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Definition

Persuasion as a phenomenon, “the act of addressing arguments or appeals to a person in order to induce

cooperation, submission, or agreement,” (Oxford English Dictionary Online) has a long history. Its early

manifestations include the Biblical prophet Jeremiah’s efforts in the Old Testament to convince his people

to repent and establish a connection with God, using a form of persuasive   speech   from

which   rhetoricians   derive the “Jeremiad” genre. Predating today’s teaching assistants of public speaking

classes and political spin doctors were ancient Greece’s Sophists and Italy’s Niccolo Machiavelli, who

advised how best to capture attention and   power   through political eloquence (Perloff, 2008, p 5). In the

early nineteenth century, persuasion was key in the United States’ first   health   campaigns led by reformers

concerned about excessive alcoholism and poor diets (Engs, 2000).

Persuasion as an intellectual concept has a similarly lengthy record, reaching back to its roots in the study

of   rhetoric . Aristotle’s Art of   Rhetoric   saw persuasion as the ultimate purpose of   rhetoric ,

defining   rhetoric   as “the faculty of discovering the possible means of persuasion in reference to any

subject whatever” (Aristotle, bk I, sec.II.2) while Cicero defined an orator’s duty as being to “speak in a

style fitted to convince” (Cicero, bk I, sec XXXI.138). Later scholars added to the link between persuasion

and   rhetoric , with Kenneth Burke’s discussion in   A Rhetoric of Motives   of “pure persuasion” and the need

for speakers to persuade audiences by identifying their causes with those of the audience (Burke, 1969, p

55).

Like rhetoric, numerous definitions abound about persuasion, including the one provided in the opening

sentence of this entry. The long history of this concept has given rise to debates attempting to delineate

what precisely persuasion is and is not. Nevertheless, despite their variety and complexity, common

themes emerge when discussing persuasion: that persuasion entails some form of appeal to an audience

to alter their beliefs, and persuasion’s validity as an alternative to force.

Persuasion and Appeal

The word “persuade” comes from the Latin word suadere, meaning “to advise or make something

pleasant to.” Suadere itself comes from the same Latin roots as suavis (“suavity”) and swadwis, meaning

“sweet” (Oxford English Dictionary Online). Persuasion is thus the act of making an idea or action sweet

or pleasurable in order to appeal to audiences and induce them to change their beliefs. Hesiod’s

Theogony describes that to honor a king, Zeus’ daughters would “pour sweet dew upon his tongue, and

from his mouth there flow[ed] gentle words” (Buxton, 1982, p 7). The sweet, even alluring roots of

persuasive   communication   underline the seductive quality of persuasion, personified for Roman and

Greek rhetoricians by Suadela or Peitho, respectively, the goddess of persuasion whose particular

province was the alluring power of sexual love (Buxton, 1982, p 31). The relationship between persuasion

and desire was strong in Greek culture. Peitho was often cast as a handmaiden of Aphrodite, or, as

Rhetorica, adorning Pandora with garlands and flowers, a literal seduction akin to the adornment

of   speech   with stylistic elements that made it more attractive (North, 1993, p 408).

Persuasion –like seduction– seeks to make another party yield, indicating that the act of persuasion

implies the presence of some kind of “agonistic” or competitive stress (Burke, 1969, p 52) to be

overcome. Kenneth Burke argued that “persuasion involves choice, will; it is directed to a man only

insofar as he is free – only insofar as men are potentially free, must the spellbinder seek to persuade them (Burke, 1969, p 50).” Hence, the competition or adversary to be countered is the free will of the

listener, who may choose to agree with a persuader, or not.

Persuasion as Alternative to Force

Given its root in sweetness and appeal, persuasion is often thought of as an alternative to more forceful

means of getting one’s way – that persuasion seeks to win people over, where coercion would seek to

defeat them. Persuasion was particularly important as a non-violent way of winning over senators and

colleagues in the early days of the Roman senate, with rhetoric and persuasiveness playing a vital role in

public debate and democratic rule.

However, the distinction between persuasion and its less alluring cousin,   coercion , is not always clear.

The Sophist, Gorgias, compared the   effect   of   speech   on the mind with the powerful domination exercised

by drugs on the body, saying that “ Speech   is a powerful master and achieves the most divine feats with

the smallest and least evident body (Gorgias, 2001, p 31).” In a similar blurring of the boundary between

verbal coaxing and physical intimidation, Burke spoke of Cicero likening the rhetorical devices in De

Oratore to weapons be used either for threat and attack or brandished for show (Burke, 1969, p 68).

The Greek word Peithananke referred to “compulsion made under the guise of persuasion,” (Burke, 1969,

p 50) suggesting that persuasion and   coercion   exist on a spectrum. On one end is sweet alluring appeal,

persuasion; on the other is forceful, threatening compulsion, or   coercion . In between lie gradations such

as   coercive persuasion and persuasive   coercion . The point is that persuasion and   coercion   are not

separate concepts, because   speech acts   can be both appealing and threatening - they differ in degree

rather than in purpose because they share a common purpose of seeking to change or sway attitudes.

Persuasion seeks to sway   attitudes   by making audiences an offer while   coercion   makes them an offer

that cannot be refused. In 1982, Mary J. Smith proposed a relativist perspective postulating that the

difference between persuasion and   coercion   was a matter of individual perception, leaving it to an

audience or to circumstances to decide whether to classify a   speech   as persuasive or   coercive   (Smith,

1982).

Persuasion in Disciplinary History

Although it had its academic roots in   rhetoric , the study of persuasion took on a greater empirical focus in

the interwar period. Carefully designed and honeyed words of sweet persuasion raised   ethical   questions

such as whether persuasion distracted audiences from genuine substance and blinded them to the truth

of a situation. As such, the study of persuasion has taken on increasing importance

in   communication   sub-fields such as   propaganda ,   marketing,   subliminal messaging , and   political

campaigning, in which audiences are asked to sway their preferences towards a particular person or

product.

Between the years 1918 to 2009, the word “persuasion” appeared in the titles of approximately 89 articles

published by the Quarterly Journal of Speech (Table 1). Earlier articles featured persuasion as a tool

of   logic,   reasoning, and   speech education , articles after 1930 sought to theorize persuasive processes

and quantify their social   effects , and post World War 2 articles discussed persuasion

alongside   propaganda , political   leadership   and brainwashing. Scholarship since the 1980s has focused

on persuasion’s role in   advertising, cognition,   propaganda , and identity. An Open Resource Created by the Graduate Students of the

Department of Communication, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign