
To influence people don't try to persuade them, use ‘pre-suasion’ instead - jrs235
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-cialdini-presuasion-20161023-snap-story.html
======
hammock
"Pre-suasion" is another word for priming.[1] Incidentally, priming is one of
the most prominent areas of social science that was once considered solid, but
has now become under increased scrutiny due to failed replications.[2][3]

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_(psychology)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_\(psychology\))
[2][http://www.chronicle.com/article/Power-of-
Suggestion/136907/](http://www.chronicle.com/article/Power-of-
Suggestion/136907/) [3][http://psych.stanford.edu/~michael/papers/Ramscar-
Shaoul-Baa...](http://psych.stanford.edu/~michael/papers/Ramscar-Shaoul-
Baayen_replication.pdf)

~~~
tpeo
And it has the potential to fail catastrophically for the guy doing this, too.

Can anyone still take the other side in a negotiation (or any other situation,
really) seriously if it becomes know that they're trying to pull this parlor
trick? Whoever is found out doing this would seem both ridiculous and
repellent.

Like a pickup artist.

~~~
unoti
> Can anyone still take the other side in a negotiation (or any other
> situation, really) seriously if it becomes know that they're trying to pull
> this parlor trick?

That's why it's so important to know about these things. Once armed with
knowledge, it becomes a parlor trick. If you don't know about the techniques,
then you're playing at a disadvantage.

I read the author's previous book on influence[1] and it was rigorously
researched with confirmable studies. Well worth reading, since it surveys a
wide variety of mind hacks people play on us across 8 or so broad categories.
It changed the way I thought about all kinds of situations I routinely
encounter.

[https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Practice-Robert-B-
Cialdini/...](https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Practice-Robert-B-
Cialdini/dp/0205609996/)

~~~
apathy
> confirmable

But were they indeed confirmed? This is the problem that keeps cropping up.
Sometimes I wonder if believing in findings from the psychological literature
isn't a disadvantage. Knowing about them is good -- you can pick up on the
chumps who actually believe them. But believing them?

It's not at all clear to me that uncritical acceptance of these studies is
ever a good idea. The response of senior investigators shrilly decrying
"methodological terrorism" when their small-sample findings fail to replicate
does little to increase confidence in said findings (or, indeed, the field as
a whole).

nb. In no way is this confined to psychology. It's just more rampant there, to
judge by the foundational manner in which the field has been shaken up. Nobody
doubts that PCR works or that iPSCs can be induced, because the experiments to
replicate the results are relatively trivial. But the nature of psychological
research seems to make such exercises very difficult, to the point that
individuals "take it on faith" that an effect is real (as opposed to assuming
it's wrong and running a quick experiment to show that the next year or two of
their life won't be wasted). Maybe we're just more cynical in bench-based
disciplines?

~~~
unoti
> But were they indeed confirmed? This is the problem that keeps cropping up.

The book is carefully researched and exquisitely footnoted. Can you cite
something specific that you have a problem with in the book? I'm curious if
you have even read this book or if you just stating a more general concern
about people who do me publish research.

~~~
apathy
I can't quite understand your last sentence -- I publish, as do most
academics, so that can't be it. But Cialdini is the "pre-suasion" guy, and
that one has certainly failed to replicate. So I guess I have a prior
skepticism about anything from a standard textbook publisher covering similar
topic. I've found too many errors in exercises, etc. to believe that their
editors are doing much of a job; it's a drag when you're teaching a stats
methods class and the book questions have major numeric errors so you can't
use it for homework. What's the purpose of the book at that point?

Next time I teach (actually the past few as well) I'm not going to bother with
a textbook. Go pull these primary research articles, pull the data, and see if
the methods were used correctly. The end.

As previously, I've had some surprised looks when students did this with
biological data sets. It's not like psychology is some rogue's gallery; it's a
widespread problem. Only solution is to verify results before building upon
them.

------
jwtadvice
I am reminded of the DoD funded paper out of UCLA on using MRIs to aide in the
production of Middle Eastern focused, Pentagon directed social media
propaganda using "pre-suasion" [1].

The paper states that three general categories of tactic are used to "pre-
suade" civilians that may be otherwise on the lookout because they think
someone may be trying to influence them (in which case cognitive defense
mechanisms come into play).

The paper summarizes that a few techniques can be used in an attempt to
circumvent active and alert defenses:

1\. "affirmation" \- attaching your message to something that the target wants
to affirm or reaffirm and including your new information along with old
information.

2\. "resource depletion" \- providing so much information or stimulation or
messaging that the target is 'exhausted' of trying to resist the message and
relaxes into coping with it.

3\. "narrative persuasion" \- masking the message or information in a story
with which the target self-identifies, therein allowing the message to seem
like legitimate material to the target.

[1] [http://minerva.dtic.mil/doc/samplewp-
Lieberman.pdf](http://minerva.dtic.mil/doc/samplewp-Lieberman.pdf)

~~~
rossdavidh
All interesting, and perhaps accurate, except the very case mentioned, U.S.
ability to influence opinion in the Middle East, is a good example of the
limitations. I would not call our situation with regard to popular opinion in
the Middle East in the last few years an unqualified success. Sometimes other
things matter a lot more then your "pre-suasion". I think in a lot of cases
these sorts of techniques get called in too late, and asked to do too much, to
rescue a PR disaster.

------
jonathanstrange
The problem with all this nudging and using of biases to influence people is
that it is hardly better than spicing their drinks with drugs to make them
more complacent and willing to agree.

In my personal experience, being honest and reasonable, sticking to the facts
and presenting good arguments have worked better _in the long run_ than any
eristic tricks. It depends, though, there are some fields where arguments do
not really count and people are fairly irrational anyway, so I don't want to
condemn these methods in general. Just as a tendency, it seems better to take
other people seriously rather than only as allies or antagonists and as mere
means to an end.

~~~
user5994461
You can't compare that. Drugs is easier to use, doesn't require training, and
works all the time.

~~~
a3n
Drugs in someone's drink doesn't scale. Except tap water, I guess, but large
conspiracies are hard to hide.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_controversy...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_controversy#Communist_conspiracy_theory_.281940s.E2.80.931960s.29)

~~~
MichaelMoser123
I never got it that Jack Ripper and bis bodily fluids in Dr Strangelove were
meant to be a reference to anti fluoridation campaigners

~~~
firethief
> Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot
> we have ever had to face.

------
tgb
You might notice that this is, in fact, an promotion for the author's book. If
it manages to persuade you to buy it, then we can say that he's a reliable
source of information on persuasion, since he successfully persuaded you. If
he didn't, then good job avoiding this snake-oil meta-salesman, how could you
trust him if he couldn't even sell a book? Either way, well done, you have
made the correct choice!

~~~
dingbat
Cialdini is a salesman with credentials who's spent most of his time studying
good salesmen and selling other salesmen on the idea of learning how to sell
better.

At the end of his big bestseller Influence, he goes into a long-winded
moralization about how he hopes his work helps people resist the terrible
influence of immoral salesmanship... for example by being mindful of the
"secret weapons" of Social Proof and Authority and Scarcity.

of course, he writes this in a book (a NATIONAL BESTSELLER as it says on the
cover) that is literally covered in testimonials and promotional blurbs from
"thought leaders" with credentials, mainstream publications like HBR and
Fortune, praising Cialdini, PHD for revealing "little known secrets of Master
Influencers" yada yada yada.

~~~
paulryanrogers
Reminds me of the proverb about letting others praise you and not praising
yourself. Though seems quite mixed when you echo the praise of others.

------
kbenson
I think an important offshoot of this is to use specific language and ideas
prior to your argument not to necessarily influence someone to the coming
argument against their better judgement, but to actually _free them to use
accurate judgement_.

I have no idea if it works, but I often try to lead gently into my arguments
here. I try not to make too many assumptions about what the reader will think
about the prerequisites for my argument, and so go through my assumptions
about them and why I believe them, and then present my actual argument. It's
my hope this somewhat softens the natural tendency to ignore evidence and
claims counter to their own beliefs by presenting supporting evidence they
might agree with _first_. This is a simple concept and one I'm sure many
people use, whether they are specifically working around what they see as a
deficit of human rationality like me, or just because they think it's
effective (if it is!).

What I think is important about this is that it's an example of how we can use
our cognitive biases for good. We can pit them against each other to open
ourselves up to the more rational sides of our minds. It's important we don't
associate all forms of manipulating our minds through presentation negatively
through labeling. It's easy to say it's manipulation, and manipulation is bad,
but that's just falling prey to another one of our cognitive biases, where we
group similar things, and transfer attributes between them, whether they apply
or not. It's very important we as a specifies learn from our weaknesses, and
try to mitigate them, not just paper over them like they aren't there. I think
the future is bleak if we don't.

~~~
pointernil
I don't know if you used the technique on your own post but I find my self
strongly agreeing with it ;)

Every technique, every tool, every idea can used for "good" and "bad". A
problem I see is the massively overpowered tendency of the personal gains
seekers and market winners and profit hunters to engross and harmfully misuse
_everything_ for their gains. It makes me seek to discover how helpful and
constructive ideas/techniques are violated (bcos they are only very shallowly
understood) and used _against_ people. Quite often I find this has to do we
the ethics an area is entertaining. So therapists, social workers f.e. will
use those tools differently and in a more constructive way than ppl. in the
Biz-World bound only to "Biz-Ethics".

------
davemabe
This is also referred to as "priming" which researchers have repeatedly failed
to replicate.

See: [http://psych.stanford.edu/~michael/papers/Ramscar-Shaoul-
Baa...](http://psych.stanford.edu/~michael/papers/Ramscar-Shaoul-
Baayen_replication.pdf)

~~~
mattkrause
"Priming" covers a lot of ground. At one end of the spectrum, there are fairly
straightforward lexical priming effects. You can recognize the
(scrambled/faint/etc) word "Banana" faster if you've been previously primed to
think about fruit. These effects are pretty robust (at least as far as I know)
and are fairly consistent with some models of memory.

At the other end of the spectrum are these embodied cognition experiments that
fall back on "priming" as an explanation. For example, people allegedly walk
more slowly after being primed with words related to old age, or view others
as being more "warm" if the subject hands them a hot beverage. These typically
do not replicate well and tend to fall back on vague, handwavey theories.

------
iainmerrick
This reminds me of Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow", which is
terrific but probably oversells some of the research results.

Anyone know how well this new psychology stuff is surviving the replication
crisis in the humanities?

Edit to add: less charitably, it also reminds me of Scott Adams' rambling blog
posts about Donald Trump. Adams has persuaded himself that this persuasion
stuff is like magic, and applies it to everything he sees. It's the new
astrology.

~~~
mmastrac
I'm pretty sure Scott Adams is mentally unraveling with all the mental
gymnastics he's going through projecting an image that he's not a Trump
supporter.

~~~
DominikR
In all fairness you have to say that the FBI contacted him because some of the
death threats he received were credible. (he lives in California which is
quite intolerant towards conservatives)

I also wouldn't act in a consistent way if I had to fear for my life.

------
csallen
If you're at all interested in psychology and the human mind, I highly
recommend Cialdini's earlier book, Influence. It has some absolutely amazing
insights into how people persuade and influence each other, and is one of the
few non-fiction books I've read several times.

~~~
iainmerrick
This article certainly seems to be pre-suading people to buy Cialdini's
books...!

~~~
ph0rque
I hacked the system... by checking it out at my local library instead of
buying the book :)

------
JoeAltmaier
Odd thesis. Whatever comes before will influence how people perceive what
comes after. Uses example of seeing clouds or coins; then buying a sofa. Those
that saw soft things, bought softer sofas. Hm. I'm having trouble imagining
how they measured that.

Then the opposite example is used - a queen says "I have a weak body but" and
then excites the troops to battle. How is that similar? Its the opposite. They
'explain' it by suggesting the truthfulness of the initial statement
establishes the truthfulness of the following statements. Very meta.

This sounds weak. Either 'pre-suasion' works one way or it doesn't? Which is
it? I don't think the OP understood what they were saying. In fact, I think
they made the whole thing up.

~~~
csallen
The "pre-suasion" in the Queen's case was to build trust (through disarming
honesty) before attempting to convince the troops to believe in her strength.

The basic idea is that you shouldn't just jump right into the message you're
trying to deliver, but first prime your audience to hear it. There are many
ways to do this, not just one.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
You said that better than the OP. In fact the OP opened with an example that
didn't explain it at all. They oversold the gimmick - 'like begets like!' Then
they contradicted that.

For a person who's supposed to be convincing me about the right way to
convince, they did an awful job.

------
wppick
What I'm about to say is pretty hand-wavy (pre-suasion), but this concept of
pre-suasion is important for when you are interviewing, or being interviewed
for a job. Let's say you are interviewing someone for a position in your
company, and you don't have an exact job description and set of requirements
for that role; you are just looking to hire someone "good". That person can
actually pre-suade you into overvaluing some skill, or aspect of their skill
set that they want you to focus on. They can frame the argument in your mind
as to whether you want to hire them on not based on an argument of their
choosing. For example, they can make the argument in your mind that they are a
fast developer, then the internal argument in your mind becomes whether they
are truly fast or not, and if you are convinced that they are fast, then they
become much more likely to be hired by you. This is not the best example, but
it's a common sales tactic called "framing" the argument.

~~~
wrsh07
This is an area where being decent at deflecting into a personal area of
expertise can be really effective.

And sometimes it doesn't require a deflection - if someone asks me about my
favorite data structure, it's easy to go on for fifteen minutes about the
beauty and utility of either union-find or Voronoi diagrams.

------
DominikR
The author of the article is according to Scott Adams (author of the Dilbert
comic strips) currently consulting for Hillary Clintons campaign. It will be
interesting to see on 9th of November if his strategy worked or not.

------
philipodonnell
> ... before the description of strengths, he declared with characteristic
> sincerity that what he was about to assert was “what I would say to my
> family today if they asked me about Berkshire’s future.”. The result was a
> flood of favorable reaction to the letter ... as well as a per-share
> increase for the year of nearly five times that of the S&P.

I like Buffet but this kind of mythologizing doesn't help anyone. The report
in question was the 2014 report
([http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2014ltr.pdf](http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2014ltr.pdf))
which is typically released in Feb of the following year (so early 2015).
BRK.A underperfomed the S&P500 in the following year.

BRK.A did outperform the S&P500 in 2014, but unless I'm missing something, the
author is attributing the performance in 2014 to the reaction to a letter
released in early 2015.

------
ph0rque
I'm about 2/3 of the way through "Pre-suasion". It's a bit of a chore; you can
definitely tell the author is an academic. But the content is a treasure
trove. I have a feeling I'll be referring to it again and again.

~~~
hoodwink
Have you also read Cialdini's timeless business classic _Influence_? If so,
which would you recommend I start with?

~~~
davidivadavid
The order isn't terribly important, especially since Cialdini revisits the
contents of _Influence_ in _Pre-suasion_.

If you want the best bang for your buck, _Influence_ has a higher idea/page
ratio. It's still a pretty bad ratio — Cialdini isn't the best writer, and the
accumulation of anecdotes gets boring quickly, and you can get most of the
substance by looking at a couple blog articles about the 6 "weapons of
persuasion."

It's important to also note that all of his theories are built on shaky
ground, but it's a useful inspiration source of A/B testing ideas if you're
revamping a landing page or something similar.

~~~
ph0rque
Thanks for the suggestion to read blog articles about the six weapons of
persuasion, davidivadavid. Any that you recommend as especially insightful?

I do wish I could find a good summary of Pre-suasion... maybe I'll have to
write one when I am done.

~~~
davidivadavid
Here's an example of a fairly good/"actionable" summary:
[http://conversionxl.com/how-to-use-cialdinis-6-principles-
of...](http://conversionxl.com/how-to-use-cialdinis-6-principles-of-
persuasion-to-boost-conversions/)

NB: Might not be what you're looking for if you're more interested in the
research behind it.

~~~
vorg
> you can get most of the substance by looking at a couple blog articles about
> the 6 "weapons of persuasion."

> Here's an example of a fairly good/"actionable" summary

davidivadavid just gave a demo here of "pre-suation" in action. First,
suggesting looking at blog articles to find out more substance about the
topic, and then later (ph0rque may or may not be colluding with him), he gave
a reference to a specific article.

~~~
ph0rque
No collusion here, I genuinely wanted to know.

~~~
vorg
Then you've been pre-suaded.

------
munificent
I like to know about these kinds of tricks so that it is harder for people to
use them against me. But I would hate to find myself using them against
another person. It's dishonest and disrespectful.

My guideline is pretty simple: Would I be upset if someone used this tactic on
me? If so, I shouldn't use it either.

------
pjc50
See also "push polling".
[http://researchmethodsdataanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/le...](http://researchmethodsdataanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/leading-
questions-yes-prime-minister.html)

------
415Kathleem
I think the keys to winning people over are pretty simple, right? Kindness,
authenticity, and making a good case for yourself (or whatever you're trying
to persuade them on). People really don't respond well to any kind of
manipulation tactic- you may find yourself winning the battle, but losing the
war. I think if people can tell that you're owning a weakness in an authentic
way, and then presenting a strength in an equally authentic way, that can be a
good persuasion technique. However, if you're just bs'ing people to win them
over, they will sense it, and you will fail.

------
elitro
I haven't read his book, but if anyone is curious on these experiments, you
can read more on the following books (In fact, the article seems a mash of
both of them):

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking - The author mentions
experiments where people exposed to more agressive or relaxed interactions can
react differently and many other situations (similar to the money/cloud
backgrounds examples).

How to Win Friends and Influence People - Describes interaction strategies to
avoid conflicts and create trust (such as the letter example).

------
gdulli
The thing is, you never know when someone is going to see through it and lose
respect for you for using a tactic that's more transparent than you think.

~~~
paulpauper
agree. people hate being 'sold'

~~~
burgreblast
People LOVE being sold things/ideas they agree with. e.g. How many people tune
into to Apple's product announcements?

People don't like rasping attempts to change their mind.

The key to selling is that it should never feel like "sales", as the listener
understands it.

Many here will argue that Apple's announcements aren't really selling, they're
informative, exciting, useful, keep one abreast of the latest, useful to know
in the space. etc. That's perfectly executed selling: I'm _not_ being pitched.
I'm deciding on my own that this fits my wants and needs.

------
MarkMc
> Those who saw the soft clouds were more likely to prefer soft, comfortable
> sofas for purchase

Oh yeah? _How much_ more likely? And with what confidence interval?

------
paulpauper
I'm skeptical this persuasion stuff works
[http://greyenlightenment.com/behavioral-psychology-and-
influ...](http://greyenlightenment.com/behavioral-psychology-and-influence)

people are always looking for shortcuts and life hacks to get what they want,
and I wish it were that easy

------
known
Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), Narcissism
(egotism and self-obsession), Psychopathy (the lack of remorse and empathy),
Sadism (pleasure in the suffering of others)

------
vsloo
The practice of influencing people can easily be misinterpreted with
negativity. Pre-suasion or priming are both about understanding and reading
people better, anticipating what they need/want before they want so you can
plant a seed. We work with tons of customers and our customer service team is
trained to influence them just so they can have a more positive experience. We
wrote about it here too: [http://bit.ly/2eykG3f](http://bit.ly/2eykG3f)

~~~
klodolph
Using a link shortener on HN is not necessary, and it makes the people here
less likely to click. We're a tough crowd. Do you have a direct link?

~~~
hathawsh
Here you go: [https://betterthansure.com/training-customer-service-to-
be-m...](https://betterthansure.com/training-customer-service-to-be-master-
influencers-8449ef40a52d)

~~~
marcosdumay
Thanks. I'm one of those people that wouldn't click on your previous link.

Your site seems overall interesting.

~~~
hathawsh
To clarify, it's not my site. I'm just a passerby who clicked the tiny URL so
others wouldn't have to. :-)

------
Xeiliex
Thus I have practiced learning if our inaction is genuine and how to spin you
off if it isn't.

------
albertTJames
I have never thought of reading Cialdini's blog.. ! I am not surprised he
lives in LA ! ;)

------
MrPatan
A quote from the book (Pre-suasion)

"Taylor reports that she knew then, without a single piece of data yet
collected, that her experiment would be a success because the rehearsal had
already produced the predicted effect—in her."

This is why psychologists are being laughed out of science.

