1 What is Persuasion?
Amber K. Worthington
What does persuasion mean to you? Can you think of any times that you have tried to persuade someone to do something? Some examples may include college students trying to persuade their instructors to provide them with an extension on an assignment, to accept an already late project, or to change a poor grade. College students persuade their friends to take specific classes or recommend specific instructors. They may even persuade one another to live in a specific part of town, attend a particular party, or eat at a certain restaurant.
Persuasion is a facet of communication that is seen across many interpersonal and familial relationships. Parents may try to persuade their children to clean up their room, pick a certain major, or abide by a curfew. Romantic partners persuade one another to decorate their home in a particular way, apply to a new job, or move to a new city. Persuasion is also pervasive in professional environments. Potential employees need to persuade future employers of their skills and abilities to secure a job offer. Conversely, employers need to persuade potential employees of the benefits of working at their organization to ensure they accept the job. Many professions, including advertising, sales, and politics are dependent on the ability to leverage persuasion to achieve desired outcomes.
We also need to consider the channels of persuasion that are influencing our choices. The advent of print media (e.g., newspapers, magazines), electronic media (e.g., radio, television, the Internet), and, more recently, social media (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, TikTok) provide additional avenues through which persuasion occurs. These mediated sources of persuasion include specific appeals to buy products or services (e.g., advertising), as well as the more nuanced persuasion to adopt and promote a particular lifestyle, behavior, or popular opinion abounding on different platforms.
This all suggests that persuasion is utilized in almost all areas of our lives. However, most of us have never specifically thought about how much time we spend persuading others and being persuaded ourselves. It is important to realize, however, that this does not mean you are already persuasion experts. You have likely learned quite a bit about what works and what does not by trial and error; however, there is a long, rich history of the academic study of persuasion. Scholars across philosophy, psychology, communication, advertising, political science, health, and others have systematically studied persuasion for centuries. Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher who lived nearly 2,400 years ago, wrote extensively about how to persuade others. Around 300 years later, Cicero, a Roman statesman and philosopher, wrote several books on his beliefs about persuasion and rhetoric. Another 100 years after that, Quintilian, a Roman educator and rhetorician, opened a school on rhetoric and oral persuasion. More recently, social s