Real Communication An Introduction

474 Part 4  Public Speaking

Unlike the previous three categories, esteem needs are not satisfied internally; they

require praise and acknowledgment from others.

5. Self-actualizing needs: Needs at the highest level focus on personal development
   and self-fulfillment—becoming what you can become. Instead of looking for
   recognition of your worth from others, you seek to measure up to your own
   criteria for personal success.

The implications of Maslow’s hierarchy for persuasive speaking are straight-

forward: understanding your audience’s needs will help you determine your

strategy for persuading your listeners. The message must target the unfulfilled

need of the audience, as a need that is already met will not move them, nor will

one that seems too far out of reach in the hierarchy. A speech persuading audi-

ence members to plant more flowers on an already beautiful campus is unlikely

to have much effect; the same appeal to plant flowers on a campus where build-

ings are in disrepair is also unlikely to get a response, as the audience may be

more concerned with those basic infrastructure issues.

Understanding What Is Relevant to Your Audience

Along with appealing to audience needs, you can also persuade listeners—espe-

cially neutral listeners—by anticipating their question, “How is this relevant

to me?” The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) is based on the belief

that listeners process persuasive messages by one of two routes, depending on

how important—how relevant—the message is to them (Petty & Cacioppo,

1986; Petty & Wegener, 1998; see also Kruglanski et al., 2006). When they are

MASLOW’S HIERARCHY
of needs is helpful in under-
standing your audience’s
needs. For example, it might
be hard to convince a group
of low-income single moth-
ers to enroll their kids in
various costly extracurricular
activities. (top left) John Moore/
Getty Images; (top middle) Getty Images;
(top right) Josephine Soughan & Simon
Pentleton/PYMCA; (bottom left)
lzf/Shutterstock; (bottom right) AFP/Getty
Images

CONNECT

It will be hard to get your
audience to engage in
central processing if you
can’t get them to listen to
your speech. As you learn
in Chapter 6, you need
to encourage thoughtful
active listening. Although
your audience certainly
bears some of the respon-
sibility, you can help by
making sure that you offer
relevant, effective sup-
porting material (Chapter
12) and ensuring that your
delivery is easy to listen to
(Chapter 14).