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Persuasive Communication: Communication Be Enough To Get Compliance?

This document introduces the learner to factors of persuasion including ethos, pathos, and logos. It states that ethos is the most important factor, though logos is often assumed to be. Another objective is to explain that framing is the heart of persuasion, as illustrated by the story "The Last Leaf", which shows how framing played a role in persuasion. Persuasion is important in organizational contexts for managing people and getting acceptance of ideas. The three factors identified by Aristotle are also defined.

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38 views2 pages

Persuasive Communication: Communication Be Enough To Get Compliance?

This document introduces the learner to factors of persuasion including ethos, pathos, and logos. It states that ethos is the most important factor, though logos is often assumed to be. Another objective is to explain that framing is the heart of persuasion, as illustrated by the story "The Last Leaf", which shows how framing played a role in persuasion. Persuasion is important in organizational contexts for managing people and getting acceptance of ideas. The three factors identified by Aristotle are also defined.

Uploaded by

Tanzy S
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Persuasive Communication

The objective of the chapter is to introduce the learner to the factors that underlie all persuasion:
ethos, pathos, and logos. The chapter illustrates the ingredients of each of these factors. It also
shows that ethos is far more important than pathos and logos although logos is often assumed to
be the most powerful persuasion factor in business context. Another objective of this chapter is to
impress upon the learner that framing is the heart of persuasion. In fact, the opening story, "The
Last Leaf," illustrates beautifully the role played by framing in persuasion.

• Persuasion is very central to managing people.


• Getting others – bosses, subordinates, peers, and clients – to accept our ideas and to do
what we want them to is persuasion.
• Aristotle has identified three persuasion factors: ethos, logos, and pathos
• Most acts of persuasion mingle these three factors although one factor may be dominant

Q1. Why is persuasion important in the organisational context? Shouldn't clear and concise
communication be enough to get compliance?
Clarity, conciseness, and precision are all desirable qualities in business communication. They
reduce misunderstandings. Unfortunately, however, these qualities do not ensure compliance. As
we shall see later, if a person is unwilling to accept something or comply with something, he will
find ways of countering the clearest of arguments and the best of evidence. If you want to
manage people in your organisation – your bosses, co-workers, and subordinates – you have to
learn to communicate persuasively. Of course, it goes without saying that clarity and conciseness
alone will not win customers over; you need to persuade them to buy your products and services
because they have a choice; they are not obliged to buy from you.

Q2. What are the fundamental persuasion factors identified by Aristotle?

Aristotle identified ethos, pathos, and logos as the fundamental persuasion factors.

Ethos stands for the persuader’s personality. Some individuals are more persuasive than others
even when what they ask us to do is no different from what the others are asking. This is because
they display one or more of the following: expertise, credibility, trustworthiness, moral or legal
authority, and good looks. Even if you don't know them personally, their reputation is enough to
make them persuasive. If you analyse your experience of being persuaded, you will find one or
more of these characteristics in your persuaders. Similarly, if you analyse your experience of
persuading others, you are likely to find that you also have one or more of these characteristics as
far as the target – group or individual – is concerned.

Pathos stands for emotions. If you can arouse your target’s emotions in favour of the course of
action you want them to take, you are likely to be successful. The emotions could be positive
(such as love, pride, and joy) or negative (such as hate, anger, and envy). While emotional
persuasion is very common in one's family and circle of friends, it is strong in the corporate
world, too. If you can touch someone's heart by appealing to his values and beliefs, using vivid
language, or arousing his instincts, you are using pathos to persuade.
Logos stands for reasoning. If your proposal is logical and supported by evidence, it appeals to
your target’s reasoning, and therefore she is likely to accept it. Evidence is generally drawn from
two sources: induction and deduction. When we arrive at a conclusion about a whole class based
on information gathered from a few members of that class, we follow the inductive process.
Deduction is in the opposite direction: we arrive at the case of an individual from a widely
accepted general principle (major premise).

All three factors are generally used in conjunction. Of the three, ethos is the most important
although it generally requires the support of both pathos and logos.

Q3. What is framing in persuasion? Why is it called the heart of persuasion?


Framing is moulding a proposal in such a way that it fits in with the target’s needs, fears,
concerns, values, and expectations. A peg has to be round-shaped for it to go into a round hole; if
the peg is square, it will not get into the round hole. When the two shapes match, there is no
problem for the peg to go in and sit snugly in the hole. It's that simple. And that is why it's called
the heart of persuasion.

We keep seeing the following invitation in shops: “buy one, get one free!”Or “flat 50% off!”
What the shop wants to do is to get rid of the old stock so that space can be created for new
stock. But it is presented to potential shoppers as a bargain. And many shoppers go and buy stuff
that they may not need because they perceive a bargain.

Q4. What lessons in persuasion can we learn from O. Henry’s “The Last Leaf”?
The main lesson that we can learn from "The Last Leaf" is that persuasion works best when the
proposal is framed in such a way that it fits in with the target’s beliefs and expectations.
Medicine was not doing its job on Johnsy because she had lost the zest for life and the will to
live. Her best friend Sue tried many techniques including appeal to the strong emotional bond
between the two to persuade her to stop thinking about death. Nothing worked because Johnsy
was totally convinced that her life would end as the last leaf on the ivy vine fell. It was indeed an
absolutely irrational belief with nothing to support it. But the fact is that she was totally
convinced about the link between the leaf and her life. Once she saw that the last leaf did not fall
in spite of the battering it received from gusts of wind and torrential rains, she took interest in
life. Behrman knew as well as Sue and the doctor that Johnsy's belief was silly; that did not stop
him from indulging her fancy.

The strong lesson in persuasion is that neither brilliant arguments nor strong emotional appeal
can match the power of framing proposals to fit in with the target’s beliefs, concerns, and
expectations.

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