“Pre-suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade” by Robert Cialdini
This is a sequel to Robert Cialdini’s phenomenal book “Influence.” While in the first book Cialdini laid out the formula to successfully persuade people, in this book he shows how top communicators prime an audience’s attention to make them more receptive before a request or persuasion is even made.
As Cialdini remarks, “The basic idea of pre-suasion is that by guiding preliminary attention strategically, it’s possible for a communicator to move recipients into agreement with a message before they experience it. The key is to focus them initially on concepts that are aligned associatively with the yet-to-be-encountered information.”
It is a bit like the analogy of farming, where we prepare the soil before planting the seed: Firstly by directing attention to our subject; and secondly by priming and anchoring using subtle cues in language, imagery, or physical environment. And there are 6 triggers that can achieve this:
- Self-relevant: People naturally tune in to anything mentioned about them. Asking someone if they are “adventurous” before pitching a new product for adventure makes them far more likely to say yes to match that self-image.
- The unfinished: Cliffhangers, open loops, or incomplete tasks stay active in the mind until they are resolved.
- The mysterious: Unexplained puzzle or phenomenon creates an immediate urge to seek closure.
- The different: Anything different or unexpected breaks through the mental clutter and commands instant focus.
- The threatening: Cues involving threat, danger, or potential loss trigger evolutionary survival instinct. This action can only work if paired with a solution.
- The sexual: Romantic or sexual imagery grab attention quickly.
The book then uses stories to illustrate how people use these triggers in real life: a story involving the psychology of palm reading, a funny occurrence during Queen Elizabeth II’s jubilee, a “helpful person” mall survey, fire-alarm salesman, the story of Elizabeth I at Tilbury when pre-suading her troops that a woman can lead them, reciprocity between CIA and Afghan leaders, Warren Buffett’s shareholder letter, George W. Bush’s media manipulation during war in Iraq by embedding journalists to cover the troops’ activities, among many others, even spilling how his “genius” colleague prepares for exams. And of course as a true psychological researchers Cialdini fills the book with abundance of psychological experiments.
From these stories, Cialdini identifies the actionable ways to frame interactions before making the request, including:
- Ask leading questions: Phrasing a question positively activates anchoring bias or confirmation bias. Questions such as “are you unhappy with the current service” or “do you want to lose weight?”
- Ask for advice rather than opinion: Asking someone for their opinion will make them step back and evaluate you critically, while asking for advice puts them in a collaborative approach and creates a sense of partnership.
- Use high anchors: Mentioning a large, playful number before revealing our actual fee will make the real price look modest by comparison.
- Show vulnerability to build trust: Admitting a minor flaw early on will establish honesty and makes our subsequent claims more trustworthy.
Furthermore, later in the book Cialdini introduces a 7th principle in this book, which complements the 6 principles of influence from his previous book (reciprocity, commitment, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity). The 7th principle is: Unity. Unity is about sharing a deep sense of “us” through the same background, family, race, religion, country, language, or shared struggle. Inviting others to collaborate on an idea, therefore, also fosters a sense of shared identity, which increase their support for the outcome.
All in all, this is another masterpiece on the psychology of influence by Cialdini; where pre-suasion (or priming) is about grabbing sympathy, establishing trust, timing a request, reciprocity, framing the right question (positively or negatively), directing focus, exposing guilt, fitting stimuli to a goal, creating mystery, using clarity and humor, talking the same language, having a catchy name, setting up an ambience in the room with music or scent, etc….. before we even begin the persuasion.
