Noah Goldstein - Yes!: 50 secrets from the science of persuasion

Surprising, provocative, fun Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist

Are there any nice little books I could buy as a present that wouldnt insult the recipients intelligence? Yes. Or rather Yes!Guardian

All the tips for getting a yes are inventive and intriguing Independent

The book is a treasure trove of information Yes! is a fascinating read and offers countless insights into the way consumers behave. The perfect Christmas present for any business man or woman Business Life

Jedi-like an entertaining guide to 50 tried and tested methods of persuasion Esquire

Rather a good read ... earnest and honest Evening Standard

You should read this book. You should read it because youll enjoy it; because its perfectly pitched for smart businesspeople; because its easy to dip into while waiting for a colleague or a plane; and because if you dont someone else is going to get one over you ... Charmingly practical ... the punchy, eager prose keeps things ticking along Octavius Black, co-author of The Mind Gym

Entertaining, eye-opening its all good stuff and very well presented Spiked.com

Serves up plenty of weird and wonderful case histories Sunday Express

YES!

50 secrets from the science
of persuasion

Noah J. Goldstein PhD, Steve J. Martin
and Robert B. Cialdini PhD

Contents

Theres an old joke that the comedian Henny Youngman would tell about his previous nights accommodation: What a hotel! The towels were so big and fluffy that I could hardly close my suitcase.

Over the last few years, however, the moral dilemma facing hotel guests has changed. These days, the question of whether to remove the towels from their room has been replaced by the question of whether or not to reuse the towels during the course of their stay. With the increasing adoption by hotels of environmental programmes, more and more travellers are being asked to reuse their towels, to help conserve resources, save energy and reduce the amount of detergent-related pollutants released into the environment. In most cases, this request comes in the form of a card placed in guests bathrooms.

These cards provide remarkable insights into the often secret science of persuasion.

With a nearly limitless array of angles to play and motivational strings to pull, what words should be put on the card to make the request most persuasive to the hotel guests? Before providing an answer, which well do in the first two chapters, lets first ask how the designers of the messages on these little cards typically encourage guests to participate in these programmes. A survey of the messages conveyed by dozens of request cards from a wide variety of hotels around the globe reveals that these cards most commonly attempt to encourage towel recycling efforts by focusing guests almost exclusively on the importance of environmental protection. Guests are almost invariably informed that reusing their towels will conserve natural resources and help spare the environment from further depletion and disruption. This information is often accompanied by eye-catching environment-related pictures, ranging from rainbows to raindrops to rainforests to reindeer, even.

This persuasion strategy generally seems to be an effective one. For example, one of the largest manufacturers of these signs reports that most hotel guests who have the chance to take part in these programmes do reuse their towels at least once during their stay. The level of participation produced by these signs can be seen as impressive.

Social psychologists, however, are often on the lookout for ways to apply their scientific knowledge to make policies and practices even more effective. Much like a roadside billboard that reads Place your ad here, these little towel recycling cards spoke to us, practically begging us to Test your ideas here. So we did. And, as well explain, we showed that by making a small change to the way the request is made, hotel chains can do much, much better.

Of course, how, precisely, one could go about enhancing the effectiveness of these types of environmental campaign is but a single issue. Much more broadly, were going to claim that everyones ability to persuade others can be enhanced by learning persuasion strategies that have been scientifically proved to be successful. As this book will reveal, small, easy changes to our messages can make them vastly more persuasive. We will report on dozens of studies, some conducted by us, some by other scientists, that demonstrate this point in many different settings. Along the way, we will discuss the principles behind these findings. Our central purpose is to provide the reader with a better understanding of the psychological processes underlying how we can influence others to move their attitudes or behaviour in a direction that results in positive outcomes for both parties. As well as presenting a variety of effective and ethical persuasion strategies, we discuss the types of things to watch out for to help you resist both subtle and overt influences on your decision-making.