Chapter 16: Persuasive Speaking

Understanding Your Audience’s Disposition

CORETTA SCOTT KING found a receptive audience when she spoke to other like-minded individuals at a press conference on ending the Vietnam War. © Bettmann/Corbis

According to social judgment theory (Sherif, Sherif, & Nebergall, 1965), your ability to successfully persuade your audience depends on the audience’s current attitudes or disposition toward your topic, as well as how strongly they feel about their current position.

Let’s consider this theory in light of the following example: you are the student government president at a regional college where it is easy for students to visit their hometowns on the weekends. As such, your school has gained a reputation of being a “suitcase” school, making for dull weekends for those students who remain on campus. To address this problem, you propose that the school ban first-and second-year students from having cars on campus so that they stick around and invest more in their life at school.

When you speak about this topic, you should think about portions of your audience each having a different possible anchor position—their position on the topic at the outset of the speech (Sherif & Sherif, 1967)—about the issue of keeping students on campus. Depending on how strongly the audience members feel about their anchor position, they will also have different latitudes, or ranges of acceptable and unacceptable viewpoints, about your topic. These different anchor positions and latitudes might result in three different kinds of audiences for your speech:

A receptive audience is an audience that already leans toward your viewpoints and your message. These audience members might be residential students who are around on the weekends and wish there was more to do. They probably have a large latitude of acceptance; that is, they would find acceptable a wide range of proposals you could make regarding keeping first-and second-year students on campus.
A neutral audience falls between the receptive audience and the hostile audience: its members neither support you nor oppose you. Nonresidential commuting students (who are off campus on weekends anyway) might fall into this category. This audience would probably have a large latitude of noncommitment, that is, a range of positions that they are not sure about.
A hostile audience is one that opposes your message (and perhaps you personally); this is the hardest type of audience to persuade, particularly if you are trying to change people’s behavior. In this audience, you’ll certainly find first-and second-year students who live on campus but want to spend their weekends away. This audience would likely have a large latitude of rejection; that is, they would find unacceptable most proposals that aim to keep students from leaving campus.

So how do you persuade these distinct groups of individuals? Your receptive audience already basically agrees with your position, allowing you to simply reaffirm their current beliefs or perhaps even get them to accept stronger proposals. Your neutral audience may need some more information about the issue: for example, how exactly does the student weekend flight impact campus life? Most important, they will need to know why they should care. Perhaps, for example, if there were more to do on campus on the weekends, commuting students would be more interested in getting involved in weekend cultural and social events, strengthening their own attachment to the campus community. Your hostile audience will, of course, require some special consideration. You want these audience members to find you trustworthy and full of goodwill. You want to avoid making them feel as though you’re trying to force them to accept your views, as research shows that such behavior will backfire and cause your audience to be less likely to engage with you (Brehm, 1966; Brehm & Brehm, 1981) and less likely to accept your message (Hansmann & Scholz, 2003; McGrane, Toth, & Alley, 1990). Instead, acknowledge their point of view and look for ways to bridge the gap between your beliefs and their beliefs.

Another approach to understanding your audience’s disposition is by applying the stages of change model (Prochaska, 1994; Prochaska & Norcross, 2001). This contemporary model is often applied in health care settings (for example, to persuade people to stop smoking or use condoms) and it helps predict your audience members’ motivational readiness toward modifying behavior. The five stages listed here are precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance.

In the first stage, precontemplation, an individual is not ready to change his or her behavior or possibly may not be even aware that the behavior is problematic. For example, a heavy smoker may not want to quit smoking; she may selectively filter information about the negative health effects of smoking because this information causes anxiety. Hence, a persuasive speaker (for example, a doctor, nurse, or concerned friend) must be able to convince the individual that there is a problem.
In the second stage, contemplation, individuals begin to recognize the consequences of their behavior. The smoker might seek information about smoking cessation or smoking-induced health hazards. Individuals usually experience uncertainty and conflict at this stage, so persuasive speakers might help them identify barriers to change.
In the third stage, preparation, individuals move to planning and preparing for the changes they have been contemplating. Our heavy smoker might be willing to experiment with small changes, so persuasive speakers might suggest planning a specific day to go “cold turkey” or asking friends to be on hand to provide emotional support.
By the fourth stage, action, an individual has made a change and enacted new behaviors, which require a great deal of willpower. The former smoker may be very tempted to pick up a cigarette but she must stay focused on her new, healthy behavior. A persuasive speaker might acknowledge and reward such success and continue to provide emotional support.
In the final stage, maintenance, the behavior change is fully integrated into the individual’s life and she works to prevent a relapse. The former smoker finds that social reinforcements (such as feeling better and receiving compliments) help her maintain her new, healthy lifestyle. Persuasive speakers should continue to offer support, help to resist temptation, and reinforce messages. Should the former smoker relapse, she goes back to the beginning of the cycle and earlier stages as she attempts to quit smoking again.

When determining whether your audience is receptive, neutral, or hostile or what stage of change they are in, you’ll need to conduct a thorough audience analysis to tailor your speech topic and message to them and have a greater chance of being persuasive and have a long-lasting effect on your audience.