What still works in How to Win Friends and Influence People?
Suaviq · checked · 6 sources
The short answer
The core of Dale Carnegie's 1936 book still holds up: pay attention to the other person, ask more than you tell, and say your appreciation out loud. Later research supports asking questions and giving specific thanks. Two of his claims hold up badly: that smiling lifts your own mood, and that repeating someone's name makes them like you. The book tips into flattery when you use these habits to get something without meaning them.
Reading this will not change how you talk to people. Practicing will. Suaviq gives you a 1:24 video and 10 real-life exercises for this, easy ones first.
Is How to Win Friends and Influence People still worth reading?
Yes, if you read it as a book of good habits and not as a book of proof. It has sold tens of millions of copies, and people quote it more often than they read it. Its advice is simple: take an interest in people, listen, and tell them what you value about them.
You should know how Carnegie built it. He drew general rules from stories about salesmen, Abraham Lincoln and dinner parties, and the book contains no data. When psychologists later tested ideas like his, some held up and some did not. The useful way to read it is to sort the two.
Which of Carnegie's ideas has research backed up?
His advice to be interested in other people has the best support. In online chat studies and a speed-dating study, Huang and colleagues found that people who asked more questions, and follow-up questions most of all, were liked more. Their explanation is that a question shows you are listening and that you care. The people in those studies were meeting for the first time.
His advice to give honest appreciation also has support, though from a different field. In a study by Grant and Gino, a director thanked university fundraisers for their work, and they made about 50% more calls the following week. The effect came from feeling valued by someone else. That was a study of motivation at work, so it tells you people respond to feeling valued, not that thanks makes you charming.
Carnegie also told readers to let the other person talk about themselves. Tamir and Mitchell found that talking about yourself activates reward areas of the brain, and in five lab studies people gave up money for the chance to do it. Those studies show that talking about yourself feels good to the talker. They do not show that quiet listeners are liked more.
Where was Carnegie wrong?
He claimed that smiling changes your own mood. The evidence for that is weak. In 2016, 17 labs repeated a classic experiment where people held a pen in their mouth to force a smile, and they did not get the original result. In 2022, a study across 26 labs found small effects, and the pen task gave the smallest. So smile because it tells people you are safe to approach, not because it will cheer you up.
His most quoted rule is to remember and use a person's name. We found no solid evidence that saying someone's name during a conversation makes them like you more. Remembering the name is still polite. Saying it four times in five minutes is a sales habit, and most people have met a salesman who does it.
When does Carnegie's advice turn into flattery?
Each habit in the book works on a person whether or not you like them. That is what makes the book risky. One of his rules tells you to make the other person eagerly want what you want. At that point you have stopped making a friend and started selling to one.
The test is whether you mean it. Praise you do not believe is flattery, even if it is accurate. Researchers use the term perceived responsiveness for the feeling that someone notices who you really are and values it, and Reis and colleagues describe it as the main idea in research on closeness. That feeling depends on the attention being real.
When you want something from someone, there is a simple fix. Tell them what you want, tell them what they get out of it, and if they get nothing, say that too. They can then see the deal and choose. In our view, that is the line between charm and selling.
How do you use the book in real life?
Reading the principles will not change how you act at the next dinner. Pick one and do a small version of it today. Tell one person exactly what they did that you valued, and name the thing instead of only saying thanks. Smile at three people before they smile at you.
Then try the harder ones. In one conversation, aim to talk for about a third of the time. Remember one detail someone tells you and mention it the next time you see them. In our experience, few people do this, and the people who hear it remember it. For one day, let every urge to correct someone about something small pass without saying it.
Exercises to practice, easiest first
These come from the The Carnegie Method topic. Do one a day, and move to the next when it stops feeling hard.
Step 1
Say the appreciation out loud
Tell one person today exactly what they did that you valued. Do not only say thanks. Name the thing.
Appreciation that you keep to yourself does nothing.
Research. When a director thanked university fundraisers for their work, they made about 50% more calls the following week. The effect came from feeling valued by others, not from feeling more capable. Grant & Gino (2010)
Step 2
Smile first, and mean it
Three times today, smile at someone before they smile at you.
Everyone silently wonders whether you are safe to approach. A smile answers that.
Research. Carnegie also claimed that smiling changes your own mood. The evidence for that is weak. In 2016, 17 labs repeated the classic pen-in-mouth experiment and did not get the original result. In 2022, a study across 26 labs found small effects, and the smallest came from the pen task. Coles et al., Many Smiles Collaboration (2022); Wagenmakers et al. (2016)
Step 3
Use the name once, not four times
Say the person's name once when you learn it, to help you remember it. After that, do not keep using it.
Repeating someone's name is one of the most obvious techniques there is. Everyone has met a salesman who does it.
Our opinion. This is Carnegie's most quoted claim and one of his least supported. We found no solid evidence that using someone's name in conversation makes them like you more. So we teach you to remember the name, and we leave out the repeating.
Step 4
Skip the correction
For one day, notice every urge to correct someone about something that does not matter. Let each urge pass.
A correction wins you a small point and loses you the goodwill of the people around you.
Our opinion. Carnegie based this on stories, and we agree with him. But we know of no study showing that holding back small corrections makes people like you more.
Step 5
Arrive curious about one person
Before an event, choose one person and decide that you will find out something real about them.
A decision you made in advance still holds when your nerve goes.
Research. Asking questions, and follow-up questions most of all, made people more liked in chat studies and in speed dating. The authors' explanation is that questions show you are listening and that you care. Huang, Yeomans, Brooks, Minson & Gino (2017)
Step 6
Let them talk twice as long
In one conversation today, aim to speak for about a third of the time.
You give them something they enjoy more than anything you could have said.
Research. Talking about yourself activates the reward areas of the brain. In five studies, people gave up money for the chance to do it. Tamir & Mitchell (2012)
Step 7
Make one person feel important, sincerely
Find something you really admire about someone. Tell them what it is and why.
The important word in that sentence is “really”.
Research. Researchers call it perceived responsiveness: the feeling that someone pays attention to who you really are and values it. It is the main idea behind research on closeness in relationships, and it is linked to people's well-being. Reis, Clark & Holmes (2004)
Step 8
Come back with the detail
Remember one specific detail from a conversation. Mention it the next time you see them.
Almost nobody does this, and that is why it works.
Our opinion. This is our own technique. It is the callback from Topic 02, used across days and not minutes. We have no study for it.
Step 9
Name the overlap out loud
When you want something from someone, tell them plainly what they will get out of it. If they will get nothing, tell them that.
This is where we disagree with Carnegie.
Our opinion. Carnegie teaches you to present what you want as if it were what they want. We teach you to state both and let them choose. The difference is whether the other person can see the deal. That is the whole ethical distance between charm and selling.
Sign up free with your email. Watch the lesson, then try the first exercise with real people, and come back to say how it went.
Common questions
What is the main message of How to Win Friends and Influence People?
Make other people feel important. Carnegie's book tells you to take an interest in people, listen more than you talk, give honest appreciation and avoid criticism. The parts about attention and asking questions have held up best. The danger is using them as tricks, because the same habits work on people you do not care about.
Does using someone's name make them like you?
We found no solid evidence that it does. It is one of Carnegie's most quoted rules and one of his least supported. Say the name once when you learn it, to help you remember it. Repeating it through the conversation is a habit people link with salesmen.
Does smiling make you happier?
Carnegie said it did, but the evidence is weak. In 2016, 17 labs repeated a well-known pen-in-mouth experiment and did not get the original result. A 2022 study across 26 labs found small effects. Smiling is still useful because it tells other people you are approachable.
Is How to Win Friends and Influence People manipulative?
It can be. The habits in it work whether or not you mean them, and one of its rules is to make the other person eagerly want what you want. Used sincerely, the book teaches attention and appreciation. Used to get something while hiding what you want, it turns into selling.
Sources
- Carnegie (1936). How to Win Friends and Influence People.
- Huang, Yeomans, Brooks, Minson & Gino (2017). It Doesn't Hurt to Ask: Question-Asking Increases Liking.
- Grant & Gino (2010). A Little Thanks Goes a Long Way: Explaining Why Gratitude Expressions Motivate Prosocial Behavior.
- Tamir & Mitchell (2012). Disclosing Information About the Self Is Intrinsically Rewarding.
- Coles et al., Many Smiles Collaboration (2022); Wagenmakers et al. (2016). A Multi-Lab Test of the Facial Feedback Hypothesis; Registered Replication Report: Strack, Martin & Stepper (1988).
- Reis, Clark & Holmes (2004). Perceived Partner Responsiveness as an Organizing Construct in the Study of Intimacy and Closeness.