PART I: FOUNDATIONS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO PERSUASION

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

This chapter introduces you to persuasion and the study of attitude change. It discusses the pervasive, important role persuasion plays in everyday life. After reading the chapter you should have a better appreciation of how persuasion is defined and how it differs from related terms like coercion and propaganda. You will also understand the history of persuasion scholarship, how contemporary persuasion differs from that of earlier eras, and ethical approaches to persuasion. The chapter also introduces the social scientific perspective on persuasion and attitudes.

TERMS AND ISSUES TO KNOW

GLOSSARY OF MAJOR TERMS

Persuasion: a symbolic process in which communicators try to convince other people to change their attitudes or behavior regarding an issue through transmission of a message, in an atmosphere of free choice.
Coercion: a technique for forcing people to act as the coercer wants them to act, and presumably contrary to their own preferences. It typically employs a threat of some dire consequence if the person does not do what the coercer demands.
Social influence: broad process in which the behavior of one person alters the thoughts or actions of another
Theory: a large, umbrella conceptualization of a phenomenon that contains hypotheses, proposes linkages between variables, explains events, and offers predictions.
Experiment: controlled study that takes place in artificial settings and employs random assignment of individuals to treatments.
Survey: questionnaire study that examines relationship between one or more factors in a real-world setting.
Utilitarian ethics: an ethical philosophy that evaluates acts in terms of their consequences -- whether they produce more good than evil.
Deontological ethics: ethical philosophy that emphasizes duty and obligation, and focuses on intrinsic moral properties of actions.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. We don't like to think that mass media influence our attitudes. It's everyone else who is affected -- not us! Think of three ways that persuasive media (advertising, political campaigns, health messages) have influenced you.
2. Are people free to change their attitudes, or is their ability to change determined by hereditary and early environmental influences? Does society, with its built-in structure and prejudices, fundamentally limit how much people can change their attitudes? Or can individuals transcend their culture?
3. Are there times when coercion can be good and persuasion bad? Looking at the larger picture, does society have a right to use coercion to force people to act in a way that benefits society, even if some individuals disagree with the approach?
4. Dream up a hypothesis regarding how persuasive communications influence attitudes. What would be a way to test the hypothesis to see if you are right?
5. Books, movies, art, and songs are persuasive. But do you agree with the book’s contention that it is best to view art as borderline persuasion? Perhaps you do, or perhaps you disagree, maintaining that creative art forms have such a strong impact on people that it is unrealistic to call them anything else but persuasion. But if so, consider the intention problem: Many artistic communicators do not intend to change attitudes, and, if we lump all unintentional communicative acts into the persuasion category, we have opted to regard virtually every message as persuasion.  Consider the issue of intent in defining persuasion as you develop your own perspective toward the relationship between creative art and persuasion.
6. Military recruiters have employed a host of persuasion techniques to convince young people to join the Armed Services. They pour money into special online video games, develop ads that showcase cool aspects of joining the Army or Marines, and even employ high-powered sales techniques to recruit young people to join the Armed Services. It is all legal and helps the military locate interested recruits. But is it ethical if it deliberately plays up the advantages, while minimizing dangers?

PRACTICE TEST QUESTIONS

1. Which of the following is a basic component of persuasion?
   a. logic
   b. emotion
   c. free choice
   d. threat
2. The text discussed persuasion and coercion. The discussion concluded that:
   a. coercion and persuasion differ sharply
   b. it is frequently difficult to differentiate persuasion from coercion
   c. coercive appeals are more emotional than persuasive messages
   d. coercion is immoral; persuasion is always moral
3. According to the definition of persuasion, which of these would NOT be regarded as a persuasive message?
   a. television violence
   b. political commercial
   c. sales appeal via telephone
   d. folk song intended to change attitudes toward police
4. Plato criticized these early Greek scholars of persuasion. Their name has become synonymous with glib, simplistic appeals. They are the:
   a. Gyros
   b. Aristotleans
   c. Athenian rockers
   d. Sophists
5. Let's say that Jennifer loves to hike in the woods and has pro-environmental attitudes. After clicking on the Green Party's web site, she feels even more positively toward environmental causes. The web site has exerted which type of persuasion effect:
   a. attitude shaping
   b. attitude changing
   c. attitude reinforcing
   d. attitude brainwashing
6. The social scientific approach to persuasion is characterized by:
   a. proposing philosophical approaches to persuasion ethics
   b. testing hypotheses through empirical methods
   c. studying persuasive messages, not people
   d. focusing on animals to understand human behavior

Answers: 1: c, 2: b, 3: a, 4: d, 5: c, 6: b

EXERCISES

1. Step outside yourself to carefully categorize the persuasive communications you encounter over the course of a day. Develop a code sheet to indicate whether the communication occurs in an interpersonal communication situation, via mass media, or over the Internet; the type of message (simple or complex; emotional or more factual); and whether you think the appeal was ethical or not.
2. Think of a time when you tried to change someone's attitude or behavior about a topic. It could have involved a friend, roommate, family member, teacher, or person at work. In two paragraphs, describe the incident and indicate how you went about trying to influence this individual. Did you succeed or fail? Now think of an incident in which someone tried to change your mind about a topic. In two paragraphs, describe the incident and how the other person attempted to persuade you. How did you react mentally and emotionally to the request?
   

NEWS FEATURES

You can locate these articles in the library or the Internet. After reading them, you might try answering the questions that appear below:

"A cult's 2-decade odyssey of regimentation," by Frank Bruni, The New York Times, March 29, 1997 pp. 1, 8; and "Time of puzzled heartbreak binds relatives left behind" by Barry Bearak, The New York Times, March 29, 1997, pp. 1, 8.

Written in the wake of the mass suicide of Heaven's Gate cult members in 1997, these articles describe cults rituals and discuss factors that may have attracted some people to the cult. In your view, what types of factors propelled people to join, and remain in, the cult (see also Box 1-2 in text)? Was this primarily a matter of coercion, persuasion, or both?

"Federal judge overturns murder verdict, fueling feud on judicial power," by Jan Hoffman, The New York Times, December 27, 1997, pp. A1, A8.

This feature, focusing in part on legal issues, tells a strange, chilling story of a young woman, Lisa Michelle Lambert, who was convicted of first-degree murder for a crime committed in rural Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She, along with another person, had allegedly killed a 16 year-old girl who had been romantically involved with Lambert's boyfriend. Claiming she had only planned to cut off the girl's hair and the other person had used a knife to kill the girl, Lambert was asked why she had not screamed. Noting that the boyfriend had beat her regularly, a domestic violence expert argued that Michelle Lambert was incapable of leaving her boyfriend (and perhaps of requesting help). Her conviction was later overturned on procedural grounds. Lambert's release from prison pleased some legal experts, but infuriated local residents.

Drawing on persuasion concepts discussed in the first chapter, suggest the factors that have pushed Lambert to the situation in which she found herself. Was her refusal to get help a result of persuasion or coercion? To what degree was she responsible for her actions?

“The soul of the new exurb,” by J. Mahler, The New York Times Magazine, March 27, 2005, pp. 30-37, 46, 50, 54, 57.

This article describes how a pastor, Lee McFarland, plies his communication skills to launch an evangelical church. The church unabashedly calls on marketing principles, and its success raises questions about the contemporary intersection between persuasion and religion. How do you react to McFarland’s strategies? If he helps people discover God and attain a happier state of mind, is his approach, therefore, acceptable?