Elements Of Persuasion Essay

Convincing others to change their mind is tricky. As business people, getting others to agree to our ideas will be a crucial part of our jobs. We need to understand the best strategies to persuade others. In order to understand persuasion, we need to know the objectives of persuasion, what type of arguments to use, and how to successfully persuade. The three main objectives of persuasion are reinforcing positive opinions, realizing unformed opinions, and neutralizing hostile opinions. Reinforcing positive opinions is often the easiest. When someone already believes and thinks the way you do, it’s not hard to convince them of something you want. Trying to get an individual to realize an unformed opinion needs a different strategy. Someone who either doesn’t know anything …show more content…
There are one-sided arguments and two-sided arguments. A one-sided argument is when you present just your side of the issue, whereas a two-sided argument presents both sides. There are situations when one of these is better to use than the other. A one-sided argument works best when the audience already agrees with you and all you want to do is encourage and strengthen their support. One-sided could also be the best option when the audience is not well educated or when they will not be exposed to a counter-persuasion. Two-sided arguments should be given if you are speaking with an audience that does not agree with you or when you know they will hear counter-persuasion. When you inform the audience of both sides of the issue, they can make an educated decision. This also works best when the audience doesn’t know about the topic. Two-sided arguments also produce longer lasting results. The audience is more likely to be on your side longer if they hear the opposing argument and know why you don’t agree. One thing to keep in mind, no matter which argument chosen, is to always be honest with the