Cialdini's 6 Principles of Persuasion
Robert Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, 1984/2001
Six levers consistently move human decision-making: reciprocity, commitment, social proof, authority, liking, scarcity.
In plain language
Cialdini spent decades studying what makes people say yes. He identified six principles that consistently work across cultures, decades, and domains: reciprocity (give first, receive later), commitment/consistency (small yes leads to big yes), social proof (others are doing it), authority (experts said so), liking (we trust people we like), and scarcity (limited availability).
The principles explain pricing strategy (anchoring via decoy pricing is commitment), marketing (testimonials are social proof), sales (free samples are reciprocity), and even religious conversion (bell ringers are commitment).
A seventh principle (Unity) was added in 2016's Pre-Suasion — the shared identity lever.
How Maxim applies it
- Maxim's free Starter tier applies Reciprocity deliberately. We give value first — full governance substrate, 88 agents, no credit card, no trial expiration. You upgrade when the moat shows up in your work, not because a clock ran out. This is reciprocity with teeth: test fixture verifies the free-tier scope on every build (ADR-004).
- The confidence rubric applies Authority honestly. Every claim cites a peer-reviewed framework with author and year. The authority is the research, not marketing copy.
- Maxim deliberately does not use manufactured Scarcity (no 'only 3 left!' countdown timers). The only scarcity Maxim uses is real: Agency and Enterprise tiers genuinely aren't live until v1.5, and we say so explicitly on the pricing page.
What generic LLMs get wrong
Generic AI outputs apply Cialdini principles blindly — social-proof stats with no source, scarcity without real limits, authority citations from nobody in particular. That works short-term and destroys trust long-term. Maxim cites sources and refuses to fabricate scarcity.