In the Activity titled “Persuasive Speaking,” examine Figure 3.1. Imagine a scenario (different than the one given in the reading) where you try to convince a group of people to do something. Apply the different latitudes in Figure 3.1. to the reactions people might have to your talk. Why would they have these reactions? Explain in your own words what this has to do with persuasion.
Persuasive Speaking
Introduction
What is persuasive speaking? Why would it be necessary to persuade
an audience, and how would you go about doing this? Read this
section to learn more about this effective form of oral
communication.
To Persuade
The second general purpose people can have for speaking is
to persuade. When we speak to persuade, we attempt to get
listeners to embrace a point of view or to adopt a behavior that they
would not have otherwise. A persuasive speech can be distinguished
from an informative speech by the fact that it includes a call for
action for the audience to make some change in their behavior or
thinking.
Why We Persuade
The reasons behind persuasive speech fall into two main categories,
which we will call “pure persuasion” and “manipulative
persuasion.” Pure persuasion occurs when a speaker urges listeners
to engage in a specific behavior or change a point of view because
the speaker truly believes that the change is in the best interest of
the audience members. For example, you may decide to give a
speech on the importance of practicing good oral hygiene because
you truly believe that oral hygiene is important and that bad oral
hygiene can lead to a range of physical, social, and psychological
problems. In this case, you as the speaker have no ulterior or hidden
motive (e.g., you are not a toothpaste salesperson).
Manipulative persuasion, on the other hand, occurs when a speaker
urges listeners to engage in a specific behavior or change a point of
view by misleading them, often to fulfill an ulterior motive beyond
the face value of the persuasive attempt. We call this form of
persuasion manipulative because the speaker is not being honest
about the real purpose for attempting to persuade the audience.
Ultimately, this form of persuasion is perceived as highly dishonest
when audience members discover the ulterior motive. For example,
suppose a physician who also owns a large amount of stock in a
pharmaceutical company is asked to speak before a group of other
physicians about a specific disease. Instead of informing the group
about the disease, the doctor spends the bulk of his time attempting
to persuade the audience that the drug his company manufactures is
the best treatment for that specific disease.
Obviously, the key question for persuasion is the speaker’s intent. Is
the speaker attempting to persuade the audience because of a
sincere belief in the benefits of a certain behavior or point of view?
Or is the speaker using all possible means—including distorting the
truth—to persuade the audience because he or she will derive
personal benefits from their adopting a certain behavior or point of
view? Unless your speech assignment specifically calls for a speech of
manipulative persuasion, the usual (and ethical) understanding of a
“persuasive speech” assignment is that you should use the pure form
of persuasion.
Persuasion: Behavior Versus Attitudes, Values, and Beliefs
Persuasion can address behaviors—observable actions on the part of
listeners—and it can also address intangible thought processes in the
form of attitudes, values, and beliefs.
When the speaker attempts to persuade an audience to change
behavior, we can often observe and even measure how successful
the persuasion was. For example, after a speech attempting to
persuade the audience to donate money to a charity, the charity can
measure how many donations were received. The following is a short
list of various behavior-oriented persuasive speeches we have seen in
our own classes: washing one’s hands frequently and using hand
sanitizer, adapting one’s driving habits to improve gas mileage, using
open-source software, or drinking one soft drink over another. In all
these cases, the goal is to make a change in the basic behavior of
audience members.
The second type of persuasive topic involves a change in attitudes,
values, or beliefs. An attitude is defined as an individual’s general
predisposition toward something as being good or bad, right or
wrong, negative or positive. If you believe that dress codes on college
campuses are a good idea, you may want to give a speech persuading
others to adopt a positive attitude toward campus dress codes.
A speaker can also attempt to persuade listeners to change some
value they hold. Value refers to an individual’s perception of the
usefulness, importance, or worth of something. We can value a
college education, we can value technology, and we can value
freedom. Values, as a general concept, are fairly ambiguous and tend
to be very lofty ideas. Ultimately, what we value in life actually
motivates us to engage in a range of behaviors. For example, if you
value protecting the environment, you may recycle more of your
trash than someone who does not hold this value. If you value family
history and heritage, you may be more motivated to spend time with
your older relatives and ask them about their early lives than
someone who does not hold this value.
Lastly, a speaker can attempt to persuade people to change their
personal beliefs. Beliefs are propositions or positions that an
individual holds as true or false without positive knowledge or proof.
Typically, beliefs are divided into two basic categories: core and
dispositional. Core beliefs are those that people have actively
engaged in and created over the course of their lives (e.g., belief in a
higher power, belief in extraterrestrial life forms). Dispositional
beliefs, on the other hand, are beliefs that people have not actively
engaged in; they are judgments based on related subjects, which
people make when they encounter a proposition. Imagine, for
example, that you were asked the question, “Can gorillas speak
English?” Although you may never have met a gorilla or even seen
one in person, you can make instant judgments about your
understanding of gorillas and fairly certainly say whether you believe
that gorillas can speak English.
When it comes to persuading people to alter beliefs, persuading
audiences to change core beliefs is more difficult than persuading
audiences to change dispositional beliefs. If you find a topic related
to dispositional beliefs, using your speech to help listeners alter their
processing of the belief is a realistic possibility. But as a novice public
speaker, you are probably best advised to avoid core beliefs.
Although core beliefs often appear to be more exciting and
interesting than dispositional ones, you are very unlikely to alter
anyone’s core beliefs in a five to ten minute speech.
Sample: Jessy Ohl’s Persuasive Speech
The following speech was written and delivered by an undergraduate
student named Jessy Ohl. Keep in mind that, instead of a script or full
sentence outline like this, you will speak from a speaking outline and
notes when you deliver your presentation for your Final Assessment.
You will submit a full sentence outline as well.
Take a few minutes and compare this persuasive speech to the
informative speech Ms. Ohl presented in the Informative Speaking
section. What similarities do you see? What differences do you see?
Does this speech seek to change the audience’s behavior? Attitudes?
Values? Dispositional or core beliefs? Where in the speech do you see
one or more calls for action?
“With a declining population of around 6,000, my home town of
Denison, Iowa, was on the brink of extinction when a new industry
rolled in bringing jobs and revenue. However, as the Canadian Globe
and Mail of July 23, 2007, reports, the industry that saved Denison
may ultimately lead to its demise.
Denison is one of 110 communities across the country to be
revolutionized by the production of corn ethanol. Ethanol is a high-
powered alcohol, derived from plant matter, that can be used like
gasoline. According to the Omaha World Herald of January 8, 2008,
our reliance on foreign oil combined with global warming concerns
have many holding corn ethanol as our best energy solution. But
despite the good intentions of helping farmers and lowering oil
consumption, corn ethanol is filled with empty promises. In fact,
the Des Moines Register of March 1, 2008, concludes that when
ethanol is made from corn, all of its environmental and economic
benefits disappear. With oil prices at $100 per barrel, our nation is in
an energy crisis, and luckily, the production of ethanol can be a major
help for both farmers and consumers, if done correctly.
Unfortunately, the way we make ethanol—over 95% from corn—is
anything but correct. Although hailed as a magic bullet, corn ethanol
could be the worst agricultural catastrophe since the Dust Bowl.
The serious political, environmental, and even moral implications
demand that we critically rethink this so-called yellow miracle by:
first, examining the problems created by corn ethanol; second,
exploring why corn ethanol has gained such power; and finally,
discovering solutions to prevent a corn ethanol disaster.
Now, if you have heard anything about the problems of corn ethanol,
it probably dealt with efficiency. As the Christian Science Monitor of
November 15, 2007, notes, it takes a gallon of gasoline or more to
make a gallon of ethanol. And while this is an important concern,
efficiency is the least of our worries. Turning this crop into fuel
creates two major problems for our society: first, environmental
degradation; and second, acceleration of global famine.
First, corn ethanol damages the environment as much as, if not more
than, fossil fuels. The journal Ethanol and Bio-diesel News of
September 2007 asserts that the production of corn ethanol is
pushing natural resources to the breaking point. Since the Dust Bowl,
traditional farming practices have required farmers to “rotate” crops.
But with corn ethanol being so profitable, understandably, farmers
have stopped rotating crops, leading to soil erosion, deforestation,
and fertilizer runoff—making our soil less fertile and more toxic. And
the story only gets worse once the ethanol is manufactured.
According to National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation of February
10, 2008, corn ethanol emits more carbon monoxide and twice the
amount of carcinogens into the air as traditional gasoline.
The second problem created from corn ethanol is the acceleration of
global famine. According to the U.S. Grains Council, last year, 27
million tons of corn, traditionally used as food, was turned into
ethanol, drastically increasing food prices. The March 7, 2007, issue
of The Wall Street Journal explains that lower supplies of corn
needed for necessities such as farm feed, corn oil, and corn syrup
have increased our food costs in everything from milk to bread, eggs,
and even beer as much as 25%. The St. Louis Post Dispatch of April
12, 2007, reports that the amount of corn used to fill one tank of gas
could feed one person for an entire year. In October, Global protests
over corn ethanol lead the United Nations to call its production “a
crime against humanity.
If you weren’t aware of the environmental or moral impacts of corn
ethanol, you’re not alone. The Financial Times of May 27, 2007,
reports that the narrative surrounding corn ethanol as a homegrown
fuel is so desirable that critical thinking is understandably almost
nonexistent. To start thinking critically about corn ethanol, we need
to examine solutions on both the federal and personal levels.
First, at the federal level, our government must end the ridiculously
high subsidies surrounding corn ethanol. On June 24, 2007,
the Washington Post predicted that subsidies on corn ethanol would
cost the federal government an extra $131 billion by 2010.
This isn’t to say that the federal government should abandon small
farmers. Instead, let’s take the excitement around alternative fuels
and direct it toward the right kinds of ethanol. The Economist of June
2, 2007, reports that other materials such as switch grass and wood
chips can be used instead of corn. And on July 6, 2011, the New York
Times reported on ethanol made from corn cobs, leaves, and husks,
which leaves the corn kernels to be used as food. The government
could use the money paid in subsidies to support this kind of
responsible production of ethanol. The point is that ethanol done
right can honestly help with energy independence.
On the personal level, we have all participated in the most important
step, which is being knowledgeable about the true face of corn
ethanol. However, with big business and Washington proclaiming
corn ethanol’s greatness, we need to spread the word. So please, talk
to friends and family about corn ethanol while there is still time.
Additionally, please contact your congressional representatives and
encourage them to seek opportunities to invest in switch grass and
wood ethanol.
Today, we examined the problems of corn ethanol in America and
discovered solutions to make sure that our need for energy reform
doesn’t sacrifice our morality. Iowa is turning so much corn into
ethanol that soon the state will have to import corn to eat. And while
my hometown of Denison has gained much from corn ethanol, we all
have much more to lose from it.”
Persuasive Speaking
Foundations of Persuasion
Persuasive public speaking attempts to change the audience’s point
of view.© Michael Blann/Digital Vision/Thinkstock
Every day we are bombarded by persuasive messages. Some
messages are mediated and designed to get us to purchase specific
products or vote for specific candidates, while others might come
from our loved ones and are designed to get us to help around the
house or join the family for game night. Whatever the message being
sent, we are constantly being persuaded and persuading others. In
this section, we are going to focus on persuasive speaking. We will
first talk about persuasion as a general concept. We will then
examine four different types of persuasive speeches, and finally, we
will look at three organizational patterns that are useful for
persuasive speeches.
Persuasion: An Overview
A number of strategies are available to help speakers be more
persuasive in their presentations.© Stockbyte/Thinkstock
In his text The Dynamics of Persuasion: Communication and Attitudes
in the 21st Century, Richard Perloff (2003, pp. 5–6) noted that the
study of persuasion today is extremely important for five basic
reasons:
1. The sheer number of persuasive communications has
grown exponentially.
2. Persuasive messages travel faster than ever before.
3. Persuasion has become institutionalized.
4. Persuasive communication has become more subtle
and devious.
5. Persuasive communication is more complex than ever
before.
In essence, the nature of persuasion has changed over the past 50
years as a result of the influx of various types of technology. People
are bombarded by persuasive messages in today’s world, so thinking
about how to create persuasive messages effectively is very
important for modern public speakers. A century (or even half a
century) ago, public speakers had to contend only with the words
printed on paper for attracting and holding an audience’s attention.
Today, public speakers must contend with laptops, netbooks, iPads,
smartphones, billboards, television sets, and many other tools that
can send a range of persuasive messages immediately to a target
audience. Thankfully, scholars who study persuasion have kept up
with the changing times and have found a number of persuasive
strategies that help speakers be more persuasive.
What Is Persuasion?
Persuasion is an attempt to get a person to behave in a manner, or
embrace a point of view related to values, attitudes, and beliefs, that
he or she would not have done otherwise.
Change Attitudes, Values, and Beliefs
The first type of persuasive public speaking involves a change in
someone’s attitudes, values, and beliefs. An attitude is defined as an
individual’s general predisposition toward something as being good
or bad, right or wrong, or negative or positive. Maybe you believe
that local curfew laws for people under age 21 are a bad idea, so you
want to persuade others to adopt a negative attitude toward such
laws.
You can also attempt to persuade an individual to change her or his
value toward something. Value refers to an individual’s perception of
the usefulness, importance, or worth of something. We can value a
college education, technology, or freedom. Values, as a general
concept, are fairly ambiguous and tend to be very lofty ideas.
Ultimately, what we value in life actually motivates us to engage in a
range of behaviors. For example, if you value technology, you are
more likely to seek out new technology or software on your own. On
the contrary, if you do not value technology, you are less likely to
seek out new technology or software unless someone, or some
circumstance, requires you to.
Lastly, you can attempt to get people to change their personal
beliefs. Beliefs are propositions or positions that an individual holds
as true or false without positive knowledge or proof. Typically, beliefs
are divided into two basic categories: core and dispositional. Core
beliefs are beliefs that people have actively engaged in and created
over the course of their lives (e.g., belief in a higher power, belief in
extraterrestrial life forms). Dispositional beliefs, on the other hand,
are beliefs that people have not actively engaged in but rather
judgments that they make, based on their knowledge of related
subjects, when they encounter a proposition. For example, imagine
that you were asked the question, “Can stock cars reach speeds of
1,000 miles per hour on a 1 mile oval track?” Even though you may
never have attended a stock car race or even seen one on television,
you can make split-second judgments about your understanding of
automobile speeds and say with a fair degree of certainty that you
believe stock cars cannot travel at 1,000 miles per hour on a 1 mile
track. We sometimes refer to dispositional beliefs as virtual beliefs
(Frankish, 1998).
When it comes to persuading people to alter core and dispositional
beliefs, persuading audiences to change core beliefs is more difficult
than persuading audiences to change dispositional beliefs. For this
reason, you are very unlikely to persuade people to change their
deeply held core beliefs about a topic in a time restricted speech for
this competency. However, if you give a persuasive speech on a topic
related to an audience’s dispositional beliefs, you may have a better
chance of success. Although core beliefs may seem to be exciting and
interesting, persuasive topics related to dispositional beliefs are
generally better for novice speakers with limited time allotments.
Change Behavior
The second type of persuasive speech is one in which the speaker
attempts to persuade an audience to change their behavior.
Behaviors come in a wide range of forms, so finding one you think
people should start, increase, or decrease should not be difficult at
all. Speeches encouraging audiences to vote for a candidate, sign a
petition opposing a tuition increase, or drink tap water instead of
bottled water are all behavior-oriented persuasive speeches. In all
these cases, the goal is to change the behavior of individual listeners.
Why Persuasion Matters
Frymier and Nadler (2007) enumerate three reasons why people
should study persuasion. First, when you study and understand
persuasion, you will be more successful at persuading others. If you
want to be a persuasive public speaker, then you need to have a
working understanding of how persuasion functions.
Second, when people understand persuasion, they will be better
consumers of information. As previously mentioned, we live in a
society where numerous message sources are constantly fighting for
our attention. Unfortunately, most people just let messages wash
over them like a wave, making little effort to understand or analyze
them. As a result, they are more likely to fall for half-truths, illogical
arguments, and lies. When you start to understand persuasion, you
will have the skill set to actually pick apart the messages being sent to
you and see why some of them are good and others are simply not.
Lastly, when we understand how persuasion functions, we will have a
better grasp of what happens around us in the world. We will be able
to analyze why certain speakers are effective persuaders and others
are not. We will be able to understand why some public speakers can
get an audience eating out of their hands, while others flop.
Furthermore, we believe it is an ethical imperative in the 21st century
to be persuasively literate. We believe that persuasive messages that
aim to manipulate, coerce, and intimidate people are unethical, as
are messages that distort information. As ethical listeners, we have a
responsibility to analyze messages that manipulate, coerce, or
intimidate people or distort information. We also have the
responsibility to combat these messages with the truth, which will
ultimately rely on our own skills and knowledge as effective
persuaders.
Theories of Persuasion
Understanding how people are persuaded is very important to the
discussion of public speaking. Thankfully, a number of researchers
have created theories that help explain why people are persuaded.
Although there are numerous theories that help to explain
persuasion, we are only going to examine three here: social judgment
theory, cognitive dissonance theory, and the elaboration likelihood
model.
Social Judgment Theory
Muzafer Sherif and Carl Hovland (1961) created social judgment
theory in an attempt to determine what types of communicative
messages and under what conditions communicated messages will
lead to a change in someone’s behavior. In essence, Sherif and
Hovland found that people’s perceptions of attitudes, values, beliefs,
and behaviors exist on a continuum including latitude of
rejection, latitude of noncommitment, and latitude of acceptance.
Figure 3.1 Latitudes of Judgments
© Social judgment: Assimilation and contrast effects in communication and attitude
change, by M. Sherif & C. I. Hovland, 1961, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press
Imagine that you are a business leader in a United States community
that has seen a recent influx in Spanish speakers. You are planning to
persuade the business community to become bilingual in English and
Spanish. Some fellow community leaders are going to disagree with
you right off the bat (latitude of rejection, part (a) of Figure 3.1.
Others are going to think that becoming bilingual is a great idea
(latitude of acceptance, part (c) of Figure 3.1. Still others are really
going to have no opinion either way (latitude of non-commitment,
part (b) of Figure 3.1). Now in each of these different latitudes there
is a range of possibilities. For example, one of your listeners may be
perfectly willing to accept the idea of learning some everyday
Spanish, but when asked to become fluent, he or she may end up in
the latitude of non-commitment or even rejection.
Not surprisingly, Sherif and Hovland found that persuasive messages
were the most likely to succeed when they fell into an individual’s
latitude of acceptance. For example, if you are giving your speech on
bilingualism in the business community, people who are in favor of
becoming bilingual are more likely to positively evaluate your
message, assimilate your advice into their own ideas, and engage in
desired behavior. On the other hand, people who reject your
message are more likely to negatively evaluate your message, not
assimilate your advice, and not engage in desired behavior.
In an ideal world, we would always be persuading people who agree
with our opinions, but that is not reality. Instead, we often find
ourselves in situations where we are trying to persuade others to go
along with attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors with which they
may not agree. To help us persuade others, what we need to think
about is the range of possible attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors
that exist. For example, in our foreign language case, we may see the
following possible opinions from our audience members:
1. Complete agreement. Let us all become bilingual.
2. Strong agreement. I will not become fluent in Spanish,
but I will learn everyday terminology so that I can
communicate reasonably well.
3. Agreement in part. I will not learn much Spanish, but I
will be sure that I have sufficient employees who are
bilingual.
4. Neutral. Although I think becoming bilingual can be
worthwhile, I also think our businesses can be just as
strong without increasing our bilingual community. I
really do not feel strongly one way or the other.
5. Disagreement in part. I believe only those who want to
study Spanish anyway should become bilingual.
6. Strong disagreement. I do not believe we need to
implement any plan to increase bilingual English and
Spanish speakers in the community.
7. Complete disagreement. It is not necessary to consider
becoming bilingual at all.
These seven possible opinions on the subject do not represent the
full spectrum of choices, but give us various degrees of agreement
with the general topic. So what does this have to do with persuasion?
Sherif and Hovland theorized that persuasion was a matter of
knowing how great the discrepancy or difference was between the
speaker’s viewpoint and that of the audience. If the speaker’s point
of view was similar to that of audience members, then persuasion
was more likely. If the discrepancy between the idea proposed by the
speaker and the audience’s viewpoint is too great, then the likelihood
of persuasion decreases dramatically.
Figure 3.2 Discrepancy and Attitude Change
© Social judgment: Assimilation and contrast effects in communication and attitude
change, by M. Sherif & C. I. Hovland, 1961, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press
Furthermore, Sherif and Hovland predicted that there was a
threshold for most people where attitude change was not possible
and people slipped from the latitude of acceptance into the latitude
of noncommitment or rejection. Figure 3.2 represents this process.
All the area covered by the left side of the curve represents options a
person would agree with, even if there is an initial discrepancy
between the speaker and audience member at the start of the
speech. However, there comes a point where the discrepancy
between the speaker and audience member becomes too large,
which moves into the options that will be automatically rejected by
the audience member. In essence, it becomes essential for you to
know which options you can realistically persuade your audience to
and which options will never happen. Maybe there is no way for you
to persuade your audience to become fluent in Spanish, but perhaps
you can get them to consider learning some everyday phrases.
Although you may not be achieving your complete end goal, it is
better than getting nowhere at all.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
In 1957, Leon Festinger proposed another theory for understanding
how persuasion functions: cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger,
1957). Cognitive dissonance is an aversive motivational state that
occurs when an individual entertains two or more contradictory
attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors simultaneously. For example,
maybe you know you should be working on your speech, but you
really want to go to a movie with a friend. In this case, practicing your
speech and going to the movie are two cognitions that are
inconsistent with one another. The goal of persuasion is to induce
enough dissonance in listeners that they will change their attitudes,
values, beliefs, or behaviors.
Frymier and Nadler (2007) noted that for cognitive dissonance to
work effectively, there are three necessary conditions: aversive
consequences, freedom of choice, and insufficient external
justification. First, for cognitive dissonance to work, there needs to
be a strong enough aversive consequence, or punishment,
for not changing one’s attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors. For
example, maybe you are giving a speech on why people need to eat
more apples. If your aversive consequence for not eating apples is
that your audience will not get enough fiber, most people will simply
not be persuaded, because the punishment is not severe enough.
Instead, for cognitive dissonance to work, the punishment associated
with not eating apples needs to be significant enough to change
behaviors. If you convince your audience that without enough fiber in
their diets they are at higher risk for heart disease or colon cancer,
they might fear the aversive consequences enough to change their
behavior.
The second condition necessary for cognitive dissonance to work is
that people must have a freedom of choice. If listeners feel they are
being coerced into doing something, then dissonance will not be
aroused. They may alter their behavior in the short term, but as soon
as the coercion is gone, the original behavior will reemerge. It is like
the person who drives more slowly when a police officer is nearby
but ignores speed limits once officers are no longer present. As a
speaker, if you want to increase cognitive dissonance, you need to
make sure that your audience does not feel coerced or manipulated,
but rather that they can clearly see that they have a choice of
whether to be persuaded.
The final condition necessary for cognitive dissonance to work has to
do with external and internal justifications. External
justification refers to the process of identifying reasons outside of
one’s own control to support one’s behavior, beliefs, and
attitudes. Internal justification occurs when someone voluntarily
changes a behavior, belief, or attitude to reduce cognitive
dissonance. When it comes to creating change through persuasion,
external justifications are less likely to result in change than internal
justifications (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959). Imagine that you are
giving a speech with the specific purpose of persuading sexually
active college students to use condoms. Your audience analysis, in
the form of an anonymous survey, indicates that a large percentage
of your listeners do not consistently use condoms. Which would be
the more persuasive argument: (a) “Failure to use condoms
inevitably results in unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted
diseases, including AIDS”—or (b) “If you think of yourself as a
responsible adult, you will use condoms to protect yourself and your
partner”? With the first argument, you have provided external
justification for using condoms (i.e., terrible things will happen if you
do not use condoms). Listeners who reject this external justification
(e.g., who do not believe these dire consequences are inevitable) are
unlikely to change their behavior. With the second argument,
however, if your listeners think of themselves as responsible adults
and they do not consistently use condoms, the conflict between their
self-image and their behavior will elicit cognitive dissonance. In order
to reduce this cognitive dissonance, they are likely to seek internal
justification for the view of themselves as responsible adults by
changing their behavior (i.e., using condoms more consistently). In
this case, according to cognitive dissonance theory, the second
persuasive argument would be the one more likely to lead to a
change in behavior.
Elaboration Likelihood Model
The last of the three theories of persuasion discussed here is the
elaboration likelihood model created by Petty and Cacioppo (1986).
The basic model has a continuum from high elaboration or thought or
low elaboration or thought. For the purposes of Petty and Cacioppo’s
model, the term elaboration refers to the amount of thought or
cognitive energy someone uses for analyzing the content of a
message. High elaboration uses the central route and is designed for
analyzing the content of a message. As such, when people truly
analyze a message, they use cognitive energy to examine the
arguments set forth within the message. In an ideal world, everyone
would process information through this central route and actually
analyze arguments presented to them. Unfortunately, many people
often use the peripheral route for attending to persuasive messages,
which results in low elaboration or thought. Low elaboration occurs
when people attend to messages but do not analyze the message or
use cognitive energy to ascertain the arguments set forth in a
message.
For researchers of persuasion, the question then becomes: how do
people select one route or the other when attending to persuasive
messages? Petty and Cacioppo noted that there are two basic factors
for determining whether someone centrally processes a persuasive
message: ability and motivation. First, audience members must be
able to process the persuasive message. If the language or message is
too complicated, then people will not elaborate highly on it because
they will not understand the persuasive message. Motivation, on the
other hand, refers to whether the audience member chooses to
elaborate on the message. Frymier and Nadler (2007) discussed five
basic factors that can lead to high elaboration: personal relevance
and personal involvement, accountability, personal responsibility,
incongruent information, and need for cognition.
Personal Relevance and Personal Involvement
The first reason people are motivated to take the central route or use
high elaboration when listening to a persuasive message involves
personal relevance and involvement. Personal relevance refers to
whether the audience member feels that he or she is actually directly
affected by the speech topic. For example, if someone is listening to a
speech on why cigarette smoking is harmful, and that listener has
never smoked cigarettes, he or she may think the speech topic simply
is not relevant. Obviously, as a speaker you should always think about
how your topic is relevant to your listeners and make sure to drive
this home throughout your speech. Personal involvement, on the
other hand, asks whether the individual is actively engaged with the
issue at hand: sends letters of support, gives speeches on the topic,
has a bumper sticker, and so forth. If an audience member is an
advocate who is constantly denouncing tobacco companies for the
harm they do to society, then he or she would be highly involved (i.e.,
would engage in high elaboration) in a speech that attempts to
persuade listeners that smoking is harmful.
Accountability
The second condition under which people are likely to process
information using the central route is when they feel that they will be
held accountable for the information after the fact. With
accountability, there is the perception that someone, or a group of
people, will be watching to see if the receiver remembers the
information later on. We have all witnessed this phenomenon when
one student asks the question “will this be on the test?” If the
teacher says “no,” you can almost immediately see the glazed eyes in
the classroom as students tune out the information. As a speaker, it
is often hard to hold your audience accountable for the information
given within a speech.
Personal Responsibility
When people feel that they are going to be held responsible, without
a clear external accounting, for the evaluation of a message or the
outcome of a message, they are more likely to critically think through
the message using the central route. For example, maybe you are
asked to evaluate colleagues’ business presentations. Research has
shown that if only one or two employees are asked to evaluate any
one speaker at a time, the quality of the evaluations for that speaker
will be better than if all colleagues are asked to evaluate every
speaker. When people feel that their evaluation is important, they
take more responsibility and therefore are more critical of the
message delivered.
Incongruent Information
Some people are motivated to centrally process information when it
does not adhere to their own ideas. Maybe you are a highly
progressive liberal, and one of your peers delivers a speech on the
importance of the Tea Party movement in American politics. The
information presented during the speech will most likely be in direct
contrast to your personal ideology, which causes incongruence
because the Tea Party ideology is opposed to a progressive liberal
ideology. As such, you are more likely to pay attention to the speech,
specifically looking for flaws in the speaker’s argument.
Need for Cognition
The final reason some people centrally process information is
because they have a personality characteristic called need for
cognition. Need for cognition refers to a personality trait
characterized by an internal drive or need to engage in critical
thinking and information processing. People who are high in need for
cognition simply enjoy thinking about complex ideas and issues. Even
if the idea or issue being presented has no personal relevance,
people with a high need for cognition are more likely to process
information using the central route.
Types of Persuasive Speeches
In a persuasive spech, the goal is to sway one’s audience to a specific
attitude, value, or belief.© Tommaso Colia/iStock/Thinkstock
Obviously, there are many different persuasive speech topics you
could select if you choose to deliver a persuasive speech for your
Final Assessment. Anything from localized claims like changing a
specific college or university policy to larger societal claims like
adding more enforcement against the trafficking of women and
children in the United States could make for an interesting persuasive
speech. You will notice in the previous sentence we referred to the
two topics as claims. In this use of the word “claim,” we are declaring
the goodness or positivity of an attitude, value, belief, or behavior
that others may dispute. As a result of the dispute between our
perceptions of the goodness of an attitude, value, belief, or behavior
and the perceptions of others, we attempt to support the claim we
make using some sort of evidence and logic as we attempt to
persuade others. There are four common claims that can be made:
definitional, factual, policy, and value.
Definitional Claims
The first common types of claims that a persuasive speaker can make
are definitional or classification claims. Definitional claims are claims
about the denotation or classification of what something is. In
essence, we are trying to argue for what something is or what
something is not. Most definitional claims fall in to a basic argument
formula:
X is (or is not) a Y because it has (or does not have) features A, B,
or C.
For example, maybe you are trying to persuade your class that
although therapeutic massage is often performed on nude clients, it
is not a form of prostitution. You could start by explaining what
therapeutic massage is and then what prostitution is. You could even
look at the legal definition of prostitution and demonstrate to your
peers that therapeutic massage does not fall into the legal definition
of prostitution because it does not involve the behaviors
characterized by that definition.
Factual Claims
Factual claims set out to argue the truth or falsity of an assertion.
Some factual claims are simple to answer: Barack Obama is the first
African American President; the tallest man in the world, Robert
Wadlow, was 8 feet, 11 inches tall; Facebook was not profitable until
2009. All these factual claims are well documented by evidence and
can be easily supported with a little research.
However, many factual claims cannot be answered absolutely. It is
difficult to determine the falseness or trueness of some factual claims
because the final answer on the subject has not been resolved (e.g.,
when is censorship good, what rights should animals have, when
does life begin). Probably the most historically interesting and
consistent factual claim is the existence of a higher power, God, or
other religious deity. The simple fact of the matter is that there is not
enough evidence to clearly answer this factual claim in any specific
direction, which is where the notion of faith must be involved in this
factual claim.
Other factual claims that may not be easily answered using evidence
are predictions of what may or may not happen. For example, you
could give a speech on the future of climate change or the future of
terrorism in the United States. Although there may be evidence that
something will happen in the future, unless you are a psychic, you do
not actually know what will happen in the future.
When thinking of factual claims, it often helps to pretend that you
are putting a specific claim on trial and as the speaker your job is to
defend your claim as a lawyer would defend a client. Ultimately, your
job is to be more persuasive than your audience members who act as
both opposition attorneys and judges.
Policy Claims
The third common claim that is seen in persuasive speeches is
the policy claim—a statement about the nature of a problem and the
solution that should be implemented. Policy claims are probably the
most common form of persuasive speaking because we live in a
society surrounded by problems and people who have ideas about
how to fix these problems. Let us look at a few examples of possible
policy claims:
• The United States should stop capital punishment.
•
The United States should become independent from the
use of foreign oil.
•
Human cloning for organ donations should be legal.
•
Nonviolent drug offenders should be sent to
rehabilitation centers and not prisons.
•
The tobacco industry should be required to pay 100
percent of the medical bills for individuals dying of
smoking-related cancers.
•
The United States needs to invest more in preventing
poverty at home and less in feeding the starving around
the world.
Each of these claims has a clear perspective that is being advocated.
Policy claims will always have a clear and direct opinion for what
should occur and what needs to change. When examining policy
claims, we generally talk about two different persuasive goals:
passive agreement and immediate action.
Gain Passive Agreement
When we attempt to gain the passive agreement of our audiences,
our goal is to get our audiences to agree with what we are saying and
our specific policy without asking the audience to do anything to
enact the policy. For example, maybe your speech is on why the
Federal Communications Commission should regulate violence on
television like it does foul language (i.e., no violence until after 9
p.m.). Your goal as a speaker is to get your audience to agree that it is
in our best interest as a society to prevent violence from being shown
on television before 9 p.m., but you are not seeking to have your
audience run out and call their senators or congressmen or even sign
a petition. Often the first step in larger political change is simply
getting a massive number people to agree with your policy
perspective.
Let us look at a few more passive agreement claims:
•
Racial profiling of individuals suspected of belonging to
known terrorist groups is a way to make America safer.
•
Requiring American citizens to “show their papers” is a
violation of democracy and resembles tactics of Nazi
Germany and communist Russia.
•
Colleges and universities should voluntarily implement a
standardized testing program to ensure student learning
outcomes are similar across different institutions.
In each of these claims, the goal is to sway one’s audience to a
specific attitude, value, or belief, but not necessarily to get the
audience to enact any specific behaviors.
Gain Immediate Action
The alternative to passive agreement is immediate action, or
persuading your audience to start engaging in a specific behavior.
Many passive agreement topics can become immediate actionoriented topics as soon as you tell your audience what behavior they
should engage in (e.g., sign a petition, call a senator, vote). Although
it is much easier to elicit passive agreement than to get people to do
something, you should always try to get your audience to act and do
so quickly. A common mistake that speakers make is telling people to
enact a behavior that will occur in the future. The longer it takes for
people to engage in the action you desire, the less likely it is that your
audience will engage in that behavior.
Here are some examples of good claims with immediate calls to
action:
•
College students should eat more fruit, so I am
encouraging everyone to eat the apple I have provided
you and start getting more fruit in your diet.
•
Teaching a child to read is one way to ensure that the
next generation will be stronger than those that have
come before us, so please sign up right now to volunteer
one hour a week to help teach a child to read.
•
The United States should reduce its nuclear arsenal by
20% over the next five years. Please sign the letter
provided encouraging the President to take this
necessary step for global peace. Once you have signed
the letter, hand it to me, and I’ll fax it to the White
House today.
Each of these three examples starts with a basic claim and then tags
on an immediate call to action. Remember, the faster you can get
people to engage in a behavior the more likely they actually will.
Value Claims
The final type of claim is a value claim, or a claim where the speaker
is advocating a judgment claim about something (e.g., it is good or
bad, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly, moral or immoral).
Let us look at three value claims. We have italicized the evaluative
term in each claim:
•
•
•
Dating people on the Internet is an immoral form of
dating.
SUVs are gas-guzzling monstrosities.
It is unfair for pregnant women to have special parking
spaces at malls, shopping centers, and stores.
Each of these three claims could definitely be made by a speaker
while other speakers could say the exact opposite. When making a
value claim, it is hard to ascertain why someone has chosen a specific
value stance without understanding her or his criteria for making the
evaluative statement. For example, if someone finds all forms of
technology immoral, then it is really no surprise that he or she would
find Internet dating immoral as well. As such, you need to clearly
explain your criteria for making the evaluative statement. For
example, when we examine the SUV claim, if your criterion for the
term “gas-guzzling monstrosity” is ecological impact, safety, and gas
consumption, then your evaluative statement can be more easily
understood and evaluated by your audience. If, however, you state
that your criterion is that SUVs are bigger than military vehicles and
should not be on the road, then your statement takes on a slightly
different meaning. Ultimately, when making a value claim, you need
to make sure that you clearly label your evaluative term and provide
clear criteria for how you came to that evaluation.
Organizing Persuasive Speeches
In a persuasive speech, you need to explain to your audience why
they should care about your topic.© Stockbyte/Thinkstock
In this section, we are going to look at three organizational patterns
ideally suited for persuasive speeches: Monroe’s motivated
sequence, problem-cause-solution, and comparative advantages.
Monroe’s Motivated Sequence
One of the most commonly cited and discussed organizational
patterns for persuasive speeches is Alan H. Monroe’s motivated
sequence. The purpose of Monroe’s motivated sequence is to help
speakers “sequence supporting materials and motivational appeals to
form a useful organizational pattern for speeches as a whole”
(German, Gronbeck, Ehninger, & Monroe, 2010, p. 236).
Although Monroe’s motivated sequence is commonly discussed in
most public speaking textbooks, we do want to provide one minor
caution. Thus far, almost no research has been conducted that has
demonstrated that Monroe’s motivated sequence is any more
persuasive than other structural patterns. In the only study
conducted experimentally examining Monroe’s motivated sequence,
the researchers did not find the method more persuasive, but did
note that audience members found the pattern more organized than
other methods (Micciche, Pryor, & Butler, 2000). We wanted to add
this side note because we do not want you to think that Monroe’s
motivated sequence is a kind of magic persuasive bullet; the research
simply does not support this notion. At the same time, research does
support that organized messages are perceived as more persuasive
as a whole, so using Monroe’s motivated sequence to think through
one’s persuasive argument could still be very beneficial.
Table 3.1, “Monroe’s Motivated Sequence,” lists the basic steps of
Monroe’s motivated sequence and the subsequent reaction a
speaker desires from his or her audience.
Table 3.1 Monroe’s Motivated Sequence
Steps
Audience Response
Attention—Getting Attention
I want to listen to the speaker.
Need—Showing the Need, Describing the
Something needs to be done about the
Problem
problem.
Table 3.1 Monroe’s Motivated Sequence
Steps
Audience Response
Satisfaction—Satisfying the Need,
In order to satisfy the need or fix the problem
Presenting the Solution
this is what I need to do.
Visualization—Visualizing the Results
I can see myself enjoying the benefits of taking
action.
Action—Requesting Audience Action or
I will act in a specific way or approve a
Approval
decision or behavior.
Table 3.1 Monroe’s Motivated Sequence
Steps
Audience Response
Attention
The first step in Monroe’s motivated sequence is the attention step,
in which a speaker attempts to get the audience’s attention. To gain
an audience’s attention, we recommend that you think through three
specific parts of the attention step. A strong attention getter at the
beginning of your speech is very important. Second, you need to
make sure you introduce your topic clearly. If your audience does not
know what your topic is quickly, they are more likely to stop listening.
Lastly, you need to explain to your audience why they should care
about your topic.
Needs
In the need step of Monroe’s motivated sequence, the speaker
establishes that there is a specific need or problem. In Monroe’s
conceptualization of need, he talks about four specific parts of the
need: statement, illustration, ramification, and pointing. First, a
speaker needs to give a clear and concise statement of the problem.
This part of a speech should be crystal clear for an audience. Second,
the speaker needs to provide one or more examples to illustrate the
need. The illustration is an attempt to make the problem concrete for
the audience. Next, a speaker needs to provide some kind of
evidence (e.g., statistics, examples, testimony) that shows the
ramifications or consequences of the problem. Last, a speaker needs
to point to the audience and show exactly how the problem relates
to them personally.
Satisfaction
In the third step of Monroe’s motivated sequence, the satisfaction
step, the speaker sets out to satisfy the need or solve the problem.
Within this step, Monroe (1935) proposed a five-step plan for
satisfying a need:
1. Statement
2. Explanation
3. Theoretical demonstration
4. Reference to practical experience
5. Meeting objections
First, you need to clearly state the attitude, value, belief, or action
you want your audience to accept. The purpose of this statement is
to clearly tell your audience what your ultimate goal is.
Second, you want to make sure that you clearly explain to your
audience why they should accept the attitude, value, belief, or action
you propose. Just telling your audience they should do something is
not strong enough to actually get them to change. Instead, you really
need to provide a solid argument for why they should accept your
proposed solution.
Third, you need to show how the solution you have proposed meets
the need or problem. Monroe calls this link between your solution
and the need a theoretical demonstration because you cannot prove
that your solution will work. Instead, you theorize based on research
and good judgment that your solution will meet the need or solve the
problem.
Fourth, to help with this theoretical demonstration, you need to
reference practical experience, which should include examples
demonstrating that your proposal has worked elsewhere. Research,
statistics, and expert testimony are all great ways of referencing
practical experience.
Last, Monroe recommends that a speaker respond to possible
objections. As a persuasive speaker, one of your jobs is to think
through your speech and see what counterarguments could be made
against your speech and then rebut those arguments within your
speech. When you offer rebuttals for arguments against your speech,
it shows your audience that you have done your homework and
educated yourself about multiple sides of the issue.
Visualization
The next step of Monroe’s motivated sequence is the visualization
step, in which you ask the audience to visualize a future where the
need has been met or the problem solved. In essence, the
visualization stage is where a speaker can show the audience why
accepting a specific attitude, value, belief, or behavior can positively
affect the future. When helping people to picture the future, the
more concrete your visualization is, the easier it will be for your
audience to see the possible future and be persuaded by it. You also
need to make sure that you clearly show how accepting your solution
will directly benefit your audience.
According to Monroe (1935), visualization can be conducted in one of
three ways: positive, negative, or contrast. The positive method of
visualization is where a speaker shows how adopting a proposal leads
to a better future (e.g., recycle, and we will have a cleaner and safer
planet). Conversely, the negative method of visualization is where a
speaker shows how not adopting the proposal will lead to a worse
future (e.g., do not recycle, and our world will become polluted and
uninhabitable). Monroe also acknowledged that visualization can
include a combination of both positive and negative visualization. In
essence, you show your audience both possible outcomes and have
them decide which one they would rather have.
Action
The final step in Monroe’s motivated sequence is the action step, in
which a speaker asks an audience to approve the speaker’s proposal.
For understanding purposes, we break action into two distinct parts:
audience action and approval. Audience action refers to direct
physical behaviors a speaker wants from an audience (e.g., flossing
their teeth twice a day, signing a petition, wearing seat belts).
Approval, on the other hand, involves an audience’s consent or
agreement with a speaker’s proposed attitude, value, or belief.
When preparing an action step, it is important to make sure that the
action, whether audience action or approval, is realistic for your
audience. Asking your peers in a college classroom to donate one
thousand dollars to charity is not realistic. Asking your peers to
donate one dollar is considerably more realistic. In a persuasive
speech based on Monroe’s motivated sequence, the action step will
end with the speech’s concluding device. As discussed elsewhere in
this text, you need to make sure that you conclude in a vivid manner
so that the speech ends on a high point and the audience has a sense
of energy as well as a sense of closure.
Now that we have walked through Monroe’s motivated sequence, let
us look at how you could use Monroe’s motivated sequence to
outline a persuasive speech:
Specific Purpose: To persuade college students that the United States
should have stronger laws governing the use of for-profit medical
experiments.
Main Points:
• Attention: Want to make $9,000 for just three weeks of
work lying around and not doing much? Then be a
human guinea pig. Admittedly, you will have to have a
tube down your throat most of those three weeks, but
you will earn $3,000 a week.
• Need: Every day many uneducated and lower
socioeconomic-status citizens are preyed on by medical
and pharmaceutical companies for use in for-profit
medical and drug experiments. Do you want one of your
family members to fall prey to this evil scheme?
• Satisfaction: The United States should have stronger
laws governing the use of for-profit medical experiments
to ensure that uneducated and lower-socioeconomicstatus citizens are protected.
• Visualization: If we enact tougher experiment oversight,
we can ensure that medical and pharmaceutical
research is conducted in a way that adheres to basic
values of American decency. If we do not enact tougher
experiment oversight, we could find ourselves in a world
where the lines between research subject, guinea pig,
and patient become increasingly blurred.
•
Action: In order to prevent the atrocities associated with
for-profit medical and pharmaceutical experiments,
please sign this petition asking the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services to pass stricter regulations
on this preying industry that is out of control.
This example shows how you can take a basic speech topic and use
Monroe’s motivated sequence to clearly and easily outline your
speech efficiently and effectively.
The following is a simple checklist to help you make sure you hit all
the important components of Monroe’s motivated sequence.
Table 3.2 Monroe’s Motivated Sequence Checklist
Step in the Sequence
Attention Step
Yes
No
Table 3.2 Monroe’s Motivated Sequence Checklist
Step in the Sequence
Yes
No
Gained audience’s attention.
□
□
Introduced the topic clearly.
□
□
Showed the importance of the topic to the audience.
□
□
Need Step
Table 3.2 Monroe’s Motivated Sequence Checklist
Step in the Sequence
Yes
No
Need is summarized in a clear statement.
□
□
Need is adequately illustrated.
□
□
Need has clear ramifications.
□
□
Need clearly points the audience.
□
□
Table 3.2 Monroe’s Motivated Sequence Checklist
Step in the Sequence
Yes
No
Plan is clearly stated.
□
□
Plan is plainly explained.
□
□
Satisfaction Step
Table 3.2 Monroe’s Motivated Sequence Checklist
Step in the Sequence
Yes
No
Plan and solution are theoretically demonstrated.
□
□
Plan has clear reference to practical experience.
□
□
Plan can meet possible objections.
□
□
Visualization Step
Table 3.2 Monroe’s Motivated Sequence Checklist
Step in the Sequence
Yes
No
Practicality of plan shown.
□
□
Benefits of plan are tangible.
□
□
Benefits of plan relate to the audience.
□
□
□
□
Table 3.2 Monroe’s Motivated Sequence Checklist
Step in the Sequence
Yes
No
Call of specific action by the audience.
□
□
Action is realistic for the audience.
□
□
Specific type of visualization chosen (positive method, negative method, method
of contrast).
Action Step
Table 3.2 Monroe’s Motivated Sequence Checklist
Step in the Sequence
Concluding device is vivid.
Yes
No
□
□
Problem-Cause-Solution
Another format for organizing a persuasive speech is the problemcause-solution format. In this specific format, you discuss what a
problem is, what you believe is causing the problem, and then what
the solution should be to correct the problem.
Specific Purpose: To persuade my classroom peers that our campus
should adopt a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech.
Main Points:
1. Demonstrate that there is distrust among different
groups on campus that has led to unnecessary
confrontations and violence.
2. Show that the confrontations and violence are a result
of hate speech that occurred prior to the events.
3. Explain how instituting a campus-wide zero-tolerance
policy against hate speech could stop the unnecessary
confrontations and violence.
In this speech, you want to persuade people to support a new
campus-wide policy calling for zero-tolerance of hate speech. Once
you have shown the problem, you then explain to your audience that
the cause of the unnecessary confrontations and violence is prior
incidents of hate speech. Lastly, you argue that a campus-wide zerotolerance policy could help prevent future unnecessary
confrontations and violence. Again, this method of organizing a
speech is as simple as its name: problem-cause-solution.
Comparative Advantages
The final method for organizing a persuasive speech is called the
comparative advantages speech format. The goal of this speech is to
compare items side-by-side and show why one of them is more
advantageous than the other. For example, let us say that you are
giving a speech on which basic e-book reader is better:
Amazon.com’s Kindle or Barnes and Noble’s Nook. Here is how you
could organize this speech:
Specific Purpose: To persuade my audience that the Nook is more
advantageous than the Kindle.
Main Points:
1. The Nook allows owners to trade and loan books to
other owners or people who have downloaded the
Nook software, while the Kindle does not.
2. The Nook has a color-touch screen, while the Kindle’s
screen is black and grey and noninteractive.
3. The Nook’s memory can be expanded through microSD,
while the Kindle’s memory cannot be upgraded.
As you can see from this speech’s organization, the simple goal of this
speech is to show why one thing has more positives than something
else. Obviously, when you are demonstrating comparative
advantages, the items you are comparing need to be functional
equivalents—or, as the saying goes, you cannot compare apples to
oranges.
Note. Adapted from “General Purposes of Speaking” & “Persuasive
Speaking,” by J.S. Jones, A. Goding, D.I. Johnson, & B.A. Attias,
2014, Stand Up, Speak Out: The Practice and Ethics of Public
Speaking, Chapter 6, Section 1 & Chapter 17. Copyright 2014 by Flat
World Knowledge, Inc.