Reading people
Influence
Triggers
Influence (1984 · Robert Cialdini) — Triggers.
What actually happened?
A jewellery shop in Arizona could not shift a tray of turquoise. On her way out of town the owner scribbled a note to her assistant telling her to halve the price on everything in the case. She came back to find the whole lot sold. The assistant had misread the note and doubled the prices instead. Customers who knew nothing about turquoise had used the only rule available to them, expensive means good, and the trigger produced the purchase with no thinking in between. A great deal of human decision-making works like that.
Reciprocity
A gift creates an obligation to repay. Take something from somebody, even something you did not want, and refusing their next request becomes difficult. The free sample, the opening concession in a negotiation, the unprompted kindness: all of them are switching on the same rule, and the initiative belongs to whoever moves first.
The supermarket tasting stand is not there for the taste. The counter-question is whether you want this, or want it because they gave you something.
Commitment and consistency
People stay in line with what they have already said and done, because contradicting it means contradicting themselves. Once a position has been stated in public, backing out costs more than going through with it. This is why a public commitment is one of the most reliable ways to change behaviour.
A trainer who gets you to announce your goal to friends is using it. On the evening you do not want to go, consistency does the pushing.
Social proof, authority, scarcity
If everybody is doing it, it is probably right, which is a sound shortcut most of the time and the engine of every panic and bubble. Authority is the same shortcut applied to expertise, and the appearance of authority is easy to fake while the competence is not. Scarcity says harder to get means more wanted.
Research shows is the authority switch. Only three places left is the scarcity one. Ask whether the expert is speaking inside their field, and whether the thing is still worth having once the deadline passes.
Liking
We are persuaded more easily by people we like, and attractiveness, similarity, familiarity and flattery all raise the odds. You buy what a friend recommends not because your friend has better judgement than a stranger, but because you like your friend.
The first lesson in sales training is find something in common. The check is whether you are accepting the argument or the person making it.
How do I use it today?
Before your next purchase, investment or significant decision, name the trigger that is pushing it. Reciprocity, because they gave you something? Social proof, because everyone is in? Scarcity, because it closes on Friday? Naming it is enough to pause it, and then you can put your own judgement back in its place.
Deep read
Read alongside
Further
Lines to keep
The best defence is to slow down and ask why you are deciding this.