
Why Do People Say "Yes?" The "6 Weapons of Influence" - demandred
http://www.fripp.com/art.of_influence.html
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jgfoot
She is basically repackaging Aristotle's Rhetoric for modern business folk who
skipped that class in college. "Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the
spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal
character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain
frame of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the
words of the speech itself." To that, she has added various forms of bribery,
which aren't really forms of persuasion.

Read the original here: <http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/rhetoric.html>

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jonmc12
This article does not do the book/author justice. Buy, 'Influence, the
Psychology of Persuasion'. Quick read, and it is one of the best books you
will ever read on marketing and human behavior.

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msluyter
I'll second that, and it goes beyond mere marketing. For example, you're
outside at some group event, say, a concert, and you find yourself having a
heart attack. What do you do? Do you call for help? "Help, I'm having a heart
attack!" That might work, but what works better, according to research, is to
call out to a single individual. "You, sir, in the red shirt, yes you! Help
me, I'm having a heart attack." This is due to the phenomenon known as
"pluralistic ignorance," where a group of people will collectively do nothing
in response to some threat/problem, because they're collectively looking
around at each other to see what to do (and they see each other doing nothing
but looking around...) By singling out someone, you break through the group
psychology.

The book emphasizes the subconscious and automatic nature of influence
techniques. You may think "oh, I'm rational and can't be manipulated," and you
would be wrong. Only becoming aware of them can you have some hope of avoiding
them.

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Harkins
Lousy article. Where's the "because it's in their best interest" option?
Sometimes people say yes because they think they're getting a good deal, not
because you've used psuedo-psychology to twist their arm.

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stcredzero
People do act rationally. But it's a small minority of the time!

Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration. We tend to act rationally a lot of the
time. But those are often "no brainer" situations where there is little
question about the best option. The 6 factors in the article come in to play
when decisions are less clear.

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briancooley
I liked it better boiled down and including a story about a Persian rug.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=270145>

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yangyang42
check this one out too: theories about persuasion -
[http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/a_persuading....](http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/a_persuading.htm)

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Flemlord
This is a bad rehash of "The Power of Persuasion" by Robert Caldini. One of
the best sales books I've ever read.

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agentbleu
great article none the less

