This book is an excellent exposition of what makes us bend to other people’s will – to buy, to obey, to think the way they want us to think. Cialdini has worked at a number of “compliance professional” type jobs, seeing how the masters do their work. He also pulls together decades of psychology and marketing research to give greater insight.

• Reciprocation: do others a favour and they’ll be compelled to do one back for you.
• Commitment and consistency: get someone to commit to a position in front of people they respect, and you’ve got them hooked.
• Social proof: We value what other people are seen to value.
• Liking: We like people who are similar to us, who compliment us, whom we respect, whom we identify with, who like us in return.
• Authority: People bend to authority. You don’t have to be in Nazi Germany to be twisted to do “evil”. We are susceptible to the trappings of authority, too.
• Scarcity: Make people think something is scarce and they’ll value it far more than it’s worth. Take away the privileges they once enjoyed and they’ll fight tooth and nail to get it back.

Psychology is incredibly important in all our lives and I can’t help but think that a lot of people would benefit from knowing the contents of this book. He makes the important point that revolts come not when people have been downtrodden for a long time, but after you try to take away the rights they’ve been enjoying. Is something similar happening in the Middle East, I wonder?