Principle V of VII

Liking

People say yes to people they like.

We agree more readily with people we like, and the things that make us like someone are more mundane than most people expect. Similarity, genuine compliments, familiarity and co-operation toward a shared goal all do reliable work. Liking is the most intuitive of the principles and the most commonly misapplied, because it is usually treated as a matter of being pleasant. The research points somewhere more specific: what moves people is not general warmth but the discovery of a particular connection between two individuals, and the more distinctive that connection appears, the more it does.

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The Research

The coincidence experiments

Burger, Messian, Patel, del Prado and Anderson, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2004

Jerry Burger and colleagues ran a series of studies in which a requester arranged for participants to discover an incidental similarity between the two of them. In one version they appeared to share a birthday. In another, a first name. In a third, an unusual fingerprint type. The similarities were trivial by design: none of them said anything about shared values, interests or history, and none had any bearing on the request that followed. Across the studies, participants who believed they shared the small coincidence agreed to the request substantially more often than those who did not. Something that could not possibly matter to the merits of the decision reliably changed the decision.

The Mechanism

Why it works

Liking operates through identification. When we notice something in another person that resembles us, we extend to them a degree of the trust we extend to ourselves, and their request stops being a demand from a stranger. This is why similarity outperforms flattery in most settings: flattery is a claim the other person makes about you, which you may discount, whereas similarity is something you notice for yourself, and people rarely argue with their own observations. The critical variable is distinctiveness. A shared trait that seems to belong specifically to the two of you creates a bond. A shared trait that everybody has creates nothing at all, because it fails to single anyone out. That distinction separates a real connection from the technique of manufacturing one, and it is the reason mirrored small talk so often falls flat.

Further Research

The finding most people miss

Burger, Messian, Patel, del Prado and Anderson, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2004

The researchers then removed what made the coincidence special. In one condition participants were told that the fingerprint type they shared with the requester is extremely common, held by around eighty percent of people. The effect disappeared. In another, the similarity was with somebody other than the person making the request, and again it did nothing. Liking is not produced by having something in common. It is produced by having something in common that appears to be yours alone, with the person in front of you. This is the finding that should govern how anybody uses the principle, and it explains why generic rapport-building, the kind that could be run on anyone, tends not to work.

Where You Will See It

Liking, once you know to look.

Sales and negotiation

Time spent finding a real point of overlap before discussing terms is not throat-clearing. It changes how the terms are received, though only where the overlap is genuine and specific.

Recruitment

Liking is the largest uncontrolled source of bias in unstructured interviews, which is precisely why structured scoring exists and why organisations that skip it hire people who resemble the panel.

Team formation

Co-operating toward a shared goal builds liking faster than social contact does, which is why a project that forces joint work outperforms an away day.

Correspondence

A specific, accurate compliment about work the recipient actually did outperforms any amount of general pleasantness, and is harder to write.

Common Misreadings

What liking is not.

“Be more likeable and people will agree with you.”: Generalised charm is weak. The mechanism runs on specific, mutual and preferably surprising points of connection, not on a pleasant manner applied uniformly.
“Find anything you have in common.”: Burger's control conditions dealt with this directly. A commonality that most people share exerts no measurable pull, because it does not distinguish the relationship from any other.
“Compliments always help.”: Compliments work when they are specific and plausible. A compliment the recipient knows to be untrue does damage that is difficult to undo, because it tells them you are working them.

How to Use It

Applying Liking honestly.

Look for the specific thing you genuinely share, and say it plainly. If the only thing you have in common is something everyone has in common, it will not carry the request.

The ethical line. Liking raises a question the other principles do not, because the technique and the genuine article are outwardly identical. The distinction is whether you are uncovering a connection or fabricating one. Looking for common ground before a difficult conversation is ordinary good manners. Inventing a shared interest, or manufacturing a coincidence in order to exploit a documented effect, is deception aimed at the part of a person's judgement that is least able to defend itself.

Dr. Robert Cialdini, who identified the seven principles of persuasion

Identified across four decades of peer-reviewed research by Dr. Robert Cialdini, seven million copies, forty-four languages.

The Other Six

They compound. Learn them together.

You know how it works. How well do you use it?

Liking is one of seven. Sixteen questions show which of them you lean on hardest, and name the one gap costing you the most.

Measure My Influence→

Go deeper · CCP Module 05

Want to master Liking, not just read about it?

The Cialdini® Certified Practitioner program gives Liking a full module: short videos with Dr. Cialdini, exercises on your own cases, and your personal Action Plan. 21 self-paced hours, and a certificate Dr. Cialdini signs.

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