Public Speaking Chapter Fourteen

Persuasive Speeches:
- When a speaker asks listeners to make a particular choice about believing or doing
something, they are asking listeners to eliminate other possible choices and commit
themselves to the speaker’s choice
- Since the speaker is trying to change the judgment of the audience they must pay
attention to their ethical responsibility of not manipulating the audience
Purposes for Persuasive Strategies:
- The term persuasion is sometimes misunderstood as referring only to situation in which a
speaker reverses an audience’s beliefs
- A person’s commitment to a position is not just a matter of yes or no, there is a range and
listeners can become either more committed or less committed to a position
- Strategies
o Strengthen commitment
o Weaken commitment
o Conversion
o Specific action
- If the speaker wants listeners to remember new information the speaker has to first
persuade them that the information is important
- To persuade the audience to take action the speaker must first ensure that the audience
knows what the action means
- Informative strategies enlarge the audiences scope of awareness while persuasive
strategies alter the audience’s position
- Strengthening Commitment
o Deals with audiences that already agree with the speaker
o Strengthening commitment is a very common approach to persuasion because it
takes advantage of people’s tendency to seek out and accept messages they
already agree with
- Weakening Commitment
o Strong commitments that are opposed to the speaker’s view
o The goal of this it to move listeners from their current position to the middle of
the scale, the point that represents no commitment
- Conversion
o This is far more difficult that strengthening or weakening a commitment
o Speakers try to change a listener’s beliefs by convincing them to accept
something they previously rejected or reject something they previously accepted
o No speaker is likely to achieve conversion through a single speech unless
listener’s opinions about the subject are not very deeply held in the first place
- Inducing a Specific Action
o The speaker wants the audience members to do something as the result of a
speech
o Listeners have to take the next step and act on the message, moving from belief to
action is sometimes difficult
o They may agree that they should modify their attitude without actually modifying
their behavior
 o Listeners might be induced to modify their behavior without changing their
attitude
Plan Your Strategy:
- Determine your target audience
o The first step is to determine as precisely as possible which members are your
target audience
- Asses the audience’s motivation
o Listeners will be motivated to let your speech influence them if they perceive that
your appeal is linked to their own motives and needs
o At the most general level people seek to attain pleasure and to avoid pain
o A person’s higher order motives become important only after lower order needs
are satisfied
- Determine your purpose
o The speaker can have different motives for speaking
o The audience analysis and speaker’s motivation taken together will help the
speaker determine their general purpose
Elaboration Likelihood Model:
- Components of the model
o Elaboration refers to the listener’s tendency to think about information related to
the topic of the speech
o With high elaboration a person will be persuaded by systematic thinking about the
message and the topic
o Messages that hold up under such scrutiny will be persuasive
o With low elaboration a person will be persuaded as a result of short cuts that
simplify thinking
o These are easier bases for decision because they are triggered more by intuitive
reaction than by detailed analysis
o No one has the time or energy to listen critically to every message of every topic
o Each listener is likely to use a mix of critical listening and simplifying devices
- Implications of the model
o If the topic is personally relevant or if the listeners generally enjoy thinking about
things or have prior knowledge about the topic or if there are few distractions,
they are more likely to elaborate the message
o When elaboration is high speakers who follow the standards of evidence and
reasoning are more likely to be persuasive than those who do not
o When elaboration is low speakers who follow the advice of establishing ethos, to
appear likable, and to seem interesting are more likely to be persuasive than those
who do not
o If the message can encourage listeners to elaborate and if it succeeds in
persuading them it is more likely that their attitudes will persist over time and that
their attitudes will correspond to their behavior
Constraints on Effective Persuasive Speaking:
- When you seek to persuade the constraints are often greater than when you seek to
inform or to entertain
- The nature and strength of resistance varies significantly among listeners and situation
and it often takes selective listening selective perception or selective influence
- Selective Listening
o Audiences typically attend to messages, interpret them, and remember them
selectively
o Selective listening goes beyond selective exposure and paying attention to
messages with which you agree, it also includes how you listen to the messages
o Selective listening may lead the audience to hear the common ground but to
ignore your message
- Selective Perception
o Audiences may selectively perceive and respond to the message in still other ways
that result in their not being persuaded
o Denial
§ Listeners sometimes refuse to accept a message that challenges them to
change, no matter how well that message is supported or defended.
§ Wanting to believe otherwise, they simply will not accept the truth of the
message, they are in denial
o Dismissal
§ A second way that audiences may selectively perceive an unfavorable
message is to dismiss it as not really applying to them
§ Unlike denial in which they refuse to accept the general truth of the
message in dismissal they dispute that the truth applies specifically to
them
§ You may have to accept, however, that dismissal is sometimes purely self-
delusion and insurmountable
o Belittling the Source
§ A third way of selectively perceiving a threatening message is to attack the
credibility of the source
§ If your persuasive appeal relies almost entirely on a single source, you run
the risk that listeners might discredit the source and thereby avoid your
message
o Compartmentalization
§ If a message challenges what listeners already believe they may avoid its
influence by keeping it separate from their conflicting belief so that the
two ideas do not seem at odds
§ This defense against persuasion is called compartmentalization because it
is like putting the conflicting ideas into separate mental boxes
§ It is important to be gentle and sympathetic, if you are too direct the
audience might become defensive and reject the message
- Selective Influence
o Multiple Meanings: Polysemy
§ Depending on what a listener emphasizes messages can be understood in
more than one way, this is called a polysemic message
§ The message interacts with the listeners’ different prior experiences,
beliefs, and expectation in different ways
§ Condensation symbols are polysemic
o The Boomerang Effect
 § A final defense of listeners against being influenced is called the
boomerang effect because the message turns back on the speaker
§ This can happen if an appeal is so powerful that it overwhelms the
audience
§ Concluding that nothing they can do will help matters, listener’s may
actually do the opposite of what the speaker has urged
§ To avoid the boomerang effect, you must assess carefully just how much
to arouse the audience about an issue
§ Fortunately, these methods by which an audience resists persuasion are
not absolute, speakers can overcome them by making wise use of their
resources and opportunities
Strategic Resources for Specific Purposes:
- Strengthening Commitment
o Consciousness Raising
§ You undoubtedly have beliefs of values that you are barely aware of
because you take them for granted
§ Consciousness raising is the process of making people aware of values and
commitments that they had taken for granted
o Moving from Education to Commitment
§ A persuasive speech would go further building on listeners intellectual
awareness of the issues and seeking to convince them that the problem is
serious and urgent
o Increasing the Sense of Urgency
§ Balance how serious the problem is as well as how easy it is to solve it
§ Speakers typically argue that the issue is important, it could be decided
either way, it will be decided soon, and the listeners action could tip the
scales
§ Properly crafted such a message will jolt listeners out of complacency and
intensify their commitment to the cause
- Weakening Commitment
o Finding a Critical Distinction
§ One way to weaken commitment to a principle is to deflect it by invoking
a different principle
§ What makes this strategic move possible is that audiences’ commitments
are complex, they may seem simple but upon inspection they usually can
be found to contain multiple perspectives, not all of which work in perfect
harmony
§ In order to do this, the speaker should identify the audiences commitment
as precisely as possible and then ask what considerations might limit or
qualify the commitment
o Refutation
§ Refutation is an approach that challenges it directly. It tries to disprove or
dispute the arguments or appeals made by others
§ Before you can refute an argument or appeal you first need to be sure that
you understand what it says
§ Ways to refute
 • Object to the claim itself and develop a contrary claim
• Object to the speakers inferences, and thereby refuse to accept the
conclusion
§ Steps to make a refutation
• Identify the position to be attacked
• Explain the significance of the position you are attacking
• Present and develop the attack
o Rebuilding Arguments
§ Refutation is not solely a process of criticizing it’s also a way of
rebuilding arguments
§ This is done by responding to the criticism against the argument
- Conversion
o Chip Away at the Edges of Beliefs
§ Defend a value that initially coexists with the value you want to challenge
but will eventually undermine it
o Identify a Pattern of Anomalies
§ Anomalies are puzzling situations that an explanation does not fit
§ If anomalies continue and intensify they eventually call a position into
question and eventually collapse it
o Employ Consciousness Raising
§ Consciousness raising can be used when a speaker wants the audience to
change
§ This makes listeners sufficiently uncomfortable with their own actions that
the could be induced to change
o Seek Incremental Changes
§ Usually conversion comes about slowly in a series of small gradual steps,
keep the goals modest and don’t ask for too much too soon
§ People will reject beliefs that are thrown at them all at once
o Use Reluctant Testimony
§ Making a statement that is at odds with the speaker’s interest
§ This is an important piece to have during speeches
- Inducing a Specific Action
o Identify the Desired Action Precisely
§ Identify the specific action that you want the listeners to perform
o Make the Action as Easy to Perform as Possible
§ If an action is difficult to perform the audience is less likely to perform it
§ The easier it is for the audience to do the action the more likely the
speaker will succeed
General Strategic Resources:
- Three general means of persuasion: logos, pathos, ethos
- Logos: speakers argument
- Ethos: speakers character and credibility
- Pathos: appeals to appropriate emotions
- Any type of supporting material can work well if it is carefully chosen and clearly related
to the speakers purpose
 - Because you are asking the audience to believe or to do something is important to use
solid claims and good reasoning in the speech
- Proper organizational patterns must be followed: problem-solution, cause-effect,
comparison-contrast, narrative, topical, biographical
- Establish positive ethos because it is a powerful resource in persuasion
- A speaker with a previous record of trustworthiness is more likely to be trusted
- If the speaker is not an expert on their topic they need to draw statements from people
that are experts
- Speakers should think creatively about how to reinforce what they want listeners to
believe or do
- Establishing common bonds between the listener and the speaker helps create a good
feeling
Organizing Persuasive Speeches:
- Problem Solution Speech
o Describe the situation
§ Make listeners aware of the importance of the problem
o Evaluate the situation as a problem
§ Make listeners aware that the problem is a serious concern
o Propose a solution
§ Create a solution detailed enough to solve the problem as it has been
described
o Argue for the solution
§ Convince the listeners that the solution really works: it resolves the
problem, is feasible, and produces benefits that outweigh the costs
- Motivated Sequence
o Organized with respect to the audience’s motivation, not the subject matter of the
speech
o Attention Step
§ Introduction to the speech
o Need Step
§ Convinces the audience that something is missing
o Satisfaction Step
§ Provides the audience with the means to fulfill the need step
o Visualization Step
§ Gives the audience a mental picture of the solution
o Action Step
§ Asks the audience to bring about the solution that they have visualized
§ Resembles the final plea that is one of the traditional function of the
conclusion of a speech
Hostile audience: an audience that is strongly committed in opposition to the views of the
speaker
Conversion: abandoning one belief or value and replacing it with another
Target Audience: within a larger audience, those individuals whom a speaker wants to address
usually people whose response will determine the success of the speech
Motivation: the incentive to do something that requires effort, such as considering a persuasive
message
Denial: the refusal to accept the claim in a message no matter how strong its justification is
Dismissal: disregarding a message because one disputes that it applies to them
Compartmentalization: keeping two conflicting beliefs separated so that one need not be
conscious of the conflict between them
Polysemic: capable of being understood in more than one way
Boomerang effect: the opposite effect from that which a speaker intends
Consciousness raising: making people aware of values and commitments that they previously
took for granted
Self-fulfilling prophecy: a prediction that comes true because of actions that people take upon
hearing the prediction
Refutation: the attack or defense of a challenged statement or claim
Reluctant testimony: statements that are not in the speaker’s self-interest
Biased evidence: statements that are suspect because they are influenced by the self-interest of
the source
Identification: establishing common bonds between the speaker and the audience so that the
speaker appears to be at one with listeners
Motivated sequence: a persuasive message that is organized in terms of steps in the audience’s
motivation rather than in terms of the specific subject