The Nature of Attitudes and Persuasion

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What is Persuasion?

Persuasion is, quite simply, the use of messages to influence an audience. The messages that make up persuasive discourse are instrumental, or means to ends or goals of the persuader. Companies use persuasion in the form of advertising to convince consumers to buy their products or services. Students use persuasion to convince their parents to increase their allowance, or let them go to see a particular movie, or to let them use the car. Parents can use persuasion to get their children to study or to clean up their rooms. People use persuasion to get their friends to go to see a certain movie, or a band, or to hang out at the mall. Persuasion can convince another person to go out on a date. It can convince a teacher to accept a paper after the due date. Of course, people can also use threats to get what they want, but that is not persuasion. In persuasion, we try to convince the audience that they should want to do what we want them to do--not that they should do it “or else.”


Why Study Persuasion?
The idea that persuasion is important, and well worth learning, is true for several reasons. First, persuasion can be found almost everywhere humans can be found. As explained above, students, parents, teachers, politicians, sales persons, friends, and others use persuasion in their everyday lives. Mass media from print (newspapers, magazines, direct mailing) to electronic (radio, television, the World Wide Web) positively thrives on advertisements. These are examples of the kinds of situations all of us could encounter, in which we have the opportunity to try to persuade others. Thus, thinking about the varied contexts in which communication occurs shows that persuasion exists throughout human society.

In these situations persuasion exists in one or both of two forms: we can try to persuade others, and other people can try to persuade us. Persuasion, coming from us to others and from others to us, frequently occurs in interpersonal or dyadic situations. Although we rarely have to opportunity to persuade others via the mass media, that is a context in which others frequently develop persuasive messages aimed at us. A moment’s reflection should convince you that understanding the nature of persuasive communication, and how it works, is well worth knowing. Whenever we want to influence others through messages (speaking, writing, or using pictures and symbols), we need to understand persuasion in order to increase the likelihood that our message(s) will be successful. However, it is also important for us to understand the persuasion aimed at us so that other people cannot unduly influence us.

We can also see that persuasion pervades our lives by thinking about the activities that make up our daily lives. Persuasion is a part of education and learning. A college recruiter, alum, or parent may try to persuade us to attend his or her school. Once at school, students persuade their friends when to take classes (e.g., in the morning or afternoon) and which classes to take. Professors and academic advisors can persuade students what major to select, and whether to go to graduate or professional school. Students may persuade professors to accept an assignment late, to change a grade, or to take a test early. Persuasion is a part of work. During employment interviews, we want to persuade the employer to offer us a job. At work, we persuade co-workers about projects, bosses about promotions, and customers about our products or company. We may even try to persuade (rather than order) subordinates about their tasks to keep morale up. Many professions, like sales, politics, and the law, are essentially about persuading others. Persuasion is also a part of recreation and relaxation. We persuade our families, roommates, and friends that we should go out to eat, and which restaurant to patronize. We persuade our friends that we ought to go see a movie, and then which film to see. We tell our friends about a new musical group we have heard or a book we have read, persuading them to buy it. So we persuade each other while learning, working, and socializing. The fact is, most of us have never thought about just how much of our lives are influenced by persuasion.

However, it is important to realize that the fact that we persuade, and are persuaded, so often does not mean we are already experts in persuasion. Of course, we have learned something about persuasive strategies through trial and error. However, thousands and thousands of scholars in disciplines like communication, psychology, and advertising have systematically studied persuasion for many, many years. In fact, rhetoricians like Aristotle have written about how to persuade others since four centuries before the Christian era. Practitioners, like lawyers, politicians, and advertisers have also devoted an incredible amount of time and effort to understanding persuasion “in the real world.”  Three hundred years after Aristotle, Cicero was one of the greatest orators in ancientRome. He was an accomplished orator and was elected consul, a position roughly analogous to President. Cicero also wrote several books on rhetoric or persuasion. More recently, social scientists have conducted tens of thousands of experiments into the nature of persuasion or attitude change. Thus, there is an incredible wealth of knowledge about persuasion that has accumulated over literally hundreds of years, from scholars and practitioners, in a variety of disciplines. There is much useful to be learned about persuasion.


Persuasion as an Alternative to Apathy
or Coercion
Not only is persuasion present almost everywhere in human social activity, but persuasion can be a positive force. Persuasion can be understood as ameans to accomplishing something you (the persuader) want. If there is a goal that you want to accomplish -- to get someone to go to a particular movie, to change your grade, to be hired for a job, to have your suggestion included in a report, to get a customer to buy your company’s product, to encourage someone to vote for you -- that depends on the actions of others. To obtain the cooperation of other people you have only a few basic choices.

First, you can do nothing (apathy), ignoring your wants, needs, and desires -- or hoping someone else will notice what you want and spontaneously comply with your wishes. Doing nothing gives up control of your own life, allowing your want to go unmet, or met only at the whim of others. This approach (well, really a non-approach) is not likely to be very satisfying or very effective. Of course, there are times when we must realize that what we want is impossible or impractical, and asking for it can be a waste of time. It can even be counterproductive if we make obviously unreasonable requests, or if we make reasonable requests to those who we know are obviously unreasonable people. So, while there are specific situations in which it is better to do nothing, as a general strategy for trying to achieve our wants doing nothing is simply not very productive.

Second, you can use force, violence, or threats (coercion) to get your own way. Assuming you have both the ability and the willingness to punish (threaten, hurt) others, it can be a way to get what you want. However, coercion is also not a highly recommended method of getting what you want. Obviously, there can be legal and/or moral problems with using force to get others to comply with our wishes. Furthermore, it can cause others to be difficult or slow in satisfying our demands, to do a poor job on purpose, and to dislike us and possibly retaliate against us. Creating bad feelings can be especially unfortunate if we have to work with those whom we are coercing. Coercion may work at times -- although some people just become obstinate in the face of threats -- but it isn’t likely to be pleasant. Furthermore, if you lose power or can’t observe others’ behavior to make certain they comply, threats can be ineffectual.

Third, one can use persuasion to try to satisfy wants and needs. It is far more likely to succeed than doing nothing (apathy). It may not always work -- but even coercion does not always work, and this book is about things you can do to make your attempts at persuasion more likely to be successful. More importantly, when it does work the people we persuade will cooperate willingly. This will make us more popular (or less despised) than if we had used coercion. And if others are doing what we want them to do willingly, they may do a better job than when they are being coerced.

So, not only is persuasion everywhere, but it is one of only three basic options for getting others to help satisfy our needs, wants, and desires. Arguably, persuasion is the best way for us to obtain the cooperation of others in achieving our goals. Persuasion is a way for us to exert influence or control over our own lives, so we have some measure of control rather than feeling helpless. Of course, like any other tool, it is not always appropriate. Sometimes we have authority over others and giving them an order, with its implicit threat for noncompliance, is the best thing to so. Persuasion can be abused, as demagogues like Hitler and con artists who trick the elderly out of their life savings show. Still, it can be used for good as well as evil -- and it can be used against con artists and demagogues -- and it is usually better than the alternatives for getting our own way. 


The Nature of Attitudes

An attitude is a cognition (form of thought) that is formed through experience and influences our behavior. Both parts of this definition are important for our purposes. The fact that attitudes are formed through experience means that we can, potentially, change them. When a persuader gives a message to an auditor (an audience member), that message becomes part of the listener’s experience, and it can affect his or her attitudes. The fact that attitudes influence our behavior means that we can use persuasion as a means to achieve our goals -- when the behavior, or actions, or others can help attain those goals.

Attitudes have two basic components: beliefs and values. Beliefs are, roughly, statements of facts. Beliefs are potentially verifiable. We say a belief is true or correct when it seems to reflect the world and false or incorrect when it seems contradicted by the world. Values are judgments of worth, like good or bad, useful or useless, expensive or cheap, efficient or inefficient. Together, these cognitions (thoughts), beliefs and values, form attitudes.

For example, I may believe that Al Gore has executive branch experience, because he has served as the Vice President. I may value executive branch experience, thinking that, in general, presidents are likely to do a more effective job as president if they have executive branch experience. Together, this belief/value pair creates a positive attitude toward Al Gore as a presidential candidate.

Belief 1: Al Gore has executive branch experience.
Value 1: Executive branch experience is desirable for a president.
Attitude: I have a favorable attitude toward Al Gore as a potential president.

Many attitudes are made up of several belief/value pairs. I may also hold these belief value pairs:

Belief 2: Al Gore is a Democrat.
Value 2: I think on many issues Democrats are better than Republicans.
Belief 3: Al Gore is rather stiff and passionless.
Value 3: It is important for presidents to have and reveal emotions.

Notice that B1/V1 and B2/V2 incline me toward Gore as a president, while B3/V3 inclines me away from him. Often, what we know and believe about a given attitude object, like Al Gore, is mixed rather than uniformly positive or negative. A person’s attitude is a conglomeration of all the relevant belief/value pairs that are salient (not forgotten). However, some belief/value pairs are more important than others, and the important ones contribute more to the attitude than the trivial ones.

Notice that these beliefs and values come in related pairs. This is very important: Beliefs and values both contribute to attitudes, and they do so in relevant pairs. For instance, this pair would not influence a person’s attitude because they are irrelevant:

Belief 4: Al Gore may have solicited campaign contributions from China in 1996.
Value 5: For me, a president should understand the South.

For Belief 4 to influence one’s attitude, it must be connected with a value like this: Foreign countries should not contribute to presidential campaigns. If one doesn’t think soliciting campaign contributions from China is bad, Belief 4 cannot influence one’s attitude (of course, some people might think China should give money to presidential candidates; for those people, Belief 4 inclines them toward a positive attitude toward Gore). Similarly, Value 5 cannot influence a person’s attitude unless it is combined with a belief, that Gore does (or does not) understand the South. A belief without a relevant value cannot influence one’s attitude, and a value without a relevant belief cannot affect a person’s attitude.

Understanding the nature of attitudes can be helpful in understanding how to persuade someone. For example, suppose one of your friends likes (has a favorable attitude toward) Gore and you want to change that attitude. Knowing your friend’s beliefs and attitudes can help change his or her attitude. For example, they might hold this belief/value pair.

Belief 1: Al Gore has executive branch experience.
Value 1: Executive branch experience is desirable for a president.

If so, you could try to change Belief 1, arguing that Vice Presidents, like Gore, don’t have very meaningful jobs, and thus, he does not really have executive branch experience. If you change this belief, you can make the attitude toward
Gore less positive:

Belief 1a: Al Gore, as Vice President, does not really have executive branch experience.
Value 1: Executive branch experience is desirable for a president.

Or you could try to change your friend’s value, pointing out that some presidents (Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George Bush) who had experience in the White House were poor presidents. This revised value means that your friend’s attitude toward Gore should be less favorable:

Belief 1: Al Gore has executive branch experience.
Value 1a: Executive branch experience can hurt a president.

However, you must be careful not to change both parts of a belief/value pair:

Belief 1a: Al Gore, as Vice President, does not really have executive branch experience.
Value 1a: Executive branch experience can hurt a president.

When both elements of the pair are changed, the attitude remains the same (although it is now held for different reasons).

Notice also that knowing an auditor’s belief/value pairs can prevent wasted messages. For example, assume again that your friend has a favorable attitude toward Gore for these reasons:

Belief 1: Al Gore has executive branch experience.
Value 1: Executive branch experience is desirable for a president.

Telling your friend that campaign contributions from other countries are wrong, a value, probably won’t change his or her attitude unless he or she already knows (has the belief) that Gore tried to obtain contributions from foreign countries in 1996. Of course, you can give your friend a new, complete, belief/value pair, telling him or her that campaign contributions from other countries are wrong and telling your friend that Gore solicited contributions from China in 1996.

Thus, attitudes are learned from experience and influence our behavior. They are made up of pairs of (relevant) beliefs and values. A person’s attitude is a composite of all the relevant belief/value pairs, with the more important ones influencing the attitude more. You can change a person’s attitude by changing either the belief or the value (but not both), or by creating new belief/value pairs (or by changing the relative importance of belief/value pairs).


The Process of Persuasion

Persuasion is really a pretty simple process with four basic parts. First, it begins with a person (the source or persuader) who wants something that he or she doesn’t have already. Persuasion is goal-directed; so all persuaders have goals that they seek, which is the second part in the process of persuasion. Third, persuasion actually works or occurs throughmessages, which are directed to the audience to help achieve the persuader’s goal. Fourth, persuasion is always aimed at an audience, which is made up of those people who can help the persuader accomplish his or her goal.

So, if a Tom wants an advance on his allowance, he first has to decide that he needs some money. Then he decides that his parents could give him some cash. He could offer to do some chores for them, but instead he decides to try to convince them to give him his allowance early. This leads him to talk with his parents, asking them for an advance. He might just blurt out whatever comes to mind (or perhaps all he has to do is ask). However, he might want to think about what to say, what reason to offer if they ask him why he needs as advance, before he brings up his request. The point is, in this example, Tom is the source, obtaining some money is his goal, themessage is his request for an advance (along with reasons), and theaudience is his parents.

If Jill owns a small business and needs some money (she will call it “capital” instead of cash) to buy some more goods to sell, the same basic elements apply. Jill is the source. Her goal is to obtain some money. Themessage asks for money (and includes reasons about why this will be a safe investment). The audience is the bank or potential investors.

Persuasion is a process, which means it goes through steps. First, the persuader must identify a goal, want or desire. Some goals don’t require the cooperation of others. For example, if I am bored I might decide to watch television, play a video-game, or walk over to the swimming pool for a swim. Ordinarily, persuasion isn’t needed in those situations (although I may have to persuade someone else to let me use the TV, for example). Other goals are unrealistic: I want someone to give me a million dollars, I want world peace today, I want to fly on the very next Space Shuttle mission. It is not likely that persuasion will help these goals. However, often the goals that we want to attain are possible, but require the cooperation of others. When we have a goal that others might be willing to help us obtain, identification of that goal is the first step in persuasion. We must know what we want before we can hope to achieve it. Do you want another person to go out on a date?  Do you want a professor to change your grade?  Do you want to sell your product to a customer?  Do you want someone to vote for you?

Second, we have to identify the right audience; the groups of people who can help us achieve our goal. It has to be a group that we can speak with or write to (we have to be able to get our message to them). They must also have what it takes to obtain our goal. They may have information, or money, or power. But for persuasion to be successful the audience has to be able to grant our wish.

Third, we have to make up a message. For simple and easy requests, just asking might be enough. For other goals, we will have to convince the audience, persuade them, or give them reasons to do what we want. It is important not to just tell them why we want them to do something. Persuaders can be more successful when they can make the audience want to help us achieve our goal. This means that we should understand our audience. We can increase our chances of convincing them to help us if we know our audience. Knowing what the audience knows, what interests the audience, what is important to them, can be very helpful.

Fourth, the message has to be conveyed to the audience. In interpersonal relations, this simply means meeting (or calling, or mailing) the other person. Other messages, like advertisements, require more elaborate preparation and distribution arrangements. But persuasion can’t be successful if the messages do not reach its intended audience.


Glossary


attitude: a cognition (thought) that is learned through experience and influences a person’s behavior; comprised of (relevant) belief/value pairs

belief: a statement of fact, potentially verifiable

value: a judgment of worth


Additional Readings

Eagly, A. H., & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. Fort Worth , TX : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Kiesler, C. A., Collins, B. E., & Miller, N. (1969; rpt. 1983). Attitude change: A critical analysis of theoretical approaches.  Malabar ,  FL : Robert E. Krieger.

O’Keefe, D. J. (1990). Persuasion: Theory and research.  Newbury Park , CA: Sage.

Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1981; rpt. 1996). Attitudes and persuasion: Classic and contemporary approaches. Boulder , CO: Westview Press.

Ziegelmueller, G. W., & Dause, C. A. (1975). Argumentation: Inquiry and advocacy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall (on beliefs, values).

persuasion: the use of messages to influence an audience (help achieve a goal of the persuader)