PERSUASION IN PRACTISE.

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INTRODUCTION.

Persuasion is one of the most effective and most powerful human tool within the present world community. There are several different ways to persuade people. Most people are actually facing persuasion attempts every-day, in shops, socializing with friends, and when exposed to various media. The medium is very important, as it determines the extent of reach. In social psychology, we concentrate on the way we are persuaded (what kind of persuasion), why and we are persuaded, and how we should successfully persuade people. This research paper will first focus on general persuasion, and later give a more practical focus on three advertisements taken from Malaysian English newspapers. A discussion of the way in which these advertisements are structured will be incorporated into the research.

The primary objective of persuasion can be defined as being able to change ones thoughts and feelings towards a particular subject/object, so that these will merge, and finally equal the persuader's thoughts and feelings. The key word in third definition is CHANGE. How are you as a persuader supposed to be able to change another person's thoughts and feelings ? And, how are you, now being the persuader's victim supposed to withstand the persuasion attempts from external sources of communication, including other people's persuasion attempts. The first thing a persuader should do is to analyze what kind of audience that he/she will confront. There are basically three kinds of determinants to determine the audience. These are the Age group, Sex, and intelligence of the audience.

A major determinant of how successful persuasion attempts are is the channel of communication, or the way in which a persuasion attempt is verbally delivered. According to William McGuire, there are five crucial steps in persuasion that have to met for a successful persuasion attempt. It is impossible to skip one of steps, as these five steps have to follow in a chronological order from one to five. These five crucial steps are;

1.Attending

2.Comprehending

3.Yielding (lowering resistance)

4. Retaining

5. Acting

In addition to William McGuire's theory of persuasion, there is a similar model of the procedure of persuasion. This model is developed by Carl Hoveland and involves the steps within the communication link between the sender and the receiver.

Message received.

NO_________________________________YES
No change___________________________ Questions

Message accepted

NO_________________________________YES
No change___________________________Counter argument

Results,p> NO_________________________________YES
Unsuccessful_________________________Totally successful

To be able to get the opportunity to start to persuade a person, you have to gain attention from that particular person. This is actually one of the two most crucial steps in persuasion. Obviously, if a person are not willing to listen to the persuader, he/she has no chance to make the person comprehend. Thus, according to William McGuire, it is impossible to persuade the particular person. The first immediate impression of the persuader is very important. For instance, clothes, smells, and physical attraction are all crucial in attending a person. There are several ways to "get people on the hook". One of these ways is to create a feeling of similarity between the persuader and his/her "victim". If you are similar to the person who you are trying to persuade, you will create a feeling of "likening" within the other person. In addition such a "similarity" situation will boost your, credibility to the person, and thrust. The third way to gain attention is to act/to be an expert in your persuasive purpose. People tend to buy opinions and facts from an expert rather than from some other "normal" person. By demonstrating expertise, the persuader is showing a difference between him/her in comparison to other persuaders. From my own experience in College, students tend to believe almost everything that a professor says, but they tend to oppose other students opinions in class discussions. This is because that the students know very well that their professors are experts in their respective fields, and that their class mates do not have any more expertise than themselves. Usually credible communicators are perceived as trustworthy experts.

The most important thing to keep in mind when you attempt to persuade people is to get your subjects to understand everything that you want to say. The person who is being persuaded has to be able to synthesize a basic understanding of the issue. This basic understanding is essential in a persuasion attempt. Without this basic understanding, a person will probably not be persuaded, as he or she has nothing (facts) to take a stand for or against. Such a persuasion attempt would not cause any action from the person being persuaded. This leads us to an essential question; how are we supposed to structure our persuasion attempts, so that people will be able to comprehend ? The first thing that a persuader will have to do is to investigate his/her audience. The persuader should preferable know the social standards (1), education standards (intelligence) (2), and socio-political beliefs of his/her audience (3). Firstly, the social standard of a person will determine his/her ability to intellectual optimization. For example, generally speaking, a blue collar worker will have a very different level of intellectuality in comparison to a University professor. Generally speaking, it is easier to persuade such a person, as he/she will demonstrate less interest in opposing the persuader, especially if the persuader is unknown to him/her. Such a person will also appeal more towards the physical attractiveness of the persuader rather than the supporting evidence given. This is known as the Peripheral approach, or attitude change towards a particular subject without careful or deliberate thinking, because of attractiveness of the persuader. Secondly, education plays an important part in the persuasion process. An uneducated person is much easier to persuade than an educated scholar. An educated person will not buy everything, as he/she will question the persuader. A "I change my attitude, because you have a good point" situation will be formed. This is very typical for informative information. If you chose to persuade a person who has less understanding in a particular subject, you should chose to explain things through fully. Apparently, traits of intelligence contributes to that people are able to receive and comprehend a message, and that will work against yielding towards the persuasion subject. Thus, the person will not fulfill William McGuire's five crucial steps in persuasion. Another phenomenon that persuaders who work with intelligent people is the so called Boomerang Effect. This effect states that the audience return questions to provoke the persuader. This usually takes place when a person find it difficult to comprehend and cannot therefore draw conclusions. The persuader should in such a situation try to motivate the audience to draw conclusions. The harder a person has to draw conclusions, the harder he/she will find to be persuaded.

Actually, you can add and subtract certain parts from your presentation that are representing the negative parts of your purpose. Thirdly, a majority of the native populations living in developing countries have very different values (cultural/social) from those of populations living in the developed world. So, obviously, a persuader has to incorporate different information in his/her persuasion attempts depending on where in the world he/she will be, and with what populations that he/she will confront.

For all kind of audiences, the persuader has to be able to understand what you are saying. Good language abilities are often crucial. The style of a presentation, or how the source communicates. That includes all of the following; voice quality, physical positioning. There are basically two different routes to persuasion that can be used. The first is the control route, and the second is the Peripheral route. The control route should generally be chosen if you have a very strong case, and that you know what you are talking about. Also, the control route should be chosen if you know your audience very well. The Peripheral route should be chosen the audience is unfamiliar to the persuader, as this route concentrates more on appearance rather than information. I believe that it is possible to combine these tow routes, and form a mixed route. It is possible to combine attractiveness and intelligence. So if you have a strong case, with plenty of strong evidences supporting your point, and that you are physically attractive, you have a better chance to persuade people than a not-so-attractive, but intelligent persuader. Overall, physical attractive people tend to be more successful in persuasion than not so attractive people. On the other hand, if a persuader is physically similar to the audience, he/she also tend to be effective, as a bond of similarity is formed between the persuader and the receiver.

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