Persuasion : Social Influence and Compliance Gaining

by Gass, Robert H.; Seiter, John S.

• ISBN13: 9780205359523
• ISBN10: 0205359523
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-01-01
• Publisher: Allyn & Bacon

Summary

Persuasion, Social Influence, and Compliance Gaining looks at persuasion from a broad-based perspective, encompassing the full scope of persuasion found in everyday life. Linked to empirical research, this text takes students from persuasion theory to qualified conclusions about the operation of persuasion in real-world settings and examines persuasion from a social science perspective. Written in a highly accessible style, this text involves students by providing information and real-life examples with which they can easily identify.

Table of Contents

1. Why Study Persuasion?
Aims and Goals.
Persuasion Is Not a Dirty Word.
Persuasion Is Our Friend.
The Pervasiveness of Persuasion: You Can Run But You Can't Hide.
Four Benefits of Studying Persuasion.
Two Criticisms of Persuasion.
Ethical Concerns Regarding the Use of Persuasion.
Box 1.1: Persuasion Versus Propaganda and Indoctrination.
Box 1.2: 17 Seventeen Tips On Buying a New or Used Car.
Box 1.3: Ethical or Unethical Persuasion? You Make the Call.

2. What Constitutes Persuasion?
Pure Versus Borderline Cases of Persuasion.
Limiting Criteria for Defining Persuasion.
A Model of the Scope of Persuasion.
The Context for Persuasion.
A Working Definition of Persuasion.
So What Isn't Persuasion?
Dual Process Models of Persuasion.
Box 2.1: What Constitutes Persuasion.

3. Attitudes and Consistency.
In Fifteen Words or Less, What is an Attitude?
So How Do You Measure the Durn' Things?
The Theory of Reasoned Action.
The Persistence of Attitudes.
Attitudes as Associative Networks: Your Mind is a Web.
Manufacturing Favorable Images and Associations: Jiggling the Web.
Psychological Consistency.
Cognitive Dissonance.
Box 3.1: When Do Attitudes Coincide With Behavior?

4. Celebrity Selling Power: The Answer is in the Stars.
What is Credibility?
The Factor Analytic Approach to Credibility.
The Factor Analytic Approach and the Real World.
Credibility as a Peripheral Cue.
The Sleeper Effect.
Credibility and Image Management.
Interpersonal Credibility: Accounts, Impression Management, and Facework.
Strategies for Enhancing One's Credibility.
Box 5.1: Bipolar Adjectives Used to Measure Credibility.
Box 5.2: Are There Horns Beneath That Halo?

5. Communicator Characteristics and Persuasibility.
Demographic Variables and Persuasion.
Psychological and Communication States and Traits.
Analyzing and Adapting to Audiences.
Box 5.1: Never Take Candy from Strangers.
Box 5.2: Bull's-eye: An Examination of Market Segmentation.

6. Conformity and Influence in Groups.
Conformity as Persuasion: In With The Crowd.
How Groups Affect Decision Making: Taking it to the Extreme.
Box 6.1: Majority Rules: How to Influence When You're Alone in a Group.
Box 6.2: Modern Day Cults, A Sad Chronology.
Box 6.3: Computer-Mediated Conformity: When Group Members Flame the Same.
Box 6.2: We the Jury: Does the Number of Jurors Make a Difference?

7. Language and Persuasion.
Symbols, Meaning, and Persuasion: The Power of Babble.
Connotative and Denotative Meaning: That's Not How I See It.
Language Intensity, Vividness, and Offensiveness.
Powerless Language and Persuasion: “Ums” the Word.
Box 7.1: Choose Your Words (and Mascots) Carefully.

8. Nonverbal Influence.
Types of Nonverbal Communication.
Box 8.1: The Way You Sit Affects Your Attitudes: Self Persuasion and Nonverbal Communication.
Box 8.2: Nonverbals in the Courtroom.
Box 8.3: Creating Impressions of Others: Background Nonverbal Behavior in Political Debates.

9. Structuring and Ordering Persuasive Messages.
Implicit and Explicit Conclusions: The Writing's on the Wall.
Quantity Versus Quality of Arguments: The More the Merrier?
Repetition, Mere Exposure, and Social Influence: You Can Say That Again.
Order Effects and Persuasion: First Things First.
Primacy and Recency Effects: The First Shall Be Last and the Last Shall Be First.
Preventing Persuasion.
Box 9.1: Not Again! Repetition and Commercials.
Box 9.2: Copy Catter, Dirty Ratter: Should You Be First or Second to Market a Product?
Box 9.3: When Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Inoculation Theory Applied.
Box 9.4 Distraction and Persuasion.

10. Sequential Persuasion.
Pregiving: The Old “I'll Scratch Your Back If You'll Scratch Mine” Approach.
Foot In the Door: The “Give Me an Inch and I'll Take a Mile” Tactic.
The Door in the Face Tactic: “Ask For the Stars.”
Changing the Deal: The Lowball Tactic.
Box 10.1: How Are You Today? The Foot in the Mouth Effect.
ox 10.2: The “That's Not All” Tactic: Seeking Compliance by Sweetening the Deal.
Box 10.3: Faces, Doors, and Feet: An Extension and Combination of Tactics.
Box 10.4: Sorry, We Don't Have Any More in Your Size: The Bait and Switch Tactic.

11. Compliance-Gaining.
Actions Speak the Loudest: A Definition of Compliance Gaining.
In the Beginning: The Roots of Compliance Gaining Research.
Situation: The “It Depends” of Compliance Gaining Behavior.
Seeking Compliance From Strangers and Intimates.
The Effects of Perceived Benefits: What's in it for Me?
Power, Legitimacy, and Politeness.
Who Are You? Individual Characteristics and Compliance Gaining Behavior.
Problems Facing Compliance Research: Trouble in Paradise.
New Directions: The Study of Compliance Gaining Goals.
Primary and Secondary Goals: Wanting and Eating Your Cake.
Box 11.1: Just Say No? A Look at Strategies for Resisting Compliance and Resisting Resistance.
Box 11.2: Take Two Aspirin and Call Me in the Morning: Compliance-Gaining Between Doctors and Patients.

12. Deception.
What is Deception? Lies and Damn Lies.
Telling Lies: The Enactment of Deception, Theories and Frameworks.
What Makes a Liar Persuasive?
Detecting Deception: I Can See Right Through You.
Box 12.1: Information Manipulation Theory: Examples of Deceptive Dimensions of Messages.
Box 12.2: How Do Liars Behave?

13. Motivational Appeals.
Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Motivation.
Logical and Emotional Appeals: A Fuzzy Distinction.
Fear Appeals: If You Don't Stop Doing That, You'll Go Blind.
Appeals to Pity and Guilt: Woe is Me, Shame On You.
Humorous Appeals: Stop Me If You've Heard This One.
For Mature Audiences: Sex Appeals.
Warmth Appeals: Straight from the Heart.
Ingratiation: “That's a Lovely Dress You're Wearing, Mrs. Cleaver.”
Mixed Emotions: Other Appeals and Combinations of Appeals.
Box 13.1: Additional Moderating Variables Affecting the Success of Fear Appeals.
Box 13.2: Advice and Tips on Using Humor as a Persuasive Tool.
Box 13.3: Funeral Home Persuasion.

14. Visual Persuasion.
A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words.
Architecture and Influence: Building Blocks of Persuasion.
Art as Persuasion: Mona Lisa Made Me Do It.
Maps as Persuasion: Your Latitude Affects Your Attitude.
Cinematic Persuasion: The Movies Made Me Do It.
Advertising and Persuasion: Images in the Media: Views in the News.

15. Esoteric Forms of Persuasion.
Subliminal Persuasion: Hidden Messages or Hokum?
Music as a Form of Persuasion.
Aroma and Persuasion.
Box 15.1: Is There a Subliminal Message in Your Future?

16. The Ethics of Persuasion.
Is Persuasion in General Unethical?
The Motives Color the Means.
Ethics, Culture, and the Issue of Central vs. Peripheral Processing.
Ethical Questions That Can't Be Answered Through the Study of Persuasion.
Our Approach: Characteristics of Ethical Influence.
Ethical Issues Arising from Previous Chapters.
Box 16.1: Approaches to Ethics.
Box 16.2: Telephone Solicitations: Don't Fall for a Phony Line.