Pros And Cons Of Social Proofing

The candidates incorporated authority, social proofing, and the central route to persuasion in their debating techniques to persuade voters. Authority and social proofing act in a cyclical way, since a social proof is the act of individuals imitating others due to their own uncertainties in regards to a topic, and authority is used by those who use this uncertainty to their own advantage by acting credible, all-knowing, and confident to assure others that they should follow them. Central messaging is the use of facts and statistics in order to sound knowledgeable about an event or occurrence. Trump extensively used authority and social proofing by continually citing his expertise in regards to business. He stated that he has a friend who …show more content…
Some voters may find Trump appealing after hearing his statements due to the fact that they feel like they are a part of his in-group since some voters could also be businesspeople, and so they feel obligated to vote for him due to this similarity. They may also believe, due to his confident, authoritative tone that he will be able to pull the nation out of its economic dilemma. Voters using critical thinking, on the other hand, will find Trump unappealing as a president considering that there are pros and cons to his business lifestyle, and small businesspeople may realize that although he is in charge of a business like themselves, small businesspeople belong also to the working class. The working class receives smaller salaries, unlike Trump, so he may not take into consideration the livelihood of the small businesspeople when he becomes president since he is somewhat unlike them, regardless of the message of his proclaimed tax plan, which supposedly states that he plans to cut taxes for people who own businesses operating at every level of revenue. Clinton also utilized social proofing and authority when debating when she stated that she hopes that the citizens of America concede when she stated her desire to maintain the message that America’s promises will be met in the end, in addition to mentioning that she has consulted with world leaders in …show more content…
She claimed that Trump’s plan, on the other hand, would lead to the decimation of three and a half million jobs. Through the implementation of a possible statistic, Clinton used a central route to persuasion, and made it seem like she has authority on the subject, so the audience should agree with her when she concluded that her plan is better. Many voters will find Clinton appealing due to the fact that she has been in political office for a long time, and so she must know how to conduct herself in diplomatic meetings, as well as possessing insider information about how to expand employment possibilities, and will ultimately vote for her due to these reasons. Others will find her unappealing considering the fact that even though she has been a member of public office for decades, she still made the erroneous decision to send a classified email over her personal email address, and so these voters may decide that she doesn’t know entirely how to behave with a position of such a magnitude as that of the president. These voters will also say that she may not know exactly how to create jobs either. Clinton and Trump utilized the principles of social proofing and authority extraordinarily well through the implementation of