Category Archives: Persuasion

John Ruskin on Pride, with a note on persuasion.

19 Saturday Jan 2019

Posted by in Persuasion, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

(Again, I am working on an extended piece concerning persuasion. Here, again, are some very rough notes that will be worked in).

Here is an extended quotation from John Ruskin’s Sesame and Lillies, “Of King’s Treasuries. In this section he discuss the motivation of pride, to be over others as a driving force:

4. I am not about to attack or defend this impulse. I want you only to feel how it lies at the root of effort; especially of all modern effort. It is the gratification of vanity which is, with us, the stimulus of toil, and balm of repose; so closely does it touch the very springs of life that the wounding of our vanity is always spoken of (and truly) as in its measure mortal; we call it “mortification,” using the same expression whichwe should apply to a gangrenous and incurable bodily hurt. And although few of us may be physicians enough to recognize the various effect of this passion upon health and energy, I believe most honest men know, and would at once acknowledge, its leading power with them as a motive.

He then gives three examples of men who seek advancement for the status it brings; not because they believe themselves more capable:

The seaman does not commonly desire to be made captain only because he knows he can manage the ship better than any other sailor on board. He wants to be made captain that he may be called captain. The clergyman does not usually want to be made a bishop only because he believes no other hand can, as firmly as his, direct the diocese through its difficulties. He wants to be made bishop primarily that he may be called “My Lord.” And a prince does not usually desire to enlarge, or a subject to gain, a kingdom, because he believes that no one else can as well serve the State, upon its throne; but, briefly, because he wishes to be addressed as “Your Majesty,” by as many lips as may be brought to such utterance.

 

He then takes issue further than career: it is the impulse to be liked by the “best people” — it is the mechanism of social media in our time. The desire to be looked at by those whose attention we desire:

5. This, then, being the main idea of “advancement in life,” the force of it applies, forall of us, according to our station, particularly to that secondary result of such advancement which we call “getting into good society.” We want to get into good society,  not that we may have it, but that we may be seen in it; and our notion of its goodness depends primarily on its conspicuousness.

The original of this piece was as a speech, and so at this point Ruskin asks a question. He begins by stating the background: is the only motivation for human behavior acquisition and jealous — at least as for business:

Will you pardon me if I pause for a moment to put what I fear you may think an im- pertinent question? I never can go on with an address unless I feel, or know, that my audience are either with me or against me: I do not much care which, in beginning; but I must know where they are; and I would fain find out, at this instant, whether you think I am putting the motives of popular action too low. I am resolved, tonight, to state them low enough to be admitted as probable; for whenever, in my writings on Political Economy, I assume that a little honesty, or generosity — or what used to be called “virtue” — may be calculated upon as a human motive of action, people always answer me, saying, “You must not calculate on that: that is not in human nature: you must not assume anything to be common to men but acquisitiveness and jealousy; no other feeling ever has influence on them, except accidentally, and in matters out of the way of business.”

He posits a different motivation: love of praise:

I begin, accordingly, tonight low in the scale of motives; but I must know if you think me right in doing so. Therefore, let me ask those who admit the love of praise to be usually the strongest motive in men’s minds in seeking advancement, and the honest desire of doing any kind of duty to be an entirely secondary one, to hold up their hands. (About a dozen hands held up — the audience,partly not being sure the lecturer is serious, and, partly, shy of expressing opinion.) I am quite serious — I really do want to know what you think; however, I can judge by putting the reverse question.

He then puts this into context with duty:

Will those who think that duty is generally the first, and love of praise the second, motive, hold up their hands? (One hand reported to have been held up, behind the lecturer.) Very good; I see you are with me, and that you think I have not begun too near the ground. Now, without teasing you by putting farther question, I venture to assume that you will admit duty as at least a secondary or tertiary motive. You think that the desire of doing something useful, or obtaining some real good, is indeed an existent collateral idea, though a secondary one, inmost men’s desire of advancement. You will grant that moderately honest men desire place and office, at least in some measure, for the sake of beneficent power; and would wish to associate rather with sensible and well-informed persons than with fools and ignorant persons, whether they are seen in the company of the sensible ones or not.

While perhaps not every person finds praise a motivation; or perhaps not every person is affected by the same degree; here is a lever which moves many (if not all) men and women. People will do a great deal simply to be honored, respected, adored.

From this we can deduce that human beings are susceptible to be dragged about their love of praise (and its converse, the desire to not be mocked, attacked, excluded). We must realize two things: First, that we are susceptible ourselves. To think otherwise is to praise ourselves as somehow above other human beings. Second, we should become aware of how this love of praise is used as a weapon to persuade and motivate others.

As for the first: in the words of AA you will have to do your own “searching and fearless moral inventory” (I had to look it up to get the quote straight) on how praise affects you. It is a funny thing about praise — we want it dearly and yet will deny it when asked. It is a bashful desire.

But as for the second, think of how say advertisements work. While not the entire mechanism, there is always the implicit praise for the one who made the right choice. You don’t want to the shunned one who took the wrong vacation, wears the wrong clothes, et cetera. You want to be the person whom everyone praises as being the best: the most in style.

We find great value in praising the best team, the best movie, liking the best song — because then some of the aura of that well-praised person becomes ours by reflection. For example, a book is advertised as being a best-seller, the movie has a record breaking weekend, the song presented some fancy metal “record” award. We want to be part of that — we will buy so that we can partake in the adulation at a distance.

And here is what is funny: we think ourselves better for doing what “everyone” else is doing. Thus, we have a pride of superiority in being part of the crowd (and since when did the crowd know best?).

This persuasive ploy need not be extended or obvious. In fact, if it is too apparent, it will easily be off-putting. But, we smell out our own advancement so easily that we can find the least hint of praise hidden in the middle of a pitch. It is catnip.

Merely consider the advertisements and the pitches of politicians (politicians are the most wonderful of all salesmen, because they most often sell nothing at all; they waive promises, which cost them nothing to manufacture — yet they can sold at great cost).

 

Persuasion and discontentment

08 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by in Persuasion, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

[Working on a book about persuasion. Here are some notes from a section on sloth — and if you ask what does sloth have to do with persuasion ….]

Persuasion controls the will, it determines direction. Here among the Lotus-Eaters and the Soma takers we have ultimate persuasion: we have control without the least desire to determine otherwise.

Persuasion, at its most powerful, simply discounts all alternatives.  There is no outside to the world offered by the persuader – and if there were, one discounts it as meaningless and needless. There is a complete lethargy of will for anything new. It is the movie of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, which once viewed so overcomes the viewer that she never desires anything else.

Laziness requires this sort of drug: You cannot possibly do nothing and avoid boredom: boredom will send you searching for something.  An itchy boredom is an enemy of sloth, it sends outdoors looking.

Like Achean soldiers driven by nine-days’s wind to the land of the Lotus Eaters, the bored boy wanders about the Internet seeking to be devoured by distraction. Someone offers up some morsel which sufficient drags his affections, that he does nothing else.

This is the magic of consumerism. The advertiser dreams of a population strewn about like Lotus-Eaters, like soma guzzlers, happily taking what is offered  — indeed seeking out the lethargy – of ease and pleasure. The advertiser (and we cannot merely beat on the person selling snacks and t-shirts, we must give pride of place to politicians and hustlers) offers up some solution to boredom or discontent which when ingested makes one immune to any other offer (or at least until the soma is gone).

Not surprisingly, the first move of soma-seller is anxiety, boredom, discontent. You might think that the solution to soma is discontentment, restlessness: but that would be wrong. The opposite of lethargy is not anxiety. Rather, unsettled heart is the disease which soma seeks to solve.

Ennui and anxiety are far away from the land of happiness. The racing heart, unsettled sleep, inability to rest at ease: the litany of unpleasant sensations and thoughts which make up discontent drives one to seek a solution. The human being becomes a consumer, driven by desire: and thus driven, becomes prey.

A bird hunter walks across a field seeking to flush out birds. The bird, camouflaged  in the grass is quite safe until fear drives the bird into the air: there, seeking a solution to fear, the bird becomes prey. The politician drives up fear and envy: those people, rich or poor, native or foreign – someone other than you  is causing you unhappiness; something beyond your control causes your fear, but I will resolve you problems: just relax and give up and I, I the soma seller will ease your friends and give you rest.

 

Interesting Material is More Persuasive

05 Friday Oct 2018

Posted by in Persuasion, Psychology, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

I know it seems self evident that interesting material would be more persuasive, but someone went out an proved that point:

P. Karen Murphy and Patricia A. Alexander, “Persuasion as a Dynamic, Multidimensional Process: an Investigation of Individual and Intraindividual Differences,” American Educational Research Journal 41, no. 2 (Summer 2004): 337-63.

Definition of Persausion:

We speak of persuasion as an interactive process through which a given message alters an individual’s perspective by changing the knowledge, beliefs, or interest that underlie that perspective (Miller, 1980). Further a persuasive text is any message “structured to counter the current beliefs of a typical reader as well as to present new ones” by capitalizing on a reader’s existing knowledge and beliefs (Chambliss & Garner, 1996, p. 294). By defining persuasion and a persuasive text in this manner, we avoid casting this critical process in “all or nothing” terms (e.g., Hovland, Janis & Kelley, 1953). That is, we allow for incremental change that does not necessarily result in a radical or complete transformation in understanding or attitude. We also understand persuasion to be a mechanism for encouraging individuals to examine a concept or subject more closely or rom a different perspective. Such a process involves examining evidence that supports or refutes claims and critically weighing arguments (Toulmin, 1958). So defined, persuasion is neither inherently good nor evil, but a catalyst for thinking analytically about messages encountered by individuals (Alexander, Fives, Buehl & Mulhern, 2002; Hynd, 2001).

p. 338

Key elements:

Petty and Cacioppo (19860, among the most influential persuasion researchers, portray the interplay of credibility, emotions, and arguments as the keys to change.

p. 339

Peripheral and Central Route Processing:

According to Petty and Cacioppo’s (1986) Elaboration Likelihood Model, individuals process persuasive messages through two distinct routes: peripheral and central. Individuals who do not attend reflectively or critically to the persuasive arguments presented, but are captivated by the emotions of the situation or the character of the speaker, ravel the peripheral route. In contrast, individuals who weigh the argument thoughtfully and logically, are personally motivated, and cognitively able to attend to the message follow the central route. Although attitudinal change is expected from both paths, those who travel the central route are apt to experience deeper and more permanent effects than those who follow the more peripheral path to persuasion.

p. 339

A more able reader is more likely to be persuaded:

Moreover, it has been determined that individual’s ability to process a given message increases the likelihood that the message will prove persuasive. Consequently, those with greater comprehension skills are more apt to process the content of a persuasive message at a deeper level than those who comprehension skills are marginal or weak (Dole & Sinatra, 1998). Similarly, there is evidence that individuals who are more capable of retrieving relevant beliefs, whether in concert or in opposition to the author, are more likely to process the arguments presented, consequently are more likely to be persuaded (Wood & Kallgren, 1998).

p. 339.
Interesting material is more likely to persuade:

When readers are unable to grasp the meaning or perceive its relevance, they are unlikely to be persuaded.

p. 340

As mentioned previously, features of texts such as their interestingness, comprehensibility, and credibility have been shown to play a significant role in the persuasion process (e.g., Allen, 1991; Dole & Sinatra, 1998).

p. 341

We found that compelling articles, presented to readers in an unmodified state, performed well as catalysts for persuasion. As a result of reading these persuasive magazine articles, participants’ knowledge and interests grew and their beliefs became more like the beliefs advocated by the authors in the texts.

p. 359

Where the reader already has substantial knowledge, he is harder to persuade:

Second, we found that there was an inverse relationship between what individuals believe they know about a topic and the degree of agreement with the author they report after reading. In effect, it may be that too much topic-specific knowledge can be an impediment to change in beliefs.

p. 357

The More You Think, the Harder You are to Persuade

04 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by in Persuasion, Psychology, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

(Working on a book on persuasion — and how to avoid being manipulated — so I’ll be posting research notes here and there):

Quick summary: The more you know on a subject, the harder you are to persuade. Even a personal with “low bias” (you don’t care much) can become more resistant to persuasion if they are given time and encouraged to consider the matter seriously before they hear the argument.

Also it explains the nature of “peripheral” and “central route” persuasion:

Greg J. Neiymeyer et al., “Changing Personal Beliefs: Effects of Forewarning, Argument Quality, Prior Basis and Personal Exploration,” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 10, no. 1 (1991): 1-20.

The basic tenant of ELM [Elaboration Likelihood Model] is that attitudes sometimes changes as a function of thoughtful consideration of relevant arguments and sometimes as a result of inferences based on the association of a position with various positive or negative cues (e.g., counselor credibility). According to the model, if the individual is motivated and able to do so, he or she will actively process and elaborate the persuasive appeal, relating to preexisting cognitive schemas and generating issue-relevant beliefs in support of, or opposed to, the advocated position. According to this orientation, persuasion should occur if the individual’s self-generated “cognitive responses” (i.e., thoughts) are predominately favorable, whereas resistance to persuasion should occur if they are primarily unfavorable (Ciadini, Petty & Cacioppo, 1981). In either event, the persuasion is said to have occurred thorugh the central route since it is through careful and diligent processing of the argument’s perceived merits that the individual forms his or her attitude.

In contrast, when individuals are either unmotiviated or are unable to scrutinize the message, their likelihood of actively processing and elaborating it is correspondingly reduced. In this case they may minimize cognitive effort by appealing instead to environmental cues associated with the message (e.g, the source credibility) to determine their attitudes. This peripheral route to persuasion should be more heaviliy utilized when the individual is distracted from listening to the message or relatively uninterested in its content. The fact that attitude change resulting from peripheral processing is less enduring and less predictive of actual behavioral change than what occurs through central route processing …..

Page 2.

The more you know about a subject, the harder you are to persuade:

On the other hand, those individuals with relatively few available thoughts in support of their position are mores susceptible to persuasion.

***

Researchers have long recognized that “one of the most important variables affecting information processing activity is the extent to which a person has an organized structure of knowledge (schema) concerning an issue” (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986, p. 165). In the case of high bias, individuals have well-articulated networks of preexisting proattitudinal attitudes, and it is precisely under these conditions that we would expect robust counterarguing and effective resistance to persuasion (cf., Ross, Lepper & Hubbard, 1975; Taylor & Fiske, 1984). This finding therefore supports the general conclusion that, “the more issue-relevant knowledge people have, the more they tend to be able to counterargue communications opposing their initial positions and to cognitively bolster (proargue) congruent messages” (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986, p. 165).

P. 15

They discovered that a low-bias person (someone with little concern) became more difficult to persuade when they forewarned about the argument that would be made & were given some time to consider the argument for themselves: which the researchers called “self-exploration”. The researchers were studying what would made someone coming into counseling more willing to change. A step in counseling could be ask the counselee to articulate their existing understanding and reasoning. If change is sought, this might make things more difficult, “The effects of reviewing and articulating self-relevant attitudes may be to render them more resistant to subsequent change.” P. 19

How Your Associations Effect the Way Others See You

23 Saturday Jun 2018

Posted by in Persuasion, Psychology, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

We are known by the company we keep: to be associated with another may raise or lower the opinions of others. Therefore, one important means of persuading others is to be aware of, and manage our connections to others

At the height of his wealth and success, the financier Baron de Rothschild was petition for a loan by an acquaintance. Reputedly the great man replied, “I won’t give you a loan myself; but I will walk arm-in-arm with you across the floor the Stock Exchange, and you will soon have willing lenders to spare.” Apparently the baron was wise in more than matter of finance. He understood and intriguing fact with the psychology of impression management: It is possible to influence how we are viewed by managing information about the people and things to whihc we are merely connected.

Robert B. Cialdini, “Beyond Basking: Indirect Techniques of Image Management,” in Impression Management in the Organization, ed. Robert A. Giacalone and Paul Rosenfeld (Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 1989), 45.

Cialdini then proceeds to offer 8 variations on this theme. First, we may wish to establish either a connection or distance from the “other”.  In these four instance, our connection is ambiguous, and thus we are seeking to making the connection — or lack thereof — clear. He labels these mechanisms as

Boasting: Proclaiming a Positive Link to a Favorable Other

Burying: Disclaiming a Positive Link to a Favorable Other

Blaring: Proclaiming a Negative Link to an Unfavorable Other

Blurring: Disclaiming a Negative Link to a Favorable Other

What of circumstances where we are unquestionably united to another, such as a business partner or family member? In these instances, we are not seeking to establish our tie to that person, but rather to effect the way the audience thinks about that person. These techniques he labels as

Burnishing: Enhancing the Favorable Features of a Positively Linked Other

(Our firm is the best!)

Boosting: Minimizing the Unfavorable Features of an Positively Linked Other
(my brother’s not that bad)

Blasting: Exaggerating the Unfavorable Features of Negatively Linked Other
(Yes, he doesn’t like me — but he’s a jerk.)

Belittling: Minimizing the Favorable Features of a Negatively Linked Other
(Sure, he doesn’t like me, but he’s not really that important)

You’re not as smart as the Internet makes you think you are

22 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by in Culture, Persuasion, Psychology, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

hqdefault

Journal of Experimental Psychology
2015, vol. 144, no. 3, 674-687
Matthew Fisher, Mariel K. Goddu, Frank C. Keil
“Searching for Explanations: How the Internet Inflates Estimates of Internal Knowledge”

Human beings can create systems for distributing tasks and information. Families and businesses do this sort of thing: work and information is distributed across all the members of the system. This permits the system to do more than any individual could do alone. Or to quote our authors,

By reducing redundancy, transactive memory systems work to encode, store and retrieve information more effectively than could be done by any individual.

Id., at p. 674. Now, our transactive partner in this memory storage and recall process could be a technological: indeed, the Internet has taken over as perhaps the primary source of information storage.

But the Internet goes far beyond what a spouse or business partner can provide in terms of information: it is always there, always ready, always responsive, nearly instantaneous and provides seemingly inexhaustible resources:

The Internet has been described as a “supernormal stimulus” in that its breadth and immediacy far surpass any naturally occurring transactive partner to which our minds have adapted.

Id. at p. 675. Thus, not surprisingly, the Internet has a profound effect upon how we understand our possession of knowledge. But rather than humbling us, the Internet plays to our pride and causes us to over-evaluate our self-understanding:

And in the case of the Internet, an especially immediate and ubiquitous memory partner, there may be especially large knowledge overestimations. As people underestimate how much they are relying on the Internet, success at finding information on the Internet may be conflated with personally mastered information, leading Internet users to erroneously include knowledge stored outside their own heads as their own.

Id. at p. 675.

The authors of the study note that there may be dangers in this freely accessible information. This unnoticed tendency to overestimate our intellectual abilities is coupled to a decreasing ability to retain and access “internal” information.

To draw this point out further, the Internet seems to have the ability to make us increasingly vulnerable to information: (1) we have decreasing ability to critique this information (granted the question of critique was not tested in the study, however, that seems like an inherent trouble with an atrophied cognitive mechanism: one merely “finds” the information, rather than segregates the information; and, the hideous ability to manipulate public opinion almost instantly through the “news” media seems proof of this point); and (2) when we ingest this information we are not realizing that it was sourced outside of ourselves, but rather come to believe that this is our “own” information.