Persuasive Communication

• Persuasive Communication is basically communication

that is aimed at creating, reinforcing, or changing
people’s beliefs or actions.
• Persuasive communication benefits us in every part of
our lives i.e in our relationships and career aspirations.
• Lawyers, marketers, public relations practitioners,
counselors, administrators, politicians, pastors etc
thrive on persuasive communication
• The more you know about persuasion the more likely
you are to get what you need in life.
 Points to note
• When you speak to persuade your aim is to get
listeners to agree with you.
• The goal for persuasive communication may be to
defend an idea, refute an opponent, sell a product,
inspire people to action or to secure employment.
• Persuasive communicators do not only speak clearly
and concisely, they need skills that enable them to
affect their listeners’ attitudes, beliefs or actions
 Points to note cont’d
• Persuasive communication is ethical
• Effective and ethical persuasive communicators must not:
Juggle statistics
Doctor quotations
Pass off opinions as facts
Pander to prejudice and stereotypes, or
Manipulate listeners
• In other words, persuasive communicators must not take
ethical shortcuts to achieve their objectives.
The Challenge of Persuasive Communication

• Persuasive communication is more challenging than most forms

of communication due to the following reasons:
It is an ambitious form of communication which demands more
audience analysis and adaptation
It deals with controversial topics which touch on the listeners’
deep-seated attitudes, beliefs, philosophies of life and
preferences
Persuasive communication inevitably faces resistance from the
audience
In persuasive communication we have to tussle with the listeners
knowledge about the subject and their predisposition towards it.
 Challenges cont’d
• What seems perfectly logical to some listeners may seem
wildly irrational to others
• Despite your expertise, forcefulness and linguistic dexterity
you will always get listeners who do not agree with you.
• In any persuasive communication encounter there are likely
to be people who strongly agree with the speaker, the neutral
ones and others with strongly antagonistic perspectives
• Our success in persuasive communication can be premised on
how we successfully tailor our messages to the values,
attitudes and beliefs of our audience
• The essence of persuasion is strategic thinking
 Methods of Persuasion
• To foster a better understanding of the methods,
we need to reflect on the following questions:
 What makes a speaker persuasive?
 Why do listeners accept one speaker and reject
another?
 How can a speaker motivate the audience to
support a particular cause, political candidate or
proposition?
 The methods cont’d
• The ancient Greek Philosopher Aristotle grappled with the
same questions about 500 years before the birth of Christ.
• Studies over the years including Aristotle’s note that there
are four main reasons listeners will be persuaded by a
speaker. These include:
Credibility, which Aristotle labelled Ethos
Evidence and reasoning which Aristotle collectively referred
to as Logos, and
The capacity to touch the listeners’ emotions which
Aristotle labelled Pathos
 Credibility or Ethos
• Credibility refers to the audience’s perception of whether the
speaker is qualified to speak on a given subject or not.
• Credibility is influenced by two main factors namely: Competence
and Character.
• Competence refers to how an audience regards a speaker’s
intelligence, expertise, and knowledge of the subject.
• Character refers to how an audience regards a speaker’s sincerity,
trustworthiness, and concern for the well being of the audience.
• NB Credibility is an attitude which exist in the mind of the
audience.
• A persuasive speaker can have high credibility with a given
audience and low credibility with another.
 Types of Credibility
• There are three main types of credibility:
 Initial credibility which relates to the credibility of
the speaker before he or she starts to speak
 Derived credibility which relates to the credibility
the speaker acquires during the persuasive speech
 Terminal credibility which relates to the speaker’s
credibility at the end of the speech.
 NB A speaker’s credibility varies from audience to
audience and topic to topic.
 Methods of enhancing credibility
• Credibility can be enhanced by the following factors:
 explaining the persuasive speaker’s competence or
expertise on the subject matter
 Establishing common ground with the audience. One
can not persuade listeners by assaulting their values
and rejecting their opinions. Respect the listeners.
Show them you have their best interests at heart.
 Delivering the speech fluently, expressively and with
conviction.
 Using evidence (logos)
• Evidence consists of supporting material e.g
examples, statistics and testimonials to prove
the veracity of an argument
• Listeners do not fancy unsubstantiated
generalisations.
• Evidence is used to prove or disprove the
tenability of an argument.
 Important tips for using evidence
• Use specific evidence
• Use novel evidence, not run of the mill kind of
evidence
• Use evidence from credible sources
• Make clear the point of your evidence. Use
evidence to prove a particular point.
 Reasoning (logos)
• It is the process of drawing a conclusion on the basis
of evidence.
• You can persuade by reasoning from specific
instances. This is reasoning that moves from particular
facts to a general conclusion
• We can advance a compelling persuasive message by
reasoning from principle. The argument moves from a
general principle to a specific conclusion
• Causal reasoning seeks to establish the relationship
between causes and effects
 Appealing to emotions (pathos)
• Appeal to a variety of emotions