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Source

Pre-Suasion

Robert Cialdini

Robert Cialdini's book on the moments and framing that precede a persuasive ask, cited for a study on attorney-name pronounceability predicting law-firm hierarchy position, and a related finding that companies with easier-to-pronounce stock ticker codes outperformed harder-to-pronounce ones on the New York Stock Exchange.

The primary source for Episode 209, a full treatment of the book's core concept — pre-suasion, arranging an audience to be receptive to a message before they encounter it — via guest Brian Ahearn. Covers the Bolkin/Anderson helpful/adventurous priming studies (see Helpful/Adventurous Compliance-Priming Studies), the beer/mouthwash image-superimposition study (see Cialdini Beer/Mouthwash Superimposition Study), the Kahneman 9/11 attention research (see Kahneman 9/11 Attention Study), and the flower-shop/Valentine-Street environmental-trigger studies (see Environmental Trigger Priming Studies). See Pre-Suasion (Priming the Ask).

Also cited for a Northwestern University sofa study (Episode 250), via Paul Mellor: two sofas nicknamed "Dream" and "Titan" showed how an attribute's appeal depends on its distinctiveness within a given comparison set (see Cialdini Dream-Titan Sofa Distinctiveness Study).

Also source for two much earlier citations (Episode 102): the withheld-rating attractiveness study and the Heimbach/Jacoby ad-interruption study (see Withheld-Rating Attractiveness Study, Heimbach Jacoby Zeigarnik Ad-Interruption Study).

Discussed in

  • Episode 102 — I used an ancient storytelling trick to get 11k TikTok followers
  • Episode 134 — 134-there-s-a-problem-with-the-world-s-most-famous-nudge
  • Episode 209 — 209-can-i-persuade-20-strangers-to-listen-to-nudge
  • Episode 250 — 250-how-this-indie-movie-used-psychology-to-beat-hollywood (Dream/Titan sofa distinctiveness study)

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