Whether it was actually said by P.T. Barnum or about P.T. Barnum, few would discount the adage “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Truth be told, if you asked Robert Cialdini, a well-respected Regents Professor Emeritus of psychology and marketing at Arizona State University who many consider the guru of the science of persuasion, he would freely admit he was born during one of those minutes. Indeed, in his introduction to Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, this favorite author of marketers around the globe states in no uncertain terms, “All my life I’ve been a patsy.”
Cialdini attributes his long standing disposition as a sucker inspired his interest in the study of compliance. “Study of compliance?” you might ask. To the scholarly Cialdini, who cut his bones with a series of seminal academic papers on social psychology in the 1970’s, that phrase means “the psychology of persuasion” as in “how does one get another Continue Reading “Don’t Be a Patsy! A Review of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini”
American Egalitarianism
[This Commentary originally appeared in the October 25, 1990 issue of The Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel.]
We immediately respond with a resounding “Yes!” As youngsters, we begin learning the lessons of the American saga. A free and open democracy – like that in the United States – implies and demands a society of equals. Our founding fathers’ forged the idea of “one man, one vote.” (Most of us forgive our ancestors, who took nearly 150 years to add “one woman, one vote” to our forbears’ edict.)
Yet, can a society in which less than 1 percent of the population owns more than 20Continue Reading “American Egalitarianism”