Synopsis – We have certain reactions to things, programmed and built in at a primal level. This book helps shed light on those things and how we can use it to our advantage or how its used against us.
Key Takeaways
Page 5 – Click Whirr
Certain phrases or set ups will create a reaction out of you
Page 11 – The Contrast principle
Give bad options and then show the good option
Page 17 – By virtue of the reciprocity rule, then, we are obligated to the future of favours, gifts, invitations, and the like.
Think about when someone offers you lunch and you say “no”, you offer lunch on a different date
Page 41 – Rejection and retreat
Ask for something more extreme then ask for what you really want
Page 60 – Asking someone to watch your things when going for a swim will result in a better result
People will be consistent with their expectations
Page 97 – Selecting just the right reason is not an easy task for parents. But the effort should pay off. It is likely to mean the difference between short lived compliance and long-term commitment.
Children will also want to be consistent with expectations set
Page 99 – Car dealers will offer a great trade in value for your car, so you commit to buying. Then you go through all the paperwork and financing to give you a sense of personal commitment. Then they will blame an “admin error” on the trade in value and revert on their offer.
They hook you in with a good offer and then keep you with all the admin and paperwork
Page 128 – Convince and ye shall convince
The things you scream out into the world are the things you will believe
Page 137 – You must not allow bystanders to define your situation as a nonemergency. Use the word “Help” to cry out. “You sir in the blue jacket call an ambulance, help me”
When you need help be specific
Page 142 – We will use the actions of other to decide on proper behaviour for ourselves, especially when we view those others like ourselves
If you want your son to swim, let him spend a day with other kids his age swimming
Page 163 – A quick glance around is all that is needed
Always be careful when following social queues, otherwise Jim Jones
Page 170 – What are the factors that cause one person to like another person? If we knew that answer, we would be long way toward understanding how people such as Joe can so successfully sell cars.
- Physical Attractiveness
- Similarity
- Compliments
- Contact and Cooperation
- Conditioning and Association
These are things anyone can do to help improve their chances.
Page 180 – Conjoint efforts toward common goals steadily bridged the rancorous rift between the groups. Another method is the Jigsaw approach to learning
Get people to work towards a common goal and if the task is complicated get each team to work on a different part of the problem
Page 198 – All things being equal, you root for your own sex, your own culture, your own locality and what you want to prove is that you are better than the other person. Whomever you root for represents you: and he wins; you win
Politicians associate with winners for a reason
Page 218 – In fact, our obedience frequently takes place in a click, whirr fashion, with little or no conscious deliberation. Information from a recognized authority can provide us a valuable shortcut for deciding how to act in a situation
Bosses/manager can short circuit our response mechanism
Page 233 – A waiter recommending a cheaper menu item and then selling you an expensive wine bottle
Win trust and using it to your advantage
Page 257 – With the economic and social improvement they have experienced and come to expect suddenly become less available, they desire them more than ever and often rise up violently to secure them
“I done been to the top, I done sipped the juice, and with that being said, bird crumbs will never do”
Page 262 – The finding highlights the importance of competition in the pursuit of limited resources. Not only do we want the same item more when it is scarce, we want it most when we are in competition for it. Advertisers often try to exploit this tendency in us.
Scarcity
Final Thoughts
We should know the “click-whirr” responses we have to certain stimuli. They can have a huge impact on our life but more then that we should know how to use these things to our advantage, especially when looking to do the most good we can.
Stranger in Sydney 