1 - Introduction to Persuasion
Persuasion is the study of attitudes and how to change them.
Persuasion: constancies and changes
Contemporary persuasion differs from the past in the following ways:
The number and reach of persuasive communication have grown exponentially
→ Its reach has become bigger by mediated channels and merchandise.
Persuasive messages travel faster than ever before
→ Ads use cultural celebrities, symbols (status), and commodity signs
→ Social media brings persuasive messages without FtF (namely Twitter)
Persuasion has become institutionalized
→ while persuasive messages are prepared by individuals working online, most persuasion
occurs in organisational settings, with high-powered companies playing an important role in
the political and social influence process.
Persuasive communication has become more subtle and devious
→ Rely on soft-shell messages that play on emotions.
→ Disguising ads as part of the website.
Persuasive communication is more complex and mediated
→ Different sociological places makes it more complex that others don’t think the same as
you.
→ Technology increasingly mediates the communicator and message recipient.
Persuasive communication has gone digital
→ increased complexity, blurring lines among information, entertainment and influence due
to editing and altering the content. → two-way communication.
Social media Intersections
→ Many persuasions occur online.
→ Persuasion involves the symbolic process by which messages influence beliefs and
attitudes.
→ Social media uses powerful meanings in compacted phrases → powerful effects through
literary simplicity and conveyance of strong symbolic meanings.
Contemporary social media persuasive message effects are unique that they:
o involve simple catchphrases
o diffuse more quickly and widely
o enable others to participate in meaning conferral
o capable of mobilizing individuals across borders.
→ persuasive messages that are shared on social media are apt to be those that reaffirm that
worldview → echo-chamber.
Social media are altering contours of persuasion by raising new questions, exerting a range of
beneficial but untoward effects.
Foundations of Persuasion
Persuasion involves the persuader’s awareness that they are trying to influence and requires the
persuadee to make a (un)conscious decision to change their mind. Persuasion also has moral
components.
,Defining persuasion
“Symbolic process in which communicators try to convince other people to change their own attitudes
or behaviours regarding an issue through the transmission of a message in an atmosphere of free
choice.”
Five components:
Symbolic process: it takes time, consists of steps, actively involves the recipient of the
message.
o Symbol: form of language in which one entity represents a concept or idea →
meaning differs among people.
(Conscious) attempt to influence, together with an accompanying awareness that the
persuadee has a mental state susceptible to change → intentional messages.
o Social influence: broad process in which the behaviour of one alters the thoughts or
actions of another.
People persuade themselves by activating the desire to change.
Involves the transmission of a message
Requires free choice → concept of freedom that underlies persuasion is a relative concept.
Persuaders transmit messages in hopes of convincing us to change our attitudes about an issue.
Persuasion versus coercion
Coercion: technique for forcing people to act as the coercer wants them to act, presumably contrary to
their preferences. It involves a threat or dire consequences.
Persuasion and coercion are overlapping concepts and can be subjectively interpretated in the matter.
Coercion occurs when the influence agent:
Delivers a believable threat of significant abuse or emotional harm to those who refuse the
directive
Deprives the individual of some measure of freedom or autonomy
Attempts to induce the individual to act contrary to their preferences.
Propaganda: form of communication in which the leaders of
a ruling group have near or total control over the
transmission of information, typically relying on mass media
to reach target group members, using language and symbols
in a deceptive and manipulative way.
or: persuasive communication with which one disagrees and
to which the individual attributes hostile intent.
Persuasion allows for dissent, where propaganda does not.
Propaganda is also deceptive and uses mass media, whereas
persuasion occurs in mediated settings.
Manipulation: persuasion technique that occurs when a
communicator hides their true persuasive goals, hoping to
mislead the recipient by delivering an overt message that
disguises its true intent. (still involves free choice)
Understanding persuasive communication effects
Shaping
Reinforcing
Changing responses
, 2 - Historical and Ethical foundations
Historical review of persuasion scholarship
Ancient Greece: sophos = knowledge
Rhetoric: use of argumentation, language, and public address to influence audiences.
Plato thinks ads ‘lie’ or stretch the truth, while sophists see persuasion as practical knowledge
to promote and are suspicious to abstract truths.
First persuasion theorist: Aristotle
Persuasion was analytical → made ethics the centre.
o ethos (nature of communicator), Pathos (emotional state of audience), and logos
(message arguments).
When in Rome, speak as roman Rhetoricians.
High standards when to be considered a skilled orator
Rhetorical developments in the US
thought that aspiring political leaders could deliver an effective, persuasive speech.
Origins of the social scientific approach
Research on attitudes.
Hovland did experiments with persuasive communication with the ideas from Aristotle
1960 forward terms arise like: attitude, belief, cognitive processing, cognitive dissonance,
social judgments, and interpersonal compliance.
Social psychologists focus on the individual, exploring people’s attitudes and susceptibility to
persuasion.
Communication scholars cast a broader net, looking at persuasion in two-person units, called
dyads, and examining the influences of media on health and politics.
Marketing scholars examine attitudes toward brands, advertising, and, more generally, the
processes by which a society communicates valued products to masses of consumers.
Contemporary study of persuasion
Theory: umbrella conceptualization of a phenomenon that contains hypotheses, proposes linkages
between variables, explains evens, and offers predictions.
Study persuasion in two ways:
Conduct experiments, or controlled studies in artificial settings.
Surveys
Seeing the big picture
It is all about making a choice to persuade and the free will to engage with the persuasion.
Persuasion and ethics
Persuasion ethics demand considerations.
Kant: immoral because of using people a means to the persuaders end.
Completely moral due to free choice to accept or reject messages. (naive)
→ Normative theories of ethics : adopts a prescriptive approach.
Utilitarianism: common-sense solutions to moral dilemmas. Emphasizes utility or
consequences
Kant’s deontological/duty-based theory: just
because something gives many people pleasure,
does not make it right. → derives from intention
from which the act is performed.
