The Psychology of Persuasion and Decision Making

We are exposed daily to stimuli and information that attempts to change our beliefs. These phenomena are studied by the Psychology of Persuasion to know the way in which people are influenced by others, even in decision-making.

Whether consciously or unconsciously, surely you have ever tried to influence someone, seek to succeed in a conversation, being right in an argument, or persuading other people to do what you you want. It is not just an individual thing, in our day to day we are exposed to influences from businesses, politicians, organizations and other majority groups in our society.

In psychology, there is the current of the Psychology of Persuasion, which tries to define what are the basic principles that make us give in and be persuaded by other people, but it also gives us the keys to use these principles to convince other people and make them converge with our ideas.

Psychology of persuasion: what is it based on?

When we talk about persuasion, it is also important to comment on what social influence is. Social influence has been defined as a process of both a social and psychological nature that has the objective of achieving cognitive or behavioral changes in a person or group of people. This social influence can be presented in different ways, one of them being through persuasion.

Persuasion is therefore a type of social influence that is based on the transmission by a sender of a message that seeks to change the attitudes, beliefs, feelings or behaviors of the recipient of this information. This entails changes in decision-making that can go in conjunction with the message issued to persuade. Do you want to know more about how we are persuaded on a daily basis and how you can learn to persuade other people? Keep reading!

Historic context

Before getting into practice, it's important to learn a bit about how the concept of persuasion has developed and evolved throughout history.

Rhetoric is spoken of as the predecessor to persuasion. This has been defined as the art of persuading and had the purpose of enchanting or seducing the public through discourse, using it as an instrument to enable persuasion. Rhetoric has been mentioned in texts as old as Homer's poems (8th century BC!) and even by Aristotle, who spoke of it as “the art of arguing”. It was during the 20th century when the concept of "persuasion" began to become popular and to be considered a key component in orientations as disparate as the economy, politics, advertising and even the army. It has been widely studied by social psychology in terms of its relationship with processes focused on social influence and communication.

In World War II, to try to find ways to increase the self-esteem and morale of the US military, Carl Hovland, together with his team of social psychologists, studied persuasion as a cognitive process.. They found that, in order to produce behavioral changes, there must also be a change in the beliefs of the person persuaded to confront thoughts different from their own. For this reason, persuasion began to be considered as a set that includes the source, the content, the communicative channel and the context of the message issued to persuade. It also differs according to the attention of the receiving people, their comprehension and memory capacities, among others.

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explanatory models

Two explanatory models have been differentiated to understand the principles of persuasion. Here we differentiate them to understand their differences:

1. Chaiken's Heuristic-Systematic Model

This model focuses on unconscious persuasion, one that happens without us realizing it. In her, persuaded people make a decision without first considering the advantages and disadvantages of this decision; they have fully trusted the content of the persuasive message and have acted automatically.

These messages are known as peripheral signals and encompass all of these decisions that we make based on observation or experience. For example, when in the supermarket you buy a product that is a little more expensive than another and you have not considered their differences or if it is worth more to buy one or the other. You have simply decided to buy something more expensive without giving it too much thought.

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2. Petty and Cacciopo Elaboration Probability Model

This perspective suggests that There are two strategies or paths when it comes to being persuaded by a message: the central route and the peripheral route..

The central route is the one in which we analyze and break down in depth the characteristics of the message that has been presented to us, considering the consequences that making this decision may have and encompassing everything through our knowledge or experience previous.

On the other hand, the peripheral route is the one we usually take when we end up being persuaded. In this cognitive path, we do not take as much time as we should to think about the persuasive message and we focus on the information that does not make us reflect too much. We accept these messages without being fully aware of them, similar to the previous model proposal.

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Principles of persuasion: can we learn to persuade?

The interesting part of the Psychology of Persuasion is to know its fundamental principles, not only to know persuade other people, but also to detect when they are doing it with us, and know how to react Before this.

The basic psychological principles of persuasion were proposed by Robert Cialdini, a researcher and professor of psychology at Arizona State University. Cialdini published his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, in which he presents the six laws of social influence that persuasion entails as a whole. Here we break down each of these laws or principles:

1. Reciprocity

When someone does us a favor, we end up feeling compelled to return it at some point.. This is based on the fact that we cannot bear emotional inconsistency or cognitive dissonance when feeling indebted to someone.

How is this presented to us? For example, with free samples in stores, or with trial periods on an online streaming platform. These businesses offer us a part of their products for free temporarily, so when this ends, we feel indebted and can agree to buy it or pay for the full version.

2. Shortage

When something begins to disappear, we want it the more, because it also generates in us the feeling that if there is a lot of difficulty in achieving something, it means that it will be valuable. Thus in these situations we act quickly so as not to risk losing something in a situation in which it can disappear.

A very clear example of this is when the statistics appear in real time on the online sales pages. Has it ever happened to you that you want to buy some clothes and when you see the shirt that you like, the website tells you that there are only 3 units available? Here they are applying the principle of scarcity to persuade you.

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3. social proof

Social proof focuses on the way in which, being social people and living in society, we guide our decisions by helping ourselves with what other people do. Basically, when you check the opinions of other people online of the restaurant that you want to go to dining, you are using the social proof standard to know if it is a socially acceptable place or not to have dinner there.

4. Commitment and consistency

Once we have committed to something, we will do everything possible to achieve it; to be consistent with this commitment. Showing an inconsistency generates emotional discomfort so strong that we avoid it at all costs.

It is closely related to the principle of reciprocity, but in addition to feeling that you have to return a favor, you feel that you have a commitment to fulfill. For example, when you are offered a free or heavily discounted course; you feel that you have to comply with it and finish it, and even do another one once you finish it because "the price has turned out very well" and you feel that you have developed a commitment to this organization.

5. Attraction

People are very influenced by friends, family, people we trust or simply by people we consider attractive.

Businesses use this principle in the way they communicate with their customers., generating a special closeness trusting that this will create affective bonds that will increase their sales or the consumption of their products.

6. Authority

When we are presented with opinions or arguments from people considered eminent or experts, we defer to these authority figures and assume that their arguments will be appropriate. We take for granted that they are wise because they appear to us as such..

It is very easy to find opinions of, for example, reputable writers, printed on the cover of new books best-sellers, to encourage their promotion and trust that people will trust the opinions of other writers Famous.

Beware of persuasion!

Finally, the Psychology of Persuasion can be very curious and interesting to know the way in which we make decisions and relate to other people. Even so, we consider it important to know how to understand these principles of persuasion, but not to put them to the test and try to influence everyone around us, but to be aware of these decisions and these processes cognitive. Persuasion can be useful as long as it is not used to harm other people or to put ourselves above others. It is good to know our mind, but always with a head and being aware of the reality of other people.