Analysis of "Persuasion in the Media Age" (part 22)

Interpersonal Persuasion

by:

Charles Lamson

Compliance Gaining

Compliance gaining is one of the most widely studied aspects of interpersonal persuasion. Compliance gaining is the use of persuasive strategies to induce behavior in another person. You might threaten to quit your job if you do not receive a raise or you might promise your roomate that you will clean the bathroom if he or she cleans the kitchen. In both situations, you are using compliance-gaining techniques. Compliance gaining forms the basis for much of the interpersonal persuasion research.

Techniques

Gerald Marwell and David R. Schmidt (1967) isolate 16 techniques that persuaders use to change the behavior of an audience member. Chances are you have used quite a few of these techniques. This list of 16 techniques is then grouped into five different strategies that persuaders use in compliance-gaining situations.These general strategies can help us better understand the goals and functions of persuaders who seek compliance. The five general strategies are rewarding activities, punishing activities, expertise activation of internalized commitments and activation of interpersonal commitments.

• Rewarding activity includes the techniques of pre-giving, liking and pomise. The persuader who uses a rewarding strategy attempts to manipulate the receivers' environment in a positive manner. A salesperson at a car dealership who offers you a soda is using the rewarding activity of pre-giving.
• In punishing activity the persuader seeks to negatively alter the receivers' environment. Threat-and-aversive stimulation are punishing techniques. A parent who threatens a "timeout" for a child is using a punishing strategy.
• The positive and negative expertise techniques make up the expertise strategy. A parent who makes a child learn to play piano because "its good for you" is using expertise.
• Activation of internalized commitments includes the techniques of positive and negative self-feelings, positive altercasting, positive esteem, and moral appeal. These strategies are effective because they make aaudience members think about internalized norms or their ideas about what they ought to do in a parrticular situation. These strategies focus on how individuals feel about themselves
• The final group of techniques called "activation of interpersonal commitments" includes the techniques of altruism, negative esteem, debt and negative altercasting. These techniques cause audience members to consider how others will think about them. They are based on audience members' identification with some reference group. Audience members will comply with a persuader's request because of how they believe others will think about them if they will not comply.

In Sum

May you all have a very American Heavy Metal Weekend!

End