Persuasion: Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs

Another persuasion technique was to appeal to the hierarchy of needs. A major issue with letting people into areas that had been blocked off was safety for the performers and for the patron. When asked why they couldn’t go through, by telling them it was for safety reasons, people were quick to say okay. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs are arranged in a hierarchy of prepotency, meaning that lower-level needs must be satisfied before an individual can move to higher level needs (Miller 41). Safety as a need is the second level so when the need of safety is questioned, the need for belongingness or self-esteem is no longer viewed as important and the patron is persuaded to avoid the safety hazard. One of my responsibilities when running the front …show more content…
This type of persuasion was always patrons trying to persuade us to let them be the one exception to the rules. There was an immeasurable amount of persuasion techniques used. Fear, guilt, anger, cause and effect, nonverbal, and attempting change of syntax just to name a few. I didn’t even have names for all of the techniques used against me before taking this class. One case in particular in which I was genially afraid was this woman who didn’t buy tickets for her daughters show ahead of time and the show had since sold out. She came up to me sobbing, attempting to persuade by emotion. She talked about how far she had traveled to get to Interlochen, attempting to persuade by guilt. She became more and more angry. At one point she grabbed onto my arm, attempting to persuade by proxemics. Then, I almost gave in due to persuasion by fear, when she raised her hand and almost slapped me. However, I had a friend who was working the venue with me and was able to step in and assist me in calming her down. At the time I couldn’t process everything that had transpired. Looking back, it is easy to see the variety of persuasion techniques someone can use in one short