Mains Marathon

• Give a brief introduction about persuasion.
• Discuss rational persuasion and emotional appeal and illustrate the utility of these two.
• Give a fair conclusion.

Answer

Persuasion is defined as communicative activities that are mediated. It is the process of changing or reinforcing attitudes, beliefs or behaviour of a person.

It can be intentionally or unintentionally, as a result of the way the changed person perceives themselves in relationship to the influencer. It is different from conformity, power and authority. These are fundamental functions of communication.

Rational Persuasion:

• Rational persuasion is basically a kind of argument that seems to be based on sufficient ground and reason. It is not necessary that rational persuasion always involves arguments. Using arguments in argumentative communication is one method of rationally persuading someone.
• Rational persuasion is a simple tactic. It combines the request of the pressure approach with logical arguments supporting the request.
• With the rational persuasion tactic, leaders use logical arguments and factual evidence to show that a request is feasible and relevant to reaching important objectives.
• Rational persuasion uses logic, rationale, or evidence to explain or justify a position, and to show that the leader’s perspective is the most logical alternative.
• To make a case using rational persuasion, leaders rely on having the knowledge or expertise to present facts analytically.
• Example:
  • The Center has made an effort to teach farmers a type of instrumental reasoning based on the exchange of superior information and data in response to objections against the new farm legislation in order to persuade them of the benefits of its reform plan. Since it is assumed that agrarians lack the intellectual capacity to understand complicated economic policy issues, policy implementation frequently turns into a teacher-student conversation where persuasion is analogous to alerting. People would support the government if they "knew better".

Emotional Appeals:

• A kind of persuasion known as an emotional appeal uses sensory, descriptive language and images to arouse an audience's emotions and persuade them of a point of view.
• When emotional appeals are made, the intuitive system, which is activated, reacts instantly and unconsciously.
• The core ingredients of emotional appeals are by far the most personal in terms of understanding others’ perspectives because they focus on what lies deep in other people’s values and emotions.
• It is being used to arouse the emotions to gain commitment for a request or proposal.
  • Political advertising to gain voter support is an unavoidable part of politics. This type of advertisement seeks support by presenting persuasive arguments and evoking various emotions about the candidate, opponents, and policy proposals.
• Marketing professionals frequently employ a valence-based strategy when discussing emotion. This method examines emotion from two different perspectives:
  • Is the feeling favorable or unfavorable? Positive emotions include feelings of pride or enjoyment, whilst negative emotions include those of anger or fear.
  • Is the feeling strong or moderate? While melancholy and humor are low-arousal emotions, rage and exhilaration are high-arousal ones.
• Emotional Intelligence is also essential for workplace conflict resolution, which entails being able to help others through tense situations, tactfully bringing disagreements to the surface, and defining solutions that everyone can agree on.