4.3: Persuasive Strategies Related to the Message

A great deal of research has been done regarding the content of persuasive messages. Whole texts could be written on persuasive strategies relating to content. Below are some of the strategies supported by research. Although all of the tactics below have proven to be effective, some are deceptive and/or manipulative and should be avoided.

Start strong...or finish strong. Should a speaker start with their strongest points, evidence, or arguments (anti-climax order), or should a speaker build up to their strongest material (climax order)? "There might, on average, be some benefit from arranging arguments in a climax order, although likely so small as to be negligible” (O’Keefe 216). More importantly than order, then, is to have good evidence and strong arguments!

Be rational...or maybe not. As we learned in our material on rhetorical analysis, an effective persuader should know their audience as well as possible. We also learned in our communication theory material about the elaboration likelihood and systemic-heuristic models, which theorize that people are motivated to expend more effort to process messages and make judgments about argument quality if they are highly motivated and have the ability to do so. When audiences have low interest or low motivation, they tend not to carefully scrutinize or analyze a message; rather, they depend upon peripheral cues, such as associations with the product, the attractiveness of the presenter, the appeal of accompanying visuals, etc. People simply cannot critically analyze every message we perceive; we are bombarded with messages and we simply wouldn't have time to floss or fall in love or do the things that humans do! If your audience is highly motivated and has the ability to engage in a topic, the well-crafted argument and the evidence that supports it will likely receive the attention they deserve. If, however, your audience may have little interest or motivation to analyze a message, peripheral/heuristic cues like speaker attractiveness, emotional associations, or how those around them are reacting to the message.

We have nothing to fear...or do we? "In many persuasive contexts, message receivers are unable or unmotivated to effectively process rational appeals; in such cases, persuaders often turn to emotional persuasive appeals," in particular: fear (Demìrdögen 196). Overblown or over-exaggerated fear appeals are not effective because they are unrealistic. However, when researchers have manipulated fear successfully, high-fear appeals are more effective than low-fear appeals; more fear is better than less (Perloff 162). Kağıtçıbaşi points out that this changes if the listener or listeners lack self-confidence or are highly anxious. Highly confident people can better handle threatening messages and as a consequence are more open to their effects. People lacking in self-confidence are less equipped to handle fear-arousing messages and therefore more likely to ignore them (qtd. in Demìrdögen 197).

Tell your audience of your intent to persuade...if you're attractive. "In most persuasive messages, speakers do not explicitly convey their intention to persuade. However, [research] suggests that when the spokespersons used in an advertising campaign are physically attractive or otherwise likeable, the campaign might be made more effective if the spokespersons express their intentions" (Reinhard et al. 257). Attractive male and female salespersons induced more positive attitudes and stronger intentions to purchase a product when they explicitly stated their desire to influence potential buyers than those who did not (253).

Modality matters. Persuasion research on modality often examines three different modalities: visual messages, verbal messages, or a combination of the two: audiovisual messages (Gupta 48). In research relating to persuading children to choose healthy food options, it was found that multimodal/audiovisual presentations are more effective in influencing attitudes and creating healthy eating intentions in children compared to singular (visual-only) presentations (Charry 610). Due to the higher level of attention audiovisual messages create, Charry recommends that "screenwriters of popular programs should be advised to use audio-visual supports, not those that are merely visual, when integrating healthy food consumption messages into their shows for pre-adolescents” (611).

Take sides. "Sidedness" refers to whether a persuasive message is one-sided (containing only one point of view) or a two-sided message (containing pros and cons). Hovland's research found that one-sided messages were more persuasive to people who support the persuader's position, as well as with less educated audience members. For people who are more educated and audiences that are mixed or against the persuader's position, two-sided messages work best (Hovland et al. 225). Two-sided messages appear to be most effective over time, especially when people are opposed to the persuader’s point of view (Larson 87).

You've been framed. Check out this message, framed two different ways: "Doing your homework will improve your grade." Conversely: "Not doing your homework will diminish your grade." Gain-framed persuasive messages focus on the positives of compliance. Loss-framed messages focus on the disadvantages of non-compliance. The message framing effect has been studied extensively, particularly in health campaigns; e.g., the benefits of wearing sunscreen vs. the dangers of not wearing sunscreen; the benefits of eating fiber vs. the consequences of not eating enough fiber; the benefits of quitting smoking vs. the harm of not quitting, etc. The results are mixed; some studies show that loss-framed messages are more persuasive, often because fear arousal is so compelling, while other studies demonstrate that gain-framed messages are more persuasive. Still other studies found them equally persuasive (Nan 510). Nabi et al. (qtd. in Gass and Seiter 227) found that loss-framed messages tend to arouse negative emotions, while gain-framed messages tend to arouse positive emotions. The intensity of such emotions is associated with message effectiveness. Specifically, gain-framed messages become increasingly persuasive as positive emotions grow in intensity, while loss-framed messages become increasingly persuasive as negative emotions become more intense. "Practically speaking, then, if you want to be persuasive, try boosting people’s positive emotions when using gain-framed messages and amplifying their negative emotions when using loss-framed messages" (Gass and Seiter 227).

Know your sequencing techniques. Sometimes, persuasion is like Newton's first law of motion; just as an object in motion tends to stay in motion, a person who says yes tends to continue saying yes - even if a deal changes. This is where the message sequencing tactic of low-balling comes in. The common example of the lowballing technique is the car sale: a salesman offers a phenomenal deal on a car and the potential buyer jumps on the deal, only to be told that - oopsie - that particular car is no longer available, or that the original deal forgot to include the cost of some of the car's features, or even that the sales manager has rejected the deal and won't allow the sale to go forward. The original offer is taken back, and the new sale price is much higher. And quite often, the buyer agrees to the new deal. It appears that humans wish to maintain commitment and consistency; a personal commitment has the ability to "build its own support system, a support system of new justifications for the commitment" (Cialdini 99). People appear to "become committed to a choice through an initial inducement and [are] still more dedicated to it after the inducement is removed" (Cialdini 102). Because the low-balling technique is deliberately deceptive, it is an unethical or antisocial persuasion technique. But back to Newton's law regarding objects in motion: a very successful car salesman once told me that, whenever he greets car buyers, he immediately starts asking them questions that he knows will result in a "yes" answer, such as, "Nice day today, huh?" or "So, looking at cars today, huh?" He shared that if can keep prospective buyers answering in the affirmative, they are much more likely to purchase a car, which speaks to behavioral commitment and consistency.

Start small – and weird. Another common sequencing tactic is the foot-in-the-door approach "The idea behind it is to pose an auxiliary and comparatively easy request before the target request, which is considerably more difficult to comply with. A person who complies with the easy initial request will be more inclined to fulfill the subsequent target request. Existing evidence suggests that the foot-in-the-door technique is effective in producing enhanced compliance in many settings and in response to a wide range of requests" (Dolinsky 437). "Once conformity is elicited at all it is more likely to occur in the future" (Freedman and Fraser 196). Interestingly, some research suggests that the more unusual or unique the small, initial request, the more effective the foot-in-the-door technique is. " An unusual request—strange and unlikely to be encountered every day—captures the person’s attention, which under conditions of a lack of external justification for the reaction, can make the person more certain about his or her own predisposition to help others (Dolinsky 450). According to this technique, if you needed to ask your professor for an extension on an assignment, you would probably have a better chance of compliance if you made a smaller ask first, such as "Can I have a tissue, please?" Also according to this theory, your chances of getting the extension would be even higher if you made a somewhat unusual request, such as, "Can I have three tissues, please?" Like the low-balling technique, the foot-in-the-door tactic is considered suspect because it is deceptive and manipulative.

Or start really big. The door-in-the-face technique increases the likelihood that individuals will comply with a small target request after turning down a larger request (Genshow et al. e2). Cialdini et al. did research which supported this technique in 1975. In the study, student research assistants asked some participants only the smaller target request: would participants be willing to act as chaperones for a group of juvenile delinquents at a two-hour trip to the zoo? For the remaining participants, the research assistants would first ask a large request: whether participants would be willing to work voluntarily as a non-paid counselor at the County Juvenile Detention Center for two hours a week for two years. After participants declined the huge ask, and most of them did, the research assistants would then follow up with the smaller request about chaperoning at the zoo. Far more people agreed to the smaller request if they first declined the larger request (Cialdini et al. 206). The door-in-the-face technique is driven by reciprocity norms: "a shift from an extreme request to a smaller request is perceived as a concession from the requester. After rejecting the extreme request, participants may feel the need to reciprocate to this concession by accepting the subsequent smaller request" (Genshow et al. e5). Again, though, getting your friend to loan you her car by first asking for $600 to buy Taylor Swift tickets is deceptive, manipulative, and there, unethical.