Study Guide

Based on the book, there are several definitions provided regarding persuasion. In the case of the ancient Greeks, they called it rhetoric, which is defined as the faculty of observing in a given case the available means of persuasion. In regards to Aristotle, persuasion does consist of artistic and inartistic proofs. Aristotle claims that persuasion fails or succeed based on three types of artistic proofs including logos, pathos, and ethos. Kenneth Burke, the literary critic, and language theorists defined persuasion as being the artful use of resources of ambiguity that is revealed in an artistic format. From the different definitions provided by other people, persuasion is considered as the process of dramatic co-creation by the receivers and sources of a state of identification through the use of visual and verbal symbols. Based on this definition, persuasion does require the emotional and intellectual participation between the persuader and the audience which leads to shared meaning.

According to Larson, there are three criteria for responsible persuasion. The first is that both sides should have an equal opportunity of persuading and have the equivalent ability and access to the communication media. The second is that there should be the revelation of agendas. The third criterion is that there should be the presence of critical receivers and they test the evidence and assertion presented to them. They also look for information from all the side and will withhold the final judgment until when they have sufficient data (24).

The Rank’s model of persuasion is an analytical tool called the intensify/downplay model with the aim of helping one to become analytical and critical receives. The model tends to break the main categories to subparts where intensify include repetition, association, and composition.  Downplay does include omission, confusion, and diversion. In the intensify tactic, the persuader tends to intensify their strong points, and the persuader will intensify the weak points of the opposition. For the downplay tactics, the persuader downplays their weak points, and the persuader downplays the strong points of the opposition (31).

The responsibilities for persuasion include the element of fulfilling the duties and obligations, being accountable to other groups and individuals, and being accountable to the agreed-upon standards and one’s conscience. An important element of responsible communication for the receiver and the sender is exercising a thoughtful and deliberate judgment (44). 

The simplest model of communication is the SMCR model, and the elements include source, message, channel, and receiver. The model tends to be a visual representation of options that a person who wishes to convey information may use. The source is the encoder of the message, the message is meant to convey the meaning of the source through codes, the channel tends to carry the message, and the receiver is who decodes the message.

When making an ethical determination, there are six perspectives involved, which include the perspective of human nature, political perspective, religious perspective, legal perspectives, dialogical perspectives, and situational perspectives. The political perspectives do concern the explicit values and the accepted procedures as essential for the development and the health of the political and governmental systems (50). The religious perspective is based on the religious aspect that may be used in assessing the ethical of persuasion. The ethical judgment done through situational perspective is individually made based on each different context and the specific persuasive situation (51). The legal perspective involves the perception that an illegal human behavior is also immoral. The perspective of human nature normally identifies the unique characteristics of the human nature that might be employed as the standard for judging the ethical persuasion. The dialogical perspective normally defines the communication as dialogue claiming that the position of each participant in communication to others is its ethical level index.

Ethos, logos, and pathos are three artistic proofs that determine the success or failure of persuasion. Ethos refers to the credibility of the subject, logos do relate to the intellect or how to get the audience to be persuaded, and pathos tends to play to emotions of the audience (78). In Plato’s dialogic approach, Plato did believe that as humans, we tend not to see the absolute truth directly, but the indirect glimpses, images, and shadows of the truth. Based on Scott’s epistemic approach, it purports that although truth may be stable sometimes, it cannot be static in the ever-changing 24/7 multicultural world (80). Scott’s perspective does show why simply learning some tactics of persuasion is not enough for the students of communication.

According to Fisher’s narrative approach, humans tend to identify with values presented in a story, and they may understand an idea better when presented in the form of a narrative. Based on the approach, humans are easily persuaded by a story that they can relate to and find similar values. The narrative approach holds that persuasive communication should be argumentative in form and must be evaluated by standards of formal logic (83).

The Elaboration Likelihood model does deal with information processing, and it argues that we tend to use one or two channels in processing information. The channels include the peripheral processing route and the central processing route (97). The Heuristic-Systematic Model tends to suggest that attitudes may change in two different ways. One way is through the systematic processing where people think carefully about the available information, and the other is the heuristic route that involves the use of shortcuts (99). The attitude is then based on conclusions from the careful consideration of facts. The variable analytic approach does suggest that certain variables decrease or increase the likelihood of persuasion. Most of the variables have the established history of the impact over the past 50 years, and the most prominent ones are source effects and message effects (108).

The cognitive consistency theories tend to suggest that people normally perceive the environment in ways that are coherent and simple. The major cognitive consistency theories include balance theory, cognitive dissonance theory, congruence theory, affective-cognitive consistency model, and the strain toward symmetry.

According to Burke, he defined the function of language as being the symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that through nature responds to the symbols (128). Hoffer identifies that there are several unifying devices. The devices include hatred, persuasion and coercion, leadership, action, and suspicion. Imitation is about the adoption of the chanting, uniforms, and salutes that have been designed so as to convey acceptance. Hatred is most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents, the presence of a strong leader is essential in unification, the action involves some symbolic behavior, and suspicion is about people with fantasies that other people are trying to cause harm to them thus turn ideological campaigns for protection and support.

Reference

Larson, U. (2013). Persuasion: Reception & Responsibility. Belmont, CA: Thompson Higher Education

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in custom nursing papers if you need a similar paper you can place your order from custom nursing essay.