How People Respond To Persuasion
- Persuasion can help you get what you want!
- Studying persuasion helps you to better understand people.
- People respond to persuasion in different ways.
Persuasion is the process of changing or reinforcing attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. For example, advertisers use a form of persuasion to get people to buy their products.
A parent may use persuasion to get their child to do something. And most likely, you also use persuasion to try and get the things you want in life.
The Benefits Of Persuasion
The ability to successfully persuade is one of the most valuable and powerful skills you can possess. A master of persuasion is more likely to get what they want, when they want it, than someone who has average or poor persuasion skills.
However, persuasion is not only about influencing people and getting what you want. It is also about understanding why people think and act in certain ways.
This knowledge can help to make you a more likable and social person, since you will know how to interact constructively with other people.
This factor alone makes studying persuasion worthwhile. As research has found that you are much more likely to succeed in life, if other people like you and like what you do.
This article is going to take a brief introductory look at persuasion, with the aim of improving your own persuasion skills.
In the following articles, you will learn more about persuasion, communication and how people think and process various types of information.
These articles should provide you with a good introduction into how people think, and why they act in certain ways. However, this is only an introduction to persuasion, and there is a lot more that could be discussed.
How Do People Respond To Persuasion?
Generally speaking, we respond to persuasive messages in 2 ways, thoughtfully and mindlessly.
When we are thoughtful, we critically analyze what the other person is saying. We listen hard, often lowering the eyebrows or stroking the chin.
These latter actions are a form of communication called body language, and show that we are deeply considering and thinking about what is being said.
In a later article we will take a closer look at body language. However for now, just remember that body language is an extremely important means of communication, and may even reveal more about a person than the words they speak.
Give Me The Facts!!!
A thoughtful response to persuasion will involve thinking about the facts of an argument, weighing up the pros and cons, and asking questions for further clarification on key points. So in other words, a thoughtful response means a thinking response.
How Persuasive Are You?
How persuasive a message will be to someone who is thoughtfully responding to your message, will largely be determined by how much sense it makes to them, and whether or not they think it is a good idea (there are many others factors which may influence this decision and we shall explore those later).
Can they agree and relate to what has been said, or is the information they have just heard complete rubbish or makes no logically sense? These types of questions will help determine the persuasiveness of your message.
Rejecting Persuasion
For example, if I were to try and persuade you to jump off a bridge because you will experience a few thrilling moments on your way down, I would most likely fail in my persuasion attempt.
A thoughtful response may agree that the experience could be fun. However, the fact that you would most likely die or suffer serious injury when you hit the ground, would cause you to reject this persuasion attempt.
You looked at the facts, and critically analyzed what I said. In this case, my message made no logical sense.
Accepting PersuasionÂ
If I were to again try to persuade you to jump off a bridge but this time with a bungee cord attached to your ankles, the likelihood of successfully persuading you would dramatically improve. You recognize that the activity will be fun and safe, and so will be more likely to do it.
The key point here is that thoughtful persuasion involves carefully thinking about what was said, and seeing if it makes logical sense to you. If it does, the likelihood you will be persuaded will vastly increase than if it made no logical sense.
When Do People Respond Thoughtfully?Â
People are most likely to respond thoughtfully to persuasion when they have plenty of time to think about what you have said, and/or when your message is outrageous, shocking or clashes with their beliefs and values.
In the next article we shall take a look at the second major way in which people respond to persuasion, mindless persuasion.
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