From the outset, Influence was designed for the popular reader, and as such, an attempt was made to write it in a nonacademic, conversational style. I admit to doing so with some trepidation that the book would be viewed as a form of “pop” psychology by my academic colleagues. I was concerned because, as the legal scholar James Boyle observed, “You have never heard true condescension until you have heard academics pronounce the word ‘popularizer.’” For this reason, at the time of the first writing of Influence, most of my fellow social psychologists didn’t feel safe, professionally, writing for a nonacademic audience. Indeed, if social psychology had been a business, it would have been known for having great research and development units but no shipping department. We didn’t ship, except to one another in academic journal articles that no one else was likely to encounter, let alone use.
Fortunately, although I decided to push ahead with a popular style, none of my fears has been realized, as Influence has not received disparagement on “pop” psychology grounds.1 Consequently, in subsequent versions, including the present one, the conversational style is retained. Of course, more importantly, I also present the research evidence for my statements, recommendations, and conclusions. Although the conclusions of Influence are illuminated and corroborated through such devices as interviews, quotes, and systematic personal observations, those conclusions are invariably based on properly conducted psychological research.
Shaping the current edition of Influence has been challenging for me. On the one hand, recalling the “Don’t fix what’s not broken” axiom, I was reluctant to perform major reconstructive surgery. After all, previous versions had sold more copies than I could have sensibly imagined, in multiple editions and forty-four languages. In this last regard, my Polish colleague, Professor Wilhelmina Wosinska, offered an affirming (yet sobering) commentary on the perceived worth of the book. She said, “You know, Robert, your book Influence is so famous in Poland, my students think you’re dead.”
On the other hand, in keeping with a quote my Sicilian grandfather favored, “If you want things to stay as they are, things will have to change,” there was a case to be made for timely upgrades.2 It has been some time since Influence was last published, and, in the interim, changes have occurred that deserve a place in this new edition. First, we now know more than we did before about the influence process. The study of persuasion, compliance, and change has advanced, and the pages that follow have been adapted to reflect that progress. In addition to an overall update of the material, I have devoted more attention to updated coverage of the role of influence in everyday human interaction—how the influence process works in real-world settings rather than in laboratory contexts.
Relatedly, I have also expanded a feature that was stimulated by the responses of prior readers. This feature highlights the experiences of individuals who have read Influence, recognized how one of the principles worked on (or for) them in a particular instance, and wrote to me describing the event. Their descriptions, which appear in the Reader’s Reports of each chapter, illustrate how easily and frequently we can fall victim to the influence process in our daily lives. There are now many new firsthand accounts of how the book’s principles apply to commonplace professional and personal situations. I wish to thank the following individuals who—either directly or through their course instructors—contributed the Reader’s Reports used in past editions: Pat Bobbs, Hartnut Bock, Annie Carto, Michael Conroy, William Cooper, Alicia Friedman, William Graziano, Jonathan Harries, Mark Hastings, Endayehu Kendie, Karen Klawer, Danuta Lubnicka, James Michaels, Steven Moysey, Katie Mueller, Paul Nail, Dan Norris, Sam Omar, Alan J. Resnik, Daryl Retzlaff, Geofrey Rosenberger, Joanna Spychala, Robert Stauth, Dan Swift, and Karla Vasks. Special thanks are due to those who provided new Reader’s Reports for this edition: Laura Clark, Jake Epps, Juan Gomez, Phillip Johnston, Paola, Joe St. John, Carol Thomas, Jens Trabolt, Lucas Weimann, Anna Wroblewski, and Agrima Yadav. I would also like to invite readers to contribute similar reports for possible publication in a future edition. They can be sent to me at ReadersReports@InfluenceAtWork.com. Finally, more influence-relevant information can be obtained at www.InfluenceAtWork.com.
Besides the changes in this edition that are updated extensions of previously existing features of the book, three elements appear for the first time. One explores internet-based applications of proven social-influence tactics. It is clear that social media and e-commerce sites have embraced the lessons of persuasion science. Accordingly, each chapter now includes, in specially created eBoxes, illustrations of how this migration into current technologies has been accomplished. The second novel feature is the enhanced use of endnotes as the place where readers can find citations for the research described in the text as well citations and descriptions of related work. The endnotes now allow for a more inclusive, narrative account of the issues at hand. Finally, and most significantly, I have added a seventh universal principle of social influence to the book—the principle of unity. In the chapter devoted to unity, I describe how individuals who can be convinced that a communicator shares a meaningful personal or social identity with them become remarkably more susceptible to the communicator’s persuasive appeals.