Persuasive Speaking Chapter 18Foundation.docx
- 1. Persuasive Speaking Chapter 18 Foundations of Persuasion & Persuasion: An Overview Persuasion: An Overview Richard Perloff’s Five Reasons Studying Persuasion is ImportantThe sheer number of persuasive communications has grown exponentially.Persuasive messages travel faster than ever before.Persuasion has become institutionalized.Persuasive communication has become more subtle and devious.Persuasive communication is more complex than ever before. What Is Persuasion?Persuasion: An attempt to get a person to behave in a manner, or embrace a point of view related to values, attitudes, and or beliefs, that he or she would not have
- 2. done otherwise. Change Attitudes, Values, and BeliefsAttitude: An individual’s general predisposition toward something as being good or bad, right or wrong, or negative or positive.Value: An individual’s perception of the usefulness, importance, or worth of something. We can value a college education or technology or freedom.Beliefs: Propositions or positions that an individual holds as true or false without positive knowledge or proof.Core beliefs: Beliefs that people have actively engaged in and created over the course of their lives (e.g., belief in a higher power, belief in extraterrestrial life forms).Dispositional beliefs: Beliefs that people have not actively engaged in, but rather judgments that they make, based on their knowledge of related subjects, when they encounter a proposition. Change in BehaviorBehaviors come in a wide range of forms, so finding one you think people should start, increase, or decrease shouldn’t be difficult at all.For example, speeches encouraging audiences to vote for a candidate, sign a petition opposing a tuition increase, or drink tap water instead of bottled water are all behavior-oriented persuasive speeches. Why Persuasion Matters Frymier and Nadler’s Three Reasons to Study PersuasionWhen you study and understand persuasion, you will be more successful at persuading others.When people understand
- 3. persuasion, they will be better consumers of information.When we understand how persuasion functions, we’ll have a better grasp of what happens around us in the world. Why it’s Important Ethically to Understand PersuasionWe believe that persuasive messages that aim to manipulate, coerce, and intimidate people are unethical, as are messages that distort information.As ethical listeners, we have a responsibility to analyze messages that manipulate, coerce, and/or intimidate people or distort information.We also then have the responsibility to combat these messages with the truth, which will rely on our skills and knowledge as effective persuaders. Theories of Persuasion We often find ourselves in situations where we are trying to persuade others to attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors with which they may not agree. To help us persuade others, what we need to think about is the range of possible attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors that exist. Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Leon Festinger)
- 4. Cognitive DissonanceAn aversive motivational state that occurs when an individual entertains two or more contradictory attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors simultaneously. Three Necessary Conditions for Cognitive Dissonance to WorkFor cognitive dissonance to work, there needs to be a strong enough aversive consequence, or punishment, for not changing one’s attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors.If listeners feel they are being coerced into doing something, then dissonance will not be aroused.External and Internal JustificationsExternal justification: The process of identifying reasons outside of one’s own control to support one’s behavior, beliefs, and attitudes. Internal justification: When someone voluntarily changes a behavior, belief, or attitude to reduce cognitive dissonance. When it comes to creating change through persuasion, external justifications are less likely to result in change than internal justifications. Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty and Cacioppo)
- 5. ElaborationThe amount of thought or cognitive energy someone uses for analyzing the content of a message.High elaboration uses the central route and is designed for analyzing the content of a message. As such, when people truly analyze a message, they use cognitive energy to examine the arguments set forth within the message.Low elaboration uses the peripheral route for attending to persuasive messages. Low elaboration occurs when people attend to messages but do not analyze the message or use cognitive energy to ascertain the arguments set forth in a message. Two Factors at Play When Choosing the Route to Attend to a MessageAbility - If the language or message is too complicated, then people will not highly elaborate on it because they will not understand the persuasive message. Motivation - Whether the audience member chooses to elaborate on the message. Five Factors that Can Lead to High Elaboration Personal Relevance and Personal InvolvementPersonal relevance refers to whether the audience member feels that he or she is actually directly affected by the speech topic.Personal involvement asks whether the an individual is actively engaged with the issue at hand: sends letters of support, gives speeches on the topic, has a bumper sticker, and so forth. AccountabilityPeople are more likely to use the central route to process information when they believe they will be held
- 6. accountable for the information after the fact.With accountability, there is the perception that someone, or a group of people, will be watching to see if the receiver remembers the information later on. Personal ResponsibilityWhen people feel that they are going to be held responsible, without a clear external accounting, for the evaluation of a message or the outcome of a message, they are more likely to critically think through the message using the central route.When people feel their evaluation is important, they take more responsibility and therefore are more critical of the message delivered. Incongruent InformationSome people are motivated to centrally process information when it does not adhere to their own ideas.In this case, you are more likely to pay attention to the speech, specifically looking for flaws in the speaker’s argument. Need for CognitionA personality trait characterized by an internal drive or need to engage in critical thinking and information processing.People who are high in need for cognition simply enjoy thinking about complex ideas and issues. Even if the idea or issue being presented has no personal relevance, high need for cognition people are more likely to process information using the central route.
- 7. Types of Persuasive Speeches Understanding Claims ClaimThe assertion of the goodness or positivity of an attitude, value, belief, or behavior that others may dispute.We attempt to support the claim we make using some sort of evidence and logic as we attempt to persuade others. Four Types of Claims Definitional ClaimsClaims over the denotation or classification of what something is. In essence, we are trying to argue for what something is or what something is not. Factual ClaimsClaims that set out to argue the truth or falsity of an assertion. Policy ClaimA statement about the nature of a problem and the solution that should be implemented (most common),Gain Passive Agreement - The goal is to sway one’s audience to a specific attitude, value, or belief, but not necessarily to get the audience to enact any specific behaviors.Gain Immediate Action
- 8. - Persuading your audience to start engaging in a specific behavior. Value ClaimA claim where the speaker is advocating a judgment claim about something (e.g., it’s good or bad, it’s right or wrong, it’s beautiful or ugly, moral or immoral).When making a value claim, it’s hard to ascertain why someone has chosen a specific value stance without understanding her or his criteria for making the evaluative statement.When making a value claim, you need to make sure that you clearly label your evaluative term and provide clear criteria for how you came to that evaluation. Organizing Persuasive Speeches Alan H. Monroe’s Motivated Sequence BackgroundMonroe’s motivated sequence is a very common speech pattern quite often discussed in public speaking textbooks.Almost no research has been conducted that has demonstrated that Monroe’s motivated sequence is any more persuasive than other structural patterns.While audience members may not be more persuaded by this format, they do find the format more organized, which could lead to greater
- 9. persuasion. Basic SequenceStepsAudience ResponseAttention—Getting AttentionI want to listen to the speaker.Need—Showing the Need, Describing the ProblemSomething needs to be done about the problem.Satisfaction—Satisfying the Need, Presenting the Solution In order to satisfy the need or fix the problem this is what I need to do.Visualization—Visualizing the ResultsI can see myself enjoying the benefits of taking action.Action— Requesting Audience Action or ApprovalI will act in a specific way or approve a decision or behavior.
- 10. AttentionYou need to have a strong attention-getting device.You need to make sure you introduce your topic clearly.You need to explain to your audience why they should care about your topic. NeedA speaker needs to give a clear and concise statement of the problem. This part of a speech should be crystal clear for an audience.The speaker needs to provide one or more examples to illustrate the need. The illustration is an attempt to make the problem concrete for the audience.A speaker needs to provide some kind of evidence (e.g., statistics, examples, testimony) that shows the ramifications or consequences of the problem.A speaker needs to point to the audience and show exactly how the problem relates to them personally. SatisfactionThere are five steps to meeting the Satisfaction step: statement, explanation, theoretical demonstration, reference to practical experience, and meeting objections.
- 11. StatementYou need to clearly state the attitude, value, belief, or action you want your audience to accept.The purpose of this statement is to clearly tell your audience what your ultimate goal is. ExplanationYou want to make sure that you clearly explain to your audience why they should accept the attitude, value, belief, or action you proposed.Just telling your audience they should do something isn’t strong enough to actually get them to change. Theoretical DemonstrationYou need to show how the solution you have proposed meets the need or problem.You theorize based on research and good judgment that your solution will meet the need or solve the problem.
- 12. Reference to Practical ExperienceTo help with this theoretical demonstration, you need to reference practical experience, which should include examples demonstrating that your proposal has worked elsewhere.Research, statistics, and expert testimony are all great ways of referencing practical experience. Meeting ObjectionsAs a persuasive speaker, one of your jobs is to think through your speech and see what counterarguments could be made against your speech and then rebut those arguments within your speech.When you offer rebuttals for arguments against your speech, it shows your audience that you’ve done your homework and educated yourself about multiple sides of the issue. VisualizationThe visualization stage is where a speaker can show the audience why accepting a specific attitude, value, belief, or behavior can positively affect the future.When helping people to picture the future, the more concrete your visualization is, the easier it will be for your audience to see the possible future and be persuaded by it.
- 13. Three Types of VisualizationPositive method of visualization is where a speaker shows how adopting a proposal leads to a better future (e.g., recycle, and we’ll have a cleaner, safer planet).Negative method of visualization is where a speaker shows how not adopting the proposal will lead to a worse future (e.g., don’t recycle, and our world will become polluted and uninhabitable).Combination of both positive and negative visualization where you show your audience both possible outcomes and have them decide which one they would rather have. ActionAudience action refers to direct physical behaviors a speaker wants from an audience (e.g., flossing their teeth twice a day, signing a petition, wearing seatbelts).Approval, on the other hand, involves an audience’s consent or agreement with a speaker’s proposed attitude, value, or belief. Problem-Cause-