The
Psychology of
Persuasion
October 18, 2004 - by
Robert E. Stevens, GENESIS II
(The
Second Beginning) E-Mail: views@aol.com
In 2000, Herb
Sorensen of Sorensen
Associates, recommended a book he thought I would find interesting. The
book is Influence
- The Psychology of Persuasion, written by Dr. Robert B.
Cialdini. Actually, Herb wanted to make sure I read the book, so he
sent
me a
copy. I read it in January of 2001 and found it interesting but I put
it
aside. However, during the past two years, my wife and I have been
involved in
four, large, fund-raising projects. This involvement and some of the
methods used
in the fund raising stimulated a renewed interest in Cialdini's book.
During
the past couple of days I have gone back and re-read the book. There
are a
number of topics in the book I plan to reference in future Views.
I did not get through the
Introduction of the
book before I found a concept deserving of repeating. It is not a new
concept
but one that was utilized somewhat differently from uses I have
experienced.
As a professor of
psychology at
Arizona State University, Dr Cialdini wanted to explore the factors
that cause
one person to say "yes" under one set of circumstances and
"no" when faced with the same request under a different set of
conditions. His first approach
was to conduct a series of experiments, as typical of college research,
among
students. It didn't take him long to realize that to fully understand
the
psychology of compliance, he needed to broaden his scope of
investigation. What
was impressive was "who" he decided to research and "where" he
decided to conduct his studies.
Rather than focusing on
the general
population, he decided to investigate, as he calls them, the
"compliance
professional." That meant that he was going to study the sales
operators,
fund raisers, recruiters, advertisers and others. His program, as he
called
it, was a "program of observation." Sound familiar? In other words,
get out from behind your desk and go into the real world to find out
what is
really happening. He not only researched the "compliance
professionals," but he even researched the practitioners' natural
enemies,
police bunco-squad officers, and consumer protection agencies. He not
only
collected and studied sales manuals and fund raising outlines, he
answered
newspaper ads for sales trainees and had them teach him their methods.
This book is loaded with
real world
examples and experiments. I highly recommend the book to anyone in
marketing as
well as those in fund raising. The book can be purchased through
amazon.com
for as little as $7.50.
Sponsor: Sorensen Associates Inc
Portland, OR: 800.542.0123
Minneapolis, MN: 888.616.0123
the
in-store research company™ -- Dedicated to the
relentless pursuit of WHY?