Persuasive Speaking

Introduction
Persuasion is the art of convincing others to give
favorable attention to our point of view.

Persuaders want to influence how listeners believe

or act on issues they care about. In order to do
this, they must offer sufficient reasons to accept
their advice.
 Characteristics
Informative Speaking Persuasive Speaking

1. Reveal and clarify options 1. Urge a choice from among them

2. Provide sound information to enlighten 2. To justify their recommendation

3. Less audience commitment 3. More commitment

4. Less leadership 4. More leadership required

5. Appeal to feeling is less important 5. More important

6. Ethical obligation is less great 6. Greater

 Process of persuasion
William J. McGuire, Professor of Psychology at
Yale University suggests up to 12 phases are
involved in effective persuasion.

These phases may be grouped into 5 stages:

Awareness > Understanding > Agreement >
Enactment > Integration
 Process of persuasion
• Awareness: often called as consciousness-raising.
It includes knowing about a problem, paying
attention to it, and understanding how it affects our
Lives directly.
• Understanding: audience must be moved by the
ideas the speaker provide. You can use examples,
Narratives or facts/figures.
 Process of persuasion
• Agreement: depends on listeners accepting
recommendations and remembering their reasons
for that acceptance. Agreement can range from
small concessions to total acceptance.
• Enactment: moves listeners beyond agreement
to action. Try to give them an active way to express
their agreement, reinforce their commitment; for
example, signing a petition, raise their hands, or voice
agreement.
 Process of persuasion

• Integration: promoting the integration of new

attitudes and commitments into enduring patterns
of audiences’ beliefs and values.
 Challenges of Persuasion
1. Enticing a reluctant audience to listen:
When attitudes and beliefs are important to your listeners,
they are especially hard to change.

One way to handle this is to adopt a co-active approach, which

seeks to bridge the differences between the speaker and the
listeners.

The speaker should not be involved in great expectation

fallacy because he/she may experience boomerang effect.
He/she may aim at getting sleeper effect.
 Co-active approach
✓ Establish identification and goodwill
✓ Start with areas of agreement before tackling areas of
disagreement
✓ Emphasize explanation more than argument at the
outset
✓ Use ‘borrowed ethos’
✓ Set modest goals for change
✓ Offer a multisided presentation in which the speaker
compares his/her position with others to show the
superiority of his/her idea
 Challenges of persuasion
2. Removing barriers to commitment: Listeners may
hesitate to commit because they lack important
information, or they may not see the connection
between their own values and the proposal, or they
may not feel certain they can trust what the speaker
says. To solve this, the speaker should:
a) Provide needed information
b) Affirm and apply values
c) Strengthen the credibility
 Challenges of persuasion
3. Moving from attitude to action: They may feel
that the problem does not affect them personally,
or they may not know specifically what it is they
should do; therefore, they may not be ready for
any action. To move people to action, the speaker
must present powerful reasons to act.
Things to do:- (continued to next slide/s)
 Challenges of persuasion
a) Revitalize shared beliefs: for common beliefs
b) Demonstrate the need for involvement
c) Present a clear plan of action: stress that “we
can do it, and this is how we will do it.” The plan
must show what has to be done, who must do it,
and how to proceed. Try to anticipate and refute
excuses listeners might offer.
d) Make it easy to comply
 Designs
• Categorical
• Comparison/Contrast: why your proposal is superior
to another
• Sequential: clear plan of action
• Problem-Solution: present a problem, it’s effect and
then it’s solution
• Refutative: must answer strong opposition on a topic
before you can establish your position. The major
opposing claims become main points for
development.
• Motivated Sequence
 Motivated Sequence
• Advocated by Allan Monroe from Purdue University
The steps are:
➢ Arouse attention: stimulate interest
➢ Demonstrate a need: show the urgency of the situation
➢ Satisfy the need: set forth a plan of action. To offer
agreement, provide examples, narratives, facts/figures
➢ Visualize the result: show how the change will
effect/affect
➢ Call for action: may be a challenge, an appeal, or a
statement of personal commitment. It should be short
and to the point.