Persuasion

Chapter 21

Definition of Persuasion

•A form of communication that tries to

change attitudes, opinions, or behaviors.

Persuasive Speech Focus:

• A persuasive speech might focus on a proposition of:

• Fact

• Value

• Problem

• Policy

Questions of fact deal in provable

facts: •What percentage of high school band members

play professionally?

•What percentage of teens work in fast-food jobs?

•Has the rate of domestic violence in Michigan increased in the past year?

Questions of value are based on

individual and cultural beliefs: • Does the U.S. economy offer equal opportunity for all?

• How should young people be educated about the use of alcohol?

• Is the contemporary television news media biased?

• How should Americans treat undocumented immigrants?

Questions of policy try to find out

what action should be taken: • Should high schools require three years of foreign language study?

• Should undocumented immigrants be granted amnesty?

• Should the government provide universal health care for all citizens?

• Should the U.S. intervene militarily where genocide is reported?

Situation and Persuasion

• Imperative to know your audience.

•To persuade others to change, you must understand their circumstances from their point of view.

• If the audience thinks you lack empathy for them, they will not change their minds or actions.

Purpose and Persuasion

•Purpose statement:

• Convince

• Defend

• Encourage

• Motivate

• Discourage

• Support

Purpose and Persuasion

• Examples of purpose statement:

• The purpose of this speech is to support the proposal to upgrade our existing computers.

• The purpose of this speech is to convince drivers to wear seatbelts.

• The purpose of this speech is to discourage the school board from cutting funding to our school’s arts programs.

Audience Motivation and

Persuasion • Motivation: the forces that cause people to act certain

ways.

• Persuasion relies on know what motivates your audience.

Audience Motivation and

Persuasion Example: An advertiser would use information and ideas to promote

a new car.

An ad about fuel

economy

Audience Motivation:

Economics

“This car will save me money!”

An ad about luxury

that stresses the

comfort

Audience Motivation:

Desire for comfort

Elitism

An ad showing the car

on a race track or road

displays the car’s speed

and power

Audience Motivation:

Need for excitement

An ad showing a

family camping

reflects the fun they

can have with the car.

Audience Motivation:

Family Values

Togetherness

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs

• Theory that humans must have their most basic needs

met before they can respond to higher order needs.

• Persuasive speakers can use this in order to persuade

others.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs

Convincing the school board to buy

new computers – an example • Basic needs: physiological

“Updating the computers will help students get jobs and earn money that will provide them with food and shelter.”

• Higher order: self-actualization

“The new computers might create better training which could lead to higher-status jobs, which could solidify the graduates’ esteem.”

Analyze Your Audience

• Align yourself with your audience as much as possible.

• There are typically four categories of audiences:

• Supportive

• Neutral

• Indifferent

• Hostile

Supportive Audience

• An audience who is predisposed to like what you have to say.

• Your goal: Make listeners even more enthusiastic about you and your goals.

• Supportive audience need less information because they are already bought in to your message.

• Don’t take them for granted.

• Speak with vigor.

• Example: a candidate at a fundraising dinner for the election

Neutral Audience

• An audience who has no strong belief about your idea

one way or the other.

• Will probably be good listeners, but need to be

convinced.

• Example: jurors in court

Indifferent Audience

• An audience who has no choice but to listen to the speaker. “Captive audience.”

• Didn’t choose to hear the speaker and doesn’t care what is said.

• Hard to motivate. Your job is to grab their attention and draw them in.

• Why the topic is personally significant to the audience is very important.

• Try to find common ground.

• Example: students at school

Hostile Audience

• An audience who rejects your point of view. They are against your and/or what you have to say.

• The goal is to get a fair hearing.

• Try to find where the objection lies and try to neutralize their objections to try to lower their listening barriers.

• Show willingness to compromise.

• Let them know that you see that their ideas/feelings/issues have merit.

• Avoid unnecessary confrontation.

• Use humor to ease tension.

Ethics

• Ethics is the understanding of right and wrong.

• Use your oratorical power for good – you are persuading

people, make sure you have good motives and strong

ethical values.

• History is filled with great public speakers who were

highly unethical.

Check Your Ethics – Ask yourself: • What are my motives?

• Does my audience understand my motives?

• Why am I trying to persuade the audience?

• Am I telling the truth?

• Am I comfortable with my own motivation?

• Am I exploiting prejudice to accomplish my goal?

• Am I proud of what I am saying?

• Am I willing to accept the consequences of everything I am saying?

• Do I have an obligation to present the “other side” of the argument and can I represent it accurately?

• Am I omitting important information that the audience needs to know to make a good choice?

Persuasive Appeals

• Persuasive speakers use appeals to credibility, reason, and

emotion

• Aristotle came up with three persuasive appeals in

classical Greek rhetoric.

• Logos

• Ethos

• Pathos

Pathos – Emotional Appeal

•Appeals to the audience members “heart

strings”

•Appealing to human emotion can alter an

individual’s thinking.

•Logic won’t overcome fear or anxiety.

Pathos – Emotional Appeal

• Appeal to Pride

• Appeal to Fear

• May lead to unanticipated audience response because fear is

often irrtational

• Appeal to Compassion

• Empathy for the condition of others

Ethos – Ethical Appeal

•Credibility

•Audience sees speaker as credible and

believable.

Ethos – Ethical Appeal

• You show natural honesty and a strong constitution regarding

right and wrong and your values

• It helps if:

• Been proven right

• Provided reliable information

• Audience’s best interests in mind.

• Provides information that is a basis for a good decision

Logos – Logical Appeal

•A rational appeal to attempt to change attitudes and

behaviors by using clear and well-reasoned thinking.

•Offers the audience both sequence and analysis in

your organization and facts to prove a point.

•MUST USE with a hostile audience!

Logos – Logical Appeal

1. Credible, relevant, and current information

•People may not be informed on topic

•New information may change minds

Logos – Logical Appeal

2. Evidence • Facts -- Audience most comfortable with information that can

be proved.

• Testimony – Most useful when:

• Speaker doesn’t have much firsthand knowledge

• Audience doubts speaker credibility

• Statistics

Logos – Logical Appeal

3. Logic

• Structure of reasoning that leads the audience to

sound conclusions.

•Common logical structure: syllogism

Syllogism

• If a is true, and b is true, then c must also be true.

• Example: • Premise 1: People who use the internet regularly at home are likely to

be financially comfortable.

• Premise 2: People who are financially comfortable are in a position

to make donations.

• Premise 3: Therefore, advertising on the internet is a good way to

reach likely donors.

Syllogism

• If you can get your audience to accept the first

premise and the second premise, they are more

likely to accept that the third statement is also true.

Logical Fallacies

•Logical Fallacy – a statement that sounds logical

but isn’t true.

•As a speaker, avoid them.

•As a listener, learn how to recognize them.

Logical Fallacies: False Syllogism

• A fallacy in which two true statements are put together to reach a

false conclusion

Example:

True: Crows are black.

True: Crows are birds.

Therefore all birds are black.

• Premises are true, the conclusion does not logically follow from

them.

Logical Fallacies: Slippery Slope

• A fallacy in which a proposed course of action is presented as

leading inevitably (but illogically) to a particular conclusion

Example:

“If you relax the dress code at all, you can forget about having any

dress code at all.”

• Relaxing one part of the code does not inevitably lead to other

changes.

Logical Fallacies: Hasty Generalization

• A fallacy in which a conclusion about an entire population is drawn

using too small a sample; also called overgeneralization

Example:

“Everyone is staying healthier longer these days. My grandfather is 92

and he works every day.”

• Just because your grandpa is healthy doesn’t mean everyone is.

Logical Fallacies: Post Hoc Ergo

Propter Hoc • A fallacy of questionable, or false, causation

• A happened, then B happened, so B must have been caused by A.

Example:

“People who go outside without a coat will catch a cold. I’ve seen it

time again.”

• Just because a person goes outside without a coat does not mean

that doing so results in catching a cold. Colds are caused by germs.

Logical Fallacies: Ad Hominem • A fallacy of in which a person replies to a factual claim by attacking

a belief or characteristic of the person who made the claim.

Example:

“My opponent accuses me of being elitist and ignoring ordinary

working Americans, but it might surprise you to know that he

actually went to Harvard.”

• Just because the person who criticized the politician went to an

elite university does not in any way mean that his/accusation of the

speaker being elitist is invalid.

Logical Fallacies: Bandwagon

• A fallacy built on the idea that because a lot of people think

something is true, it must be

Example:

“Millions of teenagers share copyrighted images and music, so there’s

nothing illegal about that.”

• Just because everyone is doing it, doesn’t make it lawful.

Logical Fallacies: Circular Reasoning

• A fallacy in which an idea is just repeated in different terms rather

than proved

Example:

“Sports stars are overpaid because their incomes are greater than their

worth.”

• Huh? You already said that.

Logical Fallacies: Red Herring

• A fallacy that attempts to divert attention from the real issues by

interjecting a related topic

Example:

“The defendant is guilty. Crime is out of control here.”

• Crime rate has nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of the

defendant.