Influence by Robert B. Cialdini
Published 1984 · 100,000 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Business & Self-Help, Nonfiction, Psychology
How hard is Influence to read?
Influence scores 24 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 30 out of 100
- Accessible social psychology. Technical concepts explained clearly.
- Sentence structure: 28 out of 100
- Abstraction: 35 out of 100
- Psychological principles grounded in vivid examples.
- Information density: 50 out of 100
- Rich with research findings and real-world examples.
- Narrative indirection: 15 out of 100
- Direct, principle-by-principle organization.
- Symbolic density: 100 out of 100
- Analytical rather than symbolic.
- Ironic distance: 20 out of 100
- Cialdini writes with humor about his own susceptibility to persuasion tactics.
- Resolution withholding: 50 out of 100
- Each chapter clearly presents its principle and defense strategies.
- Structural complexity: 20 out of 100
- Six chapters, each covering one principle. Clear, repeating structure.
How Influence is regarded
Influence holds a literary regard score of 55 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.