|
|
| The
Yale Approach |
The Yale Approach - Overview
Speaker
Message:
- Message
Organization
- Message Content
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Yale Approach
Glossary
References
Self-test
|
Message
Messages can be divided into two
basic parts: organization and content. This section will
discuss message organization.
Message
Organization
The most basic question one can ask about organization is
whether it matters: Are organized speeches more persuasive
than disorganized ones? The
research evidence on this topic is pretty clear. Except for
simple and short discourses, organized messages are more
persuasive than disorganized ones. It should be obvious that
organization would probably help comprehension, but it might
also help with attention: Receivers might stop paying
attention to a message that was disorganized and difficult to
follow. However, investigations of organization did not stop
here. Research, like most textbooks on persuasive speeches,
has broken persuasive messages into three parts: introduction,
main body, and conclusion.
Research on the introduction tends to focus on whether the
persuader should tell his or her audience that the message is
trying to change their minds (Benoit,
1998). This kind of
forewarning of persuasive intent can take two forms. First, an
introduction can inform or warn the audience that “I am
going to try to change your mind about what you should do
after graduating from high school” without giving any
specifics. This is called forewarning of persuasive intent. An
introduction can also warn auditors of the topic or position
of the persuasive message: “I am going to try to persuade
you that you should go to a trade school rather than
college.” Research
has found that either type of forewarning can reduce the
persuasiveness of a message, presumably because it places
audience members “on guard,” reducing their susceptibility
to persuasion. People often have a tendency to think that
their own beliefs and attitudes are right, so they may be more
closed-minded when they know someone is trying to change their
minds. While it is unwise to try misleading the audience about
the purpose of a persuasive message, it might be better simply
not to mention their purpose in the introduction. It seems
likely that messages that forewarn the audience are less
persuasive (than messages without warnings) because the
warning interferes with yielding. However, if the listener
knows the speech will promote an unpopular opinion, the
audience may ignore the message (attention).
The second (and largest) part of a persuasive message is the
main body. Research on this aspect of organization has studied
one-sided versus two-sided messages (Allen,
1998). But these
terms “one-sided” and “two-sided” can be misleading. A
“two-sided” speech is not a “pro/con” speech
that presents arguments in favor of one side and then gives
arguments on the other side, allowing the audience to make up
their own minds which side to accept. A two-sided approach
mentions (briefly) opposing viewpoints and then refutes or
attacks them, and also presents arguments supporting its own
viewpoint. A “one-sided” speech, in contrast, just gives
arguments for its point of view advocated in the message
without even acknowledging that some people disagree with that
point of view.
The research suggests that as long as the two-sided message
actually refutes the opposition (some weak “two-sided”
messages in these studies mentioned the opposition but
didn’t refute or attack the other side), two-sided messages
are more persuasive than one-sided messages. Most persuasion
occurs on controversial topics, where the audience may have
already heard the other side -- or they may hear the other
side soon. Refuting arguments from the opposition can weaken
that position, making your side more persuasive. Two-sided
messages may answer objections that might have kept the
audience from agreeing with the message. Thus, one-sided
messages may not create as much yielding as two-sided ones.
The final part of organization is a conclusion (Cruz,
1998).
Here the primary question is, should a persuader make his or
her conclusions explicit, so there is no question that the
audience will get the point?
Or should a persuader leave the conclusion implicit,
hoping that audience members will figure it out for themselves
-- and then will be more persuaded because they figured it out
for themselves rather than by being told the conclusion by the
persuader? In
general, it is better to make conclusions more explicit. The
effects of explicit conclusions are not huge, but they are
fairly consistent. Only if the persuader’s position is
already well-known to the audience is there an advantage to
keeping the conclusion implicit. Explicit conclusions probably
help most with comprehension of the message and perhaps with
retention as well.
Another topic that is often grouped with organization is
primacy versus recency. I already mentioned the fact that most
persuasion occurs on controversial topics, which means that
your audience might already have heard a different (opposing)
persuasive message on your topic. They might also hear an
opposing viewpoint after your message. Sometimes you have no
control over the order in which your audience hears these
messages. But what if you can chose when they will hear
or see your message? Primacy
versus recency addresses the question of whether it is better
to go first (primacy) or last (recency) in a series of
persuasive messages.
Research shows that there is not great advantage to going
either first or last (although if there are three or more
messages, those in the middle are less effective).
O’Keefe
explains that there is a slight primacy advantages to topics
that are controversial, interesting and familiar (1990).
Petty
and Cacioppo (1996)
add that the presence of a delay makes a
difference. If the second message immediately follows the
first, but then there is a delay before the audience takes
action, the first message tends to be more persuasive. If
there is a delay between the first and second messages, but
the audience acts immediately after the second message, the
final message is more persuasive. If there is no delay, or two
delays (between the messages and between the second
message and the action), there is no serious advantage. These
primacy and recency effects may be related to retention.
|
|
|
