Persuasion is a method of influence that attempts to change a persons beliefs, feelings, or behaviors. In other words persuasion attempts to change attitudes by attacking one or more of the tricompnants of attitude, affect, cognitions, and behavior. This tool’s power is often undestimated. In order to get a better look at how we must take a more extensice look on how persuasion can be used.
We use persuasion without even realizeing it in our everyday lives. When a person wants to go to a party with their friend, but that friend has to stay home and study, that person relies on using persuaves tactics to change their friend’s attitude in essence changing their behavior. Sometimes we list reasons and give an argument as to why that person should go out. This would be attending to a central route of persuasion which is information based. Other times persuasion can be much more suddle. Perhaps we flip on the radio and it just so happens that a dance song comes on. As the person studying begins bobbing their head up and down to the beat of the music they find themselves attending more to superficial cues then the argument itself. Before they know it they are strapping on their shoes and grabbing a coat to go out.
Being persuasive can also be an extremely handy tool to have in relationships. Dale Carnegie's, How to Win Friends and Influence People, discusses communicating, listening to, and persuading people. The book basically teaches you how to be a likable person and likeable people are more persuasive people. In some cases the source of a persuasive message is more important then the message itself. Perfect examples of this are celebrity endorsements. Companies pay celebrities millions of dollars to promote their products because people will use heuristics and figure since this celebrity uses the product that it must be good. What the question boils down to is how effective persuasion can really be and how can we resist such persuasion....