Christians Shouldn’t Be Influencers

Thoughts on psychology and marketing and the gospel inspired by a bestselling book.

This is part 1 of a series on the book Influence by Robert Cialdini in which we’re considering how the gospel turns levers of influence upside down. Keep reading with part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, and part 7.

I didn’t set out to work as a social media marketer. My first job was a way to get my foot in the door of an organization serving immigrants and refugees in Chicagoland (and a way to move away from full-time nannying). I had only created a personal Facebook account a few months before. But here I am, almost eight years later, making a full career out of digital marketing, with many of the same mixed feelings I began with.

One of the highlights of my current digital marketing role with an independent Christian publisher is my team’s book club. We alternate between marketing-related and spiritual formation titles, and we meet every other week to discuss our reading. Earlier this year we read Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. First published in 1984 and with over 5 million copies in print, this classic of social psychology has itself influenced and clarified the strategies of generations of marketers.

In 450 pages Cialdini defines and describes seven “levers of influence”.

• Reciprocation

• Liking

• Social Proof

• Authority

• Scarcity

• Commitment & Consistency

• Unity

He explains that, like members of the animal kingdom, humans have developed efficient shortcuts in their decision making based on the various behaviors they observe in others. These behaviors trigger a mechanical sequence of actions in response. He argues that many of these trigger features are valuable because they allow us “to decide on a correct course of action without having to analyze carefully and completely each of the other pieces of information in the situation” (21). However, he expresses concern that “the ever-accelerating pace and informational crush of modern life will make this particular form of unthinking compliance more and more prevalent in the future” (xvii). 

As I read, I noticed the incompatibility of most of these levers of influence with the upside down message of the gospel and I thought that Christians more than anyone else ought to be able to recognize and resist them. Too often, though, we fall prey to the strategies of “compliance practitioners”, as Cialdini calls salespeople, fundraisers, marketers, and recruiters, just as frequently as non disciples. And many who identify as Christians knowingly manipulate these levers of influence and claim to do so in order to advance the Kingdom. They intentionally implement these principles of human psychology to sell their products or to build foundations of trust on which they can prop their own egos. They mock the gospel, prizing default psychological responses over biblical discernment and rote groupthink over discipleship.

But the gospel disrupts these levers of influence. The Holy Spirit who indwells followers of Jesus interrupts our programming, teaching us to listen to His voice rather than living on autopilot. Jesus takes the values of the world and shakes them up and rebuilds a Body that is so unrecognizable as to be threatening. “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).

In the coming weeks I’ll look at each lever of influence defined and described by Cialdini and explore how the gospel overturns it. I may also sprinkle in some of my own philosophies of marketing that I have honed over the last eight years. If you’d like to read the book alongside my analysis, you can find it here.¹

Beauty in Suffering
If my husband and I recount the events of the last 3 months we’re bound to get wide eyes and an “Oh, wow.” from the listener. But even in the vortex of hard there have been constant glimpses of God’s kindness, reminders that we are not alone and that “working all things together for good” usually begins with recognizing where God is working in the little things.

Beauty in Home
One of those little things that reveals God’s kindness to me right now is a yard my kiddos can play freely in, and the sprinklers that come on at 4pm every afternoon.

1. These are affiliate links, which just means that if you buy the book I get a few pennies.