I didn’t find The Science of Influence, by Kevin Hogan, all that helpful. It’s targeted towards salespeople and while I am interested in learning more about sales, I am not a salesperson by trade. Furthermore, the book doesn’t have enough science to warrant its title. On one level, I appreciate Hogan’s intent to “translate” the content for a non-technical audience. On another level, it feels too dumbed down. After taking my class on cognitive science and religion, I learned that a lot of the scientific articles I read had gaps and the conclusions weren’t completely uncontroversial. I’d like to see more of the caveats, but that would make this a different book. It was just way too simplified for my tastes. At least the book pointed me towards The Paradox of Choice, which I’ll pick up sometime this summer.

Here’s the one part I marked up:

If you are going to use fear in communication in order to foster change or alter behavior — or encourage someone to buy your product, idea, or service — you must also include a step-by-step set of instructions in your message in order for it to be successful.

This reminded me a bit of The Adversity Quotient, where it talked about helping people and you want them to come up with actual actions they can do to start taking control of a situation. Get them to stop catastrophizing and then lead them towards solutions.

It fits with my current obsession with specificity. Goals need to be actions, not abstractions. The more specific my goals are, the more likely I finish them.