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CHAPTER 5
On Being Persuaded
Some Basic Distinctions
The late Gerald R. Miller
A volume dealing with the process of persuasion should profit from a tentative answer to the question: What does it mean to be persuaded? The well-advised qualifier “tentative” underscores two limitations of the analysis offered in this chapter. First, as with most complex definitional issues, the author has no illusions that his answer will satisfy every reader—or, for that matter, any reader. After all, a lively debate has raged for centuries over the defining characteristics of the term persuasion, and it would be the height of naïveté or arrogance to assume that this brief analysis will lay to rest all outstanding definitional controversies. Second, at a more modest level, this chapter certainly does not address all of the questions raised in succeeding chapters of this volume. The authors of these chapters have attacked numerous theoretical and applied issues of persuasion from various vantage points; to subsume all the nuances of their remarks about the persuasive process is a formidable, if not impossible, task far exceeding the capabilities of this writer.
Notwithstanding these disclaimers, this chapter can assist readers in making sense out of many of the issues explored later by providing a general frame of reference for viewing the process of persuasion. Stated differently, the chapter seeks to establish broad definitional boundaries for the phase “being persuaded.” Furthermore, in the process of staking out these boundaries, certain persistent issues will inevitably be identified, issues that heavily influence some of the positions taken in other chapters. Thus, this chapter anticipates rather than resolves subsequent scholarly debates.
Being Persuaded: The Central Elements
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Persuasive attempts fall short of blatant coercion; persuasion, as typically conceived of, is not directly coercive. Coercion takes the form of guns or economic sanctions, while persuasion relies on the power of verbal and nonverbal symbols. Frequently, of course, coercive acts are preceded by persuasive messages; seldom is a child’s allowance suspended or an armed attack launched on a neighboring state without a period of message exchanges. These messages are aimed a
t persuading the child to study harder at school or at persuading the neighboring state to relinquish claim to a parcel of disputed territory. If persuasion proves inadequate to the task at hand, economic or military force may be employed to achieve the desired compliance.
From these examples, it follows that much persuasive discourse is indirectly coercive; that is, the persuasive effectiveness of messages often depends heavily on the credibility of threats and promises proffered by the communicator. If the child perceives that the threatening parent is, for some reason or another, unlikely to suspend the child’s allowance, the parent’s persuasive messages will have minimum impact on the child’s study habits. Similarly, threats of armed attacks by nations with powerful defense establishments usually cause potential adversaries to take persuasive appeals quite seriously, while the same threats uttered by countries of limited military might are likely to be greeted with scorn or amusement. One can only speculate how the ensuing 1962 scenario might have differed had the government of Haiti, rather than that of the United States, called on the Soviet Union to dismantle its missiles in Cuba under threat of naval blockade and possible attack on the missile sites themselves.
Some students of persuasion have found it distasteful to ponder the indirectly coercive dimension of many persuasive exchanges, perhaps because the notion of means control— Kelman’s (1961) term for describing a situation where the influence agent, or persuader, is successful because of his or her ability to dispense rewards or punishments—conflicts with the way persuasion ought to function in a democratic society. Simons (1974) captured the crux of this ideological opposition well:
Although persuasion is often characterized as a weak sister in relation to its relatives within the influence family—note such expressions as “talk is cheap,” “talk rather than substance,” and “mere rhetoric”—it is nevertheless regarded by many as a more ethical method of influencing others. One generally shuns the coercive label like the plague, takes pains to deny that he is bribing others when he offers them inducements, and represents himself as a persuader—if possible, as someone using “rational persuasion.” Persuasion is especially valued as an instrument of democracy. … Officials of government proudly proclaim that ours is indeed a system run by persuasion. … Inducements and constraints are said to have no place in ideally democratic forms of government; they are the coinage of the realm of corrupt governments or of totalitarian regimes. (pp. 174–175)
Simon went on to argue convincingly that in the rough-and-tumble world of everyday social conflict, as distinct from the polite confines of drawing room controversy, coercive potential determines the relative impact of most persuasive messages.
The prevalence of indirectly coercive elements in many persuasive transactions can also be detected by examining the symbolic weapons readily available to would-be persuaders. Marwell and Schmitt (1967) have generated a list of 16 strategies that can be used to gain compliance from others. Several of these strategies—among them promise, threat, and aversive stimulation— clearly derive their effectiveness from the persuader’s ability to dispense rewards or mete out punishments to the intended persuadee(s). More subtlety dependent on coercive pressure are strategies stressing the harmful social consequences of failure to comply with message recommendations as well as strategies underscoring the social rewards resulting from compliance—such as moral appeal, altruism, esteem position, and esteem negative. To be sure, many people would hesitate to equate blackballing with blackjacking. Nevertheless, in a society where the pervasive importance of “being respected,” “being popular,” and “being ‘in’” extends to matters so trivial as the name tag one sports on a pair of denim jeans, it would be a mistake to underestimate the coercive potential of social approval and disapproval, a fact readily grasped by those who create the country’s daily diet of media advertisements and commercials.
The preceding discussion has alluded to a second defining characteristic of the phrase “being persuaded”: Persuasion relies on symbolic transactions. Although a Mafia hireling in a Hollywood production may remark menacingly, “It looks like you need a little persuading,” as he starts to work over a stubborn merchant who has refused to purchase mob protection, the scholarly endeavors of persuasion researchers—and, for that matter, the ordinary language uses of the term persuasion—have consistently centered on the manipulation of symbols. In the domain of verbal utterances, this distinction fosters little ambiguity because language is inherently symbolic. When Chairman Brezhnev recently appealed for Senate ratification of the SALT II treaty by linking its adoption with “divine” approval, most observers probably would have agreed that he was embarked on a persuasive campaign, albeit one employing symbolic weapons not usually found in Communist arsenals. In the nonverbal realm, however, the distinction does not emerge as crisply, and there is often room for disagreement as to whether a particular nonverbal act is or is not symbolic. When Chairman Khruschev banged his shoe on a United Nations table during his 1959 visit to the United States, some observers might have interpreted his behavior as symbolic and reflecting persuasive intent, but others might have interpreted it as nothing more than a manifestation of poor manners by an uncouth visitor. Granted, the latter interpretation also involved a symbolic inference, but not one directly linked to conscious persuasive intent.
In view of the ambiguous status of some nonverbal behaviors, the utility of restricting the term persuasion to symbolic transactions may seem questionable. Unfortunately, the conceptual alternative is even more troublesome, for it would permit any act that sought to modify another’s behavior to qualify as an instance of persuasion. Rather than falling prey to the unmanageable generality fostered by such definitional permissiveness and allowing the persuasive process to be conceived of so broadly that it embraces nearly every instance of social behavior, it seems wiser to struggle with occasional uncertainty. In most instances, language is an integral aspect of the persuasive transaction, with nonverbal behavior coming into play as an instrument for reinforcing the meaning and/or credibility of verbal messages. Because the goal of this chapter is to identify the central definitional elements of the phrase “being persuaded” rather than to fix its precise outer boundaries, imposition of a symbolic criterion is consistent with the prevailing theoretical and empirical concerns of persuasion scholars.
On agreeing that individuals are persuaded by symbolic means, the question can be raised as to whether certain types of symbolic strategies should be viewed as typifying the persuasion process, with others being exempted. More specifically, some writers (such as Rowell, 1932a, 1932b; Woolbert, 1917) have explored the wisdom of distinguishing between convincing and persuading—the so-called conviction/persuasion duality. This duality holds that persuasion relies primarily on symbolic strategies that trigger the emotions of intended persuadees, while conviction is accomplished primarily by using strategies rooted in logical proof and that appeal to persuadees’ reason and intellect. Stated in evaluative terms, conviction derives its force from people’s rationality, while persuasion caters to their irrationality.
While this distinction has unquestionably influenced some of the research carried out by contemporary persuasion researchers—for example, studies comparing the relative persuasiveness of logical and emotional appeals such as those conducted by Hartmann (1936), Matthews (1947), and Weiss (1960)—its utility seems dubious at best. Attempts to crisply conceptualize and operationalize distinctions between logical and emotional appeals have been fraught with difficulty (Becker, 1963). As a result of prior learning, nearly all ordinary language is laden with emotional overtones. Even the appeal to “be logical” itself carries strong normative force; indeed, Bettinghaus (1973, pp. 157–158) found that messages containing cues stressing the importance of logical thought were highly persuasive, even though the arguments presented were themselves illogical. Faced with these considerations, it seems more useful to conceive of persuasive discourse as an amalgam of logic and emotion while at the same time
granting that particular messages may differ in the relative amount of each element. Furthermore, the motivation for distinguishing between conviction and persuasion rests largely on value concerns for the way influence ought to be accomplished; influence resulting from rational reasoned messages is ethically preferable to influence resulting from appeals to the emotions—appeals that, in the eyes of some writers (e.g., Diggs, 1964; Nilsen, 1966), “short-circuit” the reasoning processes. Although questions regarding the relative moral acceptability of various means and ends of persuasion are of vital import to all citizens of the democratic society (including persuasion researchers), conceptual distinctions that make for sound ethical analysis may sometimes make for unsound scientific practice. The conviction/persuasion duality strikes the author as such a conceptual animal. People are seldom, if ever, persuaded by “pure” logic or “pure” emotion; indeed, as the previous comments suggest, it is doubtful that these “pure” cases exist in humanity’s workaday persuasive commerce.
Thus, the phrase “being persuaded” applies to situations where behavior has been modified by symbolic transactions (messages) that are sometimes, but not always, linked with coercive force (indirectly coercive) and that appeal to the reason and emotions of the person(s) being persuaded. This definition still suffers from lack of specificity concerning the kinds of behavioral modification that can result from persuasive communication. Let us next turn our attention to this problem.
Being Persuaded: Three Behavioral Outcomes
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In popular parlance, “being persuaded” is equated with instances of behavioral conversion; that is, individuals are persuaded when they have been induced to abandon one set of behaviors and to adopt another. Thus, the assertion, “I am going to try to persuade Gerry to quit smoking,” translates into the following situation: (1) Gerry is presently engaged in smoking behaviors, and (2) I want to induce him to stop these behaviors and begin to perform nonsmoking behaviors. On the surface, the phrase “nonsmoking behaviors” may seem nonsensical, but as any reformed smoker will attest, the transition from smoking to not smoking involves acquisition of a whole new set of behavioral alternatives ranging from substituting gum or mints for cigarettes to sitting in the nonsmoking rather than the smoking sections of restaurants. Indeed, the success of attempts to persuade people to stop smoking may often hinge on inducing them to adopt certain of these new behaviors.
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