Wayne C. Minnick
Houghton Mifflin Company
1968
"The
critical factor, then, in determining whether the hypothesis is confirmed
or infirmed appears to be hypothesis strength, e.g., the nature and kind
of information that will establish the hypothesis as true or false."
(40) This is determined by:
1. The frequency of past confirmations.
(40)
2. Cognitive support. (41)
3. Consensual validation. (41)
4. Motivational support. (41)
Minnick
suggests a "Perceptual- Motivational Theory of Persuasion"
1. Does the communication catch and hold the
attention of the receiver? (42)
2. Does the communlcation
instate the intended hypotheses? (43)
3. Is the central hypothesis of the
communication properly confirmed? (44)
--Is
there "adequate consensual support" (44)
--Is
there "congruence with the receiver's existing cognitions" (44)
--Is
there "support of past confirmations" (45)
--Is
there "motivational support" (45)
4. Does the communication provide means of
overcoming "field barriers"? (46)
Turning,
now to each of these points:
A. State
your propositions in an interesting way (65).
For example:
1a. Accidents are caused
by carelessness.
1b. A
careless man is an accident about to happen.
2a. Teachers do not
begrudge the time they spend with their students.
2b. "There is no
featherbedding in teaching."
3a "We also believe, or act as if we
believe, that man's needs are principally material, whereas his true
material needs are few and simple, and his needs for certain mental and spiritual qualities,
such as love, selflessness, and knowledge of himself are great out of all
proportion with these material needs."
3b "Materialism is
a crime against humanity."
4a A
handkerchief is unsanitary.
4b Don't
put a cold in your pocket.
5a Freedom must respect
the rights of others.
5b "Your liberty to
swing your arms ends where my nose begins."
Avoiding
Coding-Decoding Errors (103-108)
--Use familiar labels.
--Evaluate the connotative meaning
of words.
--Define crucial terms and concepts.
--Etymology
--Synonym.
--Description of purpose or
function.
--Comparison or contrast
--Class designation plus general
principle or distinguishing characteristic.
--Example.
--Encode for a particular
audience
--Aim for enough redundancy and
variety
A. Providing cognitive support
1. Evidence (pp. 120-129)
a. There are three criteria to use in discovering
evidence
--relevance
--reliability
--availability.
"an advocate
should make a conscious evaluation of the probable trustworthiness of
reported evidence in terms of the known reliability of the
source." (123)
3. Arguments (pp. 129-148)
a. Argument from Examples
"The most useful and reliable way
(aside...to test a generalization is to try to discover contrary
instances...and to account for them if found." (134)
b. Argument from
Analogy
--implied generalization
--multiple correspondence
c. Argument from Sign
("There must be a horse in here somewhere!")
d. Argument from
Generalization
4. Toulmin's Scheme of
Argument (146-148)
Toulmin conceives of argument
as having at least three indispensable elements:
--evidence
--warrant
--claim
In addition,
--support may sometimes be provided
for the warrant
--reservations or qualifiers
may be appended to the conclusion
B. Providing consensual support (152-177)
1. Appeal to majority
opinion
2. Limitations on Majority
Opinion
a.
The effect of majority opinion will vary with the degree of value the
individual places on group membership.
b.
The effect of group opinion will vary with the immediate awareness in the
audience of group loyalty.
c.
The influence of group opinion appears to be strongest when the majority
is large.
d. Pressures toward conformity
appear linked to the individual's status within the group.
e.
Resistance to social pressure is related to degree of self-confidence.
3. Using Group Pressures in Persuasion
a.
The citing of polls, surveys, and precise measures of public opinion
b.
The citing of personal observation concerning the climate of public
opinion.
c.
The citing of testimony of group leaders or of competent observers concerning the
nature of group opinion.
4. Ethos, Credibility,
Prestige
a.
The Common-Ground method ("Friends, Romans, countrymen...")
b. The Yes, Yes method
c. The Yes, But method ("But Brutus is an honorable
man...")
d.
The Oblique or Circuitous method ("If Caesar was ambitious, he deserved to
die...")
e.
The Implicative method ("Have you ever consorted with known communists [or
Al-Quaida]?")
C. Providing support through past confirmations
(184-204)
1.
In persuasive communication the use of descriptive or evaluative iabels in conjunction with a concept or idea is a
common way of trying to color the concept with positive or negative
sanctions.
2. The fidelity and
vividness of an experience are increased
--when it is compared with other experiences.
--if
one narrates and describes it with an abundance of concrete details
--if
it is narrated and described in terms familiar to the audience
--if
the communicator narrates and describes it in multisensory
words (pitchy vs.black, snowy vs. white, leaden vs.
gray)
--if
one reduces complex experiences to simple dimensions.
D. Providing motivational support (208-229)
1 Correlation Between Motivation and Belief
--Desire
influences belief most strikingly when the means of establishing credibility
are ambiguous. (222)
--If a statement is highly important to a
person, he tends to seek facts to confirm or deny it rather than let
himself he swayed by desire. (223)
A.
Strategy (253-264)
1. Adjustments to make the message appropriate,
interesting, and intelligible to the particular audience.
2. Adaptations involving
adjustments in purpose, proof, and format.
3.
The order of presentation of individual arguments
>law of primacy (key ideas first)
> law of recency
(last mentioned best remembered)
4. The relative effectiveness of climax and
anticlimax orders: The climax order
might conceivably prepare an audience to accept the strong emotion of the
last argument. Arguments not having pronounced emotional content may well
be, under the circumstances described above, arranged in anticlimax
order.
5. One-sided or two-sided presentation: the
program giving both sides of the argument was most effective with those
persons initially in disagreement with the speaker, while the one-sided
argument was more effective with those who initially favored the speaker's
position. The study also indicated that the two-sided presentation was
more effective with better educated men, while the one-sided
argument was more appealing to the more poorly educated.
B.
Analysis of the Audience (264-275)
1.
Who is the audience?
2.
How much can be known about an audience?
A. Judging Ethics According to the
End Sought by the Persuader
B. Judging Ethics According to the Means
Used
1.
Propaganda devices
a. The Name-CalIing
Device
b. The Glittering Generalities Device
c. The Transfer Device
d. The Testimonial Device
e. The Plain-Folks Device
f. The Card-Stacking Device
g. The Band-Wagon Device
2.
High and low motives
3.
Degree of rationality
C. How
Can One Be Assured That His Persuasion Is Ethical? (285-287)
1.
The following means of persuasion are generally agreed to be
unethical:
a. Falsifying or fabricating evidence
b. Distorting evidence
c. Conscious use of specious reasoning
d. Deceiving the audience about the intent of the
communication
2.
An ethical advocate is obliged to reject propositions which, when tested by his
best thinking, prove to have a low truth-probability. (286)