240 CHAPTER 17^ Persuasive Speaking
they form the basis for our actions. The Princeton University Cognitive Science website
summarizes attitudes as complex mental states “involving beliefs and feelings and values
and dispositions to act in certain ways.”^14
Chapter 6 showed an attitude scale ranging from strong agreement or acceptance
to strong disagreement or nonacceptance. Table 17.1 illustrates how an audience’s atti-
tude can range from strong support to strong opposition to your claim. In between, are
neutral listeners—often because they lack information to form an opinion either way
or because they are apathetic and lack motivation to care or to do something about the
issue. Obviously, it’s most difficult to persuade someone who is strongly opposed to the
position you are advocating.
In general, the following guidelines will help you plan effective speeches that are
sensitive to audience attitudes:
• When listeners are neutral toward your claim, ask why. Do they lack information?
If so, start by giving relevant information they can use to form an opinion. Follow up
with emotional appeals to create either a positive or negative attitude toward your
topic. Are they apathetic? Then use emotional appeals by linking the topic to them in
as many ways as you can, and appeal to values such as fairness and justice.
• When differences are mild, approach your audience directly. Use objective data to
make a clear case; present the positive facets of your subject, and make links to per-
sonal and community values your audience accepts. This way, although they might
still disagree with you, they can understand why you hold your position.
• When your listeners are negative toward your proposal, rethink your options.
With mildly or moderately negative audiences, try to lessen the negative so they
can see positive aspects of your proposal. If they’re strongly opposed, you face a
hostile audience. So set modest goals and aim for small attitudinal changes. Present
your points clearly so that they will at least understand how you came to your
conclusions.
• When audiences reject your proposals, approach the subject indirectly by estab-
lishing common ground. For instance, begin with a statement with which everyone
agrees, and explain why there is agreement. Then make a statement that most would
accept, and explain why this is so. Move gradually to the disputed point. By this time,
they will have seen that they agree with you on many points, and as a result, they may
be less negative toward your ideas.^15
• When the audience is hostile toward you personally, it’s vital to emphasize com-
mon ground between yourself and your listeners—challenging as this is.Table 17.1
Audience attitudes involve a combination of their beliefs, emotions, and actions regarding your topic.
strongly moderately neutral moderately strongly
BELIEFS disagree disagree no beliefs either
wayagree agreeEMOTIONS hostile negative no evaluation
either waypositive favorableACTIONS never act rarely act unaware of need
to actsometimes act always actATTITUDE negative negative neutral positive positive
<–——convince first, then motivate to act——–> <–reinforce or motivate to act-–>
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