Online Class: Persuasion Techniques

Have you ever purchased something or agreed with someone and wondered later what made you give in so easily? Do you want to learn how to give a persuasive presentation by yourself?

This course explores the art and science of persuasion. Outlining the ways that persuasion is used, tips on withstanding persuasion, different persuasive techniques, persuasive writing, and more makes this course an excellent guide to using persuasion in your own life. 

Whether for personal or professional means, learning how to persuade others (and be persuaded less) can help save you time, patience, energy, and money. Everyone from toddlers to nonagenarians is susceptible to persuasion and this course will teach you how to capitalize on this fact. By explaining the ways that persuasion is used, the science behind it, social dynamics, and more, you may find yourself surprised at how much you can learn and what you can do with your new-found knowledge.

Courses Frequently Bought Together:

Negotiation Skills

Effective Communication Skills

Assertiveness Training

Course Motivation

The art of persuasion has been studied for countless years by people all over the world with the intention of using it in both positive and negative ways. In fact, chances are excellent that you have purchased items, supported causes, voted for politicians, and more because you had fallen prey to someone else's mastery of persuasion. However, by learning about this topic, you can help protect yourself against manipulation as well as learn important tools that can help you in your business and professional life.

In talking about persuasion, it is important to understand what, exactly, persuasion includes. In its simplest terms, persuasion is the influence on someone's beliefs, intentions, behaviors, attitudes, motivations, and more. Words that have similar meanings and may be related to persuasion can include manipulation, propaganda, advertisement, marketing, and so on.Persuasion is usually considered  an inherent aspect of human nature, particularly as it can be seen in the activities of even small children. Persuasion is an extremely important aspect of the political process, sales and business, interpersonal relationships, social structures such as organized religions, military, and more. While most persuasion is built on aspects of psychology, sociology, and (above all) social psychology, there is also a neurobiological side to persuasion. Our individual likelihood of being susceptible to persuasion can depend very largely on our existing social networks, the way that we were raised, and our participation in social groups.

There are countless methods of persuasion and numerous ethical considerations when determining the correct time, place, purpose, and style for persuasion. Ethics is a branch of philosophy that evaluates and systematically ranks the concepts of right and wrong. Similar to the idea of morals, ethics help determine how an individual or group should act. Although there are several different aspects of the study of ethics, all are committed to determining whether a particular action may be considered right or wrong and under what circumstances the final decision may change. Ethical considerations must be made in virtually every decision of life from what you teach your children to believe to how you do your job. In fact, colleges and universities throughout the world teach ethics relating to virtually every field of study or profession simply because ethical questions are so pervasive throughout our lives.

It is easy to understand, therefore, the reason that ethics are so important to the topic of persuasion. Persuasion can range from something as simple as reminding your child that they can have dessert if they finish their dinner, all the way to a cult leader convincing someone to kill themselves or another. Some people are naturally gifted in persuasion while others seem to lack totally any ability to manipulate another person.  Although the importance of honesty can never be overstated and is indeed a value that virtually everyone would agree is important, persuasion does not have to be unethical or immoral; in fact, using persuasive techniques is often amoral or can even be positive and important. Consider the following situations. 

• You are in a work meeting where someone suggests to your boss that you could sell an inferior product for the same amount of money. Would it be immoral for you to persuade your boss not to make this change? Most people would argue that the ethical thing to do would be to convince your boss not to make this change (although it may not be the best business decision for you to do so). If the company is struggling financially and the changes to the product are not harmful, is it then still unethical to say silent? If the inferior product poses virtually no risk of harm to people purchasing the item and the company will go bankrupt if they do not make this change, is it then still ethical to convince your boss not to do it, or is it more ethical to try to persuade your boss to make the changes to save the company?   
• You are a politician, running for the U.S. House of Representatives. You are challenging the incumbent for your area and going door to door in certain neighborhoods where your support is particularly low. You truly and deeply believe that you will be a better representative for the area than your opponent.  However, the neighborhoods where you are currently visiting are more likely not to agree with you about a particular topic. When visiting those households, do you try to persuade them by talking about only the issues that you think they will agree with you on? If someone asks you about the topic, do you give him or her the runaround rather than explicitly answer his or her question? Do you tell them only what they want to hear? Do your answers to any of these questions change if you believe that other people in your area will suffer if the incumbent stays in office?  

• You are an attorney; specifically, you are working as a prosecutor in a murder trial. You discover that the person you are prosecuting is innocent, but your supervisor knows that you can win the case and wants you to continue the prosecution. Should you convince your boss not to prosecute? Let us say that your boss refuses to cease the prosecution. Do you work as hard as you normally would to convict that defendant? What if you find out that although the defendant did not commit that murder, he had committed several others, now is it still okay to prosecute him? What if this is the case and you find out that the person who did commit this murder has died and cannot hurt anyone else; do you do your best to persuade the jury that the defendant is guilty?