The design of persuasive texts: effects of content, structure, and style on attitude formation
This document summarizes the book on Persuasive Communications (Hoeken, J.A.L., Hornikx, J.M.A., & Hustinx, L.G.M.M. (2017) “Persuasive Texts: Research and Design”.). This course is given to the RUG in the first year. Personally, I got a 7.9 with this.
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Persuasive communication
Communication and information studies
Anne Geerdes
Chapter 1; convincing documents
§1.1.1 designing tailored documents
Business documents are written to achieve goals: to inform, to convince or to instruct.
Many writers of a persuasive document do not achieve their goals. This because
understanding, appreciation and persuasiveness are the product of both document and
reader properties. A good document exactly fits the properties of its readers (it can be
compared to tailoring a costume). A good document has been ‘tailored’ to match the
knowledge, preferences and values of its readers. The underlying principle is that the
document should simulate the processes required to achieve the document’s goal. What
these processes are depends on the goal which the document is supposed to achieve
(Hoeken 1992).
Informative documents: intended to provide information (newspaper)
Instructive documents: intended to provide information (manual)
Persuasive documents: intended to convince readers of a particular point of view
(advertisement)
By making specific choices concerning content, structure and style, writers can control the
effectiveness of their documents. To design effective documents a writer needs knowledge
about the way in which readers process documents and knowledge about the way in which
document properties can influence this processing:
Inventio: gathering and selecting information
Disposition: structuring the selected information
Elocutio: putting the information into words
§1.1.2 what are persuasive documents?
Persuasive documents are everywhere in modern society.
Persuasion is a successful intentional effort at influencing another’s mental state through
communication in a circumstance in which the persuadee has some measure of freedom
(O’Keefe 2002)
,According to O’Keefe persuasion only occurs if the mental state of the persuadee is indeed
changed.
The mental state in O’Keefe’s usually equated with attitude.
The definition of attitude is a psychological tendency that is expressed by
evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor. An entity can be an
individual, an agency (political candidate), a behavior (drunk driving), a policy
(environmental regulations) or a product (car). (Eagly and Chaiken)
the favor or disfavor may amount to supporting the candidate, disapproving drunk
driving, doubting your counties policy or having no specific opinions about the car.
The evaluative judgement (the attitude) is stored in memory along with any other
information about the entity (Fazio and Pratkanis). The link between attitude and
information is not very strong.
O’Keefe does not mention influencing behavior in his definition of persuasion because
persuasion proceeds by means of communication; the transfer of information. Information
transfer affects people’s mental state before it influences their behavior. Communication
may lead to a new or different attitude which in turn may change behavior. Communication
cannot have a direct impact on behavior.
persuasion can only be said to have occurred if the persuadee had an alternative.
O’Keefe’s definition of persuasive documents: persuasive documents are designed with the
aim of influencing readers’ through the transfer of information, with the readers having a
certain degree of freedom.
§1.1.3 the difference between persuasive and informative documents
The author’s intention determines the nature of the text. If someone wanted to inform
people, the text is informative. If you want to convince people, the text is persuasive. It
really makes a difference whether the writer is trying to convince you or simply wants to
inform you.
The writer intention does not guarantee that the indented effect will be achieved.
Forewarning or persuasive intent: a text written to influence the reader makes people
aware that an attempt is being made to change their attitudes, which will encourage them to
defend their present position. (Quinn and wood)
Informative documents seem to be read more from the perspective of the communication
principle, than persuasive documents (van Eemeren en Grootendorst).
,Communication principle: this criteria states that four criteria must be met: clarity, honesty,
efficiency and relevance. readers of informative documents expect the writher to present
all relevant information honestly and as clearly and efficiently as possible. Readers of
persuasive documents appear unconvinced that this has been done since the writer has an
interest in suppressing negative arguments and embellishing the positive ones.
readers have a distrust of persuasive documents
Directive communication: information intended to make the target group draw a particular
conclusion persuasive
Non-directive communication: does not have the intention to steer people towards a
particular conclusion, the target group is left to make up their own minds. informative. It
is doubtful if whether non-directive communication is non-directive. Sometimes a non-
directive document consists of consequences which might influence the reader.
§1.2 communication and behavior change: alternatives and limitations
Persuasive communication is aimed at influencing people’s attitudes, with an underlying goal
of changing people’s behavior
The government can impose obligations to citizens. Legislation enables the government to
stipulate that certain behaviors are mandatory, and others prohibited.
An important difference between the government and commercial organizations is that the
government has another behavior changing tool in addition to communication: legislation.
§1.2.1 choosing between legislation and communication
Direct regulation: via legislation
Social regulation: via public information
Enforcement burden: is the government decides to adopt laws or regulations, these will
come with a certain enforcement burden since the government must be prepared to enforce
them. This sometimes takes considerable effort.
Personal responsibility: focusing documents on the personal responsibility of people.
Personal responsibility and enforcement burden are ‘communicating vessels’. The more the
instrument appeals to citizens’ personal responsibility, the lighter the government’s
enforcement burden. If the instrument allows less personal responsibility the enforcement
burden increases
, The four instruments that are available to the government: financial, private law, legalization
and social regulation
The choice to go for either direct or social regulation depends on the nature of the situation.
In this case there is a distinguishment between ‘very urgent situations’ and ‘less urgent
situations’.
Very urgent situations: the risks are so high that immediate and effective action is
imperative. using direct regulation
Less urgent situations: the government chooses between several instruments, based on the
nature of the situation, with the following three dimensions playing a role:
1. Measurability of behavior: the measurability or knowability of the behavior is the
ease, or difficulty, with which the government can monitor whether people abide by
the rules. The easier it is to ascertain that people do so, the lower the enforcement
burden.
2. Structure of the target group: the size and heterogeneity of the group of people who
are supposed to change their behavior. Is this group is small and easy to identify or
large and heterogeneous? Is the group is small and easily the enforcement burder
will be light and vice versa.
3. Costs for the target group: the costs of behavior change. Does the new behavior lead
to higher costs for the target group, to less comfort or physical or mental problems?
The higher the costs, the less the taget group will be inclined to adopt the disered
behavior.
According to the WWR (1992) these dimensions must be taken into account when choosing
between direct and social regulation.
Communication can be a useful instrument, especially if it can be expected that people will
let themselves be convinced of the benefits of the promoted behavior in comparison to their
current behavior. Communication can then be a role, if people cannot be convincing of the
advantages of the promoted behavior communication is useless. Communication can be
used to explain the rationale behind the measure, which will increase the likelihood that the
measure will be perceived as reasonable. Even if the government opts for direct regulation,
communication can still play an important role in making it easier to implement and enforce
the rule.
Legislation: to ban smoking in public places
Financial incentives: road pricing to discourage unnecessary driving
§1.2.2 communication’s potential for changing behavior
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