Reddit Reddit reviews Influence: Science and Practice (5th Edition)

We found 19 Reddit comments about Influence: Science and Practice (5th Edition). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Self-Help
Motivational Self-Help
Influence: Science and Practice (5th Edition)
Allyn Bacon
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19 Reddit comments about Influence: Science and Practice (5th Edition):

u/totem56 · 47 pointsr/AskReddit

This is going to get buried under the shitload of answers you are getting, but I hope you see this, or that it'll at least help someone else.

I've had this problem for a few months now : even hanging out with friends, I was losing the capacity of having a conversation. I started talking more and more about me, and the more I talked, the more I felt like a douche. So I took steps.
First, I started asking more questions about the stories people were telling, refraining myself to tell my side of the story, my view of the story, or just my story ('cause this behavior sucks ass). For a while, it was getting better, but it didn't feel natural.

After an evening at a friend's place, where we had a closeup magician doing a show, I realized that it was not only about what I was saying, it was about what I was thinking that made me feel like a douche. This guy, this magician, was so charming, so fucking captivating. It was my first time experiencing closeup magic, and I was just sold. After the show, I went and asked him how he was doing it. Not the magic tricks, but the social tricks. He told me that he read lots of books, and that basically, he was convincing himself before each show, to be who he needed to be. He was acting, he was playing a fucking nice guy who didn't give two shits about himself but only cared about others. And it caught on, became more natural. He mastered this skill, and went from doing magic shows all around the world (even Vegas) to giving conferences to leaders on how to be better managers.

After reading some of those books, and doing a bit of research, I understood what he was saying : Fake it until you make it. I actually discovered through some TED talks (amazing stuff) that you can fake it until you become it.

From my point of view, there's a couple of skills to master to become a good conversationalist. Body language is very important : to understand the body language of others to better adapt yours and be seen as non-threatening. You have to understand the science of influence, and how humans react to interactions with others. And to become a master at it : you have to be sincere. You can't fake honesty 100%. Somewhere along the way, your body language will screw you, or you'll slip and people will understand that you are faking it. That is why you have to become a character who doesn't fake it.

Here is the list of the books and videos I read/watched about those skills. Some where recommended on Reddit, others I just found them. The books are sorted by most important in my opinion. And even if I bought them (thrift or not), you can still find all of them online.

u/Marcus__Aurelius · 26 pointsr/videos

The social sciences show otherwise. For instance, it's one of the reasons why television shows employ laugh tracks (Cialdini, 2008).

u/druj85 · 24 pointsr/atheism

Hello love,

I am so proud of you for finding your way with so much is stacked against you. You won't be a minor forever, and it will get better. 14-18 is, given average life expectancy, less than 5% of your life. The large majority of your life is ahead of you :)

  • How did you come to be so reasonable/educated in an unreasonable/misinformed home? Keep doing it
  • You have access to the internet. Use it to learn. Set aside 1-2hrs a day for focused, dedicated education. Plan out topics (scientific method, evolution, statistics). You will need it to keep up with your unchained peers
  • You cannot reason with your religious elders
  • You cannot reason with your religious elders
  • You may be able to use the Catholic bible or dogmatic arguments to get what you need. But only if you do seem earnest. This will require conscious perspective-taking
  • Read books. Specifically, read this book if you can. Audible gives out one free audio book. If you can find an address where you can safely receive a package, I'll mail you a copy (never give your home address to internet strangers!!)

    Work backwards to create the behaviors you want:

  • Identify the behavior you need from your mom (ex: let me walk to the library).
  • Identify what you need your mom to believe to incentivize that behavior (ex: I will be safe, can be trusted to go where I say I'm going, and the library is where I can learn more about Jesus or something)
  • Map out actions you can take to push her toward that belief. For you, I suspect most of this will be arguments you can make, or can get others to make on your behalf (ex: 'mom, I had a dream where God told me to learn more about His word. I had a clear vision of the library. I feel His voice. He needs me to learn, and He promised to keep me safe while I fulfill his task.' ex: go as a group with your siblings for 'safety in numbers,' and bring home books about Jesus. Hide books about science and math and dragons and spaceships)

    Your environment is stifling. It can feel like a trap because you "can't" do anything about it. But you can do anything. You just need to understand and weigh the objective consequences against the cost of continuing to allow your environment to stifle you:

  • Your future depends, at least in today's world, on employability. One almost-mandatory path is an undergraduate degree. Tech is a very viable alternative. Do you like to code? Learn
  • Look into emancipation laws in your area. If you live in a small town, is your community also super religious? That may make things more difficult
  • Research, quantify, and consider your alternatives. Can you learn on your own without raising suspicion? Will you have college/career prospects staying at home? At what point will your future options begin to diminish because you're being stifled?
  • For now, ignore any personal attachment or feeling that you can't 'abandon' your family or especially your siblings. You need to put your oxygen mask on before helping others (if you haven't flown before, this is a safety thing that may seem counterintuitive. In the event of a loss of oxygen in the cabin, adults should put on their own oxygen masks before helping children. This 'feels' counterintuitive, but it's simply realistic. You can't help your child if you're passed out)
  • Weigh the tangible cost of upsetting/alienating your elders, outside of the emotional. Would they send you away to a conversion camp? Would your mother ever hurt you if she felt it would make you more Godly?
  • Find support, but be cautious and aware of people's incentives/motives, and use your intuition. If you ever feel unsafe, get away. Maybe I'm just being paranoid about Catholic priests...

    I'm rooting for you, angel
u/quietpua · 10 pointsr/seduction

Note: This was also discussed Cialdini's "Influence" book: http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Practice-Robert-B-Cialdini/dp/0205609996/

Worth a read too!

u/Rockstaru · 9 pointsr/technology

Relevant passage from Robert Cialdini's Influence: Science and Practice:

>It is easy to fault the tourists for their foolish purchase decisions, but a close look offers a kinder view. These were people who had been brought up on the rule, "You get what you pay for" and who had seen that rule borne out over and over in their lives. Before long, they had translated the rule to mean expensive = good. The expensive = good stereotype had worked quite well for them in the past, since normally the price of an item increases along with its worth; a higher price typically reflects higher quality. So when they found themselves in the position of wanting good turquoise jewelry but not having much knowledge of turquoise, they understandably relied on the old standby feature of cost to determine the jewelry's merits (Rao ~ Monroe, 1989).

>Although they probably did not realize it, by reacting solely to the price of the turquoise, they were playing a shortcut version of betting the odds. Instead of stacking all the odds in their favor by trying painstakingly to master each feature that indicates the worth of turquoise jewelry, they were counting on just one-the one they knew to be usually associated with the quality of any item. They were betting that price alone would tell them all they needed to know. This time, because someone mistook a '''/,'' for a "2," they bet wrong. In the long run, over all the past and future situations of their lives, betting those shortcut odds may represent the most rational approach possible.

>In marketing lore, the classic case of this phenomenon is that of Chivas Regal Scotch Whiskey, which had been a struggling brand until its managers decided to raise its price to a level far above its competitors. Sales skyrocketed, even though nothing was changed in the product itself (Aaker, 1991). A recent brain-scan study helps explain why. When tasting the same wine, participants not only rated themselves as experiencing more pleasure if they thought it cost $45 versus $5, their brain centers associated with pleasure became more activated by the experience as well (Plassmann et al., 2008).

u/samebody · 6 pointsr/cogsci

Robert Cialdini in his book Influence: Science and Practice (p164f) mentions that food makes people more relaxed and open to others opinions, that is why e.g. in politics votes are being swayed over dinners.
further he goes on:

> [Razran (1938 & 1940)] found that his subjects became fonder of people and things they experienced while they were eating.

So, I guess that makes a clear case: We like what we encounter while eating. And obviously if you add some romance, a bit of alcohol, nice music, pleasant conversation, good perfumes (& pheromones), and that people grow to like things more that they spend longer time with - dinners are a good first date. Maybe the principle of consistency also plays a role - once you commit to spending a dinner with someone you will try to justify to yourself that you did so, by 'inventing' more reasons. Additionally, the spending-dinner-together, especially if the less choosy partner (usually the male) pays might create a certain feeling of indebtedness that could also lead to further dates/actions.

But tbh I think there is too much (socially constructed) pressure and other first dates might be more valuable, e.g. a coffee (caffeine increases the heart rate, which in turn is often interpreted by the one experiencing it as physical arousal as reaction to the other person) with cake (sweet, pleasant + warm coffee = excellent creation of sympathy) that might be a better version.

I'm not sure where that is from, but there was a study indicating that couples that are rated as "not matching" by outsiders often met during emotional events - e.g. rollercoasters, concerts, ... take your date to some exciting place - that gives you endorphins and other fun hormones which create a stronger bonding.

u/MagnesiumCarbonate · 5 pointsr/weightroom

> People will grab a pirated copy of one of Jim's books, skim it real fast, screw up the program

The reverse is also true. Independently of the actual value of an object, people who spend x money on something will value it more than those who get it for x*[0,1). The reason is that people tend to think of themselves as consistent beings, so if they show they value something by spending money it, they want to keep arguing that it's actually valuable. Source.

u/Yxoque · 3 pointsr/Futurology

People are afraid because it's very scary. (Although people who first hear of it are probably scared because it's a new and weird idea.)

I'm not going to give the entire explanation again, but in this (recent) post, I outlined some of the dangers in self-improving artificial intelligence.

> I really cannot see any good reasoning behind fearing it!

Don't feel obligated to do it, but try and actually think about it for five minutes. There are plenty of good reasons to fear an intelligence explosion and you should be able to come up with them.

> Singularity is pretty much AI getting smarter than humans and taking over the world if u did not know

The Machine Intelligence Research Institute (which are pretty much the only people working on Friendly AI, as far as I know) are trying to introduce the phrase "intelligence explosion" for this particular singularity scenario. Others include nano-tech or computer-brain interfaces. Being conquered by aliens could also be seen as a singularity event.

> We are creating better "Humans". Sure robots are not humans, but they would be created by us and be our legacy as a race.

If you could choose between "humans uploaded into robot bodies" and "all humans are dead, but robots live on," what would be the best choice?

Robots aren't humans. Having a legacy means nothing to humans if they are all dead.

> we could never last!

We would never last in our current form. Human beings aren't (technically) limited to our frail bodies. Transhumanists want stronger, faster and smarter (and weirder) bodies for humans. There's no need to replace the human race with robots if you can just improve the robots.

> That is, even if it ever happens. So u probably do not have to worry about being killed by robots.

The earliest time-frame for an intelligence explosion is around 2040. This is unlikely and AGI is always predicted to be 30 to 40 years away. There is a fair chance longevity happens before AGI, which increases the chances that people reading this will live that long.

Plus, people can be worried about their descendants or just the future of the human race. I'm worried about extinction events because I care about the future of the human race, not just about myself.

> If there are mistakes srry... I am only 15.

One tip if you want to be more convincing: Work on your spelling. I didn't mind all that much, but it's something (relatively) easy to work on. If you want to be more convincing in general, try picking up a copy of [Influence, Science and Practice(http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Science-Practice-5th-Edition/dp/0205609996). This also doubles as a decent introduction to social psychology and human biases, which is always good to know.

And I'm also going to give you some more tips that aren't related to what you posted (I wish someone told me this when I was your age):

  • Try giving Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality a read. Giving your interest in things like AI, you might enjoy it and it could improve your life in the long run. (Just read the first ten chapters, if you don't like it after that it probably isn't for you.)
  • If you want to get a good knowledge base for thinking about things like this, the Sequences on Less Wrong are a good start. (A lot of it would have gone over my head when I was your age, but I would have understood a lot of important bits from it.)
  • You're at an age where you can still try a lot of things at relatively low cost. Now is the time to figure out your talents, so be sure to do lots of things so you can discover your talents.
  • And the most important thing someone could have told me when I was 15: Being intelligent is not enough. School won't teach you what you want or need to know. Seek out important knowledge for yourself and teach yourself how to learn things.

    If you have any questions (on the subject of this thread or otherwise), feel free to let me know.
u/Kailoi · 2 pointsr/aspergers

If you really truly want to learn how to human, and/or effectively interact or get things done. I highly recommend the book on influence and science education here.

http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Science-Practice-5th-Edition/dp/0205609996

u/ratjea · 2 pointsr/SocialEngineering

Newp. Amazon referral links always have "-20" somewhere in the link. The entire string will be something like "tag=repulsor-20" but scanning for the "-20" is easy.

Here's an Amazon tip for linkers, too. Everything after the long strong of numbers is fluff. So the OP's link, which starts as:

http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Science-Practice-5th-Edition/dp/0205609996/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377360710&sr=8-1&keywords=influence+science+and+practice

Also works as:

http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Science-Practice-5th-Edition/dp/0205609996

or even:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0205609996

But you don't really have to go that far.

This may also help avoid confusion regarding referrals.

u/kwitcherbichen · 2 pointsr/sysadmin

First, congratulations!

It's different work and while it's still technical it's now about people but it can be learned. Find a mentor who is not your boss. Seriously. It's good to have one or more advocates in the organization because there are limits to what "push" vs "pull" can achieve but it's their advice that you need to reduce your mistakes and effectively review them afterward.

I'll add to the book recommendations already here (The Phoenix Project, Team of Teams, Leaders Eat Last) and suggest:

u/julio26pt2 · 1 pointr/legaladvice

Friend, I don't normally recommend books to posters, but I'll make an exception here.

I read this book a few years ago and found it useful throughout my career. It's called "Influence" and it focuses on how to be persuasive. It may save you a lot of headaches in the future if you can learn today how to be influential tomorrow. Telling people to do something and using "because the CEO said to do it" is rarely going to make a positive impact.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0205609996/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Cheers!

u/colo90 · 1 pointr/intj

it came to my attention for a while (went through this, which contains much less "science" than what the cover might lead you to believe), but found that there was nothing that I really needed that other people could provide, so I moved on to other things.

u/thedreamerinallofus · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Copywriting is all based on psychology. You are gently, pushing all the trigger points that makes humans act in the manner which you want them to act. You are using words that brings out their inner desires and then you channel that desire into the products that you are trying to sell.

This book is a great book to read: https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Practice-Robert-B-Cialdini/dp/0205609996/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1O0SWRP4XCVJ7&keywords=influence+robert+cialdini&qid=1570820644&sprefix=influence%2Caps%2C169&sr=8-1

u/JarinJove · 1 pointr/islam

Human rights has been outlined by the UN declaration on Human Rights. Holding a person accountable would not be against human rights since they've likely violated someone else's personal liberty.

Morality is subjective and goes through lengthy processes of trial and error. Every single moral system that derived itself from a book that couldn't change with modernity has utterly failed.

Human reciprocity is an innate social norm within the human species and anthropologists and psychologists find it is universal in humanity. For a source on that, if you're interested. Moreover, according to Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm's work on human behavior from his book, humans have an innate drive towards submission to an in-group. The in-group is arbitrary though. It could be religion, but it could also be the nation-state, an ideal, a social group they're part of, and so forth. So, for my argument, it should be human rights and the ability to freely challenge all beliefs with an emphasis on evidence-based research.

I'm personally of the opinion that the Abrahamic faiths are especially harmful, I use to believe ardently in religious tolerance and I had believed New Atheists to be extreme in their arguments about how religion poisons everything, but then ISIS being a second-generation of terrorists, Catholic rape scandals stretching as far back as the 1870s all the way to our modern times, numerous other Christian groups having their own decades history of rape crimes only revealed last year, Zionists and other Jewish extremists supporting horrible policies that abuse Palestinian children, the resurgence of Christian fascism with horribly abhorrent physical attacks on innocent Muslim and Sikh civilians throughout the US, and the horrifying lived experiences of Ex-Muslims in Islamic majority countries has convinced me to become a strong proponent of Anti-Theism insofar as supernatural beliefs are concerned. I think religious culture is fine; but the supernatural beliefs are dangerous for human rights and must be thoroughly questioned and repudiated with strong critiques. I view Free Speech as non-violent resistance for said purpose in defense of human rights for all.

u/AGoodIntentionedFool · 1 pointr/everymanshouldknow

"Inlfuence" by Robert Cialdini

Take a look at the push and pull of the world around you.

http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Science-Practice-5th-Edition/dp/0205609996

"The Lord of The Rings" by JRR Tolkien

Every man should have ideals and legends to sustain him, and that's what these books have done for the men in my family.

George Orwell, you pick. His autobiographical stuff is plain heroic and brave. His fiction gives you a look at the 20th century and the way men treated each other in it.

u/LWRellim · 1 pointr/reddit.com

Go read Influence: Science and Practice to understand why so many people do the "us/we" thing...

Really they are to be pitied ... the poor things are just trying (desperately) to connect with something/anything that can give them a pseudo-self-esteem perception of success, however false or contrived or even non-existent their connection with it really is.

Basically the best response is to say (in your mind anyway, if you don't have the confidence/standing to say it out loud) something similar to what the OP's rage comic said... the whole "I'm not the one looking at other guy's arses in tight pants/shorts..." etc -- but rather than a voice of "rage" (which just plays into their game) -- to instead use a voice of humorous-pity (similar to the kind of voice one would use to say "well, that's nice dear" as praise for a 3 year old child who is proud of having make a "mud pie" or some scribble-drawing/finger-painting piece of "art" that looks like crap).

u/FockerCRNA · -1 pointsr/IAmA

I have two books for you to read:

Influence: Science and Practice

Republic Lost

They both lay out very good reasons for why downplaying the potential sway that dinners, parties, or other favors have on your behavior is not a good idea.