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The Art of Persuasion Hasn’t Changed in 2,000 Years

• Carmine Gallo

What Aristotle can teach us about making an argument.

More than 2,000 years ago Aristotle outlined a formula on how to become a master of persuasion in his work Rhetoric . To successfully sell your next idea, try using these five rhetorical devices that he identified in your next speech or presentation: The first is egos or “character.” In order for your audience to trust you, start your talk by establishing your credibility. Then, make a logical appeal to reason, or “logos.” Use data, evidence, and facts to support your pitch. The third device, and perhaps the most important, is “pathos,” or emotion. People are moved to action by how a speaker makes them feel. Aristotle believed the best way to transfer emotion from one person to another is through storytelling. The more personal your content is the more your audience will feel connected to you and your idea.

Ideas are the currency of the twenty-first century. The ability to persuade, to change hearts and minds, is perhaps the single greatest skill that will give you a competitive edge in the knowledge economy — an age where ideas matter more than ever.

• Carmine Gallo is a Harvard University instructor, keynote speaker, and author of 10 books translated into 40 languages. Gallo is the author of The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman  (St. Martin’s Press).

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12 Persuasion: So Easily Fooled

This module introduces several major principles in the process of persuasion. It offers an overview of the different paths to persuasion. It then describes how mindless processing makes us vulnerable to undesirable persuasion and some of the “tricks” that may be used against us.

Learning Objectives

• Recognize the difference between the central and peripheral routes to persuasion.
• Understand the concepts of trigger features, fixed action patterns, heuristics, and mindless thinking, and how these processes are essential to our survival but, at the same time, leave us vulnerable to exploitation.
• Understand some common “tricks” persuasion artists may use to take advantage of us.
• Use this knowledge to make you less susceptible to unwanted persuasion.

Introduction

Have you ever tried to swap seats with a stranger on an airline? Ever negotiated the price of a car? Ever tried to convince someone to recycle, quit smoking, or make a similar change in health behaviors? If so, you are well versed with how persuasion can show up in everyday life.

Persuasion has been defined as “the process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors” ( Myers, 2011 ). Persuasion can take many forms. It may, for example, differ in whether it targets public compliance or private acceptance, is short-term or long-term, whether it involves slowly escalating commitments or sudden interventions and, most of all, in the benevolence of its intentions. When persuasion is well-meaning, we might call it education. When it is manipulative, it might be called mind control ( Levine, 2003 ).

Whatever the content, however, there is a similarity to the form of the persuasion process itself. As the advertising commentator Sid Bernstein once observed, “Of course, you sell candidates for political office the same way you sell soap or sealing wax or whatever; because, when you get right down to it, that’s the only way anything is sold” ( Levine, 2003 ).

Persuasion is one of the most studied of all social psychology phenomena. This module provides an introduction to several of its most important components.

Two Paths to Persuasion

Persuasion theorists distinguish between the central and peripheral routes to persuasion ( Petty & Cacioppo, 1986 ). The central route employs direct, relevant, logical messages. This method rests on the assumption that the audience is motivated, will think carefully about what is presented, and will react on the basis of your arguments. The central route is intended to produce enduring agreement. For example, you might decide to vote for a particular political candidate after hearing her speak and finding her logic and proposed policies to be convincing.

The peripheral route, on the other hand, relies on superficial cues that have little to do with logic. The peripheral approach is the salesman’s way of thinking. It requires a target who isn’t thinking carefully about what you are saying. It requires low effort from the target and often exploits rule-of-thumb heuristics that trigger mindless reactions (see below). It may be intended to persuade you to do something you do not want to do and might later be sorry you did. Advertisements, for example, may show celebrities, cute animals, beautiful scenery, or provocative sexual images that have nothing to do with the product. The peripheral approach is also common in the darkest of persuasion programs, such as those of dictators and cult leaders. Returning to the example of voting, you can experience the peripheral route in action when you see a provocative, emotionally charged political advertisement that tugs at you to vote a particular way.

Triggers and Fixed Action Patterns

The central route emphasizes objective communication of information. The peripheral route relies on psychological techniques. These techniques may take advantage of a target’s not thinking carefully about the message. The process mirrors a phenomenon in animal behavior known as fixed action patterns (FAPs) . These are sequences of behavior that occur in exactly the same fashion, in exactly the same order, every time they’re elicited. Cialdini ( 2008 ) compares it to a prerecorded tape that is turned on and, once it is, always plays to its finish. He describes it is as if the animal were turning on a tape recorder ( Cialdini, 2008 ). There is the feeding tape, the territorial tape, the migration tape, the nesting tape, the aggressive tape—each sequence ready to be played when a situation calls for it.

In humans fixed action patterns include many of the activities we engage in while mentally on “auto-pilot.” These behaviors are so automatic that it is very difficult to control them. If you ever feed a baby, for instance, nearly everyone mimics each bite the baby takes by opening and closing their own mouth! If two people near you look up and point you will automatically look up yourself. We also operate in a reflexive, non-thinking way when we make many decisions. We are more likely, for example, to be less critical about medical advice dispensed from a doctor than from a friend who read an interesting article on the topic in a popular magazine.

A notable characteristic of fixed action patterns is how they are activated. At first glance, it appears the animal is responding to the overall situation. For example, the maternal tape appears to be set off when a mother sees her hungry baby, or the aggressive tape seems to be activated when an enemy invades the animal’s territory. It turns out, however, that the on/off switch may actually be controlled by a specific, minute detail of the situation—maybe a sound or shape or patch of color. These are the hot buttons of the biological world—what Cialdini refers to as “ trigger features ” and biologists call “releasers.”

Humans are not so different. Take the example of a study conducted on various ways to promote a campus bake sale for charity ( Levine, 2003 ). Simply displaying the cookies and other treats to passersby did not generate many sales (only 2 out of 30 potential customers made a purchase). In an alternate condition, however, when potential customers were asked to “buy a cookie for a good cause” the number rose to 12 out of 30. It seems that the phrase “a good cause” triggered a willingness to act. In fact, when the phrase “a good cause” was paired with a locally-recognized charity (known for its food-for-the-homeless program) the numbers held steady at 14 out of 30. When a fictional good cause was used instead (the make believe “Levine House”) still 11 out of 30 potential customers made purchases and not one asked about the purpose or nature of the cause. The phrase “for a good cause” was an influential enough hot button that the exact cause didn’t seem to matter.

The effectiveness of peripheral persuasion relies on our frequent reliance on these sorts of fixed action patterns and trigger features. These mindless, rules-of-thumb are generally effective shortcuts for coping with the overload of information we all must confront. They serve as heuristics—mental shortcuts– that enable us to make decisions and solve problems quickly and efficiently. They also, however, make us vulnerable to uninvited exploitation through the peripheral route of persuasion.

The Source of Persuasion: The Triad of Trustworthiness

Effective persuasion requires trusting the source of the communication. Studies have identified three characteristics that lead to trust: perceived authority, honesty, and likability.

When the source appears to have any or all of these characteristics, people not only are more willing to agree to their request but are willing to do so without carefully considering the facts. We assume we are on safe ground and are happy to shortcut the tedious process of informed decision making. As a result, we are more susceptible to messages and requests, no matter their particular content or how peripheral they may be.

From earliest childhood, we learn to rely on authority figures for sound decision making because their authority signifies status and power, as well as expertise. These two facets often work together. Authorities such as parents and teachers are not only our primary sources of wisdom while we grow up, but they control us and our access to the things we want. In addition, we have been taught to believe that respect for authority is a moral virtue. As adults, it is natural to transfer this respect to society’s designated authorities, such as judges, doctors, bosses, and religious leaders. We assume their positions give them special access to information and power. Usually we are correct, so that our willingness to defer to authorities becomes a convenient shortcut to sound decision making. Uncritical trust in authority may, however, lead to bad decisions. Perhaps the most famous study ever conducted in social psychology demonstrated that, when conditions were set up just so, two-thirds of a sample of psychologically normal men were willing to administer potentially lethal shocks to a stranger when an apparent authority in a laboratory coat ordered them to do so ( Milgram, 1974 ; Burger, 2009 ).

Uncritical trust in authority can be problematic for several reasons. First, even if the source of the message is a legitimate, well-intentioned authority, they may not always be correct. Second, when respect for authority becomes mindless, expertise in one domain may be confused with expertise in general. To assume there is credibility when a successful actor promotes a cold remedy, or when a psychology professor offers his views about politics, can lead to problems. Third, the authority may not be legitimate. It is not difficult to fake a college degree or professional credential or to buy an official-looking badge or uniform.

Honesty is the moral dimension of trustworthiness. Persuasion professionals have long understood how critical it is to their efforts. Marketers, for example, dedicate exorbitant resources to developing and maintaining an image of honesty. A trusted brand or company name becomes a mental shortcut for consumers. It is estimated that some 50,000 new products come out each year. Forrester Research, a marketing research company, calculates that children have seen almost six million ads by the age of 16. An established brand name helps us cut through this volume of information. It signals we are in safe territory. “The real suggestion to convey,” advertising leader Theodore MacManus observed in 1910, “is that the man manufacturing the product is an honest man, and the product is an honest product, to be preferred above all others” ( Fox, 1997 ).

If we know that celebrities aren’t really experts, and that they are being paid to say what they’re saying, why do their endorsements sell so many products? Ultimately, it is because we like them. More than any single quality, we trust people we like. Roger Ailes, a public relations adviser to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, observed: “If you could master one element of personal communication that is more powerful than anything . . . it is the quality of being likable. I call it the magic bullet, because if your audience likes you, they’ll forgive just about everything else you do wrong. If they don’t like you, you can hit every rule right on target and it doesn’t matter.”

The mix of qualities that make a person likable are complex and often do not generalize from one situation to another. One clear finding, however, is that physically attractive people tend to be liked more. In fact, we prefer them to a disturbing extent: Various studies have shown we perceive attractive people as smarter, kinder, stronger, more successful, more socially skilled, better poised, better adjusted, more exciting, more nurturing, and, most important, of higher moral character. All of this is based on no other information than their physical appearance (e.g., Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972 ).

Manipulating the Perception of Trustworthiness

The perception of trustworthiness is highly susceptible to manipulation. Levine ( 2003 ) lists some of the most common psychological strategies that are used to achieve this effect:

Testimonials and Endorsement

This technique employs someone who people already trust to testify about the product or message being sold. The technique goes back to the earliest days of advertising when satisfied customers might be shown describing how a patent medicine cured their life-long battle with “nerves” or how Dr. Scott’s Electric Hair Brush healed their baldness (“My hair (was) falling out, and I was rapidly becoming bald, but since using the brush a thick growth of hair has made its appearance, quite equal to that I had before previous to its falling out,” reported a satisfied customer in an 1884 ad for the product). Similarly, Kodak had Prince Henri D’Orleans and others endorse the superior quality of their camera (“The results are marvellous[sic]. The enlargements which you sent me are superb,“ stated Prince Henri D’Orleans in a 1888 ad).

Celebrity endorsements are a frequent feature in commercials aimed at children. The practice has aroused considerable ethical concern, and research shows the concern is warranted. In a study funded by the Federal Trade Commission, more than 400 children ages 8 to 14 were shown one of various commercials for a model racing set. Some of the commercials featured an endorsement from a famous race car driver, some included real racing footage, and others included neither. Children who watched the celebrity endorser not only preferred the toy cars more but were convinced the endorser was an expert about the toys. This held true for children of all ages. In addition, they believed the toy race cars were bigger, faster, and more complex than real race cars they saw on film. They were also less likely to believe the commercial was staged ( Ross et al., 1984 ).

Presenting the Message as Education

The message may be framed as objective information. Salespeople, for example, may try to convey the impression they are less interested in selling a product than helping you make the best decision. The implicit message is that being informed is in everyone’s best interest, because they are confident that when you understand what their product has to offer that you will conclude it is the best choice. Levine ( 2003 ) describes how, during training for a job as a used car salesman, he was instructed: “If the customer tells you they do not want to be bothered by a salesperson, your response is ‘I’m not a salesperson, I’m a product consultant. I don’t give prices or negotiate with you. I’m simply here to show you our inventory and help you find a vehicle that will fit your needs.’”

Word of Mouth

Imagine you read an ad that claims a new restaurant has the best food in your city. Now, imagine a friend tells you this new restaurant has the best food in the city. Who are you more likely to believe? Surveys show we turn to people around us for many decisions. A 1995 poll found that 70% of Americans rely on personal advice when selecting a new doctor. The same poll found that 53% of moviegoers are influenced by the recommendation of a person they know. In another survey, 91% said they’re likely to use another person’s recommendation when making a major purchase.

Persuasion professionals may exploit these tendencies. Often, in fact, they pay for the surveys. Using this data, they may try to disguise their message as word of mouth from your peers. For example, Cornerstone Promotion, a leading marketing firm that advertises itself as under-the-radar marketing specialists, sometimes hires children to log into chat rooms and pretend to be fans of one of their clients or pays students to throw parties where they subtly circulate marketing material among their classmates.

More persuasive yet, however, is to involve peers face-to-face. Rather than over-investing in formal advertising, businesses and organizations may plant seeds at the grassroots level hoping that consumers themselves will then spread the word to each other. The seeding process begins by identifying so-called information hubs—individuals the marketers believe can and will reach the most other people.

The seeds may be planted with established opinion leaders. Software companies, for example, give advance copies of new computer programs to professors they hope will recommend it to students and colleagues. Pharmaceutical companies regularly provide travel expenses and speaking fees to researchers willing to lecture to health professionals about the virtues of their drugs. Hotels give travel agents free weekends at their resorts in the hope they’ll later recommend them to clients seeking advice.

There is a Yiddish word, maven, which refers to a person who’s an expert or a connoisseur, as in a friend who knows where to get the best price on a sofa or the co-worker you can turn to for advice about where to buy a computer. They (a) know a lot of people, (b) communicate a great deal with people, (c) are more likely than others to be asked for their opinions, and (d) enjoy spreading the word about what they know and think. Most important of all, they are trusted. As a result, mavens are often targeted by persuasion professionals to help spread their message.

Other Tricks of Persuasion

There are many other mindless, mental shortcuts—heuristics and fixed action patterns—that leave us susceptible to persuasion. A few examples:

• “Free Gifts” & Reciprocity

Social Proof

• Getting a Foot-in-the-Door
• A Door-in-the-Face
• “And That’s Not All”

The Sunk Cost Trap

• Scarcity & Psychological Reactance

Reciprocity

“There is no duty more indispensable than that of returning a kindness,” wrote Cicero. Humans are motivated by a sense of equity and fairness. When someone does something for us or gives us something, we feel obligated to return the favor in kind. It triggers one of the most powerful of social norms, the reciprocity rule, whereby we feel compelled to repay, in equitable value, what another person has given to us.

Gouldner ( 1960 ), in his seminal study of the reciprocity rule, found it appears in every culture. It lays the basis for virtually every type of social relationship, from the legalities of business arrangements to the subtle exchanges within a romance. A salesperson may offer free gifts, concessions, or their valuable time in order to get us to do something for them in return. For example, if a colleague helps you when you’re busy with a project, you might feel obliged to support her ideas for improving team processes. You might decide to buy more from a supplier if they have offered you an aggressive discount. Or, you might give money to a charity fundraiser who has given you a flower in the street ( Cialdini, 2008 ; Levine, 2003 ).

If everyone is doing it, it must be right. People are more likely to work late if others on their team are doing the same, to put a tip in a jar that already contains money, or eat in a restaurant that is busy. This principle derives from two extremely powerful social forces—social comparison and conformity. We compare our behavior to what others are doing and, if there is a discrepancy between the other person and ourselves, we feel pressure to change ( Cialdini, 2008 ).

The principle of social proof is so common that it easily passes unnoticed. Advertisements, for example, often consist of little more than attractive social models appealing to our desire to be one of the group. For example, the German candy company Haribo suggests that when you purchase their products you are joining a larger society of satisfied customers: “Kids and grown-ups love it so– the happy world of Haribo”. Sometimes social cues are presented with such specificity that it is as if the target is being manipulated by a puppeteer—for example, the laugh tracks on situation comedies that instruct one not only when to laugh but how to laugh. Studies find these techniques work. Fuller and Skeehy-Skeffington ( 1974 ), for example, found that audiences laughed longer and more when a laugh track accompanied the show than when it did not, even though respondents knew the laughs they heard were connived by a technician from old tapes that had nothing to do with the show they were watching. People are particularly susceptible to social proof (a) when they are feeling uncertain, and (b) if the people in the comparison group seem to be similar to ourselves. As P.T. Barnum once said, “Nothing draws a crowd like a crowd.”

Commitment and Consistency

Westerners have a desire to both feel and be perceived to act consistently. Once we have made an initial commitment, it is more likely that we will agree to subsequent commitments that follow from the first. Knowing this, a clever persuasion artist might induce someone to agree to a difficult-to-refuse small request and follow this with progressively larger requests that were his target from the beginning. The process is known as getting a foot in the door and then gradually escalating the commitments .

Paradoxically, we are less likely to say “No” to a large request than we are to a small request when it follows this pattern. This can have costly consequences. Levine ( 2003 ), for example, found ex-cult members tend to agree with the statement: “Nobody ever joins a cult. They just postpone the decision to leave.”

A Door in the Face

Some techniques bring a paradoxical approach to the escalation sequence by pushing a request to or beyond its acceptable limit and then backing off. In the door-in-the-face (sometimes called the reject-then-compromise) procedure, the persuader begins with a large request they expect will be rejected. They want the door to be slammed in their face. Looking forlorn, they now follow this with a smaller request, which, unknown to the customer, was their target all along.

In one study, for example, Mowen and Cialdini ( 1980 ), posing as representatives of the fictitious “California Mutual Insurance Co.,” asked university students walking on campus if they’d be willing to fill out a survey about safety in the home or dorm. The survey, students were told, would take about 15 minutes. Not surprisingly, most of the students declined—only one out of four complied with the request. In another condition, however, the researchers door-in-the-faced them by beginning with a much larger request. “The survey takes about two hours,” students were told. Then, after the subject declined to participate, the experimenters retreated to the target request: “. . . look, one part of the survey is particularly important and is fairly short. It will take only 15 minutes to administer.” Almost twice as many now complied.

And That’s Not All!

The that’s-not-all technique also begins with the salesperson asking a high price. This is followed by several seconds’ pause during which the customer is kept from responding. The salesperson then offers a better deal by either lowering the price or adding a bonus product. That’s-not-all is a variation on door-in-the-face. Whereas the latter begins with a request that will be rejected, however, that’s-not-all gains its influence by putting the customer on the fence, allowing them to waver and then offering them a comfortable way off.

Burger ( 1986 ) demonstrated the technique in a series of field experiments. In one study, for example, an experimenter-salesman told customers at a student bake sale that cupcakes cost 75 cents. As this price was announced, another salesman held up his hand and said, “Wait a second,” briefly consulted with the first salesman, and then announced (“that’s-not-all”) that the price today included two cookies. In a control condition, customers were offered the cupcake and two cookies as a package for 75 cents right at the onset. The bonus worked magic: Almost twice as many people bought cupcakes in the that’s-not-all condition (73%) than in the control group (40%).

Sunk cost is a term used in economics referring to nonrecoverable investments of time or money. The trap occurs when a person’s aversion to loss impels them to throw good money after bad, because they don’t want to waste their earlier investment. This is vulnerable to manipulation. The more time and energy a cult recruit can be persuaded to spend with the group, the more “invested” they will feel, and, consequently, the more of a loss it will feel to leave that group. Consider the advice of billionaire investor Warren Buffet: “When you find yourself in a hole, the best thing you can do is stop digging” ( Levine, 2003 ).

Scarcity and Psychological Reactance

People tend to perceive things as more attractive when their availability is limited, or when they stand to lose the opportunity to acquire them on favorable terms ( Cialdini, 2008 ). Anyone who has encountered a willful child is familiar with this principle. In a classic study, Brehm & Weinraub ( 1977 ), for example, placed 2-year-old boys in a room with a pair of equally attractive toys. One of the toys was placed next to a plexiglass wall; the other was set behind the plexiglass. For some boys, the wall was 1 foot high, which allowed the boys to easily reach over and touch the distant toy. Given this easy access, they showed no particular preference for one toy or the other. For other boys, however, the wall was a formidable 2 feet high, which required them to walk around the barrier to touch the toy. When confronted with this wall of inaccessibility, the boys headed directly for the forbidden fruit, touching it three times as quickly as the accessible toy.

Research shows that much of that 2-year-old remains in adults, too. People resent being controlled. When a person seems too pushy, we get suspicious, annoyed, often angry, and yearn to retain our freedom of choice more than before. Brehm ( 1966 ) labeled this the principle of psychological reactance .

The most effective way to circumvent psychological reactance is to first get a foot in the door and then escalate the demands so gradually that there is seemingly nothing to react against. Hassan ( 1988 ), who spent many years as a higher-up in the “Moonies” cult, describes how they would shape behaviors subtly at first, then more forcefully. The material that would make up the new identity of a recruit was doled out gradually, piece by piece, only as fast as the person was deemed ready to assimilate it. The rule of thumb was to “tell him only what he can accept.” He continues: “Don’t sell them [the converts] more than they can handle . . . . If a recruit started getting angry because he was learning too much about us, the person working on him would back off and let another member move in …..”

Defending Against Unwelcome Persuasion

The most commonly used approach to help people defend against unwanted persuasion is known as the “inoculation” method. Research has shown that people who are subjected to weak versions of a persuasive message are less vulnerable to stronger versions later on, in much the same way that being exposed to small doses of a virus immunizes you against full-blown attacks. In a classic study by McGuire ( 1964 ), subjects were asked to state their opinion on an issue. They were then mildly attacked for their position and then given an opportunity to refute the attack. When later confronted by a powerful argument against their initial opinion, these subjects were more resistant than were a control group. In effect, they developed defenses that rendered them immune.

Sagarin and his colleagues have developed a more aggressive version of this technique that they refer to as “stinging” ( Sagarin, Cialdini, Rice, & Serna, 2002 ). Their studies focused on the popular advertising tactic whereby well-known authority figures are employed to sell products they know nothing about, for example, ads showing a famous astronaut pontificating on Rolex watches. In a first experiment, they found that simply forewarning people about the deviousness of these ads had little effect on peoples’ inclination to buy the product later. Next, they stung the subjects. This time, they were immediately confronted with their gullibility. “Take a look at your answer to the first question. Did you find the ad to be even somewhat convincing? If so, then you got fooled. … Take a look at your answer to the second question. Did you notice that this ‘stockbroker’ was a fake?” They were then asked to evaluate a new set of ads. The sting worked. These subjects were not only more likely to recognize the manipulativeness of deceptive ads; they were also less likely to be persuaded by them.

Anti-vulnerability trainings such as these can be helpful. Ultimately, however, the most effective defense against unwanted persuasion is to accept just how vulnerable we are. One must, first, accept that it is normal to be vulnerable and, second, to learn to recognize the danger signs when we are falling prey. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

This module has provided a brief introduction to the psychological processes and subsequent “tricks” involved in persuasion. It has emphasized the peripheral route of persuasion because this is when we are most vulnerable to psychological manipulation. These vulnerabilities are side effects of “normal” and usually adaptive psychological processes. Mindless heuristics offer shortcuts for coping with a hopelessly complicated world. They are necessities for human survival. All, however, underscore the dangers that accompany any mindless thinking.

Text Attribution

Media attributions.

• if winter ends
• Bake Sale Cupcakes and M&M Cookies
• Figure 12.1
• Idris Elba at the ‘Defeating Ebola in Sierrra Leone’ conference
• Figure 12.2
• New Orleans LA ~ Acme Oyster House ~ Famous Restaurant
• 99c Store Going Out of Business

Persuasion that employs direct, relevant, logical messages.

Persuasion that relies on superficial cues that have little to do with logic.

A mental shortcut or rule of thumb that reduces complex mental problems to more simple rule-based decisions.

Sequences of behavior that occur in exactly the same fashion, in exactly the same order, every time they are elicited.

Specific, sometimes minute, aspects of a situation that activate fixed action patterns.

The act of exchanging goods or services. By giving a person a gift, the principle of reciprocity can be used to influence others; they then feel obligated to give back.

The mental shortcut based on the assumption that, if everyone is doing it, it must be right.

Obtaining a small, initial commitment.

A pattern of small, progressively escalating demands is less likely to be rejected than a single large demand made all at once.

A reaction to people, rules, requirements, or offerings that are perceived to limit freedoms.

An Introduction to Social Psychology Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Edison State University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Social Psychology

Learning objectives.

• Explain how people’s attitudes are externally changed through persuasion
• Compare the peripheral and central routes to persuasion

Figure 1. We encounter persuasion attempts everywhere. Persuasion is not limited to formal advertising; we are confronted with it throughout our everyday world. (credit: Robert Couse-Baker)

Yale Attitude Change Approach

The topic of persuasion has been one of the most extensively researched areas in social psychology (Fiske et al., 2010). During the Second World War, Carl Hovland extensively researched persuasion for the U.S. Army. After the war, Hovland continued his exploration of persuasion at Yale University. Out of this work came a model called the Yale attitude change approach , which describes the conditions under which people tend to change their attitudes. Hovland demonstrated that certain features of the source of a persuasive message, the content of the message, and the characteristics of the audience will influence the persuasiveness of a message (Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953).

Features of the source of the persuasive message include the credibility of the speaker (Hovland & Weiss, 1951) and the physical attractiveness of the speaker (Eagly & Chaiken, 1975; Petty, Wegener, & Fabrigar, 1997). Thus, speakers who are credible, or have expertise on the topic, and who are deemed as trustworthy are more persuasive than less credible speakers. Similarly, more attractive speakers are more persuasive than less attractive speakers. The use of famous actors and athletes to advertise products on television and in print relies on this principle. The immediate and long-term impact of the persuasion also depends, however, on the credibility of the messenger (Kumkale & Albarracín, 2004).

Features of the message itself that affect persuasion include subtlety (the quality of being important, but not obvious) (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Walster & Festinger, 1962); sidedness (that is, having more than one side) (Crowley & Hoyer, 1994; Igou & Bless, 2003; Lumsdaine & Janis, 1953); timing (Haugtvedt & Wegener, 1994; Miller & Campbell, 1959), and whether both sides are presented. Subtle messages are more persuasive than direct messages. Arguments that occur first, such as in a debate, are more influential if messages are given back-to-back. However, if there is a delay after the first message, and before the audience needs to make a decision, the last message presented will tend to be more persuasive (Miller & Campbell, 1959).

Features of the audience that affect persuasion are attention (Albarracín & Wyer, 2001; Festinger & Maccoby, 1964), intelligence, self-esteem (Rhodes & Wood, 1992), and age (Krosnick & Alwin, 1989). In order to be persuaded, audience members must be paying attention. People with lower intelligence are more easily persuaded than people with higher intelligence; whereas people with moderate self-esteem are more easily persuaded than people with higher or lower self-esteem (Rhodes & Wood, 1992). Finally, younger adults aged 18–25 are more persuadable than older adults.

Elaboration Likelihood Model

An especially popular model that describes the dynamics of persuasion is the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). The elaboration likelihood model considers the variables of the attitude change approach—that is, features of the source of the persuasive message, contents of the message, and characteristics of the audience are used to determine when attitude change will occur. According to the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion, there are two main routes that play a role in delivering a persuasive message: central and peripheral (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Persuasion can take one of two paths, and the durability of the end result depends on the path.

The central route is logic-driven and uses data and facts to convince people of an argument’s worthiness. For example, a car company seeking to persuade you to purchase their model will emphasize the car’s safety features and fuel economy. This is a direct route to persuasion that focuses on the quality of the information. In order for the central route of persuasion to be effective in changing attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors, the argument must be strong and, if successful, will result in lasting attitude change.

The central route to persuasion works best when the target of persuasion, or the audience, is analytical and willing to engage in the processing of the information. From an advertiser’s perspective, what products would be best sold using the central route to persuasion? What audience would most likely be influenced to buy the product? One example is buying a computer. It is likely, for example, that small business owners might be especially influenced by the focus on the computer’s quality and features such as processing speed and memory capacity.

The peripheral route is an indirect route that uses peripheral cues to associate positivity with the message (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Instead of focusing on the facts and a product’s quality, the peripheral route relies on association with positive characteristics such as positive emotions and celebrity endorsement. For example, having a popular athlete advertise athletic shoes is a common method used to encourage young adults to purchase the shoes. This route to attitude change does not require much effort or information processing. This method of persuasion may promote positivity toward the message or product, but it typically results in less permanent attitude or behavior change. The audience does not need to be analytical or motivated to process the message. In fact, a peripheral route to persuasion may not even be noticed by the audience, for example in the strategy of product placement. Product placement refers to putting a product with a clear brand name or brand identity in a TV show or movie to promote the product (Gupta & Lord, 1998). For example, one season of the reality series American Idol prominently showed the panel of judges drinking out of cups that displayed the Coca-Cola logo. What other products would be best sold using the peripheral route to persuasion? Another example is clothing: A retailer may focus on celebrities that are wearing the same style of clothing.

Foot-in-the-door Technique

Researchers have tested many persuasion strategies that are effective in selling products and changing people’s attitude, ideas, and behaviors. One effective strategy is the foot-in-the-door technique (Cialdini, 2001; Pliner, Hart, Kohl, & Saari, 1974). Using the foot-in-the-door technique , the persuader gets a person to agree to bestow a small favor or to buy a small item, only to later request a larger favor or purchase of a bigger item. The foot-in-the-door technique was demonstrated in a study by Freedman and Fraser (1966) in which participants who agreed to post small sign in their yard or sign a petition were more likely to agree to put a large sign in their yard than people who declined the first request (Figure 3). Research on this technique also illustrates the principle of consistency (Cialdini, 2001): Our past behavior often directs our future behavior, and we have a desire to maintain consistency once we have a committed to a behavior.

Figure 3 . With the foot-in-the-door technique, getting someone to agree to a small request such as (a) wearing a campaign button can make them more likely to agree to a larger request, such as (b) putting campaigns signs in your yard. (credit a: modification of work by Joe Crawford; credit b: modification of work by “shutterblog”/Flickr)

A common application of foot-in-the-door is when teens ask their parents for a small permission (for example, extending curfew by a half hour) and then asking them for something larger. Having granted the smaller request increases the likelihood that parents will acquiesce with the later, larger request.

How would a store owner use the foot-in-the-door technique to sell you an expensive product? For example, say that you are buying the latest model smartphone, and the salesperson suggests you purchase the best data plan. You agree to this. The salesperson then suggests a bigger purchase—the three-year extended warranty. After agreeing to the smaller request, you are more likely to also agree to the larger request. You may have encountered this if you have bought a car. When salespeople realize that a buyer intends to purchase a certain model, they might try to get the customer to pay for many or most available options on the car. Another example of the foot-in-the-door technique would be applied to an individual in the market for a used car who decides to buy a fully loaded new car. Why? Because the salesperson convinced the buyer that they need a car that has all of the safety features that were not available in the used car.

Link to Learning

Read more about persuasion at The Noba Project website .

Think It Over

Describe a time when you or someone you know used the foot-in-the-door technique to gain someone’s compliance.

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Psychological Persuasion Techniques

Persuasion Techniques That Really Work

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Shereen Lehman, MS, is a healthcare journalist and fact checker. She has co-authored two books for the popular Dummies Series (as Shereen Jegtvig).

Sam Edwards / Getty Images

Persuasion Techniques in Daily Life

Key persuasion techniques.

• Effects of Persuasion Techniques
• Resisting Persuasion

Persuasion techniques are strategies that can help you convince people to see things your way. Marketers often use these tactics to get people to buy their products or sign up for their services.

It's not uncommon for people to see or hear hundreds of advertisements each day on websites, television programs, podcasts, and social media. Such messages can vary in their effectiveness, but changes are good that they are employing some type of psychological persuasion technique to try to get you to buy something.

At a Glance

Because persuasion is such a pervasive component of our lives, it is often too easy to overlook how outside sources influence us. Learning more about these tactics can help you become more aware of when you've been influenced. It can also help you become more persuasive in your own life, whether you are advocating for a promotion at work or convincing your friends to try the newest restaurant in town.

Persuasion is not just something that is useful to marketers and salesmen, however. Learning how to utilize these techniques in daily life can help you become a better negotiator and make it more likely that you will get what you want, whether you are trying to convince your kids to eat their vegetables or persuade your boss to give you that raise.

Because influence is so useful in so many aspects of daily life, persuasion techniques have been studied and observed since ancient times. It wasn’t until the early 20th century, however, that social psychologists began to formally study these powerful tools of human influence.

The ultimate goal of persuasion is to convince the target to internalize the persuasive argument and adopt this new attitude as a part of their core belief system.

The following are just a few of the highly effective persuasion techniques . Other methods include the use of rewards, punishments, positive or negative expertise, and many others.

Create a Need

One method of persuasion involves creating a need or appealing to a previously existing need. This type of persuasion appeals to a person's fundamental needs for shelter, love, self-esteem, and self-actualization.

Marketers often use this strategy to sell their products. Consider, for example, how many advertisements suggest that people need to purchase a particular product in order to be happy, safe, loved, or admired.

By creating a need, marketers can then offer their goods or services as the tool necessary to satisfy the need.

Appeal to Social Needs

Another very effective persuasive method appeals to the need to be popular, prestigious, or similar to others, often referred to as social proof. Television commercials provide many examples of this type of persuasion, where viewers are encouraged to purchase items to be like everyone else or be like a well-known or well-respected person.

Television advertisements are a significant source of exposure to persuasion considering that the average American watches between 2.79 hours per day.

Social media advertising relies on appealing to these social needs. Online influencers create images that depict appealing and aspirational imagery. People then feel persuaded to purchase the items they hope will give them the same look or lifestyle.

Use Loaded Words and Images

Persuasion also often makes use of loaded words and images. Loaded words and evocative images can create emotional responses that go beyond what the literal meaning.

Advertisers are well aware of the power of positive words, which is why so many advertisers utilize phrases such as "New and Improved" or "All Natural."

Get Your Foot in the Door

Another approach that is often effective in getting people to comply with a request is known as the "foot-in-the-door" technique. This persuasion strategy involves getting a person to agree to a small request, like asking them to purchase a small item, followed by making a much larger request.

By getting the person to agree to the small initial favor, the requester already has their "foot in the door," so to speak. We are then more likely to comply with the larger request.

For example, a neighbor asks you to babysit their two children for an hour or two. Once you agree to the smaller request, they then ask if you can just babysit the kids for the rest of the day.

This is a great example of what psychologists refer to as the rule of commitment , and marketers often use this strategy to encourage consumers to buy products and services.

How It Works

Once you have already agreed to a smaller request, you might feel a sense of obligation to also agree to a larger request.

Go Big and Then Small

This approach is the opposite of the foot-in-the-door approach. A salesperson will begin by making a large, often unrealistic request. The individual responds by refusing, figuratively slamming the door on the sale.

The salesperson responds by making a much smaller request, which often comes off as conciliatory. People often feel obligated to respond to these offers. Since they refused that initial request, people often feel compelled to help the salesperson by accepting the smaller request.

Utilize the Power of Reciprocity

When people do you a favor, you probably feel an almost overwhelming obligation to return the favor in kind. This is known as the norm of reciprocity , a social obligation to do something for someone else because they first did something for you.

Marketers might utilize this tendency by making it seem like they are doing you a kindness, such as including "extras" or discounts, which then compels people to accept the offer and make a purchase.

Create an Anchor Point

The anchoring bias is a subtle cognitive bias that can have a powerful influence on negotiations and decisions. When trying to arrive at a decision, the first offer has the tendency to become an anchoring point for all future negotiations.

So, if you are trying to negotiate a pay increase, being the first person to suggest a number, especially if that number is a bit high, can help influence the future negotiations in your favor. That first number will become the starting point.

While you might not get that amount, starting high might lead to a higher offer from your employer.

Limit Your Availability

Psychologist Robert Cialdini is famous for the six principles of influence. One of the key principles he identified is known as scarcity or limiting the availability of something. Cialdini suggests that things become more attractive when they are scarce or limited.

People are more likely to buy something if they learn that it is the last one or that the sale will be ending soon.

An artist, for example, might only make a limited run of a particular print. Since there are only a few prints available for sale, people might be more likely to make a purchase before they are gone.

Recognizing the Effects of Persuasion Techniques

The examples above are just a few of the many persuasion techniques described by social psychologists. Look for examples of persuasion in your daily experience.

An interesting experiment is to view a half-hour of a random television program and note every instance of persuasive advertising. You might be surprised by the sheer amount of persuasive techniques used in such a brief period of time.

How People Resist Persuasion Techniques

It is also important to remember that persuasion isn't always effective. In many cases, we tend to resist influence, particularly if we are worried that we are being deceived or are reluctant to change.

Counter-Arguments

We may contest the message and provide opposing arguments. Sometimes, this involves contesting the message, such as finding facts or counterarguments that present opposing information. In other cases, we might try to discredit the source of the information.

In other cases, we may simply try to avoid the message. Examples can include muting advertisements on tv commercials or installing ad blockers when browsing online. It isn't unusual to physically avoid such messages. We might avoid shopping centers or other places where we are likely to encounter salespeople.

Certain types of bias can also contribute to persuasion resistance. For example, many people now recognize the serious health risks of smoking, the optimism bias often leads them to think that these hazards are not likely to affect them.

Resistance to persuasive messages can come in many forms. We may present counter arguments, try to avoid persuasive messages, or fall prey to biases that affect our interpretation of the messages we hear.

Cialdini R, Cliffe S. The uses (and abuses) of influence .  Harv Bus Rev . 2013;91(7-8):76-132.

Alkış N, Taşkaya Temizel T. The impact of individual differences on influence strategies . Personality and Individual Differences . 2015;87:147-152. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2015.07.037

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. American Time Use Survey Summary.

Comello ML, Myrick JG, Raphiou AL. A health fundraising experiment using the "foot-in-the-door" technique .  Health Mark Q . 2016;33(3):206-220. doi:10.1080/07359683.2016.1199209

Alslaity A, Tran T. Users' responsiveness to persuasive techniques in recommender systems .  Front Artif Intell . 2021;4:679459. doi:10.3389/frai.2021.679459

Cialdini R, Cliffe S. The uses (and abuses) of influence .  Harv Bus Rev . 2013;91(7-8):76‐132.

Fransen ML, Smit EG, Verlegh PW. Strategies and motives for resistance to persuasion: an integrative framework .  Front Psychol . 2015;6:1201. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01201

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Learning Objectives

• Explain how people’s attitudes are externally changed through persuasion
• Compare the peripheral and central routes to persuasion

Yale Attitude Change Approach

The topic of persuasion has been one of the most extensively researched areas in social psychology (Fiske et al., 2010). During the Second World War, Carl Hovland extensively researched persuasion for the U.S. Army. After the war, Hovland continued his exploration of persuasion at Yale University. Out of this work came a model called the Yale attitude change approach , which describes the conditions under which people tend to change their attitudes. Hovland demonstrated that certain features of the source of a persuasive message, the content of the message, and the characteristics of the audience will influence the persuasiveness of a message (Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953).

Features of the source of the persuasive message include the credibility of the speaker (Hovland & Weiss, 1951) and the physical attractiveness of the speaker (Eagly & Chaiken, 1975; Petty, Wegener, & Fabrigar, 1997). Thus, speakers who are credible, or have expertise on the topic, and who are deemed as trustworthy are more persuasive than less credible speakers. Similarly, more attractive speakers are more persuasive than less attractive speakers. The use of famous actors and athletes to advertise products on television and in print relies on this principle. The immediate and long term impact of the persuasion also depends, however, on the credibility of the messenger (Kumkale & Albarracín, 2004).

Features of the message itself that affect persuasion include subtlety (the quality of being important, but not obvious) (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Walster & Festinger, 1962); sidedness (that is, having more than one side) (Crowley & Hoyer, 1994; Igou & Bless, 2003; Lumsdaine & Janis, 1953); timing (Haugtvedt & Wegener, 1994; Miller & Campbell, 1959), and whether both sides are presented. Messages that are more subtle are more persuasive than direct messages. Arguments that occur first, such as in a debate, are more influential if messages are given back-to-back. However, if there is a delay after the first message, and before the audience needs to make a decision, the last message presented will tend to be more persuasive (Miller & Campbell, 1959).

Features of the audience that affect persuasion are attention (Albarracín & Wyer, 2001; Festinger & Maccoby, 1964), intelligence, self-esteem (Rhodes & Wood, 1992), and age (Krosnick & Alwin, 1989). In order to be persuaded, audience members must be paying attention. People with lower intelligence are more easily persuaded than people with higher intelligence; whereas people with moderate self-esteem are more easily persuaded than people with higher or lower self-esteem (Rhodes & Wood, 1992). Finally, younger adults aged 18–25 are more persuadable than older adults.

Elaboration Likelihood Model

An especially popular model that describes the dynamics of persuasion is the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). The elaboration likelihood model considers the variables of the attitude change approach—that is, features of the source of the persuasive message, contents of the message, and characteristics of the audience are used to determine when attitude change will occur. According to the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion, there are two main routes that play a role in delivering a persuasive message: central and peripheral (Figure 2).

The central route is logic driven and uses data and facts to convince people of an argument’s worthiness. For example, a car company seeking to persuade you to purchase their model will emphasize the car’s safety features and fuel economy. This is a direct route to persuasion that focuses on the quality of the information. In order for the central route of persuasion to be effective in changing attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors, the argument must be strong and, if successful, will result in lasting attitude change.

The central route to persuasion works best when the target of persuasion, or the audience, is analytical and willing to engage in processing of the information. From an advertiser’s perspective, what products would be best sold using the central route to persuasion? What audience would most likely be influenced to buy the product? One example is buying a computer. It is likely, for example, that small business owners might be especially influenced by the focus on the computer’s quality and features such as processing speed and memory capacity.

The peripheral route is an indirect route that uses peripheral cues to associate positivity with the message (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Instead of focusing on the facts and a product’s quality, the peripheral route relies on association with positive characteristics such as positive emotions and celebrity endorsement. For example, having a popular athlete advertise athletic shoes is a common method used to encourage young adults to purchase the shoes. This route to attitude change does not require much effort or information processing. This method of persuasion may promote positivity toward the message or product, but it typically results in less permanent attitude or behavior change. The audience does not need to be analytical or motivated to process the message. In fact, a peripheral route to persuasion may not even be noticed by the audience, for example in the strategy of product placement. Product placement refers to putting a product with a clear brand name or brand identity in a TV show or movie to promote the product (Gupta & Lord, 1998). For example, one season of the reality series American Idol prominently showed the panel of judges drinking out of cups that displayed the Coca-Cola logo. What other products would be best sold using the peripheral route to persuasion? Another example is clothing: A retailer may focus on celebrities that are wearing the same style of clothing.

Foot-in-the-door Technique

Researchers have tested many persuasion strategies that are effective in selling products and changing people’s attitude, ideas, and behaviors. One effective strategy is the foot-in-the-door technique (Cialdini, 2001; Pliner, Hart, Kohl, & Saari, 1974). Using the foot-in-the-door technique , the persuader gets a person to agree to bestow a small favor or to buy a small item, only to later request a larger favor or purchase of a bigger item. The foot-in-the-door technique was demonstrated in a study by Freedman and Fraser (1966) in which participants who agreed to post small sign in their yard or sign a petition were more likely to agree to put a large sign in their yard than people who declined the first request (Figure 3). Research on this technique also illustrates the principle of consistency (Cialdini, 2001): Our past behavior often directs our future behavior, and we have a desire to maintain consistency once we have a committed to a behavior.

A common application of foot-in-the-door is when teens ask their parents for a small permission (for example, extending curfew by a half hour) and then asking them for something larger. Having granted the smaller request increases the likelihood that parents will acquiesce with the later, larger request.

How would a store owner use the foot-in-the-door technique to sell you an expensive product? For example, say that you are buying the latest model smartphone, and the salesperson suggests you purchase the best data plan. You agree to this. The salesperson then suggests a bigger purchase—the three-year extended warranty. After agreeing to the smaller request, you are more likely to also agree to the larger request. You may have encountered this if you have bought a car. When salespeople realize that a buyer intends to purchase a certain model, they might try to get the customer to pay for many or most available options on the car.

Link to Learning

Read more about persuasion at The Noba Project website .

Think It Over

Describe a time when you or someone you know used the foot-in-the-door technique to gain someone’s compliance.

attribution

Modification and adaptation, addition of link to learning. Provided by: Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution

Attitudes and Persuasion. Authored by: OpenStax College. Located at: https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/12-3-attitudes-and-persuasion . License: CC BY: Attribution . License Terms: Download for free at https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

process of changing our attitude toward something based on some form of communication

logic-driven arguments using data and facts to convince people of an argument’s worthiness

one person persuades another person; an indirect route that relies on association of peripheral cues (such as positive emotions and celebrity endorsement) to associate positivity with a message

persuasion of one person by another person, encouraging a person to agree to a small favor, or to buy a small item, only to later request a larger favor or purchase of a larger item

Introduction to Psychology Copyright © by Utah Tech University Psychology Department is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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The Psychology of Persuasion: Persuasion Techniques Essay

Persuasion techniques are the tools a person uses to influence others to do according to his/her wishes. There are many persuasion tools such as consistency, authority, social proof, and reciprocation. Authority is used to influence when the person at a higher position of power demands obedience from the subjects. Obedience to authority becomes enough justification or motivation to act against our good judgment. The ‘Compliance professionals’ use appearance of authority to influence us to obey them or do their wishes. They adopt titles, clothes, and trappings of authority like tone of voice, language, elegant automobiles, and pieces of jewelry among others.

The appearance of authority was used on me a few years ago. One could have thought I was smart enough to see through this, but con artists are also smarter and catch us by surprise. I went to deposit my college fees in one of the bank’s local branches in our small town. The bank is usually crowded especially at the end month. I was not to report to school for another month but, my parent insisted I do so since we had already budgeted for it. There was a long queue ahead of me since the ATMs weren’t working for the second day due to cable problems where sewerage pipes were being repaired. I choose to sit on the bench as I waited for my turn to be served.

Out of nowhere, an elegantly dressed gentleman excused himself and sat down beside me. He started a friendly conversation and we both began to complain about the long queues. He asked me whether I always banked there and I told him I was just depositing my college fees and since I can’t travel with cash I had to wait. Taking the cue he told me he was a CEO with a computer technology firm in the city which surprised and left me wondering what he was doing in a bank in the small town. He could read my mind and he conspiratorially told me he had around 50,000 dollars in his persona which he wanted to deposit. He then proceeded to tell me the source of the money. It was an investment scheme in town were as he explained was very profitable. An investment of any amount doubled within three months and if reinvested back one could fetch thrice the amount in just since months. He continued to tell me that as an experienced businessman, he knew a good investment and the scheme was good and insisted I should try. Obedience to authority has practical advantages for those obeying. In the case of business figures, their positions allow them to have superior access to information and power and it is sensible for the subjects to believe them and so I told myself he knew what he was talking about.

After some time he offered to buy me a cup of coffee in a café next door to while the time away while the queue moves. In the café, they supposedly met with the manager of the scheme and after the small talk, they launched on the virtues of the scheme. Due to curiosity, I went along with them as they took me to the scheme’s offices. There were long queues too of people supposed to be depositing their money which they called ‘planting’ and another for those withdrawing which again was called ‘harvesting’. A smartly dressed lady came from the head of the harvesting queue directly to me and told me that she had just harvested after six months of investing. Some things struck me odd such as the absence of the usual security guards as common in most organizations in town. I also questioned the wisdom of customers carrying with them a lot of cash; couldn’t they just make transactions in their banks? And again the interest rate of investments was too high to be real. I excused myself and left the premises. Later on after inquiry I learnt that it was a pyramid scheme and my friendly gentleman was another con artist used by the scheme together with the supposedly manager.

The scheme was later discovered by the authorities a few months later and before they could be arrested they had conned people all over the country millions of dollars. People could not believe that they had just lost their money so easily, they just did not stop to ask questions but that is the use of authority in persuasion. Authority produces an automatic behavior. When we realize that obedience produces rewards and disobedience punishment we do not stop to think, rather, we tune ourselves to convenience of automatic compliance and therefore mechanical character. This, in most cases produce desirable results but, in other cases undesirable results. It was hard to imagine I could have my college fees to a bogus scheme due to well presented conartists as many people had.

Persuasion techniques are the tools a person uses to influence others to do according to his/her wishes. Obedience to authority becomes enough justification or motivation to act against our good judgment. We can resist this by removing the element of surprise. This is by being aware of authority power and that it can be unreal. The ‘compliance professionals’ expects us to be deferent to them. They will be surprised if we ask questions and become cautious of them which can put them of guard but this can protect us from their con games.

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Persuasion Techniques: Master the Art of Influencing Others

Have you ever wondered how some people are able to effortlessly sway others to their way of thinking? It’s not magic, but rather a skill that can be learned and mastered. In this article, I’ll delve into the fascinating world of persuasion techniques and explore the strategies behind effectively influencing others.

At its core, persuasion is about understanding human psychology and using that knowledge to convince others to take a specific action or adopt a particular viewpoint. Whether you’re in sales, leadership, or simply aiming to improve your communication skills, knowing how to employ persuasive techniques can give you a significant advantage.

Throughout history, great leaders and influential individuals have harnessed the power of persuasion to rally support for their causes. From ancient philosophers like Aristotle to modern-day marketing experts, countless theories and tactics have been developed. Join me as we uncover the secrets behind these techniques and discover how they can be applied in various aspects of our lives.

So sit back, buckle up, and get ready for an enlightening journey into the art of persuasion. We’ll explore key concepts such as building rapport, appealing to emotions, utilizing social proof, and much more. By the end of this article, you’ll have a toolbox full of effective persuasion techniques that will help you navigate any situation with confidence and influence those around you positively.

Understanding Persuasion Techniques

Let’s delve into the intriguing world of persuasion techniques. In this section, we’ll explore the various strategies that individuals use to influence others and achieve their desired outcomes. By understanding these techniques, you can become more aware of when they are being used on you and even employ them yourself in ethical ways.

• Reciprocity : One powerful persuasion technique is reciprocity – the idea that if someone does something for us, we feel obligated to return the favor. For example, imagine a friend offers to help you move apartments. You’d likely feel compelled to assist them with a future task. This principle works because humans have an innate desire for fairness and balance in relationships.
• Social Proof : Humans tend to follow the crowd and seek validation from others. That’s where social proof comes into play as a persuasive tool. Think about how often you make decisions based on online reviews or recommendations from friends. When we see evidence that others have chosen a particular option or behavior, it becomes easier for us to justify adopting it ourselves.
• Scarcity : Have you ever noticed how our desire for something intensifies if it’s scarce? The scarcity principle states that people perceive limited availability as valuable and desirable. Advertisers often use this technique by highlighting exclusive deals or limited-time offers to create a sense of urgency and push us towards making quick decisions before missing out.
• Authority : People naturally tend to trust those who appear knowledgeable and credible in their field of expertise. This is why authority figures like doctors, experts, or celebrities are frequently used in advertising campaigns as endorsers or spokespeople. Their association with a product or service lends credibility and influences our decision-making process.
• Consistency : We humans have an inherent need to be consistent with our beliefs, attitudes, and actions over time. Persuaders leverage this tendency by getting us to commit verbally or in writing to certain ideas or goals. Once we make a public commitment, we feel compelled to follow through to remain true to ourselves and maintain a consistent self-image.

Understanding these persuasion techniques is crucial for navigating the complex world of influence. By being aware of these strategies, you can better evaluate the messages and appeals that come your way, making more informed decisions based on your own values and needs. So next time you find yourself in a persuasive situation, keep an eye out for reciprocity, social proof, scarcity, authority, and consistency at play.

Remember, knowledge is power when it comes to persuasion techniques. Stay curious and observant as you navigate the fascinating realm of human influence!

Building Rapport with Your Audience

When it comes to effective persuasion techniques, one key aspect that should never be overlooked is building rapport with your audience. Establishing a connection and fostering trust can significantly enhance your ability to influence others. In this section, we’ll explore some strategies on how to build rapport and create a strong bond with your audience.

• Show genuine interest : People appreciate when you show sincere interest in them. Take the time to listen actively, ask thoughtful questions, and demonstrate that you value their perspective. By doing so, you not only make them feel important but also establish yourself as someone who cares about their needs and wants.
• Mirror body language : Non-verbal cues play a crucial role in communication. Mirroring the body language of your audience can help create an unconscious sense of familiarity and harmony between you. Pay attention to their posture, gestures, and facial expressions, and subtly align yours accordingly. This subtle mirroring can enhance the sense of connection between you.
• Use inclusive language : An effective way to build rapport is by using inclusive language that makes your audience feel involved and valued. Instead of focusing solely on yourself or using detached pronouns like “I” or “you,” opt for more inclusive words like “we” or “us.” This simple shift in language can foster a sense of unity and shared goals.
• Empathize with their experiences : To truly connect with your audience, put yourself in their shoes and understand their experiences, challenges, and emotions. Show empathy by acknowledging their feelings without judgment or criticism. By demonstrating understanding, you create a safe space for dialogue where they are more likely to open up to your ideas.

5.Support common interests: Finding common ground is an excellent way to create rapport quickly. Identify shared interests or values between yourself and your audience members, whether it’s a hobby, passion for a cause or industry-related knowledge. Highlighting these commonalities can help establish a sense of camaraderie and build trust.

Remember, building rapport with your audience is an ongoing process that requires genuine effort and attention. By employing these techniques, you can create a strong bond that enhances your persuasive abilities and paves the way for meaningful connections.

Utilizing the Power of Social Proof

When it comes to persuasion techniques, one powerful tool that can greatly influence our decision-making is social proof. Social proof is the idea that people tend to look to others for guidance on how to behave or what choices to make. We often assume that if others are doing something, it must be the right thing to do.

Here are a few examples of how social proof can be utilized effectively:

• Testimonials and Reviews: When we see positive reviews or testimonials from satisfied customers, it creates a sense of trust and reassurance. Knowing that others have had a positive experience with a product or service increases our confidence in making a similar purchase.
• Celebrity Endorsements: Many companies leverage the power of celebrity endorsements because they know that seeing someone famous using their product or supporting their cause can sway consumer opinions and influence buying decisions.
• User-generated Content: The rise of social media has given individuals the ability to share their experiences and opinions with a wide audience. Brands often encourage users to generate content related to their products or services, as this user-generated content serves as social proof and builds credibility.
• Influencer Marketing: Influencers have become an integral part of marketing strategies in recent years. By partnering with influencers who have large followings on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok, brands tap into their influence over their audience’s purchasing behaviors.
• Popularity Indicators: Showing numbers such as “10 million sold” or “bestseller” can create a perception of popularity and desirability around a product or service. This information acts as social proof by suggesting that many other people have already made the same choice.

Social proof taps into our innate desire for belongingness and conformity; we naturally feel more comfortable aligning ourselves with the actions and preferences of others rather than being outliers in society.

By harnessing the power of social proof through testimonials, celebrity endorsements, user-generated content, influencer marketing, and popularity indicators, businesses can effectively sway consumer behavior and increase their chances of success. Remember, though, it’s important to use social proof responsibly and authentically to maintain trust with your audience.

Creating Scarcity and Urgency

One powerful technique in persuasion is creating scarcity and urgency. By instilling a sense of limited availability or time pressure, you can motivate people to take action quickly. Let’s explore how this technique works and examine a few examples:

• Limited Stock: When a product or service is presented as being in short supply, it triggers the fear of missing out (FOMO) in potential customers. By highlighting that there are only a few items left or that the offer is available for a limited time, you create a sense of urgency. For instance, online retailers often use phrases like “Only 3 left in stock” or “Limited edition” to encourage immediate purchase decisions.
• Flash Sales: Another effective way to create scarcity and urgency is through flash sales or limited-time offers. By offering discounts or special deals for a short duration, businesses tap into consumers’ desire to grab a bargain before it’s gone. Websites like Groupon have capitalized on this technique by promoting time-limited deals that expire once a certain number of purchases are made.
• Countdowns and Timers: Incorporating countdowns and timers into your marketing strategy can be highly persuasive. Whether it’s counting down the hours until an exclusive sale ends or displaying a ticking clock next to an event registration form, these visual cues remind individuals that time is running out and prompt them to act swiftly.
• Exclusivity: Creating exclusivity around your product or service can also drive scarcity and urgency. When something is perceived as exclusive, such as VIP access, limited memberships, or invitation-only events, it generates curiosity and desire among consumers who want to be part of something unique.
• Seasonal Offers: Leveraging holidays, seasons, or other time-sensitive occasions can effectively create scarcity too. Promotions like “limited-time holiday collection” or “summer clearance sale” capitalize on the natural sense of urgency associated with specific timeframes, encouraging people to make a purchase before it’s too late.

Remember, when using scarcity and urgency techniques, it’s essential to strike a balance. While creating a sense of limited availability can be persuasive, overusing or exaggerating it may lead to skepticism or alienate potential customers. Authenticity is key in maintaining trust and credibility with your audience.

Incorporating scarcity and urgency into your marketing efforts can significantly impact consumer behavior. By tapping into the human desire for exclusivity and fear of missing out, you can effectively motivate individuals to take action promptly.

Crafting Compelling Stories

When it comes to persuasion techniques, crafting compelling stories is a powerful tool that can captivate an audience and effectively convey your message. Storytelling has been an integral part of human communication since ancient times, and its impact on our emotions and decision-making processes is undeniable.

The Power of Personal Narratives

Tapping into emotions, building trust through authenticity, creating memorable characters, using imagery to enhance impact.

Crafting compelling stories is an art form that requires careful consideration of the message you want to convey and the emotions you wish to evoke. By harnessing the power of storytelling in your persuasive efforts, you’ll be able to connect with your audience on a deeper level, leaving a lasting impression that can inspire action.

Appealing to Emotions

When it comes to persuading others, one of the most powerful techniques is appealing to their emotions. Understanding and harnessing the emotional aspect of human nature can greatly influence how people perceive information and make decisions . Let’s dive into a few examples that demonstrate the effectiveness of appealing to emotions.

• Tugging at Heartstrings : One common way to appeal to emotions is by telling a heartfelt story or showcasing real-life situations that evoke empathy or compassion. For instance, imagine a charity organization sharing stories of individuals who have overcome adversity with the help of their donations. By highlighting the struggles and triumphs, they create an emotional connection with potential donors, motivating them to contribute.
• Creating Fear or Urgency : Another approach is tapping into people’s fears or creating a sense of urgency. Advertisements often use this technique by emphasizing potential negative outcomes if their product or service is not utilized promptly. Think about insurance commercials that depict worst-case scenarios or limited-time offers that encourage immediate action.
• Inspiring Hope and Aspiration : On the flip side, appealing to positive emotions like hope and aspiration can be equally persuasive. Brands frequently use this technique in marketing campaigns by presenting an idealized version of what life could be like with their products or services. This creates a desire within consumers to achieve that desired outcome, leading them down the path towards purchasing.
• Using Emotional Language : Beyond storytelling and visual imagery, using emotionally charged language can amplify your message’s impact on readers or listeners. Words such as “love,” “happiness,” “fear,” “freedom,” and “success” have inherent emotional weight that resonates with individuals on a deeper level.
• Leveraging Social Proof : Humans are social creatures who seek validation from others when making decisions. By showcasing testimonials, reviews, endorsements, or even displaying statistics that highlight widespread acceptance or popularity, you tap into people’s need for social validation and increase the likelihood of them embracing your message.

Remember, when appealing to emotions, it’s crucial to maintain authenticity and sincerity. Manipulating emotions for personal gain can have negative consequences and damage trust. Instead, focus on genuinely connecting with your audience and providing value that aligns with their emotional needs and desires.

By understanding how emotions influence decision-making processes, you can craft persuasive messages that resonate deeply with your target audience. So go ahead, tap into those emotions and make a meaningful impact!

Using Authority and Credibility

When it comes to persuasion techniques, one powerful tool in your arsenal is the use of authority and credibility. By establishing yourself or your brand as an expert in a particular field, you can effectively sway others’ opinions and gain their trust. In this section, I’ll delve into how you can leverage authority and credibility to enhance your persuasive abilities.

• Establish Your Expertise : To successfully persuade others, it’s crucial to establish yourself as an authority in your chosen domain. This can be achieved through various means such as showcasing relevant qualifications, certifications, or experience. For example, if you’re writing a blog post about healthy eating habits, mentioning that you’re a registered nutritionist will instantly boost your credibility and make readers more receptive to your advice.
• Utilize Testimonials : Another effective way to build trust is by featuring testimonials from satisfied customers or clients who have benefited from your expertise or product/service. These personal accounts act as social proof and demonstrate that others have found value in what you offer. Whether it’s sharing success stories on your website or including customer reviews on product pages, testimonials serve to validate your claims and enhance your overall credibility.
• Leverage Influencers : Collaborating with influencers who are well-respected within your industry can significantly bolster your authority and reach. Their endorsement of your brand or content lends credibility by association, as their followers view them as trusted sources of information. Partnering with influencers for guest posts, interviews, or endorsements can help expand your audience base while strengthening the perception of expertise surrounding what you offer.
• Provide Valuable Content : Consistently delivering high-quality content that offers valuable insights and solves problems within your niche further establishes you as a credible source of information. This could include writing informative blog posts, creating educational videos or podcasts, hosting webinars or workshops – anything that showcases both knowledgeability and a genuine desire to help others succeed.
• Stay Up-to-Date : Demonstrating that you’re on top of the latest trends, research, and industry developments is crucial for maintaining authority and credibility. Regularly updating your content with fresh information shows that you are actively engaged in your field and ensures that your audience perceives you as a reliable source for up-to-date insights.

As you can see, using authority and credibility effectively can significantly enhance your persuasive abilities. By establishing yourself as an expert, utilizing testimonials, leveraging influencers, providing valuable content, and staying current in your field, you are positioning yourself to influence others with confidence and authenticity.

Employing the Principle of Reciprocity

The principle of reciprocity is a powerful persuasion technique that taps into the human inclination to return favors or kindness. By offering something of value to others, we can create a sense of obligation and increase the likelihood of receiving something in return. Here are a few examples illustrating how this principle can be effectively employed:

• Free Samples: Companies often utilize free samples as a way to engage potential customers and drive sales. By providing customers with a small taste of their product, companies aim to trigger the reciprocity principle, making customers more inclined to reciprocate by purchasing the full-size version.
• Personalized Gifts: When it comes to building relationships, personalized gifts can be highly effective in creating a sense of reciprocity. For instance, sending clients or business partners customized gifts that reflect their interests or preferences shows thoughtfulness and fosters goodwill. This gesture increases the chances of them reciprocating through continued loyalty or partnership.
• Exclusive Offers: Offering exclusive discounts or promotions can also leverage the power of reciprocity. By providing individuals with special access or privileges based on their loyalty or engagement with your brand, you create an environment where they feel indebted and compelled to reciprocate by making future purchases.
• Unexpected Gestures: Surprise acts of kindness have long-lasting impacts on people’s perceptions and behaviors. Whether it’s going above and beyond for a customer, volunteering assistance without being prompted, or simply expressing gratitude in unexpected ways, these gestures tap into our innate desire to repay generosity.
• Sharing Knowledge: Sharing valuable knowledge through content marketing is an effective way to employ reciprocity online. By freely sharing expertise through blog posts, tutorials, or webinars, you establish yourself as an authority figure while also creating goodwill among your audience who may reciprocate by engaging further with your brand.

Remember that sincerity is key when employing the principle of reciprocity; genuine acts of generosity are more likely to elicit the desired response. By understanding and utilizing this principle, you can enhance your persuasive abilities and foster stronger connections with others.

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Module 6: Persuasion

Module Overview

The second section of the textbook covered the three main ways we better understand ourselves and others. That knowledge gives us a solid base that helps us navigate our world. The next section will look at how we influence and are influenced by others. Everything we have already learned will continue to be built upon as we now come to understand persuasion, conformity and group influence. In the last module on attitudes, we learned that our evaluation of things, or our attitudes, can be changed, sometimes by our own inconsistencies, but often through persuasive communication attempts. This module will focus on those persuasive communication attempts as well as our attempts to persuade others. We will focus on how we process these attempts, when they are most successful, and how we can resist them.

Module Outline

6.1. Processing Persuasive Communication

6.2. factors that lead to successful persuasion, 6.3. a closer look at cults: dangers and resistance to persuasion.

Module Learning Outcomes

• Explore the idea that we have a persuasion schema or bag of tricks for persuading and being persuaded by others
• Explain how we process persuasive attempts through the dual processing models
• Investigate what characteristics make a communicator more or less persuasive, specifically focusing on credibility and attractiveness
• Explore types of messages that successfully persuade
• Clarify the danger of cults and how we can resist being persuaded by them

Section Learning Objectives

• Explore the persuasive schema perspective.
• Describe the dual processing models.

6.1.1. Persuasion Schema

We spend our days persuading and being persuaded. You may have just emailed your teacher asking for an extension or tried to get your child to eat their lunch. You might also have had two ads pop up while you were on Facebook: one is for this amazing new bra and another one is for a blanket for your daughter that looks like a mermaid tail. Persuasion serves an important function in a social society. If you are not successful in persuading others, you could miss out on job opportunities or have poor relationships or no relationships. If you are unaware of persuasion attempts, then you could be taken advantage of.

For Further Consideration

Take a moment and think about who tries to persuade you on a daily basis and whom do you try to persuade. Make a list of these people. What kinds of things do people persuade other people (their friends, their family, or their enemies) to do? What are the different techniques people use to get these people to do what they want?

A research study done by Rule, et al., (1985) set out to determine if we have a persuasion schema or package of behaviors (tricks) for how we persuade people and are persuaded by them. They completed three different studies to find these answers. In the first study, they asked participants to report whom they persuaded and who persuaded them. They found that students reported others were persuading them more than they were persuading other people. When asked how they persuaded others a list of 12 reasons/goals was generated. You can see this list in Table 6.1a. How do these responses match with your answers from above? Are they similar/different? In the second study they took this list of 12 reasons/goals for persuading and asked the participants to write all the ways that they could achieve these persuasion goals and then rank them by most likely to use. In Table 6.1b you will find the 15 different approaches. They found that it didn’t matter who was persuading or being persuaded. There seems to be a standard order of persuasive strategies. How do your responses fit with the second table? Do your answers fit the research findings?

6.1.2 Dual-Processing Models and How We Process Persuasion

Our days are spent navigating the enormous amounts of information that are being sent our way. We get up in the morning and the radio DJ tells us about the latest news stories. We check our email and we have 13 new emails from co-workers, family, friends and in my case, students. Our social media is full of advertisements trying to sell us the latest products, and as we drive around town there are billboards advertising stores and the local college football team. Which of these pieces of information or persuasion attempts will be successful? Which ones will persuade us to do something, to buy something or to change our attitude about something? The first step in understanding persuasion is to examine how we process or think about these persuasive attempts.

It is impossible to spend a lot of time thinking about all the information that we are bombarded with — we would be driven mad or pushed to mental exhaustion. So, as motivated tacticians, Chaiken et al., (1989), says we will be very selective of the moments we use our limited cognitive resources. This small set of information that we select will be fully analyzed and investigated. Everything else we come into contact with will be responded to automatically. We won’t spend much time thinking or considering, but rather automatically responding using our mental shortcuts or heuristics that are triggered from the context of the information. Is the person presenting the information attractive? We have a “ What is beautiful-is-good ” heuristic — this mental shortcut results in us automatically connecting the source’s attractiveness with the qualities of being good, kind, smart, etc. For example, Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was considered attractive and would lure women to their deaths by asking for help. The women he asked were happy to help. They automatically responded to the “what is beautiful-is-good” heuristic, assuming he was kind and trustworthy and they went to help someone who would end up killing them. Researchers Petty & Cacioppo (1986); Petty et al., (2009) and Chaiken, et al., (1989) found that these two ways of thinking best fit into a dual-processing model. We either follow the deep/thoughtful path, which the researchers call the central route or systematic processing, or we follow the superficial/automatic path, which the researchers called the peripheral route or heuristic processing.

The central route to persuasion will be followed or systematic processing will occur when we carefully consider the message content. In order to follow this path or use this processing we need to be motivated and able to think about the message. What motivates us? It is not surprising that we are pushed to think more deeply when something is related to or about us, also called personal relevance (Petty, 1995). For example, when I was a senior in high school, we were told that they might change the school day from hour-long periods to block scheduling. They gave presentations to the students and we were all going to be able to vote and give our perspective on the possible change. All students, including the seniors who this would not impact, were going to vote. Since it wasn’t about me (not personally relevant), I didn’t follow the central route, but my younger sister who was a freshman and would be impacted did. Because it was personally relevant to her and going to directly impact her, she paid attention to the messages we were being given. She wanted to know how this would impact her day and if it would improve her learning. The only way she would vote in favor of this change was if the message was strong and demonstrated that this new structure was the best choice for learning. I, on the other hand, wasn’t going to be impacted by this change, so I did not waste my precious resources thinking about the message. We will see in a moment what my thinking did look like.

The other reason we will follow the central route of persuasion is if we are able to think about it . In order to be able to think about it, there needs to be limited distractions. We can’t be rushed or in a hurry, and we have to be able to understand the message being presented to us. It also helps if the message is repeated and written down (Petty, 1995). If a pharmaceutical company wants to persuade you to use their new drug, but their message is full of jargon and scientific information you can’t follow, then you aren’t likely to pay attention to the message or be persuaded to use the drug. So, in the example above, if the school board and employees pushing for the change want the students who find the issue personally relevant to get on board, they also need to give them time to process the message and they need to make sure that the message is something adolescents can understand. It would also help if they have an opportunity to see it more than once and can read the arguments at their pace. The situational determinants of being motivated and able are key to following the central route, but there is a dispositional determinant as well, the need for cognition (Haddock, et al., 2008). This concept deals with enjoyment from engaging in effortful cognitive activity. Individuals who score high on the need for cognition measure spend more time carefully processing the message, following the central route to persuasion (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982).

As noted earlier, it is adaptive for us to rely on heuristics and automatic processing of our world. It saves us time and our limited cognitive resources. For the majority of us, we mostly follow the peripheral route or heuristic processing (Petty, 1995). The context or situation that the message is delivered in is more important than the actual message. These context or situational cues trigger automatic responses and we quickly move forward in our lives. (Cialdini, 2008). Remember our example from earlier where my high school was proposing changes to our daily scheduling. I followed the peripheral route to persuasion. I am a busy senior who doesn’t really have the time to think about the message, and since it isn’t going to impact me, I really don’t care to spend time carefully evaluating the message. So, how can they persuade me to vote in favor of block scheduling? They need my automatic acceptance from situational cues. I would probably be persuaded by an authority or an expert on the topic, and if I am in a good mood, I will probably also go along with what is presented. In fact, this is what the school did. They brought in attractive and trustworthy experts, and they always had food and drinks during presentations. So, for those of us that weren’t personally impacted, we were likely to automatically be persuaded by those situational cues. More examples can be found in Robert Cialdini’s (2008) book, Influence: Science and Practice.

It is clear that we need to examine the persuasion situation more closely to understand exactly when our persuasive attempts will be most successful. Our motivations in persuasion will determine which path we want our audience to follow. If we want a more permanent attitude change, we will want the person or group we are attempting to persuade to follow the central route. If we just need them to go along right now or buy something once, then the peripheral route is a good choice. The next section will focus on the factors that lead to successful persuasion and how our processing route influences their effectiveness.

Figure 6.1. The Elaboration Likelihood Model

• Explain what type of person is most persuasive
• Clarify what aspects of the message make it persuasive

6.2.1. Persuasive Communicators

The first factor that can impact the success of the persuasion attempt is the person communicating or the source of the persuasion. There are different ways that a source will be presented to us. They can be obvious — we see them. It could be a celebrity advertising a product on a television commercial or it could be an average American selling a new cooking tool in a social media ad. However, sometimes during a persuasive attempt, the source isn’t clear or obvious. They might be a narrator you can’t see or a print ad without any visible source of the persuasion (Petty & Wegener, 1998). What makes someone a persuasive communicator? Are there certain qualities that will make someone more or less persuasive to the audience? Research has found that credibility and attractiveness are important in successful persuasion.

6.2.1.1 Communicator/Source credibility . Let’s start with credibility . A review done by Pornpitakpan (2004) on studies from 1950-2004 found that using highly credible sources resulted in more persuasion. What makes someone credible? Perceived expertise and perceived trustworthiness are key to credibility.  Perceived expertise is defined as someone we perceive to be both knowledgeable on a topic and has the ability to share accurate information with us (Petty & Wegener, 1998). In situations where we have low personal relevance or ability to process the message, it serves as a peripheral cue. Expertise will trigger us to automatically go along with the persuasive attempt because we believe that this person knows what they are talking about. Can you think of some examples? We often use heuristic processing while watching television. Let’s say you’re watching a toothpaste commercial. There is a dentist in a white lab coat discussing how effective a brand of toothpaste is. If you are persuaded in this instance, it is because of the cue of the dentist. You automatically think this is a good toothpaste because this expert told you it was.

Perceived trustworthiness is the other aspect of credibility we need to look at more closely. Research, not surprisingly, has found that when we do not feel like the person has anything to gain and that they are sincere, this is a strong indicator of persuasion. If people view someone as trustworthy, they will automatically be persuaded by the attempt. However, if the source is viewed as untrustworthy, even people who have a low need for cognition (don’t want to think deeply all the time) will engage in a similar amount of message analysis as individuals who are high in need for cognition (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982). Have you ever had the experience of shopping at a store where the employees are working on commission and only make money if they convince you to buy something? When I was growing up, I often shopped at a clothing store that used this model with their salespeople. When you went in, you were immediately approached and often they continued to interact with you while you shopped, hoping that you would buy something and they would get paid more. Their perceived trustworthiness dropped because it was in their best interest to persuade me to purchase something. So, when they told me that I looked great in that outfit, I was likely to be skeptical of their authenticity. I often avoided that store for that reason. Is there anything they could do to appear more trustworthy? It would benefit them to argue against their own self-interest. If they were to tell you that something you tried on wasn’t the right piece for you, that would actually make you more likely to be persuaded by them and buy the other clothes they recommended.

6.2.1.2 Communicator/Source attractiveness. Another characteristic that can help the persuasive attempts of a communicator is attractiveness. Attractiveness can include both physical attractiveness and likeability. As was mentioned earlier in the module, we hold a heuristic (mental shortcut) where we believe “what-is-beautiful-is-good”. Research has found that people associate talent, kindness, honesty and intelligence with beauty (Eagly, et al., 1991). These same studies have been done in a variety of contexts and individuals who are highly attractive are more likely to be voted for, hired for a job and granted leniency in the judicial system. When we aren’t motivated and able to think deeply, we follow the peripheral route and this is when peripheral cues like appearance can have the greatest impact on persuasion.

Can you think of ads or products that use really attractive communicators? For me, one example that comes to mind is the store Abercrombie and Fitch. Most of the time they have been in business, they have been known for their hiring practice of only employing physically attractive models who have a certain body type and sex appeal to sell their clothes. In 2015, they decided to change these discriminatory practices. It would be interesting to see if they are still as successful in selling clothes with their changes in advertising.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2015/04/24/abercrombie-fitch-says-it-will-no-longer-hire-workers-based-on-body-type-or-physical-attractiveness/?utm_term=.dfa24fd68f27

What are your favorite celebrities currently advertising? Is it perfume, their own clothing line or something unexpected? Do you notice that just their association with the product makes you like it more? Had you considered their impact on your feelings toward the product?

Another powerful aspect of attractiveness is likeability . One of the things that can increase liking is similarity. We like people who are like us (Byrne, 1971). This includes sharing opinions, personality traits, background, lifestyle and even when people mirror our behavior, posture, and facial expressions (Cialdini, 2008). A classic example of the power of similarity comes from a study done in the 1970s with clothing style. During this time period young people wore primarily two types of dress, what is referred to as “hippie” or “straight” fashion. The study had confederates wear one of these types of clothing and then approach people who were wearing one of the two types of clothing and ask for a dime to make a phone call. The results support the fact that similarity has the power to persuade. When the confederate’s clothing matched the person they asked, they were more likely to get a dime from them (Emswiller, Deaux, Willits, 1971).

6.2.2 Persuasive Messages

After assuring you have the appropriate communicator, the next step is to determine what types of message content will be the most effective. There are several questions we need to answer in order to completely understand the role of message content in persuasion. What is actually contained in the successful message? Is it full of logical arguments and evidence or is it presented to elicit certain feelings? Two emotions often used to persuade are pleasant feelings and fear. Another question we need to answer is: will the way the message is presented make it more or less persuasive? We will also have to decide how to present our perspective. Do we just present our side or do we present both our side and the other side? These answers will all be impacted by the audience’s processing route.

6.2.2.1. Solid arguments vs. emotion-based appeals. Let’s begin with an example. We are trying to persuade people to care about the amount of plastic impacting the environment and to change the way they think about plastic consumption. What kind of argument should we use? Should we present an argument filled with solid, logical, evidence including reasons for why we need to rethink plastic consumption, or would our audience be more likely to be persuaded by an emotional appeal where we scare them or make them feel sad about the impact of plastic on our planet? First let’s look at the research and then we will look at three news story links to see how information was presented to the audience.

We know that audiences who are motivated and able will follow the central route of persuasion. Remember, we are motivated to pay attention to the message when it is personally relevant to us. We also need to be able to process it. We need the time to think about it, and the message needs to be presented in a way that we can understand and really think about what is being said. If these conditions aren’t met, then we follow the peripheral route. We are going to respond based on peripheral cues, like credibility, attractiveness, etc. So, I am sure you predicted at this point that when someone is following the central route, they are going to be more persuaded by solid arguments. Those individuals who are following the peripheral route will be more persuaded by emotional appeals (Cacioppo, et al., 1983). We also need to consider if our audience is likely to have a larger number of individuals with a high need for cognition. This could impact the success of our persuasion attempt. We need to have more solid arguments if we have more of these individuals present.

Another important thing to consider is how the people originally formed their attitude. You might remember in Module 5 on attitudes, we discussed the different bases or components of an attitude: affect, cognition and behavior. We discussed that some people do not have all three bases for each attitude and that some attitude bases are stronger than others. This impacted our ability to predict their behavior with respect to that attitude. These findings address that. If your original attitude formation is more affective or emotion-based, then you will respond to persuasive attempts that are made with emotional appeals. However, if the origin of an attitude resulted in a stronger cognitive base, then not surprisingly, you will be more likely to be persuaded by a solid argument (Fabrigar & Petty, 1999). As you might imagine, it can be challenging to figure out what kind of audience you are dealing with. If they are mixed or you do not have the ability to determine which base is strongest, it might make the most sense to have an argument that contains both reason and emotion.

Alright, let’s return to our example. Here are links to three stories on plastic pollution.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3791860/

https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/pft/2018/5/14/albatross

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40654915

The first story is a summary article from a respected peer-reviewed journal. I chose this because the messages here are solid, logic-based arguments on the impact of plastic. The second reading has an emotion-based focus. It is about the plight of the albatross and finding the dead birds’ stomachs filled with plastic that killed them. The final reading is from BBC news and it contains both appeals. Let’s think about the audiences who might consume these different presentations on the same issue. If you are reading a journal article, it is likely you have a high need for cognition and are following the central route. This second reading and similar blog posts about people’s experiences with this problem might drive you if you seek out emotional appeals about the topic. These individuals have a stronger affective base for plastic pollution. Finally, the last is a news source that might be read by both types of people. How can the writer reach them? To be effective, they will draw you in with emotional appeals, stories of individuals, animals and the landscape that are impacted negatively by this pollution. However, you will also see a large amount of information about the amount of plastic and other relevant arguments related to this problem. Both reason and emotion are needed.

6.2.2.2. Types of emotional appeals. There are different types of emotional appeals that we can make when trying to persuade people. Let’s start with evoking good feelings in our audience. When we make our audience feel good, we increase their positive thoughts and through association, we make a connection for them of good feelings and the message. When we are in a good mood, we are more likely to rely on the peripheral route. We don’t spend much time thinking about the message. We see that when people are unhappy, they spend more time ruminating or going over and over things. They aren’t persuaded by weak arguments (Petty, et al. 1993). When we watch cable television, we are afforded an opportunity to analyze these emotional appeals.

Can you think of some recent commercials you saw that attempted to make you feel good so they could sell their product to you? Ads selling soda are often good examples of this. For example, Coca-Cola had a campaign using the slogan “Open Happiness.” You will feel so good if you consume this product.

Another common emotional appeal is to elicit fear. Fear can be very effective most of the time. There are, however, a few situations when it will not work. Fear doesn’t work when you are trying to convince people to stop doing something that makes them feel good, like having sex or laying in the sun. It also doesn’t work when you use too much of it and don’t give the audience a solution to avoid their fear. In that case, it is easier for the audience to deny and continue the behavior. Humor and fear combined have also been found to be more persuasive (Mukherjee & Dube, 2012). A great example of something that fear alone isn’t effective at persuading but in combination with humor is very persuasive is sex and condom use. The fear appeals would want you to think of having your life stolen from you with unwanted pregnancies and potentially losing your life from HIV/AIDS or the discomfort of sexually transmitted diseases. The addition of humor can be seen in Trojan condom ads. These ads are generally funny and they combat the fear of negative things that come from something we see as pleasurable, or sex.

6.2.2.3. The way the message is presented. The message can be presented in different ways and these strategies can impact how persuasive the message ends up being. There are several strategies that work most effectively when you are processing things heuristically or peripherally, which we know happens quite frequently. We can start by looking at foot-in-the-door phenomenon . The terminology for this comes from the idea of door-to-door salespeople. If they can get into your home, they feel confident in making the sale. What does this strategy entail? The communicator will first make a small request. Once you agree to the small request the communicator will ask for something larger. Remember, this person’s goal is the larger request, but in order for you to agree to it, they are using a strategy that plays on our need to be consistent. Once we have made a commitment, we will feel pressure to remain consistent and avoid the unpleasant feeling of hypocrisy. One of my favorite studies demonstrating this involves having people agree to sign a petition that driver safety is important. Then two weeks later, they ask for the larger request. All told, 76% agreed to place a billboard in their yard. Yes, you read that correctly: a BILLBOARD (Freedman & Fraser, 1966). Our need to be consistent and not be viewed as hypocrites is powerful.

Another technique, a variation of the foot-in-the-door technique is called lowballing. Lowballing is a fascinating strategy. The communicator will put forward an attractive offer, one that is hard to say no to. Once the offer is agreed to, you will come up with new reasons for why you are glad you made the commitment to this offer. This is where it gets interesting. The original offer is removed. The whole reason you went along with it was because of that desirable offer and now it is gone. What should we expect – are we upset, do we change our mind about what we have agreed to because it isn’t as good as the original offer? No, we don’t. We go along with it and are happy about it. Cialdini (2008) discusses this in his book Influence: Science and Practice . The examples he gives are great. The first one is a traditional sales situation. How many of you have bought a car from a dealership? Did you agree to a price with the salesperson and then they leave you to make sure that their manager agrees to it? This is where the lowball begins. You agreed to the attractive offer from the salesperson. They will sell you the car for the price you want. While they are gone, you are coming up with all these new reasons for why you made this decision. The car has great mileage, horsepower, sunroof, tinted windows, a backup camera and great sound system. When the salesperson comes back and removes this original offer (which is why you agreed in the first place), you still take the car and you are happy about it. This technique is regularly used in car sales. Another great example occurred with one of Cialdini’s friends, Sarah. She had been dating Tim for a while, and she wanted to get married. Tim wasn’t interested in marriage. Sarah ended the relationship, met someone else and was engaged to be married. Tim comes back into the picture and offers Sarah a great deal. He will marry her if she comes back to him. She leaves her current engagement and returns to Tim. She comes up with all these new reasons for why Tim is the right guy for her. Then Tim lowballs her, removes his original offer of marriage and Sarah happily stays with him. She has all these new reasons for being with him, so when he takes away one (even though it was the initial reason for her taking him back), it doesn’t matter because it is just one reason. She is committed to him, happy and not married.

The last technique we will discuss is called door-in-the-face . I know that two of these strategies have the word door in them and this can seem tricky when you are taking a test over the material, but a good way to remember the difference is to actually think about what the phrase says. With foot-in-the-door you can picture a small part of your body getting in and then once that small part is in the door, the rest of you is not far behind. Small to large. With door-in-the-face, something large is presented and the metaphorical door is slammed in your face because the request is too big. Then you knock and offer a smaller request, which is usually accepted. The smaller request is what you really are trying to get. The two processes that are working to make this technique effective are reciprocity and perceptual contrast . Reciprocity is another peripheral cue. When someone does something for us, we feel indebted to them and want to immediately return to equity in our relationship. This makes sense — survival would have depended on successful relationships and sharing resources. If you were known as a taker or moocher then this would have negatively impacted your relationships. We still see this in our relationships today even though survival might not be at the core of them. So, with door-in-the-face, when your initial offer is denied and you come back with a smaller one, the other person feels like you gave in or gave them something with the compromise you are attempting to make. They then are more likely to accept that second smaller offer because they feel indebted to your compromise.

The second reason you went along was perceptual contrast. This cue deals with the change in perception related to how things are presented. So, in the door-in-the-face situation, we are presented with something large and then something small. The second presentation of the smaller item after the large item changes our perception and we now see it as smaller than if we had just been presented with the small item alone. Let’s look at a few examples. First, I want you to clean the whole house. You don’t want to. Okay, how about you just clean your room? Well, based on what we just learned, this should drastically increase the likelihood that you will clean your room than if I had originally just asked you to clean your room. First, you want to reciprocate my compromise, and second, your room seems much smaller after being compared to the WHOLE house. This will be a great tool for persuading roommates, spouses, or children to do the small things you want (just clean your room).

For Your Consideration

Can you think of something large that you want? What would be a way of using foot-in-the-door to get it? Can you think of a time foot-in-the-door was used on you? Have you ever experienced lowballing or used it one someone else? What was the situation? What was the initial attractive offer and what other reasons kept you from changing your mind when the initial offer was removed? What was your initial offer you used and then took away? Finally, think of an example of door-in-the-face? Were you the persuader or the person being persuaded? What was the situation?

6.2.2.4. One-sided or two-sided appeals. The last common question about message content has to do with whether you can be more successful with just presenting your side of the argument or if you need to present both sides to be effective. Again, it really depends. One-sided appeals work best when the audience agrees with you. A one-sided appeal can be the wrong choice if the audience processes through the central route. It will motivate them to seek out the other side and could result in trust issues. Which if you remember from earlier in this section, if you are not seen as a trustworthy source, that can really damage your effectiveness. The two-sided appeal is most effective and enduring when the audience disagrees with you. It can be useful right from the start to address the opposing side and then present your argument. If you watch television with courtroom scenes you often see this technique. The prosecutor or defense attorney will start with “my opposition is going to tell you X, but I want you to see it this way”. When they don’t do this, you are going to spend more time thinking of the opposing arguments while they are talking rather than listening to their case.

An illustrative example comes from a study done at a university encouraging recycling. They placed signs on the trash cans that said “No Aluminum Cans Please!!! Use Recycler Located on First Floor Near Entrance.” Underneath that sign was a smaller one that said, “It may be inconvenient, but it is important.” After adding the second sign, which turned the one-sided appeal into a two-sided appeal, 80% recycled compared to 40% before it was added (Werner, et al., 2002).

Return to our example of plastic pollution from the beginning of the section. How do the different types of readings present the message? Are they one-sided or two-sided? Plastic obviously serves us well in a lot of situations. In fact, it may be impossible to completely avoid it. So, who is the audience? If you are reading a blog or an emotionally geared piece, then it is quite likely that they are only using a one-sided appeal. However, if part of your audience might disagree or have a high need for cognition, you should use the two-sided appeal.

• Exemplify what a cult is
• Examine the persuasion processes used against us
• Clarify ways to resist these attempts at persuasion

We should start by acknowledging that persuasion can be good, neutral or bad (which we will look at more closely with our cult examples). We can persuade people to stop bad habits, vote for someone who can positively change our world, think more about their plastic consumption, clean their rooms, and/or marry you. The focus of this section is on the dangers, which we see when people attempt to take advantage of our tendency to automatically respond to peripheral cues or triggers as we save our cognitive resources. Salespeople, con artists, politicians, and crappy relationship partners, are a variety of people who can use our natural tendencies against us. This section will focus on the danger of cults. There are two we will look at and the persuasion techniques that were utilized. We will then look at some suggestions for fighting against our automatic tendencies.

6.3.1. Two Examples of Cults

The first example of a cult is from the late 1950s and is not a well-known cult. In fact, I couldn’t find anything about it through casual searches without its connection to the psychological researchers who studied it. Festinger, who you might remember for his work with cognitive dissonance, was interested in how doomsday cult members could continue on with the group after the predicted end didn’t arrive. A great resource that covers this is the original source — a book written by Festinger, Riecken, & Schacter and published in 1964 about their experience participating in this very small doomsday cult in Chicago. They called themselves the Seekers and were originally smaller than 30 members. They were led by two middle-aged individuals and the study gave them alias names to protect their identities. The male was named Dr. Armstrong and he was a physician at the college. The female, and person receiving the messages from the aliens called Guardians, was given the name Mrs. Keech. She predicted that an end of the world event would occur before dawn on Dec. 21, 1954 and the true believers would be picked up at dawn by the Guardians (aliens). This alone is interesting, but the more interesting part is that three psychologists gave us an inside view of exactly what happened from the announcement of the “end” and then through the weeks leading up to the event and the night of the so-called “end”. As reported by the psychologists who were present, when the aliens didn’t pick them up, everyone sat in silence, visibly upset.  They sat together waiting for the time of the flood and the end of the world. This time also came and went without incident. Mrs. Keech immediately afterward received a new message from the Guardians saying that all of their light and faith had prevented the tragic event. One person got up and left, disgusted by this — that was it. Mrs. Keech then received another message that they needed to contact the media and anyone who would listen. They needed to get the word out about their group and recruit members. Everyone left and started following the message. What is interesting about this approach is that prior to the failed end of the world event, they were extremely secretive and reluctant to add new members. However, at least that night and for a while after, the members of this group increased their commitment to the cult. Today we know Mrs. Keech’s actual name was Dorothy Martin, a housewife from Chicago. The group in Chicago didn’t remain and after being threatened with commitment to a mental facility, she moved to Peru where she continued to receive messages and changed her name to Sister Thedra, starting the Association of Sananda. This organization continued until 1992 when she died.

For more on this group, please visit: https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/association-sananda-and-sanat-kumara

What kind of persuasion principles were employed in this situation? We see prior to the doomsday event that members made drastic decisions; they quit jobs, sold houses, and cut ties with family/friends who didn’t understand. They needed to remain consistent with these choices, and their commitment to the cult was very high. When the event passed and nothing happened, they used social proof — our heuristic that if others are doing it, it must be correct — through the recruitment of new members and the publicizing of their group to help them stay committed to the group. In the end, most people left the group, but this isn’t the case for most cults.

The second example is Jonestown and cult leader Jim Jones. Jim Jones started as simply a pastor of what seemed like an all-inclusive church in Indiana in 1955. In a time of segregation and ostracism of those that were different, Jim created a utopian environment where all were accepted. It was a place where those without family could find family and those who sought a place of equality for all could find it. He moved the church to California in 1965, fearing nuclear war. It was from this point that the church (now called the People’s Temple) started traveling down a more sinister path. Most members started by just attending once a week and then committing to more nights a week. They would encourage their friends and family to join. They gave a small amount of money to the church, and that slowly increased until they gave their whole paycheck. When they moved to California, they lived and worked on the church property, which means they sold their houses and cut ties with family who didn’t support the church. Jones also encouraged the children to be adopted by others in the church and for spouses to have sex with other members of church, especially Jim. He aimed to break their bonds within the church and outside of the church. They eventually moved to the jungle of Guyana as an attempt on Jim’s part to protect his people and church. He believed they were under attack from everyone. After a visit from a Congressmen, who was worried people were being held against their will, was shot and killed at Jim’s request, Jim forced everyone at gunpoint to drink poisoned Kool-Aid. A few who escaped into the jungle and a few from the Congressman’s group who lived, helped us to better understand what happened (Nelson, et al., 2007). This cult and the subsequent deaths are so fascinating, there are many documentaries and stories written about what happened. People often think how could this happen? Why didn’t they leave? How could they let someone do these things to them? People think that they would never allow these things to happen to them.

Let’s look at the persuasion techniques that were used and how people automatically responded to them. They had no idea that they were being persuaded to someday voluntarily kill themselves. If you look, foot-in-the-door (which we discussed earlier) is running rampant, as well as lowballing. Jim had them commit to many small requests and over time slowly increased his requests. He did this with church attendance and church work, money donated to the church, giving up custody of their children and then breaking their marital bonds. Eventually, large requests like moving to another state and then another country were easy to make because they had already committed to so much. In order to remain consistent, they had to make these larger commitments as well. They had given everything up for this church’s mission. Jim used emotional appeals to initially get certain kinds of members; those who were ostracized or didn’t have anyone such as the homeless. He would perform miracles for these individuals. The members who were doctors, lawyers and more likely to follow the central route were recruited with strong social and political messages. He provided a utopia where everyone was equal and where the elderly were given medicine and taken care of. He recruited with attractiveness and liking. He made himself credible — a trustworthy expert. It wasn’t until later that people saw a different side to Jim. It’s clear that these individuals committed to something that later didn’t look anything like the initial offer.

6.3.2. Resisting the Temptations of a Cult

How can we resist the dangers of situations like this? Cialdini (2008) offers some great tips to avoid the main techniques that are used. We will focus here on how to fight commitment and consistency’s powerful pull. He suggests two ways to combat it. Listen to your stomach and your heart. He says that consistency is often important and good for us in our lives. However, it isn’t always, as seen above with the cults. When you feel trapped by your commitment to a request, you often feel a tightening and discomfort in your stomach. He suggests that in this instance, the best way to combat that feeling is to bring this attempt to the persuader’s attention. “I am not going to go along with your request because it would be foolish to just remain consistent when I don’t want to go along.” He says we can’t always feel our stomach signs, so ask in our heart of hearts ‘does it feel right?’ Ask yourself if you could go back to beginning with the information you know now, would you make the same choices? If no, then the pressure of consistency should lessen and you can say no.

Module Recap

Persuasion is a complex topic, but hopefully you made it out with a much greater understanding of how you process information and persuasion attempts, either centrally or peripherally. You now know what types of communicators and messages are most effective in different contexts and with different audiences. Finally, you are more aware of the dangers of being taken advantage of by individuals who are aware of our frequent automatic responses to peripheral cues. The next module will continue our journey through social influence by examining conformity more closely.

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An inclusive, real-world investigation of persuasion in language and verbal behavior

Vivian p. ta.

1 Department of Psychology, Lake Forest College, 555 N. Sheridan Road, Lake Forest, IL 60045 USA

Ryan L. Boyd

2 Department of Psychology, Data Science Institute, Security Lancaster, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

Sarah Seraj

3 Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX USA

Anne Keller

Caroline griffith.

4 Department of Counselor Education and Human Services, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH USA

Alexia Loggarakis

5 School of Social Work, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL USA

Lael Medema

Linguistic features of a message necessarily shape its persuasive appeal. However, studies have largely examined the effect of linguistic features on persuasion in isolation and do not incorporate properties of language that are often involved in real-world persuasion. As such, little is known about the key verbal dimensions of persuasion or the relative impact of linguistic features on a message’s persuasive appeal in real-world social interactions. We collected large-scale data of online social interactions from a social media website in which users engage in debates in an attempt to change each other’s views on any topic. Messages that successfully changed a user’s views are explicitly marked by the user themselves. We simultaneously examined linguistic features that have been previously linked with message persuasiveness between persuasive and non-persuasive messages. Linguistic features that drive persuasion fell along three central dimensions: structural complexity, negative emotionality, and positive emotionality. Word count, lexical diversity, reading difficulty, analytical language, and self-references emerged as most essential to a message’s persuasive appeal: messages that were longer, more analytic, less anecdotal, more difficult to read, and less lexically varied had significantly greater odds of being persuasive. These results provide a more parsimonious understanding of the social psychological pathways to persuasion as it operates in the real world through verbal behavior. Our results inform theories that address the role of language in persuasion, and provide insight into effective persuasion in digital environments.

Introduction

Understanding persuasion —how people can fundamentally alter the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of others—is a cornerstone of social psychology. Historically, social influence has been outstandingly difficult to study in the real-world, requiring researchers to piece together society-level puzzles either in the abstract [ 1 ] or through carefully-crafted field studies [ 2 ]. In recent years, technology has driven interest in studying social influence as digital traces make it possible to study how the behaviors of one individual or group cascade to change others’ behaviors [ 3 , 4 ]. Nevertheless, most social processes are complex, to the point where they are very difficult to study as they operate outside of the lab. However, the availability of digital data and computational techniques provide a ripe opportunity to begin understanding the precise mechanisms by which people influence the thoughts and feelings of others.

Today, persuasion is often transacted—partially or wholly—through verbal interactions that take place on the internet [ 5 ]: a message is transmitted from one person to another through the use of language, altering the recipient’s attitude. As such, researchers have sought to identify linguistic features 1 that are linked to a message’s persuasive appeal. A relatively sizable number of linguistic features that are important in message persuasiveness have emerged from this body of research and include features that indicate what a message conveys as well as how it was conveyed (Table ​ (Table1). 1 ). Models of persuasion, such as the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) [ 6 ], have been used to identify these linguistic features and explain how they affect message persuasiveness.

Summary of linguistic features and predictions

Despite the impressive corpus of studies to date, the existing literature has several limitations. Studies have largely examined the effect of linguistic features on persuasion in isolation by only focusing on a small number of linguistic features (i.e., one or two) at a time. While this body of literature has collectively identified a relatively sizable number of linguistic features that are linked to message persuasiveness, it remains unclear how these links, taken together, inform the social aspects of verbal behavior in persuasion. In other words, what do the linguistic features connected with message persuasiveness reveal about the key verbal behaviors involved in persuasion? As language provides “a rich stream of ongoing social processes” [ 7 ], synthesizing these findings can provide a more complete understanding of the social psychological pathways to persuasion.

In the same vein, real-world messages are constructed using a varied combination of linguistic features to transmit complex thoughts, emotions, and information to others. Nevertheless, studies tend to examine how a single linguistic feature (or a small set of features) correlate with persuasion without taking into account other potentially important linguistic features within a given message [ 8 , 9 ]. The meaning of a given word or feature in any text is dependent on the context by which it was used which can be inferred by the words and features that surround it [ 10 , 11 ]. As such, the effect of any particular linguistic feature on message persuasiveness can be attenuated by the presence of other features in the message. As they are typically studied in isolation, little is known about the relative impact of linguistic features on a message’s persuasive appeal.

Furthermore, studies that examine the effect of linguistic features on persuasion tend to focus on persuasion in terms of engaging in specific behaviors [ 3 , 12 – 14 ] rather than changing attitudes in general. Persuading people to engage in a specific behavior is conceptually distinct from changing people’s attitude on a topic. Although changes in behavior can facilitate changes in attitude, changes in behavior can also be dependent on attitude change (e.g., an individual may not engage in behavior change unless they believe that the behavior will result in a desirable outcome). Although changes in behavior can facilitate changes in attitude, changes in behavior does not always indicate that attitude change has occurred (e.g., an individual may decide to ultimately receive the COVID-19 vaccine because their employer requires it and not because their views regarding vaccines have changed) [ 15 ].

Finally, many studies that investigate the effect of linguistic features on persuasion are conducted in controlled lab settings [ 16 , 17 ] due to the sheer difficulty of studying persuasion as it unfolds in the real-world. Given that persuasion often takes place through online social interactions [ 5 ], there is a need to study persuasion in this setting. Doing so also enables researchers to better understand how digital environments influence the process of persuasion, especially as digital environments are now progressively constructed to persuade the attitudes and behaviors of users [ 18 ] and there is “little consensus on how to persuade effectively within the digital realm” [ 19 ].

We sought to address these limitations in the current study. Specifically, we collected large-scale data from r/ChangeMyView , an online public forum on the social media website Reddit where users engage in debates in an attempt to change each other’s views on any topic. Most importantly, messages that successfully changed a user’s views are explicitly marked by the user themselves. That is, individuals are exposed to several messages and explicitly identified the message(s) that actually changed their views. We simultaneously examined linguistic features that have been previously linked with message persuasiveness (Table ​ (Table1) 1 ) between persuasive and non-persuasive messages to test the following research questions:

• What are the key linguistic dimensions of persuasion? Given that a relatively sizable number of linguistic features have been linked with persuasion, we first sought to determine whether these features could be meaningfully reduced to a smaller number of dimensions representing the key verbal processes of persuasion. We then assessed whether these dimensions were uniquely predictive of persuasion when controlling for the effects of the remaining dimensions.
• Which individual linguistic features, when assessed simultaneously, are the most essential and relevant to a message’s persuasive appeal? We then simultaneously assessed all linguistic features that have been linked with message persuasiveness in a single model to examine the relative impact of the features on a message’s persuasive appeal to identify features that were most crucial to message persuasiveness.

While theory-driven predictions can be made regarding how each linguistic feature relates to persuasion, there has been a considerable amount of variability across studies in terms of which features positively or negatively relate to persuasion, as well as studies that show mixed or inconclusive results pertaining to the effect of a given linguistic feature on persuasion (see Table ​ Table1). 1 ). Given that our primary goal was to obtain a more unified understanding of the social psychological pathways to persuasion via language, the current study is guided by a jointly data-driven and exploratory approach, with results informing our understanding of the directional relationship between the linguistic features and message persuasiveness. Overall, assessing the interplay between important linguistic features on persuasion using large-scale, real-world data help inform theories, such as ELM, that address how linguistic features influence persuasion to provide a parsimonious and ecologically-valid understanding of the social psychological processes that shape persuasion.

Although some previous studies have used r/ChangeMyView data to investigate the effect of linguistic features on persuasion, they differ from the current investigation in important ways. The types and combinations of linguistic features that have been examined vary across studies and typically feature a mix of linguistic features that have and have not been linked to persuasion. For example, Tan et al. [ 21 ] examined how some persuasion-linked linguistic features (including arousal, valence, reading difficulty, and hedges), some non-persuasion-linked features (e.g., formatting features such as use of italics and boldface), and interaction dynamics (e.g., the time a replier enters a debate) were associated with successful persuasion. Wei et al. [ 22 ] investigated how surface text features (e.g., reply length, punctuation), social interaction features (e.g., the number of replies stemming from a root comment), and argumentation-related features (e.g., argument relevance and originality) related to persuasion. Musi et al. [ 23 ] assessed the distribution of argumentative concessions in persuasive versus non-persuasive comments, and Priniski and Horne [ 24 ] examined persuasion through the presentation of evidence only in sociomoral topics. Moreover, studies tend to have greater emphasis on model building to accurately detect persuasive content online rather than interpretability and a more unified understanding of the social psychological pathways to persuasion via language. For instance, Khazaei et al. [ 20 ] assessed how all LIWC-based features varied across persuasive and non-persuasive replies and used this information to train a machine learning model to identify persuasive responses.

Data collection

We used data from the Reddit sub-community (i.e., “subreddit”) r/ChangeMyView , a forum in which users post their own views (referred to as “original posters”, or “OPs”) on any topic and invite others to debate them. Those who debate the OP (referred to as “repliers”) reply to the OP’s post in an attempt to change the OP’s view. The OP will award a delta (∆) to particular replies that changed their original views.

Using data from r/ChangeMyView presents several advantages. All replies in r/ChangeMyView are written with the purpose of persuasion. The replies that successfully change an OP’s view are explicitly marked by the OP themselves, allowing for a sample of persuasive and non-persuasive replies. All OPs and repliers must adhere to the official policies 2 of r/ChangeMyView . For instance, OPs are required to explain at a reasonable length (using 500 characters or more) why they hold their views and to interact with repliers within a reasonable time frame. Replies must be substantial, adequate, and on-topic. Because these policies are enforced by moderators, the resulting interactions are high in quality [ 21 ] and are conducted under similar conditions with similar expectations. OPs can also post their view on any topic, allowing for an examination of persuasion across a wide variety of topics.

All top-level replies (direct replies to the OP’s original statement of views) posted between January 2013 and October 2018 were initially collected from the Pushshift database [ 25 ]. We focused only on the top-level replies and omitted any additional replies that were in response to a direct reply (i.e., a direct reply’s “children”). This ensured that replies that were deemed persuasive were due to its contents and not due to any resulting “back-and-forth” interactions given that deltas can also be awarded to downstream replies. We also omitted any top-level replies that were made by a post’s OP and any replies that received a delta in which the delta was not awarded by the OP. Because the data contained a substantially greater number of non-persuasive replies (99.39%) than persuasive ones, analyses were conducted on a balanced subsample that included all top-level replies that were awarded a delta and a random subsample of top-level replies that were not awarded a delta that came from the original posts in which at least one delta was awarded. This allowed us to compare the persuasive and non-persuasive replies from the same original post while bypassing issues associated with class imbalances [ 26 ].

As an example, consider a parent post that garnered two top-level replies that were awarded a delta, and three top-level replies that were not awarded a delta. In this case, the two top-level replies that were awarded a delta were included in the subsample and two out of the three top-level replies that were not awarded a delta would be randomly selected for inclusion in the subsample. Using the random number generator in Microsoft Excel, the 3 top-level replies that were not awarded a delta were assigned a random number between 1 and 100. Replies with the lowest two values were then selected for inclusion in the subsample. Parent posts almost always contained a greater number of top-level replies that were not awarded a delta than top-level replies that were awarded a delta. However, for the very few instances in which a parent post contained a greater number of top-level replies that were awarded a delta than top-level replies that were not awarded a delta, we included all top-level replies in the subsample ( N  = 9020 top-level replies; n  = 4515 top-level replies that were awarded a delta; n  = 4505 top-level replies that were not awarded a delta). Example persuasive and non-persuasive replies can be found in Table ​ Table2 2 .

Example replies

Note : All example replies were derived from different parent posts

To gain an initial understanding of the types of topics that were raised for debate in the subreddit, we randomly selected 100 replies from the final dataset and manually coded their content. Six overarching topics emerged: legal and politics; race, culture, and gender; business and work; science and technology; behavior, attitudes, and relationships; and recreation. More information regarding debated topics can be found in the supplementary materials. 3 .

Linguistic features

Prior to extracting linguistic features from our data, we conducted a cursory search of the psychological literature to identify prominent linguistic features reported to have a significant relationship with message persuasiveness in at least one published study. These linguistic features are listed in Table ​ Table1. 1 . Each reply in the r/ChangeMyView dataset was analyzed separately using Language Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) [ 27 ] which calculates the percentage-use of words belonging to psychologically or linguistically meaningful categories. We used LIWC to quantify word count, analytic thinking (analytical thinking formula = articles + prepositions—personal pronouns—impersonal pronouns—auxiliary verbs—conjunctions—adverbs—negations; relative frequencies are normalized within LIWC2015 to a 0-to-100 scale, with higher scores reflecting more analytical language and lower scores reflecting more informal and narrative-like language), the percentage-use of self-references (i.e., first-person singular pronouns, or “i-words”), and the percentage-use of certainty terms in each reply within our corpus. Dictionaries of terms that have been rated on emotionality 4 (i.e., valence, arousal, and dominance) from [ 28 ] were imported into LIWC to measure the percentage-use of language that scored high and low on valence, arousal, and dominance. A dictionary of hedges from [ 29 ] was also imported into LIWC to measure the percentage-use of hedges. Following [ 21 ], the use of examples was measured by occurrences of “for example”, “for instance”, and “e.g.”. Language abstraction/concreteness was measured using the linguistic category model, with higher scores indicating higher levels of language abstraction and lower scores indicating lower levels of language abstraction (i.e., greater language concreteness; formula for calculation = [(Descriptive Action Verbs × 1) + (Interpretative Action Verb × 2) + (State Verb × 3) + (Adjectives × 4)]/(Descriptive Action Verbs + Interpretative Action Verbs + State Verbs + Adjectives)) [ 30 ]. Type-token ratio, the ratio between the number of unique words in a message and the total number of words in the given message [ 31 ], was used to measure lexical diversity with higher scores indicating greater lexical diversity (type-token ratio formula = number of unique lexical terms/total number of words). Last, reading difficulty was measured via the SMOG Index which estimates the years of education the average person needs to completely comprehend a piece of text (SMOG Index formula = 1.0430 [√number of polysyllables × (30/number of sentences)] + 3.1291). Because a higher SMOG score indicates that higher education is needed to comprehend a piece of text, higher reading difficulty scores represent text that is more difficult to read and lower scores represent text that is easier to read [ 32 ]. More information about these linguistic features and example replies that scored high and low on each linguistic feature are reported in the supplementary.

Given that a relatively sizable number of linguistic features have been linked with persuasion, we first determined whether these features could be meaningfully reduced to a smaller number of dimensions representing the key verbal processes of persuasion. Second, we determined whether these dimensions were each uniquely predictive of persuasion when controlling for the effects of the remaining dimensions. Third, we simultaneously assessed all linguistic features that have been linked with message persuasiveness in a single model to understand how linguistic features interact with one another to influence a message’s persuasive appeal and identify features most crucial to message persuasiveness. All data and analytic code can be found in the supplementary. Descriptive statistics, zero-order correlations between all variables, and complete analytic outputs for all analyses are presented in the supplementary.

To identify the key linguistic dimensions of persuasion (RQ 1), we submitted all linguistic features into a principal components analysis (PCA) with a varimax rotation. Bartlett’s Sphericity Test ( p  < 0.001) and the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin metric (KMO = 0.55) suggested that our data were suitable for analysis. Features with factor loadings greater than the absolute value of 0.50 were retained and used to quantify principal components. Three principal components were extracted that collectively accounted for 36.28% of the total variance: structural complexity, negative emotionality, and positive emotionality (see Table ​ Table3). 3 ). Structural complexity had high loadings in the direction of lower lexical diversity, higher word count, and greater reading difficulty. Negative emotionality had high loadings in the direction of greater percentage-use of terms that scored low on valence and low on dominance. Positive emotionality had high loadings in the direction of greater percentage-use of terms that scored high on dominance, high on valence, and hedges.

Results of PCA with Varimax Rotation

To assess if all three dimensions were uniquely important to message persuasiveness, we entered each component into a multilevel logistic regression analysis using lme4 [ 33 ]. This procedure corrects for non-independence of replies (i.e., replies to the same parent post) on the dependent variable: persuasion (delta awarded = 1, no delta awarded = 0). We include random intercepts for replies nested within parent posts and replies nested within repliers (i.e., some repliers provided replies to multiple original posts). All three components emerged as significant predictors of persuasion. For a one-unit increase in structural complexity, the odds of receiving a delta increase by a factor of 2.25, 95% CI [2.11, 2.39]. For a one-unit increase in negative emotionality, the odds of receiving a delta decrease by a factor of 0.89, 95% CI [0.85, 0.94]. For a one-unit increase in positive emotionality, the odds of receiving a delta also decrease by a factor of 0.92, 95% CI [0.88, 0.97]. Post-hoc power analyses conducted using the simr package in R (Version 1.0.5) [ 34 ] revealed that we had at least 96% power to detect a small effect (i.e., 0.15) for each of these factors on persuasion.

Next, the individual linguistic features were assessed simultaneously to identify those that were the most essential and relevant to a message’s persuasive appeal (RQ 2). A logistic least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression was performed using glmmLasso [ 35 ]. A LASSO regression is a penalized regression analysis that performs variable selection to prevent overfitting by adding a penalty ( λ ) to the cost function (i.e., the sum of squared errors) equal to the sum of the absolute value of the coefficients. This penalty results in sparse models with few coefficients. In other words, this method selects a parsimonious set of variables that best predict the outcome variable and has many advantages over other feature selection methods [ 36 ]. All linguistic features were entered into the LASSO regression model. A grid search was performed to identify the most optimal shrinkage parameter based on BIC. Five features emerged with nonzero coefficients: word count, lexical diversity, reading difficulty, analytical thinking, and self-references (Table ​ (Table4 4 ).

Results of LASSO regression

*** p  < 0.001; ** p  < 0.01; λ = 62

These variables were subsequently entered into a multilevel logistic regression. Again, persuasion was entered as the dependent variable and we included random intercepts for replies nested within parent posts and replies nested within repliers. All five predictors emerged as significant predictors of persuasion. Specifically, for a one-unit increase in word count, the odds of receiving a delta increase by a factor of 1.23, 95% CI [1.13, 1.35]. For a one-unit increase in reading difficulty scores (i.e., greater difficulty in reading comprehension), the odds of receiving a delta increase by a factor of 1.10, 95% CI [1.04, 1.16]. For a one-unit increase in analytical thinking, the odds of receiving a delta increase by a factor of 1.10, 95% CI [1.05, 1.17]. For a one-unit increase in self-references, the odds of receiving a delta decrease by a factor of 0.92, 95% CI [0.87, 0.98]. Last, for a one-unit increase in lexical diversity, the odds of receiving a delta decrease by a factor of 0.54, 95% CI [0.50, 0.59]. Post-hoc power analyses conducted using the simr [ 34 ] revealed that we had at least 96% power to detect a small effect (i.e., 0.15) for each of these predictors on persuasion.

Previous studies have largely examined the effect of linguistic features on persuasion in isolation and do not incorporate properties of language that are often involved in real-world persuasion. As such, little is known about the key verbal dimensions of persuasion or the relative impact of linguistic features on a message’s persuasive appeal in real-world social interactions. To address these limitations, we collected large-scale data of online social interactions from a public forum in which users engage in debates in an attempt to change each other’s views on any topic. Messages that successfully changed a user’s views are explicitly marked by the user themselves. We simultaneously examined linguistic features that have been previously linked with message persuasiveness between persuasive and non-persuasive messages. Our findings provide a parsimonious and ecologically-valid understanding of the social psychological pathways to persuasion as it operates in the real world through verbal behavior.

Three linguistic dimensions appeared to underlie the tested features: structural complexity, negative emotionality, and positive emotionality. Each dimension uniquely predicted persuasion when the effects of the remaining dimensions were statistically controlled, with greater structural complexity exhibiting the highest odds of persuasion. Interestingly, messages marked with less emotionality had higher odds of persuasion than messages marked with more emotionality, regardless of whether it was positive or negative. Emotionality can help persuasion in specific contexts [ 37 , 38 ], but emotional appeals can also backfire when audiences prefer cognitive appeals [ 39 ]. Given that OPs were publicly inviting others to debate them, it is plausible that they preferred cognitively-appealing responses—ones that include an abundance of clear and valid reasons to support an argument—rather than emotionally-appealing responses.

The linguistic features that made a message longer, more analytic, less anecdotal, more difficult to read, and less lexically diverse were most essential to a message’s persuasive appeal and uniquely predictive of persuasion. Longer messages provide more context and likely contain more arguments than shorter messages. Presenting more arguments can be more persuasive even if the arguments themselves are not compelling [ 40 ]. Longer messages likely provided more opportunities for the OP to engage with material that could potentially change their mind, thus increasing the likelihood of persuasion.

Although more readable content is easier to understand and less aversive than less readable content [ 41 ], greater reading difficulty and comprehension can engender more interest, attention, and engagement [ 42 , 43 ]. It can also facilitate deeper cognitive processing that leads to greater learning and long-term retention [ 44 , 45 ]. This is especially true for individuals intrinsically motivated or capable of engaging in complex and novel tasks [ 46 ]. OPs were likely capable of and intrinsically motivated to engage in content that challenged their beliefs considering they were inviting others to debate them. The interpretation of users being intrinsically motivated to challenge their beliefs is also in line with the link that emerged between greater usage of analytical language and persuasion. Similarly, messages that focused less on one’s own personal experiences may have provided more objective evidence to support a particular argument, facilitating persuasion.

Last, while greater lexical repetitions may be perceived as less interesting [ 31 , 47 ], it facilitated persuasion in this context. Lexical repetitions provide effective ways for speakers to communicate complex topics as it keeps “lexical strings relatively simple, while complex lexical relations are constructed around them” [ 48 ]. Lexical repetitions are advantageous for navigating through the order and logic of an argument, providing “textual markers” that help readers connect important aspects of an argument together [ 49 ]. Lower lexical diversity, then, appeared to be beneficial for building arguments that are more cohesive, more coherent, and thus, more persuasive.

Altogether, our findings reveal that the linguistic features linked to persuasion fall along three dimensions pertaining to structural complexity, negative emotionality, and positive emotionality. Our findings also highlight the importance of linguistic features related to a message’s structural complexity, particularly the verbal behaviors that provide a greater amount of factual evidence in a way that enables readers to connect important aspects of the information in an appropriately stimulating manner. Although the other linguistic features that were examined in this study may contribute to message persuasiveness to some degree, our results indicate that they are relatively less important after word count, lexical diversity, reading difficulty, analytical thinking, and self-references are taken into account. These findings also seem to reflect r/ChangeMyView’s digital environment. A central feature of r/ChangeMyView is ensuring that all posts and replies meaningfully contribute to the conversations. As such, OPs and repliers must adhere to all moderator-enforced policies of interaction. In addition, users who post on r/ChangeMyView are likely individuals who are open to attitude change given that they are publicly inviting others to debate them on a topic they already have an opinion on. This suggests that, in digital environments that underscore meaningful contributions to conversations, the ability to convey more objective information while fostering engagement and a holistic understanding of an argument are most vital to the alteration of established attitudes among open-minded individuals.

Our findings also have implications for the process by which persuasion research via language is conducted. Assessing the relative importance of a linguistic feature on message persuasiveness allowed us to understand its interconnections with other linguistic features and its link to persuasion, yielding a more comprehensive and well-rounded understanding of the feature’s role in message persuasiveness. Consider word count , for example: without assessing word count’s relative importance on message persuasiveness in the current study, we would not have been able to ascertain its link to message persuasiveness via a message’s structural complexity and the importance of providing more content in a way that enables readers to connect important aspects of the information in an appropriately stimulating manner. Because the meaning of a word or linguistic feature in any text is dependent on the context by which it is used, understanding the social psychological pathways to persuasion via language requires researchers to account for the presence of multiple linguistic features within a given message when assessing a linguistic feature’s link to message persuasiveness. This holistic approach may also help reconcile conflicting results from previous research on language and persuasion.

Our findings also inform theories, such as ELM, that address how linguistic features influence persuasion and provide a more precise understanding of the social psychological pathways to persuasion. For example, ELM states that here are two main routes to persuasion: the central route, which focuses on the message quality on persuasion, and the peripheral route, which uses heuristics and peripheral cues to help influence individual decisions regarding a topic [ 6 ]. Individuals are more likely persuaded via the central route if they have the ability and motivation to process the information. On the other hand, individuals are more likely persuaded via the peripheral route if involvement is low and information processing capability is diminished. OPs likely have the ability and motivation to process arguments from repliers and are thus likely persuaded via the central route given that they are publicly inviting others to debate them. Supplying more information to support a conclusion may be more likely to persuade via the central route, but this information also needs to be organized in a way that helps readers connect important aspects of the information together. A wealth of information that is structured in an incoherent manner would undoubtedly hinder comprehension, and thus, persuasion.

Strengths and limitations

Our dataset contained a large sample of replies that spanned a wide variety of topics, and provided high ecological validity given that it captured the process of persuasion as it occurred naturally without elicitation. The enforcement of rules on r/ChangeMyView yielded interactions that were conducted under similar conditions and expectations. This helped to minimize interaction variance without interfering with the naturalistic nature of the data. However, OPs can award deltas to responses within subtrees (the “children” of direct replies) typically as the result of “back-and-forth” interactions with repliers. These were not included in the current study as we only examined top-level responses. Our results could also differ by topic, recency of the post, and post length, and it is possible non-linguistic features such as the popularity of a post, the number of “upvotes” (i.e., the number of instances other users have registered agreement with a particular post or reply) a reply receives, and the number of deltas a replier has ever received may also impact message persuasiveness. Future studies should determine if these variables moderate the findings, and doing so would also address the relative importance of linguistic versus non-linguistic features on message persuasiveness.

Although it is a policy on r/ChangeMyView that OPs must post a non-neutral opinion (i.e., their post must take a non-neutral stance on a topic), and posts that violate this rule are removed by moderators, it is possible that an OP’s post did not accurately reflect their true attitude or attitude strength. Given the nature of the data, this study cannot address whether the resulting attitude changes were long-lasting, nor if the OP’s attitude strength moderated their attitude change. Longitudinal studies can assess these points. Because there were substantially more non-persuasive replies (99.39%) than persuasive ones, we constructed a balanced subsample and conducted our analyses on this balanced subsample. While this strategy limited biased outcomes stemming from a large class imbalance, it also limits the generalizability of results to posts in which no persuasion occurred. Further examinations of the class imbalance are needed to address this issue. For example, it is possible that posts in which no persuasion occurred are systematically different from posts in which persuasion occurred. Or, perhaps the class imbalance simply reflects the rigid nature of attitudes. In addition, our results may only reflect a particular population given that Reddit users tend to skew younger and male [ 50 ]. Since we did not have access to subjects’ demographic information, we cannot assert the representativeness of our sample. Future research should investigate persuasion that takes place on other debate-style forums and websites to incorporate more diverse subjects, interaction modes, and digital environments.

Acknowledgements

We thank Haley Bader, Carolynn Boatfield, Maria Civitello, Katie Kauth, and Xinyu Wang for their assistance in data cleaning, Arthur Bousquet and Leonardo Carrico for their assistance in data analysis, and David Johnson for his helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this paper. Preparation of this manuscript was funded, in part, by grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation (#196255) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (15F06718R0006603). The views, opinions, and findings contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be construed as position, policy, or decision of the aforementioned agencies, unless so designated by other documents.

Author contributions

VT developed the concept of the study, conducted data analysis, and wrote the manuscript. RL Boyd collected the data, assisted with study development, natural language and statistical analyses and provided critical revisions. SS assisted with data preparation and analyses and provided critical revisions. AK, CG, AL, and LM assisted with data cleaning and literature review.

Not applicable.

Declarations

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

https://osf.io/4rj26/?view_only=5556b511084b4e75bc14808e47d15dce .

Approval granted by Lancaster University’s ethics committee (Reference #FST19067).

Not applicable; data was non-identifiable and publicly available.

1 We define linguistic feature as a characteristic used to classify a word or corpus of text based on their linguistic properties. Examples include reading difficulty, words denoting high or low emotionality, hedges, etc.

2 For all of r/ChangeMyView’s policies, visit https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_a .

3 Supplementary materials can be found here: https://osf.io/4rj26/?view_only=5556b511084b4e75bc14808e47d15dce

4 We adopted the Valence-Arousal-Dominance circumplex model of emotion (Bradley & Lang, 1994; Russell, 1980) and the PAD emotion state model (Mehrabian, 1980; Bales, 2001) and conceptualize valence, arousal, and dominance as the dimensions of emotion. All three dimensions have been linked to message persuasiveness (see Table ​ Table1 1 ).

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11.4 Persuasive Strategies

Learning objectives.

• Identify common persuasive strategies.
• Explain how speakers develop ethos.
• Explain how speakers appeal to logos and pathos.
• Explain how cognitive dissonance works as a persuasive strategy.
• Explain the relationship between motivation and appeals to needs as persuasive strategies.

Do you think you are easily persuaded? If you are like most people, you aren’t swayed easily to change your mind about something. Persuasion is difficult because changing views often makes people feel like they were either not informed or ill informed, which also means they have to admit they were wrong about something. We will learn about nine persuasive strategies that you can use to more effectively influence audience members’ beliefs, attitudes, and values. They are ethos, logos, pathos, positive motivation, negative motivation, cognitive dissonance, appeal to safety needs, appeal to social needs, and appeal to self-esteem needs.

Ethos, Logos, and Pathos

Ethos, logos, and pathos were Aristotle’s three forms of rhetorical proof, meaning they were primary to his theories of persuasion. Ethos refers to the credibility of a speaker and includes three dimensions: competence, trustworthiness, and dynamism. The two most researched dimensions of credibility are competence and trustworthiness (Stiff & Mongeau, 2003).

Competence refers to the perception of a speaker’s expertise in relation to the topic being discussed. A speaker can enhance their perceived competence by presenting a speech based in solid research and that is well organized and practiced. Competent speakers must know the content of their speech and be able to effectively deliver that content. Trustworthiness refers to the degree that audience members perceive a speaker to be presenting accurate, credible information in a nonmanipulative way. Perceptions of trustworthiness come from the content of the speech and the personality of the speaker. In terms of content, trustworthy speakers consider the audience throughout the speech-making process, present information in a balanced way, do not coerce the audience, cite credible sources, and follow the general principles of communication ethics. In terms of personality, trustworthy speakers are also friendly and warm (Stiff & Mongeau, 2003).

Dynamism refers to the degree to which audience members perceive a speaker to be outgoing and animated (Stiff & Mongeau, 2003). Two components of dynamism are charisma and energy. Charisma refers to a mixture of abstract and concrete qualities that make a speaker attractive to an audience. Charismatic people usually know they are charismatic because they’ve been told that in their lives, and people have been attracted to them.

Dynamic speakers develop credibility through their delivery skills.

City Temple SDA Church, Dallas, Texas – Februrary 2, 2013, Oakwood University, Dynamic Priase – CC BY-SA 2.0.

Unfortunately, charisma is difficult to intentionally develop, and some people seem to have a naturally charismatic personality, while others do not. Even though everyone can’t embody the charismatic aspect of dynamism, the other component of dynamism, energy, is something that everyone can tap into. Communicating enthusiasm for your topic and audience by presenting relevant content and using engaging delivery strategies such as vocal variety and eye contact can increase your dynamism.

Logos refers to the reasoning or logic of an argument. The presence of fallacies would obviously undermine a speaker’s appeal to logos. Speakers employ logos by presenting credible information as supporting material and verbally citing their sources during their speech. Using the guidelines from our earlier discussion of reasoning will also help a speaker create a rational appeal. Research shows that messages are more persuasive when arguments and their warrants are made explicit (Stiff & Mongeau, 2003). Carefully choosing supporting material that is verifiable, specific, and unbiased can help a speaker appeal to logos. Speakers can also appeal to logos by citing personal experience and providing the credentials and/or qualifications of sources of information (Cooper & Nothstine, 1996). Presenting a rational and logical argument is important, but speakers can be more effective persuaders if they bring in and refute counterarguments. The most effective persuasive messages are those that present two sides of an argument and refute the opposing side, followed by single argument messages, followed by messages that present counterarguments but do not refute them (Stiff & Mongeau, 2003). In short, by clearly showing an audience why one position is superior to another, speakers do not leave an audience to fill in the blanks of an argument, which could diminish the persuasive opportunity.

Pathos refers to emotional appeals. Aristotle was suspicious of too much emotional appeal, yet this appears to have become more acceptable in public speaking. Stirring emotions in an audience is a way to get them involved in the speech, and involvement can create more opportunities for persuasion and action. Reading in the paper that a house was burglarized may get your attention, but think about how different your reaction would be if you found out it was your own home. Intentionally stirring someone’s emotions to get them involved in a message that has little substance would be unethical. Yet such spellbinding speakers have taken advantage of people’s emotions to get them to support causes, buy products, or engage in behaviors that they might not otherwise, if given the chance to see the faulty logic of a message.

Effective speakers should use emotional appeals that are also logically convincing, since audiences may be suspicious of a speech that is solely based on emotion. Emotional appeals are effective when you are trying to influence a behavior or you want your audience to take immediate action (Stiff & Mongeau, 2003). Emotions lose their persuasive effect more quickly than other types of persuasive appeals. Since emotions are often reactionary, they fade relatively quickly when a person is removed from the provoking situation (Fletcher, 2001).

Emotional appeals are also difficult for some because they require honed delivery skills and the ability to use words powerfully and dramatically. The ability to use vocal variety, cadence, and repetition to rouse an audience’s emotion is not easily attained. Think of how stirring Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech was due to his ability to evoke the emotions of the audience. Dr. King used powerful and creative language in conjunction with his vocalics to deliver one of the most famous speeches in our history. Using concrete and descriptive examples can paint a picture in your audience member’s minds. Speakers can also use literal images, displayed using visual aids, to appeal to pathos.

Speakers should strive to appeal to ethos, logos, and pathos within a speech. A speech built primarily on ethos might lead an audience to think that a speaker is full of himself or herself. A speech full of facts and statistics appealing to logos would result in information overload. Speakers who rely primarily on appeals to pathos may be seen as overly passionate, biased, or unable to see other viewpoints.

Review of Ethos, Logos, and Pathos

• appearing competent, trustworthy, and dynamic;
• sharing their credentials and/or relevant personal experience;
• presenting a balanced and noncoercive argument;
• citing credible sources;
• using appropriate language and grammar;
• being perceived as likable; and
• appearing engaged with the topic and audience through effective delivery.
• presenting factual, objective information that serves as reasons to support the argument;
• presenting a sufficient amount of relevant examples to support a proposition;
• deriving conclusions from known information; and
• using credible supporting material like expert testimony, definitions, statistics, and literal or historical analogies.
• using vivid language to paint word pictures for audience members;
• providing lay testimony (personal stories from self or others);
• using figurative language such as metaphor, similes, and personification; and
• using vocal variety, cadence, and repetition.

Dissonance, Motivation, and Needs

Aristotle’s three rhetorical proofs—ethos, logos, and pathos—have been employed as persuasive strategies for thousands of years. More recently, persuasive strategies have been identified based on theories and evidence related to human psychology. Although based in psychology, such persuasive strategies are regularly employed and researched in communication due to their role in advertising, marketing, politics, and interpersonal relationships. The psychologically based persuasive appeals we will discuss are cognitive dissonance, positive and negative motivation, and appeals to needs.

Cognitive Dissonance

If you’ve studied music, you probably know what dissonance is. Some notes, when played together on a piano, produce a sound that’s pleasing to our ears. When dissonant combinations of notes are played, we react by wincing or cringing because the sound is unpleasant to our ears. So dissonance is that unpleasant feeling we get when two sounds clash. The same principle applies to cognitive dissonance , which refers to the mental discomfort that results when new information clashes with or contradicts currently held beliefs, attitudes, or values. Using cognitive dissonance as a persuasive strategy relies on three assumptions: (1) people have a need for consistency in their thinking; (2) when inconsistency exists, people experience psychological discomfort; and (3) this discomfort motivates people to address the inconsistency to restore balance (Stiff & Mongeau, 2003). In short, when new information clashes with previously held information, there is an unpleasantness that results, as we have to try to reconcile the difference.

Cognitive dissonance isn’t a single-shot persuasive strategy. As we have learned, people are resistant to change and not easy to persuade. While we might think that exposure to conflicting information would lead a rational person to change his or her mind, humans aren’t as rational as we think.

New, larger, and more graphic warning labels on cigarette packaging are meant to induce cognitive dissonance.

Mettamatt – Smoking ad campaign – CC BY-SA 2.0.

There are many different mental and logical acrobatics that people do to get themselves out of dissonance. Some frequently used strategies to resolve cognitive dissonance include discrediting the speaker or source of information, viewing yourself as an exception, seeking selective information that supports your originally held belief, or intentionally avoiding or ignoring sources of cognitive dissonance (Cooper & Nothstine, 1996). As you can see, none of those actually results in a person modifying their thinking, which means persuasive speech goals are not met. Of course, people can’t avoid dissonant information forever, so multiple attempts at creating cognitive dissonance can actually result in thought or behavior modification.

Positive and Negative Motivation

Positive and negative motivation are common persuasive strategies used by teachers, parents, and public speakers. Rewards can be used for positive motivation, and the threat of punishment or negative consequences can be used for negative motivation. We’ve already learned the importance of motivating an audience to listen to your message by making your content relevant and showing how it relates to their lives. We also learned an organizational pattern based on theories of motivation: Monroe’s Motivated Sequence. When using positive motivation , speakers implicitly or explicitly convey to the audience that listening to their message or following their advice will lead to positive results. Conversely, negative motivation implies or states that failure to follow a speaker’s advice will result in negative consequences. Positive and negative motivation as persuasive strategies match well with appeals to needs and will be discussed more next.

Appeals to Needs

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs states that there are several layers of needs that human beings pursue. They include physiological, safety, social, self-esteem, and self-actualization needs (Maslow, 1943). Since these needs are fundamental to human survival and happiness, tapping into needs is a common persuasive strategy. Appeals to needs are often paired with positive or negative motivation, which can increase the persuasiveness of the message.

Figure 11.3 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Physiological needs form the base of the hierarchy of needs. The closer the needs are to the base, the more important they are for human survival. Speakers do not appeal to physiological needs. After all, a person who doesn’t have food, air, or water isn’t very likely to want to engage in persuasion, and it wouldn’t be ethical to deny or promise these things to someone for persuasive gain. Some speakers attempt to appeal to self-actualization needs, but I argue that this is difficult to do ethically. Self-actualization refers to our need to achieve our highest potential, and these needs are much more intrapersonal than the others. We achieve our highest potential through things that are individual to us, and these are often things that we protect from outsiders. Some examples include pursuing higher education and intellectual fulfillment, pursuing art or music, or pursuing religious or spiritual fulfillment. These are often things we do by ourselves and for ourselves, so I like to think of this as sacred ground that should be left alone. Speakers are more likely to be successful at focusing on safety, social, and self-esteem needs.

We satisfy our safety needs when we work to preserve our safety and the safety of our loved ones. Speakers can combine appeals to safety with positive motivation by presenting information that will result in increased safety and security. Combining safety needs and negative motivation, a speaker may convey that audience members’ safety and security will be put at risk if the speaker’s message isn’t followed. Combining negative motivation and safety needs depends on using some degree of fear as a motivator. Think of how the insurance industry relies on appeals to safety needs for their business. While this is not necessarily a bad strategy, it can be done more or less ethically.

Ethics of Using Fear Appeals

• Do not overuse fear appeals.
• The threat must be credible and supported by evidence.
• Empower the audience to address the threat.

I saw a perfect example of a persuasive appeal to safety while waiting at the shop for my car to be fixed. A pamphlet cover with a yellow and black message reading, “Warning,” and a stark black and white picture of a little boy picking up a ball with the back fender of a car a few feet from his head beckoned to me from across the room. The brochure was produced by an organization called Kids and Cars, whose tagline is “Love them, protect them.” While the cover of the brochure was designed to provoke the receiver and compel them to open the brochure, the information inside met the ethical guidelines for using fear appeals. The first statistic noted that at least two children a week are killed when they are backed over in a driveway or parking lot. The statistic is followed by safety tips to empower the audience to address the threat. You can see a video example of how this organization effectively uses fear appeals in Video 11.1.

Video Clip 11.1

Kids and Cars: Bye-Bye Syndrome

(click to see video)

This video illustrates how a fear appeal aimed at safety needs can be persuasive. The goal is to get the attention of audience members and compel them to check out the information the organization provides. Since the information provided by the organization supports the credibility of the threat, empowers the audience to address the threat, and is free, this is an example of an ethical fear appeal.

Our social needs relate to our desire to belong to supportive and caring groups. We meet social needs through interpersonal relationships ranging from acquaintances to intimate partnerships. We also become part of interest groups or social or political groups that help create our sense of identity. The existence and power of peer pressure is a testament to the motivating power of social needs. People go to great lengths and sometimes make poor decisions they later regret to be a part of the “in-group.” Advertisers often rely on creating a sense of exclusivity to appeal to people’s social needs. Positive and negative motivation can be combined with social appeals. Positive motivation is present in messages that promise the receiver “in-group” status or belonging, and negative motivation can be seen in messages that persuade by saying, “Don’t be left out.” Although these arguments may rely on the bandwagon fallacy to varying degrees, they draw out insecurities people have about being in the “out-group.”

We all have a need to think well of ourselves and have others think well of us, which ties to our self-esteem needs . Messages that combine appeals to self-esteem needs and positive motivation often promise increases in respect and status. A financial planner may persuade by inviting a receiver to imagine prosperity that will result from accepting his or her message. A publicly supported radio station may persuade listeners to donate money to the station by highlighting a potential contribution to society. The health and beauty industries may persuade consumers to buy their products by promising increased attractiveness. While it may seem shallow to entertain such ego needs, they are an important part of our psychological makeup. Unfortunately, some sources of persuasive messages are more concerned with their own gain than the well-being of others and may take advantage of people’s insecurities in order to advance their persuasive message. Instead, ethical speakers should use appeals to self-esteem that focus on prosperity, contribution, and attractiveness in ways that empower listeners.

Review of Persuasive Strategies

• Ethos. Develops a speaker’s credibility.
• Logos. Evokes a rational, cognitive response from the audience.
• Pathos. Evokes an emotional response from the audience.
• Cognitive dissonance. Moves an audience by pointing out inconsistencies between new information and their currently held beliefs, attitudes, and values.
• Positive motivation. Promises rewards if the speaker’s message is accepted.
• Negative motivation. Promises negative consequences if a speaker’s message is rejected.
• Appeals to safety needs. Evokes an audience’s concern for their safety and the safety of their loved ones.
• Appeals to social needs. Evokes an audience’s need for belonging and inclusion.
• Appeals to self-esteem needs. Evokes an audience’s need to think well of themselves and have others think well of them, too.

“Getting Competent”

Identifying Persuasive Strategies in Mary Fisher’s “Whisper of AIDS” Speech

Mary Fisher’s speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention, “A Whisper of AIDS,” is one of the most moving and powerful speeches of the past few decades. She uses, more than once, all the persuasive strategies discussed in this chapter. The video and transcript of her speech can be found at the following link: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/maryfisher1992rnc.html . As you watch the speech, answer the following questions:

• Ethos. List specific examples of how the speaker develops the following dimensions of credibility: competence, trustworthiness, and dynamism.
• Logos. List specific examples of how the speaker uses logic to persuade her audience.
• Pathos. How did the speaker appeal to emotion? What metaphors did she use? What other communicative strategies (wording, imagery, etc.) appealed to your emotions?
• List at least one example of how the speaker uses positive motivation.
• List at least one example of how the speaker uses negative motivation.
• List at least one example of how the speaker appeals to safety needs.
• List at least one example of how the speaker appeals to social needs.
• List at least one example of how the speaker utilizes cognitive dissonance.

Sample Persuasive Speech

Title: Education behind Bars Is the Key to Rehabilitation

General purpose: To persuade

Specific purpose : By the end of my speech, my audience will believe that prisoners should have the right to an education.

Thesis statement: There should be education in all prisons, because denying prisoners an education has negative consequences for the prisoner and society, while providing them with an education provides benefits for the prisoner and society.

Introduction

Attention getter: “We must accept the reality that to confine offenders behind walls without trying to change them is an expensive folly with short-term benefits—winning battles while losing the war.” These words were spoken more than thirty years ago by Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger, and they support my argument today that prisoners should have access to education.

Introduction of topic: While we value education as an important part of our society, we do not value it equally for all. Many people don’t believe that prisoners should have access to an education, but I believe they do.

Credibility and relevance: While researching this topic, my eyes were opened up to how much an education can truly affect a prisoner, and given my desire to be a teacher, I am invested in preserving the right to learn for everyone, even if they are behind bars. While I know from our audience analysis activity that some of you do not agree with me, you never know when this issue may hit close to home. Someday, someone you love might make a mistake in their life and end up in prison, and while they are there I know you all would want them to receive an education so that when they get out, they will be better prepared to make a contribution to society.

Preview: Today, I invite you listen with an open mind as I discuss the need for prisoner education, a curriculum that will satisfy that need, and some benefits of prisoner education.

Transition: First I’ll explain why prisoners need access to education.

• His claim is supported by data collected directly from prisoners, 94 percent of whom identify education as a personal reentry need—ranking it above other needs such as financial assistance, housing, or employment.
• Despite the fact that this need is clearly documented, funding for adult and vocational education in correctional education has decreased.
• According to statistics from 2010, as cited in the Corrections Today article, approximately 40 percent of state prison inmates did not complete high school, as compared to 19 percent of the general population.
• Additionally, while about 48 percent of the general public have taken college classes, only about 11 percent of state prisoners have.
• At the skill level, research from the United Kingdom, cited in the 2003 article from Studies in the Education of Adults titled “Learning behind Bars: Time to Liberate Prison Education,” rates of illiteracy are much higher among the prison population than the general population, and there is a link between poor reading skills and social exclusion that may lead people to antisocial behavior.
• The article from Studies in the Education of Adults that I just cited states that prisoners are often treated as objects or subjected to objectifying labels like “ addict , sexual offender , and deviant .”
• While these labels may be accurate in many cases, they do not do much to move the prisoner toward rehabilitation.
• The label student , however, has the potential to do so because it has positive associations and can empower the prisoner to make better choices to enhance his or her confidence and self-worth.

Transition: Now that I’ve established the need for prisoner education, let’s examine how we can meet that need.

• Some states have implemented programs that require inmates to attend school for a certain amount of time if they do not meet minimum standards for certain skills such as reading or math.
• While these are useful programs, prisoner education shouldn’t be limited to or focused on those with the least amount of skills.
• The article notes that even prisoners who have attended or even graduated from college may benefit from education, as they can pursue specialized courses or certifications.
• These courses will teach prisoners basic reading, writing, and math skills that may be lacking.
• Since there is a stigma associated with a lack of these basic skills, early instruction should be one-one-one or in small groups.
• The second tier should prepare prisoners who have not completed the equivalent of high school to progress on to a curriculum modeled after that of most high schools, which will prepare them for a GED.
• Basic general education goals include speaking, writing, listening, reading, and math.
• Once these general education requirements have been met, prisoners should be able to pursue specialized vocational training or upper-level college courses in a major of study, which may need to be taken online through distance learning, since instructors may not be available to come to the actual prisons to teach.
• Some population-specific areas of study that wouldn’t be covered in a typical classroom include drug treatment and anger management.
• Life skills such as budgeting, money management, and healthy living can increase confidence.
• Classes that focus on social skills, parenting, or relational communication can also improve communication skills and relational satisfaction; for example, workshops teaching parenting skills have been piloted to give fathers the skills needed to more effectively communicate with their children, which can increase feelings of self-worth.
• Under the supervision of faculty and/or staff, prisoners could be given the task of organizing an outside speaker to come to the prison or put together a workshop.
• Students could also organize a debate against students on the outside, which could allow the prisoners to interact (face-to-face or virtually) with other students and allow them to be recognized for their academic abilities.
• Even within the prison, debates, trivia contests, paper contests, or speech contests could be organized between prisoners or between prisoners and prison staff as a means of healthy competition.
• Finally, prisoners who are successful students should be recognized and put into peer-mentoring roles, because, as Behan states in the article, “a prisoner who…has had an inspirational learning experience acts as a more positive advocate for the school than any [other method].”

Transition: The model for prisoner education that I have just outlined will have many benefits.

• The article I just cited from the Journal of Correctional Education states that the self-reflection and critical thinking that are fostered in an educational setting can help prisoners reflect on how their actions affected them, their victims, and/or their communities, which may increase self-awareness and help them better reconnect with a civil society and reestablish stronger community bonds.
• The Corrections Today article also notes that prisoners who completed a GED reoffended at a rate 20 percent lower than the general prison population, and those that completed a college degree reoffended at a rate 44 percent lower than the general prison population.
• Simply put, according to the article in the Studies in the Education of Adults I cited earlier, the skills gained through good prison education programs make released prisoners more desirable employees, which increases their wages and helps remove them from a negative cycles of stigma and poverty that led many of them to crime in the first place.
• Further, the ability to maintain consistent employment has been shown to reduce the rate of reoffending.
• An entry on eHow.com by Kinney about the benefits of prisoners getting GEDs notes that a successful educational program in a prison can create a more humane environment that will positively affect the officers and staff as well.
• Such programs also allow prisoners to do more productive things with their time, which lessens violent and destructive behavior and makes prison workers’ jobs safer.
• Giving prisoners time-off-sentence credits for educational attainment can help reduce the prison population, as eligible inmates are released earlier because of their educational successes.
• As noted by the Corrections Today article, during the 2008–9 school year the credits earned by prisoners in the Indiana system led to more than $68 million dollars in avoided costs.

Transition to conclusion and summary of importance: In closing, it’s easy to see how beneficial a good education can be to a prisoner. Education may be something the average teenager or adult takes for granted, but for a prisoner it could be the start of a new life.

Review of main points: There is a clear need for prisoner education that can be met with a sound curriculum that will benefit prisoners, those who work in prisons, and society at large.

Closing statement: While education in prisons is still a controversial topic, I hope you all agree with me and Supreme Court Justice Burger, whose words opened this speech, when we say that locking a criminal away may offer a short-term solution in that it gets the criminal out of regular society, but it doesn’t better the prisoner and it doesn’t better us in the long run as a society.

Bayliss, P. (2003). Learning behind bars: Time to liberate prison education. Studies in the Education of Adults, 35 (2), 157–172.

Behan, C. (2007). Context, creativity and critical reflection: Education in correctional institutions. Journal of Correctional Education, 58 (2), 157–169.

Foley, R. (2004). Correctional education: Characteristics of academic programs serving incarcerated adults. Journal of Correctional Education, 55 (1), 6–21.

Kinney, A. (2011). What are the benefits of inmates getting GEDs? Ehow.com . Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/list_6018033_benefits-inmates-getting-geds_.html

Steurer, S. J., Linton, J., Nally, J., & Lockwood, S. (2010). The top-nine reasons to increase correctional education programs. Corrections Today, 72 (4), 40–43.

Key Takeaways

• Ethos refers to the credibility of a speaker and is composed of three dimensions: competence, trustworthiness, and dynamism. Speakers develop ethos by being prepared, citing credible research, presenting information in a nonmanipulative way, and using engaging delivery techniques.
• Logos refers to the reasoning or logic of an argument. Speakers appeal to logos by presenting factual objective information, using sound reasoning, and avoiding logical fallacies.
• Pathos refers to emotional appeals. Speakers appeal to pathos by using vivid language, including personal stories, and using figurative language.
• Cognitive dissonance refers to the mental discomfort that results from new information clashing with currently held beliefs, attitudes, or values. Cognitive dissonance may lead a person to be persuaded, but there are other ways that people may cope with dissonance, such as by discrediting the speaker, seeking out alternative information, avoiding sources of dissonance, or reinterpreting the information.
• Speakers can combine positive and negative motivation with appeals to safety, social, or self-esteem needs in order to persuade.
• Ethos, or credibility, is composed of three dimensions: competence, trustworthiness, and dynamism. Of those dimensions, which is most important for you when judging someone’s credibility and why?
• Recount a time when you experienced cognitive dissonance. What was the new information and what did it clash with? What coping strategies, of the ones discussed in the chapter, did you use to try to restore cognitive balance?
• How ethical do you think it is for a speaker to rely on fear appeals? When do fear appeals cross the line?
• Imagine that you will be delivering a persuasive speech to a group of prospective students considering attending your school. What could you say that would appeal to their safety needs? Their social needs? Their self-esteem needs?

Cooper, M. D., and William L. Nothstine, Power Persuasion: Moving an Ancient Art into the Media Age (Greenwood, IN: Educational Video Group, 1996), 48.

Fletcher, L., How to Design and Deliver Speeches , 7th ed. (New York: Longman, 2001), 342.

Maslow, A. H., “A Theory of Human Motivation,” Psychological Review 50 (1943): 370–96.

Stiff, J. B., and Paul A. Mongeau, Persuasive Communication , 2nd ed. (New York: Guilford Press, 2003), 105.

Communication in the Real World Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How to Write a Persuasive Essay: Tips and Tricks

Allison Bressmer

Most composition classes you’ll take will teach the art of persuasive writing. That’s a good thing.

Knowing where you stand on issues and knowing how to argue for or against something is a skill that will serve you well both inside and outside of the classroom.

Persuasion is the art of using logic to prompt audiences to change their mind or take action , and is generally seen as accomplishing that goal by appealing to emotions and feelings.

A persuasive essay is one that attempts to get a reader to agree with your perspective.

Ready for some tips on how to produce a well-written, well-rounded, well-structured persuasive essay? Just say yes. I don’t want to have to write another essay to convince you!

How Do I Write a Persuasive Essay?

What are some good topics for a persuasive essay, how do i identify an audience for my persuasive essay, how do you create an effective persuasive essay, how should i edit my persuasive essay.

Your persuasive essay needs to have the three components required of any essay: the introduction , body , and conclusion .

That is essay structure. However, there is flexibility in that structure.

There is no rule (unless the assignment has specific rules) for how many paragraphs any of those sections need.

Although the components should be proportional; the body paragraphs will comprise most of your persuasive essay.

How Do I Start a Persuasive Essay?

As with any essay introduction, this paragraph is where you grab your audience’s attention, provide context for the topic of discussion, and present your thesis statement.

TIP 1: Some writers find it easier to write their introductions last. As long as you have your working thesis, this is a perfectly acceptable approach. From that thesis, you can plan your body paragraphs and then go back and write your introduction.

TIP 2: Avoid “announcing” your thesis. Don’t include statements like this:

• “In my essay I will show why extinct animals should (not) be regenerated.”
• “The purpose of my essay is to argue that extinct animals should (not) be regenerated.”

Announcements take away from the originality, authority, and sophistication of your writing.

Instead, write a convincing thesis statement that answers the question "so what?" Why is the topic important, what do you think about it, and why do you think that? Be specific.

How Many Paragraphs Should a Persuasive Essay Have?

This body of your persuasive essay is the section in which you develop the arguments that support your thesis. Consider these questions as you plan this section of your essay:

• What arguments support your thesis?
• What is the best order for your arguments?
• What evidence do you have?
• Will you address the opposing argument to your own?
• How can you conclude convincingly?

TIP: Brainstorm and do your research before you decide which arguments you’ll focus on in your discussion. Make a list of possibilities and go with the ones that are strongest, that you can discuss with the most confidence, and that help you balance your rhetorical triangle .

What Should I Put in the Conclusion of a Persuasive Essay?

The conclusion is your “mic-drop” moment. Think about how you can leave your audience with a strong final comment.

And while a conclusion often re-emphasizes the main points of a discussion, it shouldn’t simply repeat them.

TIP 1: Be careful not to introduce a new argument in the conclusion—there’s no time to develop it now that you’ve reached the end of your discussion!

TIP 2 : As with your thesis, avoid announcing your conclusion. Don’t start your conclusion with “in conclusion” or “to conclude” or “to end my essay” type statements. Your audience should be able to see that you are bringing the discussion to a close without those overused, less sophisticated signals.

If your instructor has assigned you a topic, then you’ve already got your issue; you’ll just have to determine where you stand on the issue. Where you stand on your topic is your position on that topic.

Your position will ultimately become the thesis of your persuasive essay: the statement the rest of the essay argues for and supports, intending to convince your audience to consider your point of view.

If you have to choose your own topic, use these guidelines to help you make your selection:

• Choose an issue you truly care about
• Choose an issue that is actually debatable

Simple “tastes” (likes and dislikes) can’t really be argued. No matter how many ways someone tries to convince me that milk chocolate rules, I just won’t agree.

It’s dark chocolate or nothing as far as my tastes are concerned.

Similarly, you can’t convince a person to “like” one film more than another in an essay.

You could argue that one movie has superior qualities than another: cinematography, acting, directing, etc. but you can’t convince a person that the film really appeals to them.

Once you’ve selected your issue, determine your position just as you would for an assigned topic. That position will ultimately become your thesis.

Until you’ve finalized your work, consider your thesis a “working thesis.”

This means that your statement represents your position, but you might change its phrasing or structure for that final version.

When you’re writing an essay for a class, it can seem strange to identify an audience—isn’t the audience the instructor?

Your instructor will read and evaluate your essay, and may be part of your greater audience, but you shouldn’t just write for your teacher.

Think about who your intended audience is.

For an argument essay, think of your audience as the people who disagree with you—the people who need convincing.

That population could be quite broad, for example, if you’re arguing a political issue, or narrow, if you’re trying to convince your parents to extend your curfew.

Once you’ve got a sense of your audience, it’s time to consult with Aristotle. Aristotle’s teaching on persuasion has shaped communication since about 330 BC. Apparently, it works.

Aristotle taught that in order to convince an audience of something, the communicator needs to balance the three elements of the rhetorical triangle to achieve the best results.

Those three elements are ethos , logos , and pathos .

Ethos relates to credibility and trustworthiness. How can you, as the writer, demonstrate your credibility as a source of information to your audience?

How will you show them you are worthy of their trust?

• You show you’ve done your research: you understand the issue, both sides
• You show respect for the opposing side: if you disrespect your audience, they won’t respect you or your ideas

Logos relates to logic. How will you convince your audience that your arguments and ideas are reasonable?

You provide facts or other supporting evidence to support your claims.

That evidence may take the form of studies or expert input or reasonable examples or a combination of all of those things, depending on the specific requirements of your assignment.

Remember: if you use someone else’s ideas or words in your essay, you need to give them credit.

ProWritingAid's Plagiarism Checker checks your work against over a billion web-pages, published works, and academic papers so you can be sure of its originality.

Find out more about ProWritingAid’s Plagiarism checks.

Pathos relates to emotion. Audiences are people and people are emotional beings. We respond to emotional prompts. How will you engage your audience with your arguments on an emotional level?

• You make strategic word choices : words have denotations (dictionary meanings) and also connotations, or emotional values. Use words whose connotations will help prompt the feelings you want your audience to experience.
• You use emotionally engaging examples to support your claims or make a point, prompting your audience to be moved by your discussion.

Be mindful as you lean into elements of the triangle. Too much pathos and your audience might end up feeling manipulated, roll their eyes and move on.

An “all logos” approach will leave your essay dry and without a sense of voice; it will probably bore your audience rather than make them care.

Once you’ve got your essay planned, start writing! Don’t worry about perfection, just get your ideas out of your head and off your list and into a rough essay format.

After you’ve written your draft, evaluate your work. What works and what doesn’t? For help with evaluating and revising your work, check out this ProWritingAid post on manuscript revision .

After you’ve evaluated your draft, revise it. Repeat that process as many times as you need to make your work the best it can be.

When you’re satisfied with the content and structure of the essay, take it through the editing process .

Grammatical or sentence-level errors can distract your audience or even detract from the ethos—the authority—of your work.

You don’t have to edit alone! ProWritingAid’s Realtime Report will find errors and make suggestions for improvements.

You can even use it on emails to your professors:

Try ProWritingAid with a free account.

How Can I Improve My Persuasion Skills?

You can develop your powers of persuasion every day just by observing what’s around you.

• How is that advertisement working to convince you to buy a product?
• How is a political candidate arguing for you to vote for them?
• How do you “argue” with friends about what to do over the weekend, or convince your boss to give you a raise?
• How are your parents working to convince you to follow a certain academic or career path?

As you observe these arguments in action, evaluate them. Why are they effective or why do they fail?

How could an argument be strengthened with more (or less) emphasis on ethos, logos, and pathos?

Every argument is an opportunity to learn! Observe them, evaluate them, and use them to perfect your own powers of persuasion.

Be confident about grammar

Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

Allison Bressmer is a professor of freshman composition and critical reading at a community college and a freelance writer. If she isn’t writing or teaching, you’ll likely find her reading a book or listening to a podcast while happily sipping a semi-sweet iced tea or happy-houring with friends. She lives in New York with her family. Connect at linkedin.com/in/allisonbressmer.

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Types of Persuasion: Six Techniques for Winning Arguments

Six major types of persuasion are: ethos, pathos, logos, statistics, deliberation, and refutation.

The ability to use and apply each form of persuasion at the right time can help you to convince others to your side and embrace your perspective. Furthermore, in school debating, knowledge of each type can help you to steelman your perspective in order to convince an objective panel of judges to give you the win.

Note that many of these persuasion techniques might not be useful (or could even be counterproductive) in many situations. Pay close attention to the context of the examples to gather insights into when they might be useful, and when they may not.

Types of Persuasion

1. ethos (ethical appeal).

Ethos, also known as ethical appeal, is a persuasive technique that relies on the credibility and trustworthiness of the speaker or writer to influence their audience.

The concept of ethos is based on the belief that people are more likely to believe and accept ideas from someone they perceive as being reliable, honest, knowledgeable, and competent (Wrobel, 2015).

This means that if you want to persuade someone to take your side or adopt your position on an issue, it’s crucial that you establish yourself as a person with good character (Varpio, 2018).

There are several ways in which you can build and enhance your ethos.

One way is by presenting yourself as an expert in the relevant field or industry. For example, if you’re trying to persuade people to invest in a particular company, highlighting your expertise in finance or business can help bolster your credibility (although, beware, that doing this is engaging in the appeal to authority bias , which is why I prefer the next method).

My preferred method is by demonstrating your integrity and trustworthiness through what you say and the stories you tell. By showing your interlocutor that you’re a reliable source of information who has their best interests at heart, you increase the chances of them being persuaded by your arguments and suggestions.

Example of Ethos

Imagine I’m trying to convince my boss to promote me to a higher position within our company. To do so successfully, I would need to establish my ethos by showcasing that I am worthy, perhaps by demonstrating my work ethic and evidence of my successes. I could provide examples of successful projects I’ve completed in the past and highlight any awards or recognitions I’ve received for my work performance. Additionally, I could ask colleagues for testimonials about my abilities and professionalism . By doing so, I am able to present myself as someone deserving of the promotion based on merit rather than solely through favoritism.

2. Pathos (Emotional Appeal)

Pathos, also known as emotional appeal , is a persuasive technique that evokes strong emotions in the audience to encourage them to take a particular action or adopt a specific point of view (Meyer, 2017).

Pathos aims to sway people’s emotions by appealing to their fears, hopes, values, or desires. A critical reader would be able to tell already that pathos is widely used in advertising and marketing!

This type of persuasion typically uses vivid language and storytelling techniques to create an emotional connection between the speaker and their audience (Ihlen & Heath, 2018).

To be effective, the use of pathos should be appropriate for the context and audience.

For instance, it’s inappropriate to use tragic events or personal losses for mere political gain, as it may harm those affected by such events. Instead of exploiting people’s pain and sadness, pathos should be used responsibly and respectfully.

Example of Pathos

Consider a charity advertisement aimed at persuading viewers to donate money towards fighting poverty in developing countries. The advertisement may show images of impoverished children struggling with hunger and disease while sad music plays in the background. This appeals to the viewer’s emotions by invoking feelings of compassion and empathy for those less fortunate than themselves. The ultimate goal is for viewers to feel more inclined to take action after seeing how they can make a positive impact on someone else’s life through donating.

3. Logos (Logical Appeal)

Logos, also known as logical appeal, is a persuasive technique that relies on the use of reason and logic to influence an audience.

Logos is based on the idea that people are more likely to accept and adopt a particular position or argument if it coheres to rules of logic and doesn’t fall into heuristics or logical fallacies (Dillard & Shen, 2013). In other words, to be effective with logos, it is important to ensure that all claims made are supported by a rational thought-process and/or clear evidence.

This means that the information presented should be accurate and verifiable from credible sources. Additionally, the arguments presented must be logical and coherent with clear connections between each point presented (Baumlin & Meyer, 2018).

Example of Logos

Consider an ad campaign by a toothpaste company claiming that their product prevents cavities better than any other brand. In this case, the company might use data from clinical studies demonstrating how their product significantly reduced the incidence of cavities compared to competitors’ products. This provides objective evidence to support their claim and makes it more believable for consumers who care about having strong teeth without cavities.

4. Statistics (Appeal to Facts)

Statistics, also called statistical evidence or quantitative data , is a persuasive technique that relies on numerical information to support a claim. This method can be used alongside logos to support one another.

Statistics are often used as evidence in order to give credibility and support an argument with hard numbers (Dillard & Shen, 2013).

To use statistics effectively for persuasion, it is important to ensure that the statistics presented are accurate and relevant to the argument being made (Ihlen & Heath, 2018).

Any infographics or visual aids should be easy for the audience to comprehend and include enough context so that there can be no misconceptions about how they were derived.

Example of Statistics

Let’s say you want to persuade your school’s administration team to increase funding for arts programs by showing how popular these programs are with students. You could gather data from surveys showing the percentage of students participating in extracurricular music classes or art clubs at school as well as academic studies highlighting how music education improves cognitive development among teenagers. By presenting this data persuasively, you can help convince your school administrators of the value of these programs not just socially but academically too.

5. Deliberation (Dialectical Reasoning)

Deliberation, also known as dialectical reasoning, involves personal reflection and weighing of options in a critical and logical way. (Meyer, 2017)

This type of persuasion seeks to prompt individuals to reason for themselves, rather than being told what to think or do.

Deliberation involves using the socratic method to present competing ideas or arguments and encourage people to consider different perspectives. You should try to ask questions that lead the audience towards coming up with their own conclusions (Wrobel, 2015).

To use deliberation effectively, one must provide a space for open dialogue and encourage individuals to voice their opinions.

The goal is not necessarily to convince the audience but rather to initiate thoughtful debate on the topic at hand leading everyone involved closer towards arriving at a consensus.

Example of Deliberation

Imagine your school plans on banning certain types of plastic products such as water bottles or straws due to environmental concerns. Instead of simply telling students that they should abide by this regulation without further justification, you choose to host discussion sessions where students and teachers can express their views. This open deliberation can help increase buy-in among motivated parties who formerly may have opposed it otherwise. They will feel like they came to their own perspective, while you facilitated this by presenting new evidence for them. This approach can lead everyone involved closer towards arriving at a shared group consensus.

6. Refutation (Anticpating Counterarguments)

Refutation is a persuasive technique that involves anticipating and addressing counterarguments.

Refutation acknowledges that the audience may have objections or doubts about your argument and allows you to effectively neutralize those concerns before they become an issue. It is an excellent way to steel man your argument (Varpio, 2018).

This can be done by identifying potential objections ahead of time and figuring out how you will address each one, or examining your opponent’s best arguments and breaking them down (Baumlin & Meyer, 2018).

To use refutation effectively, it is crucial to make sure that you accurately understand the disagreement being presented so as not to distort it during rebuttal (what we’d call the strawman approach ).

Refutation helps to ensure the credibility of your response. Additionally, this technique should be used strategically and only when necessary rather than overusing it, which may create a confrontational atmosphere damaging receptiveness towards genuine non-hostile discussion.

Example of Refutation

Imagine you’re trying to persuade your employer to give every employee two weeks off for vacation, but there’s a concern that other employees will protest due to their workload. Instead of ignoring this objection, you might acknowledge the possible disruption while also highlighting potential benefits in improved employee happiness and retention rates resulting from more frequent performance breaks. Ultimately this would allow workers who recharge fully maintaining productivity over extended periods while reducing chances for burnout among stressed-out staff members.

See More: Examples of Counterarguments

Additional Forms of Persuasion

Persuasion can also be dissected into the peripheral route and the central route.

These routes represent a distinction between appeals to direct logical argumentation (central route) and appeals to secondary signals, such as credibility and emotional appeal (peripheral route).

Each are outlined below:

• The peripheral route to persuasion does not directly engage with the strength of the argument or its inherent logic. Instead, it appeals to heuristics that suggest the argument is sound, such as the speaker’s attractiveness, emotional appeals, and appeals to authority. Generally, it leverages a range of cognitive biases to convince disengaged, misinformed, or low-information interlocutors (Baumlin & Meyer, 2018).
• The central route to persuasion goes straight to the logic of an argument, presenting logical and rational perspectives as well as empirical evidence in order to convince a high-information or highly engaged audience. It encourages critical thinking as part of a deep, engaged, debate (Meyer, 2017).

You’ll note that we can place several of the different types of persuasion explored earlier into these two buckets: logos most obviously being placed in the central route bucket, while pathos might be more likely to be taking the peripheral route.

Strong knowledge of (and ability to execute) persuasion techniques can be extremely useful for getting your way, winning debates, and subtly convincing others of your point of view. However, it needs to be applied in contextually-approproate situations to minimize the chances of your methods backfiring.

Baumlin, J. S., & Meyer, C. A. (2018). Positioning ethos in/for the twenty-first century: An introduction to histories of ethos. Humanities , 7 (3), 78. doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/h7030078

Dillard, J. P., & Shen, L. (Eds.). (2013). The Sage handbook of persuasion . London: Sage.

Ihlen, O., & Heath, R. L. (Eds.). (2018). The handbook of organizational rhetoric and communication . New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Meyer, M. (2017). What is rhetoric? Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Varpio, L. (2018). Using rhetorical appeals to credibility, logic, and emotions to increase your persuasiveness. Perspectives on medical education, 7 , 207-210. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40037-018-0420-2

Wróbel, S. (2015). Logos, ethos, pathos. Classical rhetoric revisited . Polish Sociological Review, 191 (3), 401-421.

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Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

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Cialdini’s 6 Principles of Persuasion: A Simple Summary

Cialdini’s 6 Principles of Persuasion are reciprocity, scarcity, authority, commitment and consistency, liking and consensus. By understanding these rules, you can use them to persuade and influence others. Of course, doing so isn’t always an ethical thing to do. Summary by The World of Work Project

Cialdini’s Six Principles of Persuasion

Robert Cialdini published his book “ Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion ” in 1984. In it, he explores factors that affect the decisions that people make, particularly in relation to sales and purchasing. His work is an influential precursor to Nudge Theory , and it’s dark sibling, Sludge .

At the core of his work is the now well accepted idea that decision making is effortful, so individuals use a lot of rules of thumb and decision making shortcuts (heuristics) when deciding what to do, how to behave or what action to take in any situation.

Cialdini has identified six core principles that affect these decision making short cuts, particularly in relation to purchasing and consumption decisions. The main message that he delivers is that if you understand these six principles, then you can use them to your advantage when trying to persuade others to take a specific action or buy a specific product.

The six key principles Cialdini identified are: reciprocity, scarcity, authority, commitment and consistency, liking and consensus (or social proof).

1 – Reciprocity

The first of Cialdini’s 6 Principles of Persuasion is reciprocity.

Humans value equality and balance to some extent (See Adams’ Equity Theory ). This means we don’t like to feel that we owe other people. Generally speaking, when people have these social obligations they try to settle them. For example, if someone sends you a birthday card, you’ll almost certainly want to send them one in return. You’ll do this when their birthday next rolls around so that you settle your sense of social obligation.

It’s possible to use this desire for reciprocity to influence the behaviors of others.

To do this, you need to be the first to act and to give someone a personalized and unexpected gift. To some extent, the value of the gift is less important that the act of the gift itself. It’s for this reason of reciprocity that waiters provide mints with the bill, that workshop facilitators might provide cookies as they ask for feedback and that leaders might provide a team day out just before issuing the annual engagement survey. All of these actions basically say, “I’ve scratched your back, now you scratch mine”.

In the world of work it’s possible to use this principle of reciprocity by doing favors for others, helping people, publicly praising others and generally working in such a way as to build up a bank of social obligations owed to you. Each of these obligations will be settled at some point, probably to your advantage. Of course, if you’re too over the top with this type of behavior, it will cease to work.

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2 – Scarcity

The second of Cialdini’s 6 Principles of Persuasion is scarcity.

The less of something there is, the more people tend to want it. This holds true for experiences as well as for material products. There’s not really much more to say about this one.

From a persuasion and influence perspective this means that to increase interest in your product or service, you may benefit from reducing its availability (or at least creating a sense of scarcity).

We can see this principle in action in many different markets. For example, online sales platforms for hotels and airplanes commonly say things like “only 5 seats left at this price”. They do this to create a sense of scarcity (as well as to add time pressure, which is closely related). In the consumer goods arena firms also do things like produce “limited edition” versions of products. They do this for products ranging from hand-soap to shoes, again increasing scarcity by limiting availability.

In the world of work it may be possible to create a sense of scarcity around your own availability. This may lead to an increase in desire for what you have to offer. Of course, not everyone is in a position to do this, only those with power. Doing so when you don’t have that power may simply lead others to tell you you’re inefficient.

You can read our thoughts on affecting the way you present yourself to the world in our articles on the PVI model and personality and character ethics .

3 – Authority

The third of Cialdini’s 6 Principles of Persuasion is authority.

Individuals who are authoritative, credible and knowledgeable experts in their fields are more influential and persuasive than those who are not. Part of the reason for this is that authority and credibility are some of the core building blocks of trust . When we trust people we are more likely to follow them.

We see the principle of authority in action in many walks of life. Dentists in white coats are used to sell us toothpaste, airline staff wear uniforms to remind us of their authority and many an email signature is appended with a string of qualifications in an effort to increase the individual’s authority.

In reality, it’s less effective when individuals promote their own brilliance and authority than when others do it for them. Interestingly, though, it almost doesn’t matter who that other person is. Even if the person promoting you is known to benefit personally from doing so, their words of praise still increase your influence and ability to persuade.

What this means in the world of work is that building trust and credibility is very important, but that it’s also possible to build some of that sense of authority through the recommendations and good words of others. It may be worth asking others to recommend you, or recommending others so that they feel a social obligation to recommend you in return.

4 – Commitment and consistency

The fourth of Cialdini’s 6 Principles of Persuasion is committment and Consistency.

People like to be consistent with their identity or sense of self image. In other words, if I’m a person who thinks of myself as a “healthy” person, then I’m more likely to undertake actions that I consider to be “healthy”.

From a persuasion and influence perspective, this means that if I can convince you to act in a minor way in relation to something, then you’ll think of yourself as that type of person and be more likely to act in that way again in the future. You’ll also be more likely to increase your actions in that direction, if I suggest that you do so.

To some extent, we can think of this as a salami-slicing tactics for persuasion. If I get you to do one little thing, then I can get you to do one more little thing that’s similar. From there you will do one bigger. And then, before you know it, you’ve eaten the whole salami, as it were.

We see this type of behavior in the marketplace all the time with things like introductory offers which are cheap and easy, though they become a gateway to something else. Similarly, product give-aways can achieve the same outcome. If I give you a free “World of Work Cookie” in the supermarket, then you may start to identify yourself as a “World of Work Cookie Eater”, and be more likely to act consistently with that identity in the future.

Commitment and Consistency in the World of Work

In the context of work, it may be possible to use this principle to influence and persuade others. To do this, you need to find small things to persuade people to do, then move on to larger things from there. For example, if you’re my boss and I first get you to agree that “generally speaking some flexibility in working patterns is a good thing”, then you’re much more likely to agree to my proposed 4 day working week when I eventually ask you for it.

Interestingly, once someone has done you a favor, they identify as the type of person who does you favors and are actually more likely to do so again in the future. What this means in the world of work is that if you get someone to do you a very small favor (e.g. lend you a pen, buy you a coffee), then they will more more likely to do you another favor in the future. Of course, however you choose to behave to and with others, you have to live with yourself.

5 – Liking

The fifth of Cialdini’s 6 Principles of Persuasion is liking.

It might seem totally obvious, but people are much more likely to be influenced and persuaded by those that they like, than those that they don’t. Given human nature, people are much more likely to like people who pay them compliments and who cooperate with them, than those who don’t. And, unfortunately, given positive evidence in relation to certain benefits of diversity, people are also much more likely to like people who are similar to them, than those who are not.

We see this principle played out often in the world of marketing and advertising. Nearly every advertisement you see will feature individuals designed to appeal to the product’s target market. The more the consumer associates with and likes that person, the more likely they are to be influenced by them.

To use this principle in the world of work, you simply need to become liked by those around you and those you are looking to persuade or influence. You can do this by cooperating with others, by paying others genuine compliments and by identifying similarities and building relationships. They key here, though, is that you need to build these relationships and garner this “liking” before you try and influence others. If you try and become liked once you’ve started your efforts to influence, then those efforts will fail.

6 – Consensus (social proof)

The last of Cialdini’s 6 Principles of Persuasion is consensus, or social proof.

Humans are social by nature and generally feel that it’s important to conform to the norms of a social group. This means that when it comes to decision making, we often look around us to see what others are doing, before making our mind up.

A classic example of this that many people will have seen is that of hotel towels. Signage that says “8 out of 10 hotel guests choose to reuse their towels” is far more effective at influencing and persuading than signs that simply say “reusing your towel helps to save the environment”.

Interestingly, the more socially specific communications of this type are, the more effective they are. For example signs that say “8 out of 10 hotel guests who stay in this room choose to reuse their towels” are more effective than those that simply reference generic hotel guests.

This principle of consensus or social proof is a bit hard to use from a personal perspective in the world of work, but by managing you reputation and personal brand, it may just be possible to do so.

Learning More

Communication is also often used for persuasion. Ideas like the rhetorical triangle and the five canons of rhetoric shed some light on how this works. For a more detailed look at communicating for persuasion, explore Monroe’s Motivated Sequence . And from a marketing perspective the AIDA model is worth looking at. As a side exploration, it might be worth reading about Trust and Five Dimensions of Trust in Sales as well .

Increasingly, products are also design to be persuasive, as it were. They are designed to create habits and drive increased use. Examples of this include Fogg’s model and the Hook model of behavioral design . You can listen to our podcast on this topic below.

The World of Work Project View

Influence and persuasion are some of the most powerful skills that any individual can have. They are useful far beyond the realm of the world of work.

For some people, influence and persuasion will come naturally. However, for others, this isn’t the case. For some people, an innate desire will exist to influence and persuade others. For some, the opposite will be the case.

Whoever you are though, understanding some of the techniques used to influence others will be useful. These techniques can help you in your efforts to influence and persuade others. Alternatively, they can also help you in your efforts to resist influence from others.

Ultimately, like all skills of this nature, persuasion and influence are simply tools to get others to do things that you want them to do. This power can be used for good, to genuinely help others achieve outcomes that are in their own best interest. It can also be used to take advantage of others. Just be clear in your motivations and your conscience when you use these skills.

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Our Podcast is a great way to learn more about hundreds of fascinating topics from around the world of work.

Cialdini, R. B. (2007). Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. New York: Harper Collins.

The World of Work Project: Cialdini’s 6 Principles of Persuasion: A Simple Summary

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18 Common Logical Fallacies and Persuasion Techniques

The information bombardment on social media is loaded with them..

Posted August 25, 2017 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

It has been suggested that approximately five exabytes (i.e. about 5,000,000,000 pickup truck beds full of information typed on paper) of data are created each day. What is tougher to decipher is how much of this information is simply spurious assertions, conspiracy theories, or misinterpreted information.

Navigating this bombardment of information and processing it appropriately requires not only attaining knowledge but also adapting in light of existing knowledge, through critical thinking. For example, when we engage with information on social media , we must decide whether or not what has been presented in the post is a legitimate claim. However, what often increases "cognitive load" (Sweller, 2010) is the multitude of arguments presented, by social media users, in the ensuing comment threads.

The quality of each argument in a thread varies from comment to comment, with respect to credibility, relevance, logical strength, the balance of evidence, and the level of bias . Generally, users will present an argument so as to persuade you to "see their side" of the argument. There is nothing wrong with trying to persuade someone else to look at a topic from your perspective, particularly if you present credible evidence. Quite often, however, users will not have credible evidence and will use other devices of argumentation to sway thinking, such as logical fallacies.

Social media is many things: entertainment, education , and networking, just to name a few. Unfortunately, it is also a vehicle for promoting faulty thinking. Below, I have compiled a list of 18 forms of persuasion techniques, illogical argumentation, and fallacious reasoning that I commonly encounter in my use of social media. By learning about these devices, you will be more likely to recognise their use, avoid using them yourself, and better assess arguments presented to you.

1. Ad hominem ("to the man") refers to an attack on the person; for example, regarding their past or personal traits, as a means of undermining/opposing their argument, without having to provide any evidence. Loaded questions evoke a similar effect.

2. Anecdotal Evidence is personal experience. Anecdotes can be a very powerful tool of persuasion but are a weak basis for an argument. We cannot generalize one person’s experience to the population at large. Other people may have had very different experiences. If we account for many experiences (e.g. 1,000 instead of 1), then we might be able to make some generalizations.

3. The Appeal to Authority can be tricky because it’s not always illogical. It would be wrong to think something is true just because an authority figure said it is; however, if it was an authority who is an expert in the field relevant to the issue, then it might be illogical to believe the opposite. Expert opinions are a strong source of credibility, given that these opinions are often based on empirical evidence. However, experts do not always agree when it comes to evaluating the evidence; and sometimes, an expert makes a bold statement that lacks credibility because it lacks supportive evidence (in which case the appeal to authority would be a fallacy).

4. An Appeal to Emotion aims to manipulate emotions or evoke an affective response to gain acceptance, as opposed to using logically compelling evidence. Appeals to pity and compassion are among the most common forms of this argument.

5. The Bandwagon Argument is simply an appeal to popularity. For example, “Everyone else is doing it, so why don’t you?” or “Most people believe X, so X must be true.” The bandwagon argument is often based on common belief statements (e.g. “Everyone knows that opposites attract” a common adage that is actually not the case), which are generally weak with respect to credibility.

6. Begging the Question is based on circular reasoning (e.g. “We need to cut spending as too much money is being spent” ), generally resulting from an individual taking a certain premise for granted.

7. The Black-or-White Fallacy is the provision of only two alternatives in an argument when there are actually more options available. That is, numerous "shades of grey" are also possible, but are not addressed.

8. The Burden of Proof Fallacy occurs when a claim is made and expected to be accepted because it has not been disproved or even adequately disputed. However, this does not mean the claim is true. As this issue often rests on potential (un)certainty, in such cases, it will require reflective judgment (King & Kitchener, 1994).

9. Card-stacking is a method of argumentation in which important counter-arguments are purposefully omitted, creating an imbalance of evidence in an effort to bias the argument.

10. The Fallacy Fallacy refers to dismissing a claim (which may be true) altogether solely because it has been poorly argued (e.g. illogical or with suspect evidence) or because a fallacy was used in arguing its case.

11. The False Cause Argument , or correlation not causation , refers to the assumption that because two things are related means that one causes the other. For example, 100% of murderers drink water; therefore, drinking water causes people to kill.

12. The Gambler's Fallacy refers to the belief that streaks affect statistically independent phenomena. Simply, there is a one in two chance of a coin landing tails up, so based on this assessment, some might say if heads comes up on the first flip, then it seems likely the coin will come up tails on the second flip. This would be an incorrect assessment of probability, as coins do not have a memory . The same goes for roulette wheels. Every flip and every spin is new and is not dictated by what happened previously. Thus, the probability of flipping a coin and getting tails eight times in a row is the very same as getting HTHTHTHT. The conceptualisation of the gambler’s fallacy is quite similar to the Representativeness Heuristic (Kahneman, 2011; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974).

13. The Middle Ground Fallacy is almost the exact opposite of the black-or-white fallacy . For example, where two alternatives are proposed (generally extremes), the middle ground fallacy incorrectly supposes that the truth must rest somewhere in between (i.e. a shade of grey). However, it could very well be the case that truth rests in one of the two ‘extremes’.

14. Moving the Goalposts refers to adding related propositions with just enough content altered to continue an argument, in order to avoid conceding after the initial claim had been successfully counter-argued. Similar argument types that fall under this umbrella of fallacies include Special Pleading and No True Scotsman .

15. Personal Incredulity refers to the dismissal of a claim by an individual due to a lack of understanding of either the claim itself or the supports for that claim (e.g. an individual’s dismissal of evolution because they don’t understand it).

16. The Slippery Slope Argument is an argument that concludes that if an action is taken, other negative consequences will follow. For example, “If event X were to occur, then event Y would (eventually) follow; thus, we cannot allow event X to happen.” This is often difficult to refute because it is not possible for us to see into the future and guarantee that the subsequent event won’t occur. Often, after critically thinking about patterns in human history, it may be that the subsequent event is likely to happen, in which case, the slippery slope argument may not be illogical. However, such judgment depends on the context of the argument. Regardless, what makes the argument fallacious is that it avoids engaging the argument at hand. It adds a component that isn’t necessarily relevant to the initial argument. Furthermore, the added component is generally emotionally loaded (e.g. fear -evoking).

17. The Strawman Fallacy involves misrepresenting an argument to make it easier to attack. For example, someone in opposition to your argument refutes it, often irrelevantly, by claiming that you are actually arguing in favor of something else. In this case, the "something else" is the strawman the opposition has purposefully built in order to make it easier to refute your stance, even though the "something else" was never argued for in the first place. Simply, a strawman is built so it can be knocked down.

18. Tu Quoque (translated from Latin as "you too"), or the argument of hypocrisy , refers to avoiding refutation or critique by reverting the same criticism back on to the accuser, without addressing the initial refutation. Another way of looking at this fallacy is as challenging a claim by asserting that the claimant’s behavior is inconsistent with the conclusion they have drawn. In this context, it is a type of ad hominem that rejects a proposition based on the traits of the claimant. For example, in response to the claim that "Eating fast food is unhealthy": “But I saw you eat a burger and fries for lunch only a few hours ago!"

These are not the only logical fallacies or persuasion techniques out there—just the most common in my experience. If you’re interested in learning more about fallacies, I recommend checking out yourlogicalfallacyis.com . Given the ever-expanding ocean of worldwide information, it is important to learn about these argumentation devices so that you can become better able to navigate it.

Darling-Hammond, L. (2008). How can we teach for meaningful learning? In L. Darling-Hammond (Ed.), Powerful Learning, 1–10. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Dwyer, C.P. (2017). Critical thinking: Conceptual perspectives and practical guidelines. UK: Cambridge University Press.

King, P. M., & Kitchener, K. S. (1994). Developing Reflective Judgment: Understanding and Promoting Intellectual Growth and Critical Thinking in Adolescents and Adults. CA: Jossey-Bass.

Sweller, J. (2010). Cognitive load theory: Recent theoretical advances. In J. L. Plass, R. Moreno, & R. Brünken (Eds.), Cognitive Load Theory, 29–47. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Dwyer, C. P. (2011). The evaluation of argument mapping as a learning tool. Doctoral Thesis, National University of Ireland, Galway.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. UK: Penguin.

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Heuristics and biases: Judgement under uncertainty. Science, 185, 1124-1130.

Van Eemeren, F. H., Grootendorst, R., Henkemans, F. S., Blair, J. A., Johnson, R. H., Krabbe, E. C. W., Planitin, C., Walton, D. N., Willard, C. A., Woods, J., & Zarefsky, D. (1996). Fundamentals of argumentation theory: A handbook of historical backgrounds and contemporary developments. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Christopher Dwyer, Ph.D., is a lecturer at the Technological University of the Shannon in Athlone, Ireland.

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