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The
Nature of Attitudes and Persuasion
What is Persuasion?
Why Study Persuasion?
Persuasion as an Alternative to Apathy or Coercion
The Nature of Attitudes
The Process of Persuasion
Glossary
Additional
Readings
Self-Test
Persuasion
as an Alternative to Apathy
or Coercion
Not
only is persuasion present almost everywhere in human social
activity, but persuasion can be a positive force. Persuasion
can be understood as a means to accomplishing something
you (the persuader) want. If there is a goal that you want to
accomplish -- to get someone to go to a particular movie, to
change your grade, to be hired for a job, to have your
suggestion included in a report, to get a customer to buy your
company’s product, to encourage someone to vote for you --
that depends on the actions of others. To obtain the
cooperation of other people you have only a few basic choices.
First, you can do nothing (apathy), ignoring your wants,
needs, and desires -- or hoping someone else will notice what
you want and spontaneously comply with your wishes. Doing
nothing gives up control of your own life, allowing your want
to go unmet, or met only at the whim of others. This approach
(well, really a non-approach) is not likely to be very
satisfying or very effective. Of course, there are times when
we must realize that what we want is impossible or
impractical, and asking for it can be a waste of time. It can
even be counterproductive if we make obviously unreasonable
requests, or if we make reasonable requests to those who we
know are obviously unreasonable people. So, while there are
specific situations in which it is better to do nothing, as a general
strategy for trying to achieve our wants doing nothing is
simply not very productive.
Second, you can use force, violence, or threats (coercion) to
get your own way. Assuming you have both the ability and the
willingness to punish (threaten, hurt) others, it can be a way
to get what you want. However, coercion is also not a highly
recommended method of getting what you want. Obviously, there
can be legal and/or moral problems with using force to get
others to comply with our wishes. Furthermore, it can cause
others to be difficult or slow in satisfying our demands, to
do a poor job on purpose, and to dislike us and possibly
retaliate against us. Creating bad feelings can be especially
unfortunate if we have to work with those whom we are
coercing. Coercion may work at times -- although some people
just become obstinate in the face of threats -- but it isn’t
likely to be pleasant. Furthermore, if you lose power or
can’t observe others’ behavior to make certain they
comply, threats can be ineffectual.
Third, one can use persuasion to try to satisfy wants and
needs. It is far more likely to succeed than doing nothing
(apathy). It may not always work -- but even coercion does not
always work, and this book is about things you can do to make
your attempts at persuasion more likely to be successful. More
importantly, when it does work the people we persuade
will cooperate willingly. This will make us more popular (or
less despised) than if we had used coercion. And if others are
doing what we want them to do willingly, they may do a better
job than when they are being coerced.
So, not only is persuasion everywhere, but it is one of only
three basic options for getting others to help satisfy our
needs, wants, and desires. Arguably, persuasion is the best
way for us to obtain the cooperation of others in achieving
our goals. Persuasion is a way for us to exert influence or
control over our own lives, so we have some measure of
control rather than feeling helpless. Of course, like any
other tool, it is not always appropriate. Sometimes we have
authority over others and giving them an order, with its
implicit threat for noncompliance, is the best thing to so.
Persuasion can be abused, as demagogues like Hitler and con
artists who trick the elderly out of their life savings show.
Still, it can be used for good as well as evil -- and it can
be used against con artists and demagogues -- and it is
usually better than the alternatives for getting our own way.
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