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Understanding Your Audience’s Disposition

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According to social judgment theory (often called ego involvement), your ability to successfully persuade your audience depends on the audience’s current attitudes or disposition toward your topic (Sherif, Sherif, & Nebergall, 1965). As such, you might think about your audience members as belonging to one of three different categories: the receptive audience, the neutral audience, or the hostile audience.

A receptive audience already agrees with your viewpoints and message and is likely to respond favorably to your speech. When you address the receptive audience, you probably don’t need to do too much to get your listeners to like what you’re saying—they already concur. You’re reaffirming what they believe and strengthening your case.
A neutral audience falls between the receptive audience and the hostile audience: its members neither support you nor oppose you. Their neutrality can be based on several causes: perhaps they are simply uninterested in your topic, or they don’t see how the topic affects them personally. Or they may know very little about the topic and are therefore unable to take a stance until they learn more. They may require more information about the topic at hand.
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. A hostile audience will, of course, need some very special consideration. You will want the members of this audience to find you trustworthy and full of goodwill. You also want to avoid making them feel as though you are trying to force them to accept your viewpoint; research shows that such behavior will backfire and make your audience less likely to engage with you (Brehm, 1966). Instead, you want to acknowledge their point of view and look for ways to bridge the gap between your beliefs and their beliefs.

Coretta Scott King found a receptive audience when she spoke to other like-minded individuals at a press conference on ending the Vietnam War.

You must also consider what you want your audience to do at the end of your speech. A lot of what listeners will be willing to do is related to their latitude of acceptance and rejection, which is the range of positions on a topic that are acceptable or unacceptable to them based on their anchor position—or their position on the topic at the outset of the speech (Sherif & Sherif, 1967). You can probably get members of a receptive audience to do quite a bit, including change their behavior. Members of your neutral audience might be willing to sign a petition or to discuss the topic with friends, but they’re not going to go out of their way to help you. When it comes to your hostile audience, it’s unlikely that you’ll see much behavior change. But you might be able to effect some level of belief and attitude change, helping them at least see your point of view.

Technology and You

Do you find it more or less difficult to read an audience’s disposition in a virtual or online communication? How might you determine whether your online audience is receptive, neutral, or hostile?