Results by title
8 books match the query 'Persuasion (Psychology)'
Campaigning for Hearts and Minds
How Emotional Appeals in Political Ads WorkTed Brader
University of Chicago Press, 2005
At the heart of this book are ingenious experiments, conducted by Brader during an election, with truly eye-opening results that upset conventional wisdom. They show, for example, that simply changing the music or imagery of ads while retaining the same text provokes completely different responses. He reveals that politically informed citizens are more easily manipulated by emotional appeals than less-involved citizens and that positive "enthusiasm ads" are in fact more polarizing than negative "fear ads." Black-and-white video images are ten times more likely to signal an appeal to fear or anger than one of enthusiasm or pride, and the emotional appeal triumphs over the logical appeal in nearly three-quarters of all political ads.
Brader backs up these surprising findings with an unprecedented survey of emotional appeals in contemporary political campaigns. Politicians do set out to campaign for the hearts and minds of voters, and, for better or for worse, it is primarily through hearts that minds are won. Campaigning for Hearts and Minds will be indispensable for anyone wishing to understand how American politics is influenced by advertising today.
Forging the World
Strategic Narratives and International RelationsAlister Miskimmon, Ben O'Loughlin, and Laura Roselle, Editors
University of Michigan Press, 2017
Getting Your Way
Strategic Dilemmas in the Real WorldJames M. Jasper
University of Chicago Press, 2006
Getting other people to do what we want is a useful skill for anyone. Whether you’re seeking a job, negotiating a deal, or angling for that big promotion, you’re engaged in strategic thought and action. In such moments, you imagine what might be going on in another person’s head and how they’ll react to what you do or say. At the same time, you also try to pick the best way to realize your goals, both with and without the other person’s cooperation. Getting Your Way teaches us how to win that game by offering a fuller understanding of how strategy works in the real world.
As we all know, rules of strategy are regularly discovered and discussed in popular books for business executives, military leaders, and politicians. Those works with their trendy lists of pithy maxims and highly effective habits can help people avoid mistakes or even think anew about how to tackle their problems. But they are merely suggestive, as each situation we encounter in the real world is always more complex than anticipated, more challenging than we had hoped. James M. Jasper here shows us how to anticipate those problems before they actually occur—by recognizing the dilemmas all strategic players must negotiate, with each option accompanied by a long list of costs and risks. Considering everyday dilemmas in a broad range of familiar settings, from business and politics to love and war, Jasper explains how to envision your goals, how to make the first move, how to deal with threats, and how to employ strategies with greater confidence.
Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Rosa Parks, Hugo Chávez, and David Koresh all come into play in this smart and engaging book, one that helps us recognize and prepare for the many dilemmas inherent in any strategic action.
Just Hear Me Out
How to Change Minds Without Lies, Bullshit, or Moral CompromiseColin Marshall
University of Chicago Press, 2026
A guide to persuasion for people who want to change minds without manipulation or coercion.
Most of us have given up on persuasion. We say our problems are too pressing, people are too polarized, and success is too dubious—and it’s true! After all, when was the last time you heard someone actually change their mind? To improve our persuasive powers, self-help books often ask us to stoop to dishonest, manipulative tricks that rarely achieve lasting results. But perhaps there is a way to persuade people that is neither hopelessly misguided nor morally suspect.
In Just Hear Me Out, philosopher Colin Marshall describes a persuasive method that is both effective and ethical. Rather than share a flurry of tips for how to win friends and influence people, Marshall invites us to take up persuasion as fundamentally civil work, good both for our conscience and our communities. Real-world persuaders such as Jane Addams, Daryl Davis, and Fred Rogers show us an ethical route, he argues, to changing hearts through patience, respect, and compassion.
Accessible, practical, and buoyed by hope, Just Hear Me Out offers a powerful method for all who want to persuade others but aren’t interested in winning at any cost. When it works, people don’t just change their minds; they discover anew how to value our common humanity.
Open Hand
Arguing as an Art of PeaceBarry M. Kroll
Utah State University Press, 2013
Kroll cultivates a bodily investigation of noncombative argument, offering direct pedagogical strategies anchored in three modalities of learning—conceptual-procedural, kinesthetic, and contemplative—and projects, activities, assignments, informal responses, and final papers for students. Kinesthetic exercises derived from martial arts and contemplative meditation and mindfulness practices are key to the approach, with Kroll specifically using movement as a physical analogy for tactics of arguing.
Collaboration, mediation, and empathy are important yet overlooked values in communicative exchange. This practical, engaging, and accessible guide for teachers contains clear examples and compelling discussions of pedagogical strategies that teach students not only how to write persuasively but also how to deal with personal conflict in their daily lives.
Persuasion in Parallel
How Information Changes Minds about PoliticsAlexander Coppock
University of Chicago Press, 2022
Many mistakenly believe that it is fruitless to try to persuade those who disagree with them about politics. However, Persuasion in Parallel shows that individuals do, in fact, change their minds in response to information, with partisans on either side of the political aisle updating their views roughly in parallel. This book challenges the dominant view that persuasive information can often backfire because people are supposedly motivated to reason against information they dislike. Drawing on evidence from a series of randomized controlled trials, the book shows that the backfire response is rare to nonexistent. Instead, it shows that most everyone updates in the direction of information, at least a little bit. The political upshot of this work is that the other side is not lost. Even messages we don't like can move us in the right direction.
Popular Trials
Rhetoric, Mass Media, and the LawRobert Hariman
University of Alabama Press, 1993
Examining how landmark trials become public dramas that shape law, culture, and collective memory.
Contemporary scholarship illustrates the law’s increasingly powerful role in American life; legal education, in turn, has focused on the problems and techniques of communication. This book addresses these interests through critical study of eight popular trials: the 17th-century trial of Dr. Henry Sacheverell, and the 20th-century trials of Scopes, the Rosenbergs, the Chicago Seven, the Catonsville Nine, John Hinckley, Claus von Bulow, and San Diego Mayor Larry Hedgecock. Such trials spark major public debates, become symbols of public life, and legitimize particular beliefs and institutions. Despite high visibility and drama, however, the popular trial has not received sufficient study as persuasive event. Lying at the intersection of the institutional practices of law and the mass media, the popular trial has confounded study according to the conventional assumptions of scholarship in both law and communication studies.
This volume defines popular trials as a genre of public communication, a genre that includes trials unusually prominent within public discourse. Further, popular trials are often characterize by special media presentations through televised coverage of the trial itself and news analysis, intense audience identification with the principal actors, and political and social consequences independent of the legal action. The essays in this volume stress the rhetorical functions of popular trials. Contributors in addition to the editor include Lawrance M. Bernabo, Barry Brummett, Celeste Michelle Condit, Juliet Dee, Susan J. Drucker, J. Justin Gustainis, Janice Platt Hunold, William Lewis, John Louis Lucaites, and Larry A. Williamson.
Sonic Persuasion
Reading Sound in the Recorded AgeGreg Goodale
University of Illinois Press, 2011