PSY 301- Introduction to Social Psychology

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Running head: Persuasion1PersuasionPSY 301-Introduction to Social PsychologyInstructorDate:In your essay on persuasion, you discussed various aspects such as the characteristics of the persuader,the persuasive message, and the audience. Reflecting on these components, explain how the credibility,attractiveness, and likeability of a persuader influence the effectiveness of a persuasive message.Additionally, analyze how emotions, framing, narratives, and rational appeals play a role in shaping themessage. Finally, consider how audience characteristics such as gender, culture, and self-esteem impactthe reception of persuasive messages. Your response should be between700-1000 wordsand includereferences to key concepts from the course material.

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Running head: Persuasion2e have all encountered persuasion in many different ways all the time. From late night infomercials tothat person at the mall doing everything they can to get you to show interest in their product. Ifsomeone wants us to do something we do not necessarily want to do, then they have the opportunity topersuade us. In this paper I will discuss many of the most important aspects of persuasion, such as thecharacteristics of the persuader, what attributes are in a persuasive message, how we are influenced bythe framing, emotion, narratives and rational appeals in the messages we receive. Next, we will discussthe characteristics of the audience and assess the role of gender, culture and self esteem involved in theprocess of receiving persuasive messages. There are many interesting facets to persuasion andpersuasion will be a part of our lives foreveras people find new and more convincing ways to persuadepeople to do certain things.To have the ability to persuade someone a person must possess certain characteristics. Two ofthe most important of those characteristics is the credibility, mainly their expertise and trustworthinessof the persuader, or central communicator. Credibility is defined by Feenstra as, “Believability; a factorin whether a message is persuasive. Its two aspects are expertise and trustworthiness” (Feenstra,2011).While being credible is important, a person’s expertise plays an integral role in a person’s abilityto persuade. Expertise is defined as, “One aspect of credibility, along with trustworthiness. Describes acommunicator who appears to have knowledge and is able to communicate it” (Feenstra, 2011). Goinghand in hand with expertise is trustworthiness which is clearly defined as, “One aspect of credibility,along with expertise. Describes a communicator who we believe is telling us accurate information”(Feenstra, 2011). If we come across a person trying to sell us somethingand they do not seem to knowall the important and basic facts about a product then it is assumed that that person is not an expertabout the product and since they do not know all the basic and important information then they are nottrustworthy, at least when it comes to that product. Therefore, we are less likely to be persuaded by that

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Running head: Persuasion3person to purchase a certain product.Have you ever noticed that infomercials, commercials, and other aspects where people aretrying to persuade a person to do something that the person is physically attractive? An example thatcomes to my mind is my friend Dale, who has been in the military for over 25 years, and I were talkingabout the recruiters that go to high schools and Dale said that the better looking enlisted servicemenand women were more likely to be sent to the high schools to get the girls and young men interested intheir specific branch of the military. It is no secret that physically attractive people get people’sattention before they even say anything. This is used in many situations when persuading people to door buy something. “The attractiveness of the communicator is another factor in the persuasiveness ofthe message. In general, more physically attractive communicators are more persuasive and lessattractive communicators are less persuasive” (Feenstra, 2011). For instance, if there was a nice lookingyoung military man at a high school then the teen girls are more likely to go up and start talking tothem. If the serviceman was older and not attractive, it is highly likely that the teen girls would justwalk right past without a second look.If a person is likeable you are more likely to be persuaded by them. For example, if you arefriends with members of the local church, when they knock on the door and ask for donations, a personis more likely to be persuaded to donate money to their cause because they like the members of thatchurch. Likeability is a huge factor in infomercials and other advertisements as well. If we feel that theperson on the television is likeable and friendly then we are more apt to purchase what they are offeringto sell us.It is human nature to respond well to people who possess those qualities of physicalattractiveness and likeability because those are the kind of people that we try to surround ourselveswith. We tend to think of these people as more honest and trustworthy and honesty and trustworthiness

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