What is PeopleAnalyst?

PeopleAnalyst is the front door for people-analytics research: 205+ works indexed and profiled, 40+ citation-grade findings extracted, and peer-reviewed behavioral science translated from academic to actionable — the missing manual for the people analytics you always meant to do.

What is people analytics?

People analytics is not a dashboard. It is behavioral science and statistical inference applied to workforce decisions — a discipline with its own methodology, spanning measurement, organizational design, talent, leadership, and analytics craft.

Why does AI in HR need measurement science?

AI is being deployed in high-stakes people decisions — hiring, performance, attrition — without the measurement science to evaluate whether it works or whom it harms. Construct validity, effect sizes, and criterion validity are the vocabulary for asking an AI vendor the right questions.

How is the research made accessible?

The evidence is indexed and searchable: 205+ works, 40+ citation-grade insight cards, and 8 research arcs, so the right finding reaches the right decision at the right time.

What separates good people measurement from assertion?

Good measurement has a method: construct validity, reliability, and effect-size interpretation are not optional — they are what separates evidence from assertion.

library / lib3626aa5c06eb4230

Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade

Robert B. Cialdini · 2016

In a sentence

The decisive moment for persuasion comes not during a message but in the privileged instant before it, when a communicator channels attention to ideas that pre-load the recipient to say yes.

Robert Cialdini, the world's foremost authority on the psychology of influence, reveals that the best persuaders win not merely through what they say but through what they do in the moments just before they say it. Drawing on decades of field research and cutting-edge behavioral science, Pre-Suasion shows how subtle openers—a word, an image, a question, a background cue—channel attention to selected concepts, making audiences receptive to an aligned message before they ever encounter it. Cialdini explains the mechanics: what we focus on we judge as important and causal; attention is automatically drawn to the sexual, the threatening, the changing, the self-relevant, the unfinished, and the mysterious; raw associations drive all thought, so words, metaphors, places, and synchronized actions can pre-suade. He extends his classic six principles of influence with a seventh—unity—and closes with an ethical reckoning, showing that organizations relying on deception pay hidden internal costs. Practical, rigorous, and endlessly fascinating, the book teaches anyone how to engineer privileged moments for lasting, principled change.

The four lenses

Science
Statistics
Systems
Strategy

The model

A causal model in which pre-suasive design levers (openers that channel attention and trigger associations) shift psychological states (focused attention, perceived importance, perceived causality, favorable associations, felt unity) that in turn drive behavioral assent, with durability moderated by commitments and environmental cues, and ethical climate shaping organizational outcomes.

Pre-Suasive Openerdesign lever

A word, question, image, number, sound, place cue, or action deployed immediately before a message to initiate the influence process by channeling attention and removing barriers to receptivity.

Channeled Attentionpsychological state

The momentary, selective focusing of conscious awareness onto a chosen stimulus or concept, which simultaneously promotes the focal element and suppresses competing ones in the recipient's mind.

Perceived Importancepsychological state

The recipient's tendency to assign elevated significance to whatever is currently the object of focused attention, even when that focus was induced by an irrelevant factor (the focusing illusion).

Perceived Causalitypsychological state

The recipient's tendency to attribute causal or explanatory status to factors that are focal in attention, treating what is salient as the cause of events or outcomes.

Favorable Associationspsychological state

The network of positive mental links activated when an opener brings to mind a concept aligned with the message, making associated thoughts, feelings, and motivations more accessible and influential.

Felt Unitypsychological state

A sense of shared identity in which self and other are merged into a 'we', arising from cues of kinship, place, and synchronous or collaborative action, leading to greater liking, trust, and support.

Association Strengthcontextual condition

The degree of pre-existing or constructed linkage between an opener concept and the target concept, which determines how strongly the opener readies the target for influence.

Corrective Capacitycontextual condition

The recipient's ability and motivation to notice and counteract an undue influence, dependent on available time, cognitive resources, and reminders that surface a potential bias.

Behavioral Assentoutcome metric

The recipient's consequential agreement or compliance—saying yes, purchasing, helping, cooperating, or supporting—that results from the pre-suasive process.

Commitments and Environmental Cuesdesign lever

Active, effortful, voluntary commitments and recurring environmental cues that lock in initially formed preferences so that pre-suasive change endures beyond the temporary moment.

Durable Changeoutcome metric

The persistence of an attitude or behavior shift well beyond the privileged moment in which it was generated, reflecting lasting rather than fleeting influence.

Organizational Ethical Climatecontextual condition

The dominant ethical tone of an organization as set by its leaders, ranging from honest to deceptive, which shapes employee moral stress and downstream organizational health.

Organizational Health Outcomesoutcome metric

The performance, retention, and integrity outcomes of an organization, including employee performance, turnover, and fraud, that are degraded by an unethical climate.

How they connect

presuasive opener → predicts channeled attention
channeled attention → predicts perceived importance
channeled attention → predicts perceived causality
presuasive opener → predicts favorable associations
association strength → moderates favorable associations
perceived importance → predicts behavioral assent
perceived causality → influences behavioral assent
favorable associations → predicts behavioral assent
felt unity → predicts behavioral assent
presuasive opener → predicts felt unity
corrective capacity − moderates behavioral assent
behavioral assent → predicts durable change
commitment and cues → moderates durable change
ethical climate → predicts organizational health

A candidate measure

Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade — derived measurement candidates

Pre-Suasive Opener

presence/absence of opener; cue category code; time interval before message

self-report suitability: low

Channeled Attention

fixation time; accessibility reaction time; O-wave amplitude

self-report suitability: low