Persuasion and Social Influence
Persuasion = an intentional effort to influence, motivate, or change
another person’s attitudes, beliefs, or behavior
Attitude = mental evaluations of objects, issues, or people
• Range on a continuum
negative/bad
positive/good
• Attitudes are relational; they only exist in relationship to you
– School is hard (for me)
• Attitudes guide behavior!
Belief = mental representations on what we see as true or false
What is or is not
Fundamental ways of viewing the world
Not evaluative
Types of Persuasion
Compliance = behavior change without attitude change
– Thesis: You must write your congress person to get them to pass the
waiting period legislation for ammunition purchases.
Adoption = taking on a new attitude/behavior
– Thesis: The ten day waiting period on ammunition purchases needs to
be implemented.
Continuance = encourging/strengthening an existing
attitude/behavior
– Thesis: We must continue to support the bullet bill to reduce the impact
of firearms on our society.
Cessation = stopping an existing attitude/behavior
– Thesis: The newly proposed bullet bill does not infringe on our rights.
Inoculation = preventing new attitude/behavior from developing
– Thesis: Rather than infringe on our rights, the proposed bullet bill will
help guarantee all Americans the ability to feel safe.
Appeals
Appeal = interpretations of evidence that provide listeners with a
reason to change their attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors
There are four types of appeals
• Logos = factual and impersonal evidence that appeals to logic
– The average child watches four hours of television a day.
• Pathos = emotional or personal evidence that appeals to the
heart
– Little Johnny is suffering socially and academically because of tv.
• Ethos = evidence that demonstrates credibility
– My four years of graduate work in mass communication lead me to
believe that extensive television viewing is dangerous
• Mythos = value and core belief evidence that appeals to
people’s belief in the greater good; Law of Transitivity
– Our children’s rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are being
drained aways by their television watching habits.
Powerful Compliance Principles To Use
and Be Aware Of
• Reciprocity – One should be more willing to comply with a
request from someone who has previously provided a favor
-Pre-giving
-Door-in-the-face
• Social validation – One should be more willing to comply if the
request is consistent with what similar others are doing
-Highlighting or modeling desired behaviors
• Commitment/consistency – After committing to a position, one
should comply more with consistent requests
-Foot-in-the-door
-Bait and switch
• Friendship/liking – One should be more willing to comply with
the requests of someone who is liked
– Word-of-mouth marketing
• Scarcity – One should try to secure things that are
limited/dwindling
– Going out of business sales
• Authority – One should comply more with legitimate authority
Ways of Persuading
Persuasion falls into two types:
• Promotive = attempts to make the action/idea attractive and positive
• Preemptive = attempts to decrease the negative features of the action/idea
Tactics for persuading (based on classical Rhetoric)
Landscaping = the context in which the persuasion takes place
– Setting the issue up in a way to make it appear more favorable
– Framing the debate via language (e.g., the “estate tax” a “death tax”)
Relational tactics = how people view the persuader and roles
– Credibility of the speaker
– Dress for success
Message tactics = helping the target of influence to create his/her own
arguments/reasons for the desired action/idea
– Central vs Peripheral processing
– Quantity of arguments when peripheral and quality when central
Emotional tactics = playing on the targets emotional needs and desires
– Using the target’s feelings and arousal to achieve the desired action/idea
– Scaring someone to act