We live in a world of persuasion. What do we mean by that? Stop for a moment and try to remember all the decisions you have made today. What did you have for breakfast? Which coffee or tea brand did you drink? Which toothpaste brand did you use? Did you remember to bring your face mask before leaving home? If you met with your colleague, partner, sibling or friend, whose idea was it where to meet? Did you have some influence on their decision?
Simply speaking, we make thousands of such decisions every day. In fact, it seems that an average adult makes about 35 000 conscious decisions daily (with 226 on food alone). So how did you actually make the decisions from the questions above? For example, did you choose the specific cereals, tea or toothpaste brands that stand for quality? With this blog post we will explore how people use messages to influence each other in everyday life. In other words, we will discover the field of persuasion!
Persuasion – what it is?
Imagine you are a psychology student who needs to hand in the paper tomorrow on the topic of acceptance. For the past week you were very busy volunteering at a local human rights festival. The volunteering took you a much longer time than you expected, but it was a great learning experience. At the same time, you focused on writing the paper and you felt you had enough time for it. Still, you are here today, and you realize you cannot make it in time.
One way of dealing with such an uncomfortable situation is to drink a lot of coffee and write without stopping. The other way is to ask your professor for an extension. You can try sending him/her an email explaining the situation (probably would be good to emphasize that the volunteering was a great experience for personal and professional growth) and asking to accept the paper after the due date. The second option is just one of many examples of persuasion – the art and science of playing with attitudes.
Let’s dig into that
The easiest way to define persuasion is “the use of messages to influence an audience.” In other words, it is as a process of convincing others and eventually changing their point of view. Persuasion occurs in a variety of everyday situations – e.g. parents could persuade us to clean our room or we could persuade our parents to let us use the car. During a job interview we are persuading an employer to offer us a job.
The art of convincing is also pretty prevalent in the world of business. Just think of how companies persuade us to buy their products through the advertisements in newspapers, TV or the internet. Persuasion is very dynamic, and it works in both ways – sometimes we can try to influence others, and sometimes it is the others who can try to persuade us.
What attitudes have to do with it?
With persuasion we aim to make a change in people’s attitudes towards a certain object. We can form an attitude toward a variety of concrete and abstract objects – sandwich, volunteering, politicians, feminism, Lady Gaga. Attitudes take a long time to form and it also makes them relatively stable, which makes it hard to persuade.
Still, there’s good news. As attitudes are formed through experience and the fact that they are acquired also means they can be changed. It just takes a bit of effort to do it in the right way. Sometimes there is a thin line between persuasion and a threat. When we aim to convince people to do something, it is to encourage them to do it because they “want” it, and not because they “must” do it.
Persuasion is a process, and we can say it goes through steps. The more effort we put in each of the steps, the easier it is to influence the attitudes. It starts with the source (the person persuading) who wants to achieve the goal – something we do not already have. Then we use messages which we direct to the audience that could help us achieve our goal. Pretty simple, right?
Let’s see how these steps apply to the psychology student we have mentioned in one of the previous paragraphs. The desperate student is a source who wants to ask for a paper deadline extension (the goal). The student decided to write an email with several pretty good reasons why he/she was late (the message). The last step is to find the right audience, and in this case it was the professor. Try thinking of the last time you managed to change someone’s mind or vice versa? Can you recognize the steps in the process?
How can I improve my persuasion skills?
We all have our strengths and weaknesses, and the same applies to the field of persuasion. Some of us can easily influence others (e.g. negotiating a salary), while others have a hard time doing it. Luckily, persuasion is a competence that can be taught and improved. If you would like to improve the results of your persuasion process, here are some useful hints and tips:
– You (source) will be more likely to persuade others if they perceive you as an expert in the field. It is known as the ‘speaker credibility’. Closely related to it is the aspect of trustworthiness. People are more likely to be persuaded by the words of the experts because they simply trust their sources more. In 2020 the whole world started being more cautious about aspects such as hand washing and social distancing.
Such recommendations for the protective behavior were and still are accepted because they usually came from the medical experts. The epidemiologists around the world provided the people (audience) with a variety of persuasive messages. An example of such a message is the risk of getting infected if we do not wear the mask. People would ignore the same information if it came from a random TV presenter.
– More organized speeches (messages) are more persuasive than the disorganized ones. The message that is clear to understand and follow helps to maintain the attention of our audience. Some of the ways to organize your persuasive message include slowing down when explaining important concepts and using the bullet points. It is also important to keep the content in mind – one suggestion is to start your message with an aspect that the audience agrees with. It is also good to use statistics and quotes on the arguments, so we maintain the speaker’s credibility.
Some final persuasive words
Persuasion is a complex process, and it requires some practice to be successful in it. Still, working on it can provide us with a wide range of transferable skills, including improved decision making, assertive communication, debate and presentation skills. The best thing about persuasion is that it is a skill that can be learned and improved.
The main goal of persuasion is to influence someone, but it should not be confused with manipulation. While manipulation is often misleading and aims to control others, persuasion also considers the benefits of the audience. The art of playing with attitudes is the most efficient and enjoyable when we are empathetic and honest. So, how will you improve your persuasion skills starting from today?