The Issue:
Cialdini discusses the concept of Liking in Chapter 5 of Influence. He discusses how things such as physical attractiveness, similarity and friendship can dictate how a person responds to a request.
Major Strength:
The section in this chaptered under “Why Do I Like You? Let Me List The Reasons” was very intriguing and very informative. I thought that the way Cialdini explained each of the different aspects to why we like someone was very helpful in understanding the concept of liking in regards to influence. A lot of the statistics he used furthered the strength of his discussion. One of the best examples, in my opinion, was under the subheading Contact and Cooperation and was about the photographs of women. The example clearly showed how familiarity was a factor in liking and it was something I would never have thought of before.
Major Weakness:
I think in regards to liking, Cialdini’s major weakness is the “obvious” factor. A lot of what he was arguing are ideas that seem very common knowledge. While the examples were interesting and the way he explained each idea was great, I felt as thought I kept saying “well, of course” in my head. I think it is pretty clear that physical attractiveness is a factor in getting people to think favorably of you, which is why people dress a certain way and why there is so much emphasis on beauty standards.
Underlying Assumptions:
I think the underlying assumption in this chapter is that as long as you like someone, they all of a sudden have a major way to influence you. While I can agree that liking someone does have a place in influence, I do not think it’s incredibly strong. People have other factors that play into decision making that can be much stronger than simply liking the person who requests something.
Provocative Questions:
If someone was trying to sell you an item and you liked them a lot (they were attractive and similar and familiar and complimentary) but the product was something you did not want or need or was in your budget, would you still be compelled to buy it due to liking?
Do you think there is a reverse halo effect? As in, if you a person has one negative characteristic, that can dominate the way their entire persona is perceived.