction, and for about 3 years I tried everything I could to get it to "work", before I finally figured out it didn't. I saw many examples of when it didn't "work" and few examples of when it did, but I never could get myself out of that cult mindset. I didn't move beyond Speed Seduction until I read "Influence the Psychology of Persuasion" by Cialdini, and realized that NLP is all but worthless. If you want to learn about cults, Speed Seduction or any NLP training course is the way to go (beware the "You're just doing it wrong" trap). Otherwise, don't waste your money. Speed Seduction could be found at www.seduction.com To sum it up: Leil Lowndes = science David DeAngelo = wannabe science Ross Jeffries = Jim Jones