Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)


Updated on
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit



Brief history


  2. it is an excellent tool for teaching
  4. there is no better way to defend one’s self.

Aristotle's rhetorical proofs:

  1. ethos (credibility)
  2. logos (reason)
  3. pathos (emotion)

Attribution theory


Dispositional attribution, also referred to as internal attribution, attempts to point to a person’s traits, abilities, motives, or dispositions as a cause or explanation for their actions. A citizen criticizing a president by saying the nation is lacking economic progress and health because the president is either lazy or lacking in economic intuition is utilizing a dispositional attribution.



Conditioning theories


This conditioning is thought to affect how people view certain products, knowing that most purchases are made on the basis of emotion. 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 by repeating the message several times it will cause the consumer to be more likely to purchase the product because he/she already connects it with a good emotion and a positive experience. Stefano DellaVigna and Matthew Gentzkow did a comprehensive study on the effects of persuasion in different domains. They discovered that persuasion has little or no effect on advertisement; however, there was a substantial effect of persuasion on voting if there was face-to-face contact.

Cognitive dissonance theory



  1. changing our minds about one of the facets of cognition
  2. reducing the importance of a cognition
  3. increasing the overlap between the two, and
  4. re-evaluating the cost/reward ratio.

Revisiting the example of the smoker, he can either quit smoking, reduce the importance of his health, convince himself he is not at risk, or evaluate the reward of his smoking to be worth the cost of his health.


Elaboration likelihood model

Persuasion has traditionally been associated with two routes.


    Functional theories

    Functional theorists attempt to understand the divergent attitudes individuals have towards people, objects or issues in different situations. There are four main functional attitudes:

    4. Knowledge function: The need to attain a sense of understanding and control over one’s life. An individual’s attitudes therefore serve to help set standards and rules which govern their sense of being.

    When communication is targeted at an underlying function its degree of persuasiveness will influence whether the individual will change their attitude, after determining that another attitude will be more effective in fulfilling that function.

    Inoculation theory

    A vaccine introduces a weak form of a virus that can easily be defeated to prepare the immune system should it need to fight off a stronger form of the same virus. In much the same way, the theory of inoculation suggests a certain party can introduce a weak form of an argument that can easily be thwarted in order to prepare the audience to disregard a stronger, full-fledged form of the argument from an opposing party.

    This is often practiced in negative advertisements and comparative advertisements, both for products and political causes. An example would be a manufacturer of a product displaying an ad that refutes one particular claim made about a rival’s product, so that when the audience sees an ad for said rival product, they will refute all the claims of the product without a second thought.

    Narrative transportation theory

    Narrative transportation theory proposes that when people lose themselves in a story, their attitudes and intentions change to reflect that story. The mental state of narrative transportation can explain the persuasive effect of stories on people, who may experience narrative transportation when certain contextual and personal preconditions are met, as Green and Brock postulate for the transportation-imagery model. Narrative transportation occurs whenever the story receiver experiences a feeling of entering a world evoked by the narrative because of empathy for the story characters and imagination of the story plot.

    Social judgment theory


    When attempting to sort the incoming persuasive information, an audience will evaluate whether it lands in their latitude of acceptance, latitude of non-commitment or indifference, or the latitude of rejection. The size of these latitudes will vary from topic to topic. Our "ego-involvement" generally plays one of the largest roles in determining the size of these latitudes. 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. A person’s anchor point is considered to be the center of his latitude of acceptance, the position that is most acceptable to him.


    When trying to persuade an individual target or an entire audience, it is vital to first learn the average latitudes of acceptance, non-commitment, and rejection of your audience. 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. Repeatedly suggesting ideas on the fringe of the acceptance latitude will cause people to gradually adjust their anchor points, while suggesting ideas in the rejection latitude or even the non-commitment latitude will not result in any change to the audience’s anchor point.



    Usage of force


    Weapons of influence

    Robert Cialdini, in Influence, his book on persuasion, defined six "influence cues or weapons of influence": Influence is the process of changing.



    Commitment and consistency

    Consistency is an important aspect of persuasion because it:

    1. is highly valued by society,
    2. results in a beneficial approach to daily life, and

    Consistency allows us to more effectively make decisions and process information. The concept of consistency states that if a person commits, either orally or in writing, he or she is more likely to honor that particular commitment. This is especially true for written commitments, as they appear psychologically more concrete and can be backed up with hard proof. Once a person commits to a stance, he or she has a tendency to behave according to that commitment. Commitment is an effective persuasive technique because once you get someone to make a commitment, they are more likely to engage in self-persuasion, providing themselves and others with reasons and justifications to support his or her commitment in order to avoid dissonance.

    Social proof

    We are influenced by others around us; we want to be doing what everyone else is doing . People often base their actions and beliefs on what others around them are doing, how others act or what others believe.

    "The power of the crowd" is very effective. We all want to know what others are doing around us. We are so obsessed with what others do and how others act, that we then try to be just like other people. Cialdini gives an example that is somewhat like this: in a phone–a–thon, the host will say something along the line of, "Operators are waiting, please call now." The only context that you have from that statement is that the operators are waiting and they are not busy. Rather the host may say: "If operators are busy, please call again." This is proving the technique of social proof. Just by changing three words, it sounds like the lines are busy and other people are calling; so it must be a good, legitimate organization.

    Social proof is most effective when people are uncertain or when there are similarities in a situation. In uncertain or ambiguous situations, when there are multiple possibilities or choices that need to be made, people are likely to conform to what others do/are doing. We become more influenced by the people around us, in situations that cause us to make a decision. The other effective situation for social proofing is when there are similarities. We are more prone to change/conform around people who are similar to us. If someone who is similar to you is being controlling and a leader, you are more likely to listen and follow what it is they are saying.


    This principle is simple and concise. People say "yes" to people that they like. Two major factors contribute to overall likeness. The first is physical attractiveness. People who are physically attractive seem to be more persuasive; they get what they want and they can easily change others' attitudes. This attractiveness is proven to send favorable messages/impressions of other traits that a person may have, such as talent, kindness, and intelligence. The second factor is similarity. We are more likely to be persuaded by people we see as similar to ourselves.





    Scarcity is a principle that people underestimate. When something has limited availability, people assign it more value. According to Cialdini, "people want more of what they cannot have." When scarcity is an issue, the context matters. This means that within certain contexts, scarcity "works" better. To get people to believe that something is scarcer, you need to explain what about that certain product will give them what no other product will. You have to work the audience in the correct way. Something else that you can do to get people to believe that something is scarce, is to tell them what they will lose, not what they will gain. Saying things like "you will lose $5", rather than saying "you could save $5". You are making something sound more scarce.

    There are two major reasons why the scarcity principle works:

    1. when things are difficult to get, they are usually more valuable so that can make it seem to have better quality; and
    2. when things become less available, we could lose the chance to acquire them.




    Machiavellianism employs the tools of manipulation and deceit to gain wealth and power.

    Relationship-based persuasion of Shell and Moussa

    In their book The Art of Woo, G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa present a four-step approach to strategic persuasion. They explain that persuasion means to win others over, not to defeat them. Thus it is important to be able to see the topic from different angles in order to anticipate the reaction others have to a proposal.

    Step 1: Survey the situation
    Step 2: Confront the five barriers
    Step 3: Make the pitch
    Step 4: Secure commitments
    In order to safeguard the longtime success of a persuasive decision, it is vital to deal with politics at both the individual and organizational level.

    List of methods

    By appeal to reason:

  • Logic
  • Logical argument
  • Rhetoric
  • Scientific evidence (proof)
  • Scientific method
  • By appeal to emotion:

  • Cosmetic Advertising
  • Presentation and Imagination
  • Pity
  • Propaganda
  • Psychological manipulation
  • Seduction
  • Tradition
  • Aids to persuasion:

  • Body language
  • Communication skill or Rhetoric
  • Personality tests and conflict style inventory help devise strategy based on an individual's preferred style of interaction
  • Sales techniques
  • Other techniques:

  • Deception
  • Hypnosis
  • Power (social and political)
  • Subliminal advertising

  • Brainwashing
  • Coercive persuasion
  • Force
  • Mind control
  • Torture
  • In culture

    It is through a basic cultural personal definition of persuasion that everyday people understand how others are attempting to influence them and then how they influence others. The dialogue surrounding persuasion is constantly evolving because of the necessity to use persuasion in everyday life. Persuasion tactics traded in society have influences from researchers, which may sometimes be misinterpreted. To keep evolutionary advantage, in the sense of wealth and survival, you must persuade and not be persuaded. In order to understand cultural persuasion, researchers will gather knowledge from domains such as "buying, selling, advertising, and shopping, as well as parenting and courting."


    Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM)

    The Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM) was created by Friestad and Wright in 1994. This framework allows the researchers to analyze the process of gaining and using everyday persuasion knowledge. The researchers suggest the necessity of including "the relationship and interplay between everyday folk knowledge and scientific knowledge on persuasion, advertising, selling, and marketing in general."

    In order to educate the general population about research findings and new knowledge about persuasion, a teacher must draw on their pre-existing beliefs from folk persuasion in order to make the research relevant and informative to lay people, which creates "mingling of their scientific insights and commonsense beliefs."




    Attitudes and persuasion are among the central issues of social behavior. One of the classic questions is when are attitudes a predictor of behavior. Previous research suggested that selective activation of left prefrontal cortex might increase the likelihood that an attitude would predict a relevant behavior. Using lateral attentional manipulation, this was supported.




    Persuasion Wikipedia