Persuasion Notes

Example Two: Politics and the reframing of "liberalism"

*"Liberalism" was formerly understood as the New Deal, workers' rights through unionism, connection with the middle class, and equality for everyone. *Republicans successfully reframed "Liberalism" to represent latte-drinking, Volvo-driving Eastern seaboard snobs. (Fish, 2006) *Now, even liberals themselves avoid the term, now calling themselves "progressives."

What is a "frame"?

*"Once an object is categorized as the member of a given class, it is extremely difficult to see it as belonging also to another class. This class membership of an object is called its "reality"; thus anybody who sees it as the member of another class must be mad or bad." - Watzlawick, 1974 *A "frame" is one among a number of possible ways of seeing something, and a "reframing" is a way of seeing it differently; in effect changing its meaning. *Frames are rooted in figurative language, most commonly, metaphor.

Two approaches to building on premises

*"Yes-Yes" approach: The persuader identifies a number of acceptable principles or criteria by which the case will later be supported. *"Yes-But" approach: The persuader notes the arguments of the message recipient with which they can agree, and then (having shown how fair-minded they are) offers a series of "buts" that constitute the heart of their case.

Deception about Persuasive Intent: Expression Games

*A persuader seeks to sell a particular message via, in part, non-verbal control, while the persuadee seeks to decipher the levels of messages that are being shared and arrive at a fair judgment about the situation at hand. -Were Hillary Clinton's tears "real" when she cried on the night before the 2008 New Hampshire Primary?

What is a premise?

*A premise is a hook on which to hang an argument. Depending on the context of the discussion, it may be a definition, a value assumption, or a general observation. *The coactive persuader operates on the principle that once we get people to agree with a premise, we have them halfway to agreeing with the conclusion as well.

Framing the News

*An episodic news frame takes "the form of a case study or event-oriented report and depicts public issues in terms of concrete instances" (i.e., a story about an murder). *A thematic frame of the same event "places public issues in some more general or abstract context" (i.e., a report on the backlog in the criminal justice process).

BVA Theory: Questions to Consider

*Are people as aware as the theory suggests of their own beliefs, values, and attitudes, including minute variations in degree of conviction? *Assuming that they are aware, are they as likely as the theory suggests to report candidly to others exactly what they're thinking and feeling? *Are people as calculating in their decision making as BVA theory suggests? *Don't other attitudes come into play in a buying decision, including the buyer's trust in the salesperson? Are people as rational in their supposed calculations as this theory suggests?

Types of frames

*Argument frame: debating one reality, but seeing it differently. *Perceptual frame: presents the same reality, but different perspectives. *Issue frame: takes an ambiguous situation and applies a frame to define it. *Meta frame: transforms the way the message is understood.

Persuasion and Incentives

*As a general rule, incentives work. The greater the incentive, the greater the likelihood of successful persuasion. *An exception to this rule is the principle of insufficient justification: being under conditions of insufficient justification is cognitively dissonant and uncomfortable; we change our attitudes to get relief from the psychological pain of that dissonance

In Summary

*As the globalized rhetorical hypothesis suggests, there are instances of communication where the intent to persuade is not so clear-cut or where persuasive intent is commingled with other motives for communicating. *When it comes to persuasion, there is a lot of "gray area" mixed in with the black and white.

Beliefs, Attitudes and Values

*Beliefs are what we each consider to be true or probable. *Values are our ideals; they determine what we see as right or wrong; they contain our judgments about the worth of things. *Attitudes are our general evaluations, favorable or unfavorable.

Summary

*Coactive persuasion is a method of bridging differences, of moving toward persuadees psychologically in the hope that they will be moved in turn to accept the persuader's position or proposal. *It consists, essentially, of six components: 1. Being receiver-oriented rather than topic-oriented—communicating on the message recipient's terms. 2. Being situationally sensitive and seeking to match our message to the requirements and expectations the situation presents. 3. Combining expressions of interpersonal similarity with solid displays of ethos, including expertise, knowledge of subject, trustworthiness, and the like; responding to the persuadee's desire to be addressed by a credible, and not just a likable, source. 4. Building from shared premises but also, if necessary, reasoning from the perspective of the other. 5. Moving audiences to the desired conclusion or action by both appearing reasonable and providing psychological support. 6. Using fully the resources of human communication. *Coactive persuasion involves being fully committed to the process of persuasion, and it requires that we take risks

Using Receiver-Oriented Approaches

*Coactive persuasion, then, is receiver oriented rather than topic oriented *Example: IBM salespersons -Listened to customers' problems -Treated customers as human beings -Through interaction, understood how to tailor their messages to achieve their intended effects.

A case in point:

*Comedy Central's Jon Stewart interviews CNBC's Jim Cramer. *Jon Stewart vs Jim Cramer *Questions to consider: -What are the elements that make Stewart's interview effective? -Why is it that Cramer is such a popular figure on the CNBC business channel? -What would you have done or said if you were Cramer?

The Basic Tools: Compliance-gaining Tactics

*Compliance-gaining tactics are those used to effect changes in overt behavior, not just in beliefs, values, or attitudes. *Tactic 1: social appropriateness *Tactic 2: efficiency *When seeking to gain compliance, a pleasant request will generally work better than a nasty order; a direct message will work better than hinting or beating around the bush.

In Summary

*Cultures supply frames ("the power of positive thinking"), people select them (being in an optimistic frame of mind), and texts contain them ("Think positively!"). In all these cases, the organizing of a perceived reality takes place. *Frames are persuasive, ubiquitous, and fascinating. *Through study and analysis, we can gain a greater understanding of how they work in our lives.

Persuasion in the Guise of Objectivity: Naming Social Problems

*Do societies discover social problems objectively, or do they construct them rhetorically? *Fifty years ago, for example, the terms child abuse, date rape, and sexual harassment did not exist. *Clearly, though, that does not mean that the problems designated by the terms also did not exist, right?

Forms of Doublespeak

*Euphemism is a device used to make an unpleasant reality more acceptable. *Jargon is the specialized language of a trade or profession. *Gobbledygook or bureaucratese is overloading the audience with long, complex sentences that sound impressive but actually don't make any sense. *Inflated language is designed to make the ordinary and mundane seem important or things that are simple seem quite complicated.

Trends in Framing 21st-century News Reporting

*Framing patterns tend more toward the episodic coverage of stories. Fewer stories are framed to provide analysis, context, and detail. *The drive for profits causes media outlets to frame the hard news as just more infotainment.

Persuasion as Psychological Unbalancing and Rebalancing

*Imbalances create motivation for attitude change. If we can create in you a feeling of conflict, you will likely work to reduce it or eliminate it. *And then, if we can suggest something that will supposedly resolve the imbalance, you'll be disposed to listen and consider it. *You'll be inclined to buy our product or adopt our plan because you'll want to do what it takes to get things back to a more even state.

Persuasion vs Non-Persuasion: God Terms and Devil Terms

*In any culture, certain symbols function as god words or devil words—symbols of approval or derision, of group identification or dis-identification. *This is apparent in such god words as "freedom," "democracy," and "capitalism," and such devil words as "slavery," "totalitarianism," and "anarchism." *Distinctions between terms tend to become rigid, and there is no middle ground: a nation is either "democratic" or "dictatorial." The effect of these verbal treatments is persuasive indeed. *When a society strongly identifies with its god words and strongly "dis-identifies" with its devil words, its values become highly resistant to change because they are no longer even regarded as values. They become as real and as solid as the ground beneath our feet.

Building on Acceptable Premises

*In building from acceptable premises, persuaders start from premises that they themselves accept, and make a point of emphasizing those points of agreement that they share with their audience. *Such common-ground appeals make the persuader appear more trustworthy and more attractive, and create identification with the audience.

Persuasion as a Learning Process

*Involves three parts: (1) acquiring new information, (2) getting incentives to act, and (3) making favorable associations. *Involves information processing and takes place in stages: (1) from conception of the message to reception; (2) from reception to acceptance or yielding; and (3) from yielding to overt action. These stages are like a chain, and the chain is no stronger than its weakest link.

"Frame" as Metaphor

*Just as metaphors are frames, so the term frame, when applied to language, is itself metaphorical. -As when we "frame" the shot when we take a photo -As in "frames" in a motions picture -As in "frames" on a piece of art -As in the "frames" of buildings

The Basic Tools: John Austin's Speech Acts

*Language can be used, in certain circumstances, to perform actions. This is the illocutionary force of language. -The judge says "I sentence you to 10 years in prison." *This is distinct from an act of locution. You say to a friend "I sentence you to 10 years in prison."

Resources of Language: Kenneth Burke

*Language does our thinking for us. -We think in terminologies that are not exclusively our own. -As children, for example, we learn to distinguish between "patriotism" and "disloyalty," as though these terms were unambiguous. *Over time the unambiguous meanings of terms such as these tend to become reified; that is, the come to be treated as mundane realities rather than as social constructions. *They serve as terministic screens, deflecting attention from other possible views.

Metacommunicative Frames

*Metacommunication is communication about communication. -Reflexive metacommunication interprets, classifies, or comments on our own messages. -Responsive metacommunication is a frame-altering reply to what others have said in interactive situations.

Methods of Studying Persuasion

*Method 1: Rhetorical Criticism -Seeks to make sense of an act or event, either as an object of interest in its own right, or because it helps illuminate a larger question. -Rooted in the humanities; tends to regard persuasion as a highly individualized art. *Method 2: Social-Scientific Approach -Seeks to subject theories and hypotheses to rigorous empirical tests, relying on research experiments conducted under carefully controlled conditions. -Rooted in behaviorism, tends to treat human judgments and actions as predictable.

Persuasion in the Guise of Objectivity: Scientific Writing

*Objectivity comes into question because: 1. Corporations often sponsorship the research. 2. Researchers must frame findings so that they will be accepted. 3. Issues of prestige influence acceptance and publication of research. 4. Statistics can be presented to best advantage.

The Basic Tools: Tactics for Downplaying

*Omission - One downplaying tactic involves omitting information about the bad points about a person, product, or idea. -This is also called cardstacking, whereby only information that supports the persuader's point of view is provided; used to deliberately hide or conceal information. *Diversion - Diversion consists of downplaying by shifting attention away from another's good points or one's own bad points or away from key issues by intensifying side issues. -Ad hominem, whereby the person, rather than the idea, is attacked. *Confusion - Yet another tactic for downplaying one's own weaknesses or the other's strengths is to make things so chaotic and complex that people give up trying to understand. -Doublespeak, whereby language is intentionally used to mislead.

Cultural Frames and Verbal repertoires

*On many social or political issues, the culture seems to supply competing aphorisms. *People hold in their heads not just seemingly opposed aphorisms and lines of argument, but entire repertoires of verbal response that they invoke, depending on what they take to be the relevant frame in a given situation.

Persuasion's roots: Ancient Greece

*On the one side: The sophists Gorgias and Polus. *On the other side:The philosophers Socrates and Plato. *At issue: Doesn't "persuasion" generally do great damage by making the inferior argument appear better and by allowing the guilty to go free?

But how do we recognize credibility?

*Perceived expertise and trustworthiness -Perceived intelligence, honesty and dependability, maturity and good judgment *Perceived power: the extent to which the speaker is willing and able to use rewards and punishments *Perceived dynamism, including verve, passion, enthusiasm

Combining Similarity and Credibility

*Persuaders can move toward the persuadees psychologically by emphasizing similarities in background, experience, and group affiliation, or by displaying evidences of commonality through dialect, dress, and mannerisms. These enhance the persuader's attractiveness to the audience and also serve to express shared beliefs, values, and attitudes. -Example: Comedian Jeff Foxworthy "might be a redneck." *It is likewise important on most occasions for persuaders to appear different from their audiences. We want to take direction and advice from people who are more expert, better informed, and more reliable than we are. We are persuaded by credibility. -Example: Our lawyer or our doctor.

Deception about Persuasive Intent: "I'm not being persuasive here..."

*Persuaders often go to great lengths to persuade us that they are not persuaders. For example: -News headline: "Andrew Winters Not Connected to Bank Embezzlement." -News headline: "Is Karen Downing Associated with a Fraudulent Charity?" *Outcome: both headlines resulted in negative perceptions of the candidates.

But is persuasion inherently bad? Aristotle's defense:

*Persuasion deals in matters of judgment, rather than matters of certainty. *There are at least two sides to most stories, and persuaders help us evaluate each side. *Persuasion provides perspective. It helps us, as decision makers, to assess and evaluate the alternative courses of action before us. *While some may abuse its powers, such abuse is not inevitable

Example One: Why Presidents go to "war"

*Presidents often employ the "war" frame: -LBJ: War on poverty -Ford: War on inflation -Reagan: War on drugs -Bush: War on terror *The war metaphor structures thought and directed action and it generates a network of entailments. *Employed because it is useful: -It constitutes a license for policy change and political or economic action. -It provides grounds for certain inferences: *There is an external, foreign, hostile enemy *The situation will require high priority status *The populace will have to make sacrifices *If we do not meet the threat, we will not survive.

Priming Effects

*Priming is the non-conscious activation of knowledge structures. *Example of priming: When students were handed a cup of coffee, those who held a cup of iced coffee rated a hypothetical person they later read about as being much colder, less social and more selfish than did their fellow students, who had momentarily held a cup of hot coffee.

Propaganda (versus persuasion):

*Propaganda differs from persuasion in that it is systematic, sustained, organized, and one-sided. *Originally seen as a vehicle for carrying the truth to the masses. *Often today seen as persuasion's evil twin. *Yet: Few among us would object to the use of a one-sided effort of mass persuasion in support of world peace!

The "globalized rhetoric hypothesis"

*Proposes a rhetorical presence or dimension in all that humans say and do. *Argues that there are many gray areas where persuasion is present, but it is subtle or veiled. *Suggests that distinctions between "persuasion" and "non-persuasion" are overblown

Summary

*Psychological theories of persuasion are divided between -(1) those emphasizing similarities between humans and other animal species, and -(2) theories emphasizing humans' seemingly distinctive capacity for reason. *Differing persuasive goals require differing psychological emphases.

Resources of the New Media

*Rapid transmission of messages. *Interactivity between persuaders and persuadees. *Greater ability to target market segments. *Greater ability to gather data on persuadees. *Eventual technological convergence.

Psychological Theories of Persuasion Consider Rationality and Emotion

*Rational choice models and expectancy-value theories suggest that our choices are primarily based on rationality. *Two-systems theories suggest that both rationality and emotion are factors in how we respond to persuasive messages.

Coactive persuaders use communication resources

*Remembering that a message includes not just what is said but how it is said, both verbally and non-verbally. *Considering the implications of the grammar provided by each medium. *Engaging the resources of ambiguity.

The Basic Tools: Tactics for Intensifying

*Repetition - One way to intensify good or bad points about a person, a product, or an idea is to repeat them again and again. -Alliteration: "M & M's melt in your mouth, not in your hand." *Association - Another tactic is to intensify by linking a person, idea, or product to something already either loved/desired by or hated/feared by the intended audience. -Glittering generalities: "faith, freedom, family" *Association cont: -Name calling: to get the receiver to reject the person or idea on the basis of the negative symbol, rather than by examining the evidence. *Composition - The arrangement of words in a print advertisement and the organization of ideas in a speech are examples of composition.

Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM): Two Routes to Persuasion

*Route 1: Central processing -People who process information centrally ask themselves probing questions, generate additional arguments, and possibly seek new information. Those who become persuaded after mental labor of this sort tend to be resistant to counter-arguments and to remain persuaded months afterward. *Route 2: Peripheral processing -Peripheral processing involves cognitive shorthands, sometimes called heuristics. It is relatively mindless: the lure of a free gift, the appeal of a celebrity figure, or the number, rather than quality, of reasons presented. Such persuasion tends to be short-lived.

Nudge Theory

*Stimuli in our environments can exert seemingly non-conscious influences. *Even when we attempt to calculate our self-interest, we often wind up basing our choices on biases (anchoring biases, status quo biases, optimism biases, and other rules of thumb) that can get us and those around us into trouble.

George Lakoff on Metaphors, Framing, and Politics

*Strict father model: -The world is a dangerous place--there is evil in the world. -The world is competitive, with winners and losers. -Children are born bad. Our responsibility when it comes to our children is to teach them self-discipline and obedience. -It is moral to pursue your self-interest—when you do well, you are helping improve the world. -A good person—a moral person—is one who is disciplined enough to be obedient, to learn what is right, to do what is right, and to pursue self-interest to prosper and become self-reliant. -The opponent is considered a "do-gooder," one who is trying to help someone else rather than working on self-reliance. The do-gooder stands in the way of creating self-reliant individuals. *Nurturant parent model: -The world is a gift; there are dangers, but we can work to make it better. -The world is by nature cooperative, and that is often unrecognized -Children are born good. Our responsibility when it comes to our children is to nurture and protect them. -It is moral to pursue fairness—when all have the chance to do well, the world is just. -A good person—a moral person—is one who is honest, who fights for fairness, and who fights against discrimination and greed. -The opponent is one who places his or her self-interest above all else, who does not recognize the inter-connectedness of our world.

A challenging situation: When a public figure is caught in wrongdoing and seeks to persuade the public to forgive, understand, and move on.

*Swimmer Michael Phelps *R & B artist Chris Brown *TV Celebrity David Letterman *Golfer Tiger Woods *Congressman Anthony Weiner

Nudge theory is a two-systems theory, one for automatic decision making and one for our rational selves

*System One -Automatic System -Uncontrolled -Effortless -Associative -Fast -Unconscious -Skilled *System Two -Reflective System -Controlled -Effortful -Deductive -Slow -Self-aware -Rule follow

Reframing in Psychotherapy

*The Objectivist approach to psychotherapy assumes that there is one best description of a patient's problems and one best explanation for their causes. *The Coactive approach to psychotherapy views the therapist as one who helps the patient construct a version of the truth; of crucial importance are verbal framings.

The Role of Subjective Norms: Theory of Reasoned Action

*The best predictor of behavior is intentions, which are a joint product of attitudes toward behaviors and subjective norms. *When attitudes toward a contemplated behavior are put together with subjective norms, the combination indicates more accurately how a person will act in a given situation.

Visual and Audiovisual Resources

*The six linguistic components of intensifying/downplaying have their visual and audiovisual counterparts. *Visual persuasion includes the way a scene creates a backdrop for messages. *Camera angles, editing, lighting, sound, and music can be manipulated to persuade.

Resources of Language

*These critics all suggest that language permits and indeed enables creative expression. *Thanks to them, we gain more tools for analyzing and understanding the interactions between language and our world. *The more tools we have in our toolbox of communication, the more inventive we can be as persuaders and as critics in our use of language.

The Basic Tools of Verbal Communication

*These include names (i.e., labels), classifications (i.e., categorizations), definitions, descriptions, comparisons and contrasts. *With these linguistic devices we can magnify or minimize, elevate or degrade, sharpen or blur, link or divide, simplify or complexify, conceal or reveal, contextualize or decontextualize, and make good, bad, or indifferent.

In contrast, a globalized view of rhetoric argues that

*Thinking in "either-or" fashion robs us of the richness of the communication. *Communication in general and persuasion in particular are generally more complex and sophisticated than they often appear on first glance. *Often, the most powerful persuasion is the also the most subtle.

Persuasion in the Guise of Objectivity

*This is yet another category where persuasion exists, but it is veiled: -Accounting statements and cost-benefit analyses, news reports, scientific articles, history textbooks, and reported discoveries of social problems, fall into this gray area.

Persuasion in the Guise of Objectivity: News Reporting

*Three issues: 1. Priming: influences our judgments on where to focus our attention. 2. Agenda setting: tells us what is important versus unimportant. 3. Framing: focuses our attention on certain events and then presents them in a way that gives them meaning.

Persuasion in the Guise of Objectivity: Naming Social Problems

*Three schools of thought: 1. Mundane realists: the problems have always existed, but now have names. 2. Strict constructionists: what we consider to be problems or non-problems all depends on the language we select to "create" the worlds we inhabit. 3. Contextual constructionists: social problems are neither entirely discovered nor entirely fabricated.

Entman's Definition of Framing

*To frame, suggests Entman (1993), is to: -select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicative text, -in such a way as to promote a particular problem, definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described.

The Basic Tools: Hugh Rank's Six Components of Intensify/Downplay

*To intensify, use: -Repetition -Association -Composition To downplay, use: -Omission -Diversion -Confusion

Non-verbal Resources

*Vocalics (also paralanguage or paralinguistics): how vocal cues project images of self. *Kinesics: includes posture, gestures, fidgeting, and other body movements, as well as eye behavior and facial expressions. *Proxemics: how space and spatial relationships communicate. *Haptics: the tactile channel of communication, the arena of touch. *Chronemics: how time communicates.

Impression management as persuasion: When we are seeking to influence how we are perceived

*We are not engaged in obvious black and white persuasive efforts. *We aren't directly setting out to advocate a position, make a sale, or change someone's mind. *Instead, we are quietly seeking to shape thinking, both our own and that of others.

The Basic Tools: Kenneth Burke's Analytical Toolbox

*What equals what? *What opposes what? *What leads to what? *What follows what? *What stands above (or below) what? *What's good, bad, or indifferent?

The Role of Emotion: Westin's Research Results

*When confronted in 2004 with political information about Democrat John Kerry and Republican George W. Bush at variance with their beliefs, rather than altering their beliefs, research subjects sought and found confirmatory evidence in support of their prior beliefs and ignored or reinterpreted the counter-evidence. *Brain scans of the subjects showed that the parts of the brain associated with emotion lit up, while there was little activation in the parts of the brain associated with reasoning.

Resources of Language: Michel Foucault

*Words don't represent things; rather they are the "violence" that we humans do to things. *Notions such as madness, deviance, and criminality arise in "discourses" that normalize and naturalize, obscuring as they do the role that power has played in their formation.

To appear reasonable and providing psychological support, coactive persuaders should:

1. Attempt to link their position or proposal with beliefs and values already held by the audience. 2. When urging action on a proposal, convince their audience not just that the proposal is a good one, but also that it has the support of people the audience most admires. 3. Simplify the message for those who would otherwise have difficulty understanding it. 4. Reinforce desired responses to questions while withholding reinforcements for undesired responses. 5. Dress and act in such a way that audiences will form favorable inferences about their competence, trustworthiness, and attractiveness. Likewise, they should polish their ideas into language that audiences will find attractive. 6. Encourage opponents to have empathy; encourage supporters to take action.

BVA Theory: Beliefs and Values as Building Blocks of Attitudes

1. Beliefs (B) include judgments that a given object possesses certain attributes. 2. Values (V) include judgments of the worth of these perceived attributes 3. Attitudes (A) combine our relevant beliefs (B) about an object with our value judgments (V) about the attributes that we associate with the object. 4. The stronger our beliefs about positively valued attributes, the more favorable should be our attitude toward that object. 5. The stronger our beliefs about negatively valued attributes, the less favorable our attitudes.

Globalized View of Persuasion: Five Key Communication Principles

1. Communication is multi-motivated: It may operate on multiple levels and may serve multiple functions at once. 2. Communication is multi-layered: "The message" includes not just what is said verbally, but also the source, medium, context, receiver, and accompanying non-verbals. 3. Communication is multi-dimensional: What is said can come in a variety of forms. 4. Communication is multi-directional: Messages may have unintended effects on unintended audiences, not least of all on the message senders themselves. Through communication, we also persuade ourselves. 5. Communication is multi-faceted: Every utterance about substantive matters (about content), is also an interpersonal encounter that invariably projects an image of the communicator.

Cialdini's seven categories of cognitive shorthand that can influence and persuade us:

1. Contrast 2. Reciprocity 3. Consistency 4. Social Proof 5. Authority 6. Liking 7. Scarcity

Six Campaign Stages: Fifth: Activation

1. Creating an action plan • Financing • Operational steps to be taken in implementation • Time sequence to be followed • Specific tasks for each individual 2. Securing preliminary commitments 3. Engaging in follow-through 4. Achieving penetration

Being Situation-sensitive by Considering Situational Variables

1. Emotional commitment: -It is one thing for strangers on a train to disagree about whether abortion is murder; it is quite another for a husband and his pregnant wife to have the same disagreement. 2. Time: -Compare the difference, for example, between a 50-minute college lecture and a 30-second television sound bite. -Having time to think makes an enormous difference in the quality of the receiver's message-processing ability. 3. Audience expectations: -They expect certain things to be said, for example, at a eulogy, a wedding toast, or a commencement address.

The steps for using metaphor criticism to analyze frames:

1. Get a detailed description of your "text". 2. Make a list of all the metaphors in the text. 3. Analyze the metaphors to find the frames. 4. Analyze the frames, looking for: -opposite frames -companion frames -positive versus negative frames -same reality frames -frames of definition 5. Draw conclusions: what follows from the frame for you and others involved? 6. Create a thesis: one sentence that sets down your findings. 7. Support your thesis with details from your analysis.

Organizing Persuasive Presentations (Introduction Must)

1. Get the attention of receivers -Audiences heed selectively the messages they see and hear. Countering these tendencies often requires careful planning and great ingenuity. 2. Orient the audience to the message -Presenters need to orient their audiences by stating the thesis—that one central idea that sums up what the entire presentation is about.

Six Campaign Stages: First: Planning

1. Goal setting, involving three considerations: • The audience • The situation • The levels for success: -What the campaign would ideally like to achieve; -What it expects to achieve; -What would be the bare minimum acceptable. 2. Formulating a basic strategy, which requires: • Selecting the appropriate frame for the appropriate time and situation. • Being alert to unintended consequences. • Deciding how to apply pressure, considering a continuum from most to least controlling: Power >> Persuasion >> Re- educative >> Facilitation

All used the rhetorical form of apologia, which involves 10 tactics:

1. If the case against is unproved and likely to stay unproved, they can deny. 2. If the case against is unproved and likely to stay unproved, they can differentiate between the acts committed on their watch versus the acts for which they are personally to blame. They can reinforce this move by pledging corrective action. 3. If they can point to notable achievements in the past and the potential for more in the future, they can brag about the good job they are doing. 4. If the case against is weak or the credibility of the attackers is suspect, they can attack the attackers. 5. If the significance of the wrongdoing is open to question, they can minimize it. 6. If the facts of the case are in dispute, they can admit only what they have to when it comes to wrongdoing, personal culpability, significance, or relevance. 7. If the argument against them appears credible, they can justify their questionable behavior as contributing to the worthy ends they accomplished or attempted to accomplish. 8. If it won't unduly tarnish their reputation and the ability to do their job, they can differentiate between the "self" who committed the wrongdoing and the normally trustworthy and competent "real" self. 9. If there is no way to deflect responsibility, they can express contrition, but only in proportion to the significance and relevance of the wrongdoing, and combine remorse with corrective action or pledges of corrective action. 10. If the argument is likely to appear credible, they can appeal for closure/termination of the case in the interests of getting on with more important matters

In review, coactive persuasion:

1. Is receiver oriented, taking place largely, although not entirely, on the message recipient's terms. 2. Is situation sensitive, recognizing that receivers (e.g., audiences, persuadees) respond differently to persuasive messages in different situations. 3. Combines images of similarity between persuader and persuadee while promoting images of the persuader's unique expertise and trustworthiness to enhance credibility.

Coactive persuasion

1. Is receiver oriented, taking place largely, although not entirely, on the message recipient's terms. 2. Is situation sensitive, recognizing that receivers (e.g., audiences, persuadees) respond differently to persuasive messages in different situations. 3. Combines images of similarity between persuader and persuadee while promoting images of the persuader's unique expertise and trustworthiness. 4. Addresses controversial matters by appeals to premises the audience can accept. 5. Moves audiences from premises to desired actions or conclusions by both appearing reasonable and providing psychological support. 6. Makes full use of the resources of human communication.

Three approaches to persuasion in controversial or conflict situations:

1. Objectivist: Hard fact and cold logic are, and ought to be, the sole arbiters of disputes. 2. Privatist: All persuasion is immoral manipulation; we should merely assert our feelings on the matter at hand. 3. Coactivist: Persuaders use acceptable premises to reason with audiences, not to win an argument, but to win a belief.

Why study persuasion?

1. Practice: It is a crucial component of personal and career success. 2. Analysis: We need to know how to evaluate the persuasive messages that bombard us daily. 3. Understanding: We are benefited by seeing how discourse functions to shape our world and our lives.

Persuasion Takes Place by Degrees

1. Response shaping: persuading people toward new beliefs, new attitudes, or new values. 2. Response reinforcing: persuading people to strengthen their current convictions, making them resistant to change. 3. Response changing: persuading people to make a complete shift of positions; conversio

Four ethical perspectives on persuasion:

1. Utilitarianism: Assumes what is best is that which will provide the most good for the greatest number of people. -Example: A white lie may do little harm and much good, and would be acceptable. 2. Universalism: Assumes some practices are intrinsically virtuous and others are objectionable, no matter the situation. -Example: A white lie is unethical. Lying is wrong because truth telling is a necessary condition of our having any meaningful verbal interaction at all. 3. Dialogic ethics: Treats the other person as a "thou", a person, rather than as an "it", an object to manipulate. -Example: A white lie is wrong. It does not honor the full humanity of the other, but instead manipulates the situation and subjects the other to fabrication and misrepresentation. 4. Situationalism: Regards questions of ethics as role- or situation-specific. -Example: A white lie might be appropriate at times but unethical at others. It might be acceptable in some relationships but wrong in others.

Non-verbal Communication's Six Effects

1.Repetition: nodding while saying "yes." 2. Contradiction: coldly, perhaps sarcastically, saying to an intimate, "Je t'adore." 3. Accentuation: "No way!" as opposed to "No way." 4. Complement: laughing while saying "That's funny." 5. Substitution: nodding agreement instead of verbalizing it. 6. Regulation: fidgeting, putting books away, and so forth as your professor drones on after class was supposed to end.

What is Coactive Persuasion?

Coactive persuasion is an umbrella term for the ways that persuaders work to move toward persuadees psychologically so that they will be moved, in turn, to accept the persuaders' position or proposal for action.

Cognitive Shorthands

Robert Cialdini introduces the issue: "I can admit it freely now. All my life I've been a patsy. For as long as I can recall, I've been an easy mark for the pitches of peddlers, fund raisers, and operators of one sort or another. True, only some of these people have had dishonorable motives. The others—representatives of certain charitable agencies, for instance—have had the best of intentions. No matter. With personally disquieting frequency, I have always found myself in possession of unwanted magazine subscriptions or tickets to the sanitation workers' ball." (2009)

Issues in message design: One-sided or two-sided?

The choice: • A one-sided message presents only the arguments favoring a given proposition. • A two-sided message considers pros and cons, but it also raises the question of how the pros and cons are to be considered.

Issues in message design: How simple versus how complex?

The choice: • Emphasize the complexities, as professors often do, because sometimes the issue is complicated. • Use simple ideas which are "stickier," remembering that "simple" does not mean "simplistic."

Issues in message design: Draw explicit or implicit conclusions?

The choice: • Explicit, upfront conclusion drawing is the recommendation of choice for most situations. • Leaving a position unstated and implicit has the advantage of preventing defenses from being raised, which can be important when facing a hostile or highly critical audience.

Issues in message design: How should fear appeals be managed?

The issue: • A fear appeal is likely to be most effective under the following four conditions: 1. It "scares the hell out of people" 2. It provides concrete recommendations for overcoming the aroused threat 3. The action recommended is perceived as effective for reducing the threat, and 4. Receivers are convinced that they can perform the recommended action.

Issues in message design: How will stories be integrated?

The issues: • When the audience members are immersed in a story, they tend to become suggestible—less aware, for example, of false within-story assertions. • When the audience enters the "realm" of the story, they tend to generalize from the beliefs implied by the story, activating story-congruent memories from their own lives. • Stories have far greater potential to persuade than does merely listing arguments in support of an idea.

Comparison between Topic-oriented and Receiver-Oriented approaches

The receiver-oriented approach: *Assumes that all receivers are unique, or, at the least, that some differences make a difference. *Learns from receivers what they need, want, know, value, etc. *Selects specific persuasive goals for any occasion on the basis of the receivers' readiness to be persuaded. *Communicates with receivers by adapting the message on the basis of a mutual interchange. *Promotes solutions on the basis of their capacity to resolve or reduce the receivers' special problems.

Comparison between Topic-oriented and Receiver-Oriented approaches

The topic-oriented approach: *Assumes that all receivers are alike. *Decides for receivers what they need, want, know, value, etc. *Selects specific persuasive goals for any one occasion on the basis of the persuader's own timetable. *Communicates at receivers by means of a "canned" presentation. *Promotes solutions on the basis of their supposed intrinsic merits.

Public Relations Campaigns

There exists contrasting definitions of PR: • Hired hacks who will do virtually anything to make malodorous clients smell sweet. Vs • A profession whose aim is to create understanding, in contrast to advertising, whose main aim is to generate awareness and sales, or propaganda, whose aim is to suggest what individuals should believe.

Mind Control Controversies: 1. Brainwashing

Three steps: 1. Unfreezing through (a) invalidation of present beliefs, (b) induction of guilt or anxiety, and (c) suggestion of psychological safety in the new system. 2. Transition involving new definitions of terms, newly altered perceptions, and new standards of evaluation and judgment. 3. Refreezing, where the props that supported the old belief system—self-confidence, group support, and belief consistency—are restored to be made serviceable for the new.

Persuasive Presentation: The Genuinely Committed Persuader

Three things are required: -Commitment to one's ideas -Willingness to do the work necessary to craft the message -Courage to not play it safe; a commitment to doing more than going through the motions.

Reframing in Political Confrontations: "Going Meta"

When charged with sexual harassment, Supreme Court Nominee Clarence Thomas reframed his nomination hearings as a "high-tech lynching" and displaced attention from his guilt or innocence.

Principle 3: Consistency

• "Once we make a choice or take a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment" (Cialdini, 2009). • Voters who put the signs of a particular politician in their yards are almost certain to vote for that candidate. • A counterpart to the door-in-the-face technique is the foot-in-the-door (FITD) technique. Here the persuader secures a modest commitment as a prelude to a far bigger one.

Making Ideas Stick (Made to Stick by Heath & Heath)

• "Sticky" messages have six traits: -simple -unexpected -concrete -credible -emotional -stories • First letters spell "success" (almost). Notice that the list of traits "sticks."

Machiavellianism in Political Campaigns: A Guide to Getting Elected to High Office (Media Politics)

• 80% of the voters get their political news from TV and the internet, including YouTube, blogs, Facebook, TV ads, and shows like Oprah. Adjust accordingly. • Control your media exposure as much as possible. The one-on-one interview program, with ground rules, is preferable to an open press conference. • Practice, practice, practice. Be informed and use opinion molecules—"a fact, a feeling, and a following."

Fallacies Reconsidered

• A fallacious argument is one that fails to stand up to careful scrutiny. • Examples: -False dichotomy: "Five candidates, but a D or an R will win!" -False analogy: "This is no time to remove Governor Green from office," says his supporter. "After all, you don't switch quarterbacks when the quarterback you've got is taking the team down the field." -Ad hominem: When Councilwoman White's character is attacked, she cries foul, insisting that her critics stick to the issues. "You are the issue," one of them replies. "After all, the question is whether you should be re-elected."

In Summary (Ch. 10)

• A persuasive campaign is an organized, sustained attempt at influencing groups or organizations through a series of messages. • To succeed, persuasive campaigns need to be organized persuasively and strategically. • Public relations campaigns involve corporate advocacy and crisis management. • Indoctrination campaigns involve resocialization, and are therefore often labeled "education" by friends and "propaganda" by enemies.

Stage 2: Iconology (1920-1940)

• Advertisers began to focus on what products represented. • New use of the consumer testimonial. • Ads were said to work because they relied on a "spirit of emulation" that suggested that we want to copy those we deem superior in taste or knowledge or experience.

Stage 4: Toteism (1970-1990)

• Advertisers began to make products representative of lifestyle. • Product images became totems, or badges of group membership, and ads invited consumers into a consumption community by emphasizing the community's attractiveness (rather than the product's desirability).

Advertising and Ideology

• Advertising doesn't just sell products; it also shapes and reinforces ideologies. • Advertising's dominant ideology is capitalist realism, involving the fetishism of commodities: The world is seen as a garden of consumption in which any need can be satisfied by buying the right things. • Advertising reinforces the central ideological conviction that we are what we own.

Machiavellianism in Political Campaigns: A Guide to Getting Elected to High Office (Advertising)

• Americans get more political information from candidate-controlled sources than from media-controlled sources, so have striking ads and web pages. • Don't say it—show it. Find pictures making your opponent look silly and yourself look grand. • Always be technically accurate even if your implications are misleading. • Consider timing. Early in the campaign do positive introductory ads; in the mid-campaign do contrast and negative ads; during the last two weeks do visionary positive ads. • Do inoculation ads to fight off upcoming attacks.

Persuasive Campaigns

• Are defined as "organized, sustained attempts at influencing groups or masses of people through a series of messages." • Take the forms of political, advertising, issue-oriented campaigns, etc. • Engage in a multi-stage, multi-message process.

Critique of Cialdini: Issue 4— Mother Turkeys versus Automatic Pilots

• Are we like mother turkeys, responding to our preprogrammed tapes that have trigger features that can be used to dupe us into playing them at the wrong times? • Are we like pilots sometimes falling victim to faulty auto pilots? • There are major differences between the mother turkey and the automatic pilot. Both operate automatically, but the automatic pilot operates only insofar as we choose, while the mother turkey has no choice in the matter.

Six Campaign Stages: Fourth: Promotion

• Bringing the cause before a wider audience. 1. Identity: Creating name recognition, slogans, themes, symbols, etc. 2. Credibility: Creating trust, respect, and attraction. Deeds, and not just words, are important here.

(Political Campaigns)- Persuasion in Four Stages: Presidential Campaigning

• Campaigns undergo four stages, with differing persuasive tasks and challenges arising in each one. 1. Pre-Primary Period (Surfacing) 2. Primary Period (Winnowing) 3. Nominating Convention (Legitimating) 4. General Election Period (Contesting)

Three types of propositions of fact

• Causal claims -Capital punishment deters crime. -Smoking marijuana harms your health. -Violence on television affects children's behavior. • Predictive claims -A staffed space mission will reach Mars by 2020. -Our economy is headed for a massive depression. -A severe shortage of teachers will occur by the year 2025. • Historical claims -The Shroud of Turin was worn by Jesus in the tomb. -The author of On the Sublime was not Longinus. -Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole assassin of John F. Kennedy.

Critique of Cialdini: Issue 3— Unidentified Contingencies

• Cialdini selects useful contingencies to make his point and overlooks others. -Jewelry sales example—"expensive equals good." -But consumers tend to position their decisions between opposing frames such as "you get what you pay for" and "value for money." • Before we decide what caused individuals to respond, we have to do everything we can to incorporate all of the contingencies in the decision-making process.

Six Campaign Stages: Sixth: Evaluation

• Completing campaign assessments -Periodically, to make corrections in the path of campaigns. -At the campaign's conclusion, to evaluate the overall effectiveness.

Critique of Cialdini: Issue 1— Obscured Differences

• Concerning "consistency," there are two forms: Evaluative consistency: blind impulse to bring our beliefs, values, or attitudes into line with our commitments. Probabilistic consistency: reasoning correctly from premises to conclusions, from facts to empirical generalizations, and from beliefs and values to attitudes. • Even when two people arrive at the same conclusion and display "consistency," their path to that conclusion cannot be assumed to be similar. • Cialdini's problem is that he combines these two forms of consistency, highlights the former, and neglects the latter.

Stage 3: Narcissism (1950-1970)

• Consumers were asked to consider what products could do for them and offered idealized images of satisfied consumers as "mirrors" with whom they might identify. • Advertisers began using motivational research and depth psychology, assuming that people were driven more by unconscious motives than by rational thought. • Soft-sell advertising: fantasy, music, aesthetic imagery, and appeals to emotion that became part of a product's meaning.

General Election Period (Contesting)

• Contesting: The period of the general campaign, generally from Labor Day until Election Day. • Goals and tasks: -Garner more votes than the opponent. -Influence the three campaign factors upon which voters base their decisions: *Positions on issues *Habits of mind *Attractiveness and appearance

Public Relations Campaigns: Corporate Issue Advocacy

• Corporate issue advocacy campaigns involve a corporation taking a public stand on controversial issues. -E.g., Mobil Oil's campaign that focused on environmental issues, public health and safety, and critiqued what it took to be excessive taxation and regulation by government. • These campaigns often employ advertorials, which are paid editorial ads. • The goal is generally to counter what the corporation perceives as the anti-business editorializing and reporting by the mainstream press.

Public Relations Campaigns: Crisis Management Campaigns

• Crisis management campaigns involve dealing with emergencies of one type or another—unexpected events or circumstances that demand urgent action. For example: -an oil spill, a train wreck, an industrial explosion -allegations of wrongdoing, a product recall combined with charges of negligence, complaints of inappropriate business practices, rumors of corruption in political office, or complaints of abuse of office or of a cover-up.

Mind Control Controversies: 2. Cults and Cult-like Groups

• Cults and cult-like groups share the following characteristics: -Closed System of Thought -Us—Them Mentality -Escalating Commitment -Hero Worship -Proselytizing the Unredeemed -Disruption of Counter-arguing -Vision of a Better World

Propositions of fact: What is true or false (open to debate!)

• Cutbacks in the welfare program have helped widen the gap between the rich and the poor. • Censorship of literature only increases its sales. • On the average, the top hitters in baseball get paid more than the top pitchers.

Stage 4: Demographics and Psychographics

• Demographics explain why young mothers buy diapers whereas older persons do not. • Psychographics link psychology to demographics and explain the values, interests, activities, and opinions of different segments of the population, such as why some mothers may use disposable diapers and others choose cloth.

Organizing Persuasive Presentations (Body Must)

• Establish main points—the reasons that justify the thesis. • Ensure main points are simple, declarative sentences that contain one memorably stated idea.

First: Sticky Ideas have Simplicity

• Example: A non-sticky way to describe it is that a pomelo is the largest of the citrus fruits. The rind is very thick but soft and easy to peel away. The resulting fruit has a light yellow to coral pink flesh and can vary from juicy to slightly dry and from seductively spicy-sweet to tangy and tart. • Or: "A pomelo is basically a super-sized grapefruit with a very thick and soft rind."

Principle 6: Authority

• Expressed liking and authority can be powerful motivators. • In a recent online ad, one "expert" mother providing advice and counsel was Florence Henderson, whose credentials came only from The Brady Bunch.

Second: Sticky Ideas are Unexpected

• For an idea to stick, it needs to do more than just surprise a person; it also must generate interest and curiosity. • Example: Nordstrom's department store -A Nordie irons a new shirt for a customer who needed it for a meeting that afternoon. -A Nordie cheerfully gift wraps products a customer bought at Macy's. -A Nordie warms customers' cars in winter while they finish shopping. -A Nordie refunds money for a set of tire chains even though Nordstrom's doesn't sell tire chains.

Stock Issue 1: Need

• Generally speaking, people assume the desirability of existing policies, practices, systems, and the like unless the need for a change has been demonstrated. • Car owners do not change their cars unless they perceive something wrong with the old car.

Organizing Persuasive Presentations (Conclusions Should)

• Generally wrap things up quickly—perhaps in one third the time required for the introduction. • (When seeking to activate an audience) tell them how to act (who, what, when, where, and how), and then pound home the need for urgency.

Strategic Planning: A 3-Step Process (Step 1)

• Goals, Audience, Situation: Before we can persuade, we must first evaluate where we are and where we wish to go. -What's the rhetorical exigency, if any, that confronts us? -What is our goal? What outcome do we wish to see? -What are the chief constraints we will be facing? -What's expected, and perhaps required, of us in this situation? -What do we know, believe, and value? How will that influence our presentation? -What does our audience know, believe, value? How will that influence the presentation? • Goals, Audience, Situation: We must think carefully about the audience. -Two approaches can guide us: informal demographic analysis and informal ethnographic inquiry. -We need to consider how people will understand information based on their personal histories. -We need to consider the ways in which people process information, weighing the issue of digital natives versus digital immigrants. -We need to try all possibilities, including the "what would your friends say?" approach.

(Product Advertising) Advertising is Changing: The Case of Google's "AdSense"

• Google tracks our internet surfing and shows us ads that match our interests. • Is that a good thing? -We are automatically "in" until we opt out, without even knowing it. -Do we want a record of our internet searches stored? What if our employer, our health insurance provider, or the government accesses these files? -Google provides ads from sponsors who pay large fees. Do we think that the ads represent the best products available?

Sarah Brady's Proposition of Policy: "We need reasonable gun regulation"

• Handguns need to be kept out of the wrong hands (subproposition). -This includes persons who are mentally incompetent (sub-subproposition). -This includes the criminal element (sub-subproposition). -Not doing so would be unjust (sub-subproposition). -Not doing so would continue to incur great costs to society (sub-subproposition). • The Brady Bill helps keep handguns out of the wrong hands (subproposition). -Its provision of a national safety check helps identify persons known to be mentally incompetent (sub-subproposition). -Its provisions of a waiting period and a national safety check deters criminals from purchasing guns (sub-subproposition). • The Brady Bill will not interfere with the -legitimate interests of ordinary citizens (subproposition). -It will not further curtail hunters (sub-subproposition). -It will not prevent ordinary citizens from owning handguns (sub-subproposition).

Machiavellianism in Political Campaigns: A Guide to Getting Elected to High Office (Choosing Arguments and Appeals)

• Have a memorable slogan. • Stand for patriotism, family values, and other non-controversial positions. • Appear upbeat about the future. • Particularly if you get behind in the opinion polls, go negative. Keep using negative ads until you've drawn even in the polls. • Take courageous stands on controversial issues as long as the majority or plurality of the voters take the same stand.

Machiavellianism in Political Campaigns: A Guide to Getting Elected to High Office (Speechmaking)

• Have a stump speech: a speech frame with your principal vision and your slogans in its outline, one that is flexible enough that you can substitute issues depending on where you're speaking. • Use oratory for the stump and conversation for interviews, and understand the difference. • Make the audience part of the speech; get a good response that will show on rebroadcast.

Machiavellianism in Political Campaigns: A Guide to Getting Elected to High Office (In General)

• In general: -Run a permanent campaign, always thinking about how choices will affect re-election chances. -Practice political cybernetics via focus groups. -Seek to be super-representative, appearing as much like your constituents as you can be, but always also appearing more elevated than they are. -Subordinate issues to image. -Remember the 40-40-20 rule.

Fourth, Sticky Ideas are Credible

• In order for an idea to stick, it must be believed. • The Sinatra test: if you have catered a White House function, you can cater anywhere. You've gained credibility from that sole instance that will carry you forward. • To build credibility for an idea, use the Human-Scale Principle, which brings statistics to life by contextualizing them in terms that are more human, more everyday.

Indoctrination Campaigns

• Indoctrination campaigns are called by many names: -"informational" or "educational" or "propaganda" -using "mind control" or "subliminal persuasion" -"cults" or mainstream organizations • The difference is often one of who gets to define what is socially acceptable and what is self-serving, biased, and of dubious value to society. • Is a high school unit on the virtues of patriotism "education" or "propaganda"? What if the unit celebrates "my country right or wrong?" Suppose that it is not our patriotism being celebrated in a social studies course but that of our enemy's?

Strategic Planning: A 3-Step Process (Step 2)

• Initial Strategizing -What are the chief obstacles that I will have to confront? How can I overcome them? -What resources can I bring to this situation? -How can I best deploy them? What opportunities for persuasion are available? How can I best exploit them? -How should I actually prepare my presentation?

Six Campaign Stages: Third: Legitimation

• Involves gaining the right to be heard and be taken seriously. • Comes from position and from endorsement. • Requires checking in with the power base. -They may not want to give a formal approval to a new proposal. But they can effectively block the adoption of a new idea by saying, "No!" If they simply agree that a proposal is a desirable one, that may clear the way for future operations and for eventual adoption.

Stock Issues: Recurring Questions with Propositions of Policy

• Is there a need for a change? • Is the proposed policy workable? Will it remedy the problem or deficiency? • Is the proposed policy practical? Are the means (money, enforcement machinery, etc.) available to bring about the change? • Is the proposed policy reasonably free from greater evils, or is the cure worse than the disease? • Is the proposed solution the best available solution?

Mind Control Controversies: 4. Subliminal Persuasion

• Issue: Can people learn and/or be manipulated subliminally? • James Vicary and Wilson Bryan Key have been debunked suggesting subliminal persuasion does not exist. • Ran Hassin has conducted recent experiments suggesting that subliminal persuasion may exist.

Convention Period (Legitimating)

• Legitimating: The period when the candidate accepts the formal nomination of the party. • Goals and tasks: -Engage appropriately in the nomination rituals, rallying the faithful. -Embrace former opponents. -Present the acceptance speech to gain the attention of voters who up to that point had not been paying attention to the political situation.

Six Campaign Stages Second: Mobilization

• Locating, acquiring, developing, and exploiting the material and human resources necessary to run the campaign. • Doing the research and development. • Gathering arguments and evidence to be used in building persuasive messages. • Developing the know-how for implementation.

Stage 1: Idolatry (1890-1910)

• Manufactured goods replaced the locally produced and individually crafted ones. • Ads appealed to the reasons why consumers should use a product, and associated goods with practical characteristics such as utility, low price, and efficiency.

Mind Control Controversies: 3. Extreme Suggestibility and "Recovered Memory"

• Most accounts of extreme influence in campaigns of indoctrination tend to be exaggerated, but not all these stories are fanciful. • In 1988, a series of investigations by a pastor, a clinical psychologist, and two police detectives prompted Paul Ingram to confess that he and his wife Sandy had been abusing their daughters for 17 years. Ingram went to jail, but no evidence suggests abuse occurred. • This case demonstrates how innocent people can be coerced, cajoled, and arm-twisted into confessing to even incredible crimes through an indoctrination campaign.

All propositions require evidence. Evidence provides the resources for argumentation

• Narratives and stories • Statistics • Testimony -First person -Secondhand -Authorities

Machiavellianism in Political Campaigns: A Guide to Getting Elected to High Office (Debates)

• Never refuse, but if you are ahead, stall! • Treat debates like a press conference. Concentrate on points that you want to make, rather than in any serious give-and-take on issues. • Hold to your strengths; cover up your weaknesses. • Choreograph the end of the debate. Memorize your final statement. • Be gracious to questioners and your opponent.

Principle 7: Scarcity

• Opportunities seem more valuable to us when they are less available. • At Filene's Basement's "Running of the Brides®," when the crowd is let loose, it takes less than 60 seconds for the racks to be stripped bare.

Principle 2: Reciprocity

• Our inclination is to repay in kind what others have done for us. • Vincent the waiter increases tips by leaning conspiratorially toward the table to say "I'm afraid that dish is not as good tonight as it normally is. Might I recommend another instead?" He then suggests items that are slightly less expensive than the dish the patron had selected initially. Customers reciprocate Vincent's "gift" to them with a larger tip. • A variant of the reciprocity principle is the rejection-then-retreat approach, sometimes known as the door-in-the-face (DITF) technique. • This approach involves making an extreme request of a potential donor, favor giver, or authority figure. Then, having placed the persuadee in a position where she or he is likely to turn you down, you come through with a comparatively more reasonable request.

The Highly Persuadable Persuadee

• People with low self-esteem and low to moderate intelligence are persuadable. • Those insecure about social status are highly receptive to upscale brand names. AND • All of us rely on cognitive shorthands when the stakes are low, and many of us do so when the stakes are high. None of us is exempt. REMEMBER THE "NOT ME" PHENOMENON!

In Summary

• Persuasion typically takes place under conditions that are less than ideal for reflective exchange. Persuaders cannot be expected to win belief by logic alone. • When persuaders reason, they typically do so by use of enthymemes that call on their audiences to supply and endorse implicit premises. • No amount of argument and evidence is likely -to provide the last word on complex issues. But this does not mean that the persuaders: ought to be haphazard in investigating a topic, or that -they are unwarranted in defending what—after investigation—they consider the best, most sensible position on the matter • Propositions are debatable assertions, of which three types are generally recognized: policy, fact, and value. • Advocates of change from the status quo are generally assumed to have a burden of proof, whereas those advocating retention of the present system have only a burden of refutation • Propositions of fact urge acceptance (or rejection) of a belief claim that something is true or probable. • A fallacious argument is one that fails to stand up to careful scrutiny.

In Summary (Ch. 11)

• Political campaigns embody persuasion, in both the best and worse sense. • For persuasion scholars, campaigns are fascinating sites of study. In analyzing them after the fact, we can learn a great deal about how persuasion actually functions. • For political consultants and candidates, running great campaigns is an art. Campaigns involve creativity, planning, and hard work. They are exciting and unpredictable, happening in real time. They are meant to be waged and won.

Stock Issue 3: Practicality

• Practicality argues that a proposed policy or solution should not fall short of the need. • If an old car is wrecked beyond repair, its owner will stop spending money on repairs and feel compelled to get a new one.

Propositions of Policy, Fact and Value

• Propositions are debatable assertions. • Three types are generally recognized: policy, fact, and value. • Sarah Brady's proposal for gun regulation is an example of a proposition of policy—a controversial recommendation for action of some sort, to be taken in the future.

Propositions of fact

• Propositions of any type are debatable; there must be room for argument. • Accordingly, propositions of fact are not in themselves established facts. • They are belief claims for which factual evidence is needed.

Machiavellianism in Political Campaigns: A Guide to Getting Elected to High Office (Fundraising)

• Raise as much as you can as early as you can. • Avoid obviously tainted money and try to avoid "late" money; beware money with strings attached. • Increase funding through PACs, in-kind contributions and soft money contributions through your party. • Deplore the reliance of contemporary campaigns on fat-cat contributions even as you seek them out.

Machiavellianism in Political Campaigns: A Guide to Getting Elected to High Office (Physical Appearance)

• Remember that cell phone cameras are a fact of life and you can be the subject of a photograph or video at any time. • Don't look "richer" or "poorer" than the average voter. • Dress the part. Men: conservative suits and sportswear, long-sleeved shirts, and dark shoes. Women: avoid looking either demure or aggressive, and carry no purse. • Work on photographic poses. Look serious but friendly; tilt your head for dynamic angles; avoid looking straight into the camera. Wear a winning smile.

Sixth, Sticky Ideas include stories

• Stories contain wisdom; they show how context can mislead people to make the wrong decisions and illustrate causal relationships; they highlight the unexpected and showcase the resourceful ways in which people have solved problems. • Example: Jared's weight loss story in Subway ads told of a life and death struggle of a young man who overcame all odds and achieved a great success, and Subway's sales increased 18%.

Pre-Primary Period (Surfacing)

• Surfacing: The period when candidates announce their intentions to run and enter the race. • Goals and tasks: -Gain name recognition; persuade the public they are serious contenders. -Build a campaign organization. -Engage in expected political rituals such as announcing their candidacy. -Raise money. -Establish relationships with media figures to set themselves apart from their competitors.

To understand enthymemes, we must begin with syllogisms

• Syllogisms are forms of reasoning that begin with a major premise, add a minor premise, and arrive at a conclusion. The most famous one states: • Major premise: All men are mortal. • Minor premise: Socrates is a man. • Conclusion: Socrates is mortal. • Enthymemes suppress one or more of the parts of the syllogism, leaving it for the audience to fill in themselves. They are effective persuasively, because the audience does the work to, in effect, persuade itself.

Strategic Planning: A 3-Step Process (Step 3)

• Test-Marketing and Revision -Now that I've prepared the presentation, what do the sorts of people I want to persuade think of it? Have I created the "right" message after all? -Assuming that there are problems (or missed opportunities) in my initial strategizing, how can I best revise my plans?

Reasoning & Evidence (Intro: The Brady Bill)

• The Brady Bill was named in honor of James Brady, former press secretary to Ronald Reagan, who was shot and seriously wounded by John Hinckley, Reagan's would-be assassin. • It required background checks (now standard) and a ban on assault weapons (now lapsed). • James and Sarah Brady have fought tirelessly for gun control.

In Summary

• The alternative to mindful processing, according to Cialdini, involves reliance on a variety of external cues and automatic, information-processing mechanisms, including the none-too-reliable filter of evaluative consistency. • Have you been influenced by the seven principles Cialdini discusses? Are you persuaded by his analysis of persuasion?

In Summary (Ch. 9)

• The first rule is to formulate both substantive and relational goals and think strategically about how to achieve those goals in tandem. • Persuasive presentations should combine genuine commitment with the necessary craft skills. • Preparation begins by deciding on a general topic, gathering materials, coming to judgment, and formulating substantive and relational goals for the audience as a whole and perhaps for different audience segments. • The next step is to organize the message, being sure in the introduction to build rapport with the audience, gain members' attention, and orient them as needed to topic, thesis, background information, and the like. • The body of the message should build around main points that are clearly tied to the thesis, with each point named, explained, supported, and concluded (NESC). • The conclusion should be brief if the only purpose is to sway opinion, longer to mobilize the audience for action.

What about Commodities?

• The items we buy serve two functions: 1. They exist to satisfy our immediate needs for things such as food and shelter. 2. They mark out our interpersonal distinctions—they demonstrate things such as our status, power, or rank in social groups. • Advertising and marketing serve, primarily, to educate and persuade us about the best products to meet those physical needs and mark out our status.

Principle 1: Contrast

• The order of occurrence of a social stimuli can make a difference in how we perceive it. • Clothing sales personnel are instructed to attempt to sell an expensive suit first and then offer a comparatively inexpensive item, rather than the other way around. Even a moderately priced sweater may seem affordable by comparison. Were the salesperson to sell the sweater first, the cost of the suit might well seem exorbitant

Five Phases of Consumer Culture and Advertising

• The phases: idolatry, iconology, narcissism, totemism, and mise-en-scéne. • Stages do not replace one another; instead, new modes of advertising are added to the old. • Techniques that mark each stage are periodically revived and discarded as advertisers adjust in their ever-present need to engage the consumer.

Stock Issue 4: Freedom from Greater Evil

• The proposed policy must offer the most advantages and the fewest disadvantages. • An operation performed by a doctor on an elderly patient might be successful, but will be rejected if it creates new and dangerous problems for the patient.

Stock Issue 5: Having superiority relative to other possible solutions

• The proposed solution must be the best available solution. • A brand-new Lexus might handily satisfy a driver's needs, but its costs may render it the less optimum choice.

Critique of Cialdini: Issue 2 - Contradictory Tensions Between Principles

• There exists a tension, and maybe even a contradiction, between categories. For example, are we persuaded by our peers, our equals, those we admire, and those who are most like us? Or are those who are most different from us the strongest persuaders? • Particular problems exist with the door-in-the-face (DITF) technique (discussed under the heading of reciprocity) and the foot-in-the-door (FITD) technique (discussed under the heading of consistency). The door-in-the-face strategy turns the foot-in-the-door strategy on its head.

The "burdens" placed on persuaders:

• Those who want change, such as prosecutors in a law court, have the burden of demonstrating that something is seriously wrong with the system or policy. This is called the burden of proof. • Defenders of the status quo have a lesser obligation, called the burden of refutation.

Sarah Brady

• Through sharing vignettes about her life, Sarah Brady has become super-representative of her audience. • She employs enthymematic arguments. -An enthymeme invites the reader to supply and endorse premises that are missing from the argument but left implicit. It is a truncated argument that rests on a premise or premises it assumes its audience will accept.

Principle 4: Social Proof

• We determine what is correct by finding out what other people think is correct. • Canned laughter on television sitcoms, tip jars in bars that are "salted" with a couple of dollars in advance of the arrival of customers, salted collection boxes in church, "everybody's doing it" appeals in ads, and product testimonials by satisfied customers are all examples. • But, negative examples: Jonestown, Catherine Genovese.

Third: Sticky Ideas are Concrete

• We make our ideas clear by explaining them "in terms of human actions, in terms of sensory information." • Example: in 1968, Iowa teacher Jane Elliot sought to make prejudice tangible: -She divided the class into brown- and blue-eyed groups, and told the brown-eyed children that they were superior and smarter. -Brown-eyed students got rewards and extra recess, while blue-eyed students had to wear special collars and sit in the back. -Very quickly, friendships dissolved and the children became nasty, vicious, and discriminatory.

Fifth, Sticky Ideas are Emotional

• We need to get people to care about our ideas. • Example: People donate more to "Save the Children" when they read about a specific child. • Example: Anti-smoking ads with body bags worked because the ads were more memorable and included the strong emotional component of suggesting that teens were rebelling against "The Man," or Big Tobacco, by choosing not to smoke.

Principle 5: Liking

• We're more open to persuasion from those we like. • Consider the example of Joe Gerard, the world's "greatest car salesman," who each year sent out holiday cards to 13,000 former customers with nothing else printed on them but his name and the words "I like you." His customers liked getting them.

Types of Campaigns

• Well-funded campaigns (political, corporate) that can spend money to reach their intended target. • "Health" campaigns that have public opinion behind them. • Social movement campaigns that typically lack legitimacy at their onset. • Indoctrination campaigns that are often defined through the eye of the beholder. • Do public schools engage in long-term indoctrination campaigns? • Do we fear "deviant" groups that propose ideologies and beliefs outside the "mainstream"?

Propositions of value: What is good or bad. (Open to debate!)

• Widening the gap between the rich and the poor is immoral. • It's not the government's job to regulate morals. • Basketball is more fun to watch than baseball.

Primary Election Period (Winnowing)

• Winnowing: The period when the candidates seek the nomination of their party. • Goals and tasks: -Engage Primary voters, who are more partisan and politically active. -Test the campaign messages and adjust; use the winnowing phase as "Spring Training" -Adapt to the task of running against a fellow party member, who may end up being the nominee; seek votes while not supplying negative attacks that the opposing party can use in the general election.

What is Advertising?

• Woodward and Denton's four characteristics: 1. Advertising is paid. The message is shared as a result of financial payment. 2. Advertising is non-personal and presentational, distinct from face-to-face sales presentations. 3. Advertising messages are concerned with the presentation of ideas, products, and services. 4. Sponsors of advertising messages are identified. Sponsorship identification contributes to message accountability and financial responsibility. • We can define advertising as: structured communication by identified groups, industries, or individuals, usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature, that adapts to various media to promote products, services, people, or ideas to targeted audiences. • This definition recognizes that: -Advertising is rhetorical: It must consider audience. -Advertising can be interpersonal: We can advertise ourselves. -Advertising must adapt to the diversity of contemporary media, and messages must fit the limits and possibilities each medium provides

Stock Issue 2: Workability

• Workability involves the commonsense assumption that the solution would fit the need or problem. • Rather than buying a new car when the old one gets a flat tire, a car owner is more likely to repair or replace the flat tire.