Power of Persuasion

POWER OF PERSUASION
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Power of Persuasion
Power of persuasion is a book written by Robert Levine who is a social psychologist. The book delves on the subject of persuasion and looks into how people are manipulated to do things they imagined they could not do. According to Levine, persuasion leads changes people in ways they that could not have happened if they were left alone. Levine attended seminar, assumed various roles prior to writing the book. Eventually, the author made three conclusions on persuasion. First, human beings are exposed to persuasion and there is nothing we could do about it. Secondly, the most effective persuaders are not the usual suspects and the least of what people expect. Finally, the rules of persuasion are usually the same regardless of their source. In the book, Levine mentioned several concepts as far as subject of persuasion is concerned but in this essay, the writer will just focus on two of the concepts. In addition, the writer will discuss how the two concepts are relevant to their profession or personal life. Lastly, the writer will discuss about a proposed additional chapter in the book and its relevance to the subject.
Power of Persuasion is a well written book and Robert Levine uses his expertise and experience to dice on several issues especially in marketing that influence the decision of the customer or client. After all, that is what effective persuasion is all about. In my opinion, there are two concepts that stood out to me and these were the reciprocity rule and the just noticeable difference. The two concepts stood out to me because we often use them in life so much but I had never really thought of the concepts in that perspective. I will discuss the reciprocity rule and later the just noticeable difference shall be discussed.
According to the reciprocity rule, people are often compelled to accept a requests from people whom they share the same names or even birth dates. The rule simply states that people are often compelled to pay back things in equal measure when they receive something. In an experiment conducted by Dennis Regan, it was established that people who had been awarded a free coke reciprocated their favor by purchasing more tickets. In the experiment, one of the subjects offered a gift to a group of people and also did the opposite to another group of people. For the first group, the subject handed out a bottle of coke to the group and then the subject later on came back to the same group to ask them for a favor. The same procedure was carried out to the group that he did not dish out the bottle of coke. In addition, the subject was also supposed to receive a phone call in both experiments. In the first case, he was supposed to answer it pleasantly while in the second one he was supposed to be obnoxious. It turns out that the subject sold almost twice as many tickets he did when compared to the second experiment. It was also established that people reciprocate to how they are treated and the notion of being nice to people who are nice to you often takes shape. Being obnoxious reduced ticket sales by 20% while presenting a gift to a group of people almost doubled the ticket sales. In other words, this showed that recipr...