Theories Of Persuasion

Gushing vitriol in climate debate

Recently Anna-Maria Arabia, the chief executive officer of Science & Technology Australia (formerly the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies), spoke of the need for science and its practitioners to be treated with some respect. For her troubles she received death threats, with one email saying she would be "strung up by the neck'' for her support of mainstream climate science. Hoegh-Guldberg objected to emails from John Parkinson (at another anonymous gmail address) and received such a disgusting reply, peppered  with "f'' and "c'' words and calling him all manner of names that I'm not going to dignify it with further elaboration of its unreasoned and unintelligent  and highly defamatory  contents. Though some of these climate science sceptics seem unsure of what colour of conspiracy they are attacking. When it is not the "reds under the beds'' (or in the laboratories) plotting a new world order, it's those pesky Nazis again. In the wake of the Lord Monckton kerfuffle, my inbox was deluged with mail informing me that "There is a Nazi connection to the global warming fraud!

Persuasion and Compliance Gaining

Persuasion is both ancient and modern, an art and a science. It probably dates back 50,000 years or so, when hominids first developed language (Wade, 2006). If one counts nonverbal cues, then the practice of persuasion is even older. One can easily imagine a stone-age fellow, Lothar, grunting and gesturing to borrow his neighbor’s flint to make a fire. Regardless of its date of origin, the study of persuasion in Western civilization dates back to at least 399 BCE, when Aristotle wrote Rhetoric. The advent of controlled laboratory experiments on persuasion dates back to the 1940s and 1950s. Much of the credit for research in this era goes to Carl Hovland and the Yale Attitude Change Program, a think tank devoted to the study of persuasion (Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953).

The Vitality of Persuasion

The study of persuasion is fascinating. Part of the attraction is that persuasion is all around us. Estimates of the amount of advertising we’re exposed to range from 300 to 3,000 messages per day. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Most influence attempts take place in interpersonal settings rather than advertising. Some of the allure is because so much remains to be learned about persuasion. As Henry Ford once remarked, “Half the money spent on advertising is wasted, but we don’t know which half.” A good deal is known about persuasion, but it is hardly an exact science.

Why learn about persuasion? First, persuasion is all around us and will persist in the “real world,” whether studied as an academic discipline or not. Since a good deal of human communication is persuasive in nature, it is important to know how processes of social influence operate. Second, learning about persuasion can assist one in becoming a more effective persuader. Finally, a better knowledge of persuasion can make one a more discerning consumer of persuasive messages, especially unscrupulous forms of influence.

With this in mind, we provide an overview of research on persuasion. Our approach is social scientific in nature, which is to say we are interested in empirical, quantitative research. We cover both traditional and contemporary theories, concepts, principles, and processes. We also examine some newer, “cutting-edge” topics in persuasion. We try to touch the major bases, but because the field of persuasion is vast, we cannot include everything.

Persuasion, theory & research

The second edition of this important book continues to provide a thorough and critical treatment of persuasion theory and research.

The persuasion handbook, developments in theory and practice

The Persuasion Handbook provides readers with cogent, comprehensive summaries of research in a wide range of areas related to persuasion.

Persuasion, Reception and Responsibility

Author Charles U. Larson weaves together persuasion theory, research, and ethics to underscore the book's central purpose: to help students master the topics of ...

The dynamics of persuasion, communication and attitudes in the 21st century

We also have theories about persuasion. Consider these propositions: n Advertising exploits people. n You can't persuade people by scaring them. n The key ...

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology

Process Theories of Persuasion 280 A. Cognitive Response Approach 280 B. Attribution Approaches 289 C. Heuristic Model 296 D. Evaluation of Process Theories ...