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Kerala Kaumudi Online
Monday, 09 March 2026 4.24 AM IST

It will have happened before you spoke a word.

Before asking for a high price, you must prime the concept of value or quality . For example, luxury brands don't start with price; they start with art, history, and craftsmanship. By the time they quote $5,000 for a handbag, your mind has been primed for "masterpiece," not "cost." The Ethics of the Opening Move Pre-Suasion is revolutionary because it is amoral—meaning it can be used for good or ill. A con artist can use it to prime greed; a parent can use it to prime responsibility; a doctor can use it to prime a patient’s desire for health.

For decades, the science of persuasion focused on the "message"—the words, the logic, the emotion. But as social psychologist Robert Cialdini argues in his revolutionary book, Pre-Suasion , the winning edge isn't found in the argument itself. It is found in the moment before . Cialdini, famous for his earlier work Influence , shifted the paradigm with Pre-Suasion . He argues that the most effective persuaders don’t just deliver a message; they prime an audience to be receptive to it. They open a "privileged moment of receptivity"—a tiny window of time where the listener’s mind is so focused on a specific concept that they become uniquely vulnerable to related ideas.

As Cialdini writes, "Pre-suasion is not about convincing people that what you have to offer is valuable. It is about establishing a state of mind in which they conclude for themselves that it is."

In the classic Western film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly , there is a scene that perfectly captures a flaw in how we think about influence. The protagonist, "Blondie" (Clint Eastwood), walks into a small town. He approaches a general store, and before asking for directions or information, he pulls out his revolver and shoots a rope holding a large sign. The sign crashes to the ground. Only then does he ask the store owner his questions.