"Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert B. Cialdini

• The principles—consistency, reciprocation, social proof, authority, liking, and scarcity.
• A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason.
• People simply like to have reasons for what they do.
• In fact, automatic, stereotyped behavior is prevalent in much of human action, because in many cases it is the most efficient form of behaving, and in other cases it is simply necessary.
• We too have exploiters who mimic trigger features for our own brand of automatic responding.
• Earlier we suggested that the power of the reciprocity rule is such that by first doing us a favor, strange, disliked, or unwelcome others can enhance the chance that we will comply with one of their requests.
• Although the obligation to repay constitutes the essence of the reciprocity rule, it is the obligation to receive that makes the rule so easy to exploit.
• There is a strong cultural pressure to reciprocate a gift, even an unwanted one; but there is no such pressure to purchase an unwanted commercial product.
• Once a stand is taken, there is a natural tendency to behave in ways that are stubbornly consistent with the stand.
• Set a goal and write it down.
• Public commitments tend to be lasting commitments.
• Whenever one takes a stand that is visible to others, there arises a drive to maintain that stand in order to look like a consistent person.
• We view a behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.
• As a rule, we will make fewer mistakes by acting in accord with social evidence than contrary to it.
• The greater the number of people who find any idea correct, the more the idea will be correct.
• Because we like to look poised and sophisticated in public and because we are unfamiliar with the reactions of those we do not know, we are unlikely to give off or correctly read expressions of concern when in a grouping of strangers. Therefore, a possible emergency becomes viewed as a nonemergency, and the victim suffers.
• We most prefer to say yes to the requests of someone we know and like.
• The idea of potential loss plays a large role in human decision making.
• Because technology can evolve much faster than we can, our natural capacity to process information is likely to be increasingly inadequate to handle the surfeit of change, choice, and challenge that is characteristic of modern life.