The key ideas

Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive

Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, Robert Cialdini, 2008

An anti-theft sign in a national park was associated with more theft, while a second mint was associated with larger tips. Three persuasion researchers collected experiments in which a small change in words noticeably changed behavior. Six particularly striking techniques, with an honest look at their limits.

Who it is for

For anyone who needs to ask for things, negotiate, and explain at work or in life, and anyone who wants to notice how others persuade them.

Behind “many people do this bad thing” hides another, stronger message: “many people do it.”

What the book is about

A national park installed a sign intended to protect its petrified forest from thieves. Researchers reported more theft after the sign than with no sign at all. Why an honest request backfired will become clear on the second page.

Three authors tell this story: psychologists Noah Goldstein and Robert Cialdini and business persuasion specialist Steve Martin. Their book contains fifty short chapters, almost every one supported by an experiment. Its main idea: a request’s outcome can depend on small details of its wording.

Here are six particularly striking techniques. Each rests on a specific study, but a study reports results under particular conditions, not a guarantee that a technique will work for you every time.

Idea 1. Towels and previous room occupants

Many hotels display a bathroom card: “Reuse your towels; protect the environment.” The authors worked with a hotel to test whether the same thing could be said more persuasively.

Guests randomly received different cards. One carried the usual environmental message. Another said most hotel guests reused their towels. The authors report that the second card led guests to do so around twenty-six percent more often.

A third card then appeared: most guests who had stayed in this very room did so. It worked even better: guests reused their towels around thirty-three percent more often than with the usual card. Yet previous room occupants are no closer to you than other hotel guests, if you think about it. Cialdini calls this influence social proof.

Instead of “please submit reports on time,” a manager writes: “most of our department have already submitted their reports.”

When unsure what to do, we may look to people who were in a similar situation. The closer their situation is to ours, the stronger its influence may be.

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About the author

Robert Cialdini is an American social psychologist and author of the bestseller Influence. Noah Goldstein is a psychologist and persuasion researcher teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles business school. Steve Martin is a British consultant on applying persuasion science in business.

All books by this author: Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, Robert Cialdini

Terms from the book

  • social proof
  • Manipulation
  • Boomerang effect: An unwanted persuasion outcome: a message about the average can encourage those doing better than average to move toward it.
  • Reciprocity principle: The tendency to respond to what others have done for us. One of Cialdini’s main principles of influence.
  • Public commitment: A promise someone personally speaks or writes. In the authors’ model, wanting to remain consistent can encourage them to fulfill it.

All terms

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