Robert B. Cialdini Quotes

In large measure, we are with respect to any choice is we are, attentionally, in the moment before the choice.

The drop from abundance to scarcity produced a decidedly more positive reaction to the cookies than did constant scarcity.

The recipe for disharmony was quick and easy: Just separate the participants into groups and let sit for a while in their own juices.

The customers, mostly well-to-do vacationers with little knowledge of turquoise, were using a standard principle—a stereotype—to guide their buying: expensive = good.

So by my lights,

Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Or, at least, so goes a frequently heard quotation attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

We have all seen children of this sort, terribly shy, standing alone at the fringes of the games and groupings of their peers. O’Connor worried that a long-term pattern of isolation was forming, even...

Therefore, when children of different racial groups are thrown into the incessant, harsh competition of the standard American classroom, we ought to—and do—see hostilities worsen.

Automatic-pilot device, like social proof, should never be trusted fully;

Our attitude toward something has been influenced by the number of times we have been exposed to it in the past.

Responsibility. Those subjects facing the opponent who used the retreating strategy felt most responsible for the final deal.

There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking. With

The automatic, fixed-action patterns of these animals work very well the great majority of the time. For example, because only healthy, normal turkey chicks make the peculiar sound of baby turkeys, it...

Our ability to create change in others is often and importantly grounded in shared personal relationships, which create a pre-suasive context for assent. It’s a poor trade-off, then, for social influe...

To discover why canned laughter is so effective, we first need to understand the nature of yet another potent weapon of influence: the principle of social proof. It states that one means we use to det...

Revolutionaries are more likely to be those who have been given at least some taste of a better life.

Observers trying to decide what a man is like look closely at his actions.

But it comes down to this: in deciding whether a possibility is correct, people typically look for hits rather than misses;

Knowing what I now know, if I could go back in time, would I make the same choice?

During the Korean War, many captured American soldiers found themselves in prisoner-of-war (POW) camps run by the Chinese Communists. It became clear early in the conflict that the Chinese treated cap...