How To Influence People Article Analysis

The author of the article “How to Influence People” is Dr Jeremy Dean, a psychologist. The article was posted on one of his websites, PsyBlog. In that article, he claims that it is vital for us to understand the three universal human goals in order to influence others effectively. The three goals are goal of affiliation, goal of accuracy and goal of maintaining positive self-concept. He describes the six common techniques of influence: liking, social proof, consistency, scarcity, authority and reciprocity. The three human goals are the reason why these techniques work. The goal of affiliation is linked to the techniques of liking and reciprocity, the goal of accuracy is linked to the techniques of social proof and scarcity and the goal of maintaining self-concept is linked to the
The author communicates well with his readers. The flow and organisation of his ideas are fluent and neat as he uses headings to categorize his main points. He also provided a few evidences which greatly boosted the reliability of his arguments regarding the six techniques of influence and the goal of affiliation. However, his arguments on the goal of accuracy and the goal of maintaining positive self-concept have faulty reasoning. In this essay, I will discuss why understanding the goal of affiliation and the goal of maintaining a positive self-concept is important in attaining effective
The techniques of liking and reciprocity are linked to the goal of affiliation while the technique of consistency is linked to the goal of maintaining a positive self-concept. We can indeed become better influencers if we go the extra mile of understanding others’