11.4 Persuasive Strategies

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Identify common persuasive strategies.
2. Explain how speakers develop ethos.
3. Explain how speakers appeal to logos and pathos.
4. Explain how cognitive dissonance works as a persuasive strategy.
5. Explain the relationship between motivation and appeals to needs as persuasive strategies.

Do you think you are easily persuaded? If you are like most people, you aren’t swayed easily to change your mind about something. Persuasion is difficult because changing views often makes people feel like they were either not informed or ill informed, which also means they have to admit they were wrong about something. We will learn about nine persuasive strategies that you can use to more effectively influence audience members’ beliefs, attitudes, and values. They are ethos, logos, pathos, positive motivation, negative motivation, cognitive dissonance, appeal to safety needs, appeal to social needs, and appeal to self-esteem needs.