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Quantifying Persuasion - A Comparative Analysis of Cialdini's Principles in Phishing Attacks

Authors:
Alexander Lawall

Keywords: Phishing; Social Engineering; Cialdini's Principles of Influence; Behavioral Security; Cyber Security.

Abstract:
This paper presents a mixed-method investigation into how psychological persuasion is operationalized in phishing attacks, with a specific focus on Cialdini's six principles of influence. A qualitative analysis of authentic spear-phishing emails was integrated with a quantitative study of 300 phishing samples across ten attack types to address three research questions. The findings show that while scarcity is the most frequently used tactic, it does not significantly predict user compromise. Instead, liking and authority emerge as the most effective predictors of phishing success, based on a robust regression model. These results reveal a mismatch between the most commonly used and the most behaviorally potent influence strategies. The study contributes empirical evidence for the strategic deployment of persuasion in phishing and proposes implications for awareness training, Natural Language Processing (NLP)-enhanced detection, and psychologically informed defense design.

Pages: 117 to 124

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2025

Publication date: October 26, 2025

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2162-2116

ISBN: 978-1-68558-306-4

Location: Barcelona, Spain

Dates: from October 26, 2025 to October 30, 2025