Persuasion
[10] The academic study of persuasion began with the Greeks, who emphasized rhetoric and elocution as the highest standard for a successful politician.
All trials were held in front of the Assembly, and the likelihood of success of the prosecution versus the defense rested on the persuasiveness of the speaker.
On the other hand, they will correspond more poorly with the evidence, and mechanics of reality, than a straightforward itemization of the behaviour change interventions (techniques) by their individual efficacy.
A mutually exclusive, comprehensively exhaustive (MECE) translation of this taxonomy, in decreasing order of effectiveness are: A typical instantiations of these techniques in therapy is[21][circular reference]exposure / response prevention for OCD.
Just like you sometimes recall a memory from a certain smell or sound, the objective of some ads is solely to bring back certain emotions when you see their logo in your local store.
The hope is that repeating the message several times makes consumers more likely to purchase the product because they already connect it with a good emotion and positive experience.
For example, a person who is addicted to smoking cigarettes but also suspects it could be detrimental to their health suffers from cognitive dissonance.
The most famous example of how cognitive dissonance can be used for persuasion comes from Festinger and Carlsmith's 1959 experiment in which participants were asked to complete a very dull task for an hour.
It holds that the probability of effective persuasion depends on how successful the communication is at bringing to mind a relevant mental representation, which is the elaboration likelihood.
Thus if the target of the communication is personally relevant, this increases the elaboration likelihood of the intended outcome and would be more persuasive if it were through the central route.
Social judgment theory suggests that when people are presented with an idea or any kind of persuasive proposal, their natural reaction is to immediately seek a way to sort the information subconsciously and react to it.
When a topic is closely connected to how we define and perceive ourselves, or deals with anything we care passionately about, our latitudes of acceptance and non-commitment are likely to be much smaller and our attitude of rejection much larger.
It is ideal to use persuasive information that lands near the boundary of the latitude of acceptance if the goal is to change the audience's anchor point.
Generally, we have a dislike for individuals who neglect to return a favor or provide payment when offered a free service or gift.
This societal standard makes reciprocity extremely powerful persuasive technique, as it can result in unequal exchanges and can even apply to an uninvited first favor.
People often feel they will make fewer mistakes "by acting in accord with social evidence than by behaving contrary to it.
The catch to this experiment was that the teacher did not know that the learner was an actor faking the pain sounds he heard and was not actually being harmed.
As one of the six basic principles behind the science of persuasion, then, "scarcity" can be leveraged to convince people to buy into some suggestions, heed the advice or accept the business proposals.
[49] There are two major reasons why the scarcity principle works: When this happens, people usually assign the scarce item or service more value simply because it is harder to acquire.
To understand cultural persuasion, researchers gather knowledge from domains such as "buying, selling, advertising, and shopping, as well as parenting and courting.
The kind of persuasion techniques blatantly employed by car salesmen creates an innate distrust of them in popular culture.
[58] Campbell proposed and empirically demonstrated that some persuasive advertising approaches lead consumers to infer manipulative intent on the marketer's part.
[59] Campbell and Kirmani developed an explicit model of the conditions under which consumers use persuasion knowledge in evaluating influence agents such as salespersons.
[64] "Persuasion, traditionally studied through classical frameworks such as Aristotle's appeals of logos, ethos, and pathos, has evolved with modern rhetorical theories.
According to Burke, effective persuasion is not merely about logical argumentation or emotional appeal but about creating a sense of shared identity and values between the speaker and the audience.
In Burke’s view, persuasion works when the audience feels a connection or alignment with the speaker's perspective, thus making the message more compelling.
Burke also pointed out that rhetoric is deeply embedded in social interactions, not just in public speeches or debates but in everyday communication.
Thus, persuasion is fundamentally about how language constructs and maintains social realities, making it a critical force in both personal and public life.
Kenneth Burke’s emphasis on ethical persuasion highlights the importance of recognizing these fallacies to avoid manipulation and misinformation.
In this way, Burke’s theory not only broadens the scope of persuasion to include identification and shared meaning but also reinforces the need for ethical and transparent communication practices."
