I was in the Singapore Airlines lounge at the Bangkok airport . . . there was a small placard at the bar advertising two Specialty Drinks: a white wine cocktail and a red wine cocktail. I asked one of the two women behind the bar, “Which one of these do you recommend?” “The red one,” she said. The other woman then weighed in to say, “The red is more (some word I didn’t catch) and the white is more refreshing.” “I recommend the red,” the first woman said. There’s some kind of persuasion lesson here. Don’t give people too much to think about? I just wanted a drink that at least one person in a position to know thinks is better. Granted, I didn’t fully understand what the second woman said but what if she’d said “fruity” or “stimulating” and I wanted something both fruity and refreshing, or I wanted… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Persuasion
The Science of Persuasion
Politicians Making Things Happen
Now, if we want people to do certain things and if we are indifferent as to why they do them, then no affective appeals need be excluded. Some political candidates want us to vote for them regardless of our reasons for doing so. Therefore, if we hate the rich, they will snarl at the rich for us; if we dislike strikers, they will snarl at the strikers; if we like clambakes, they will throw clambakes; if the majority of us like hillbilly music, they may say nothing about the problems of government, but travel among their constituencies with hillbilly bands. — S.I. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action Read more →