Potestas is a Latin word meaning power or faculty. It is an important concept in Roman Law .
63-542: The idea of potestas originally referred to the power, through coercion , of a Roman magistrate to promulgate edicts, give action to litigants, etc. This power, in Roman political and legal theory, is considered analogous in kind though lesser in degree to military power. The most important magistrates (such as consuls and praetors ) are said to have imperium , which is the ultimate form of potestas, and refers indeed to military power. Potestas strongly contrasts with
126-444: A combination thereof. Persuasion is also often used to pursue personal gain, such as election campaigning, giving a sales pitch , or in trial advocacy . Persuasion can also be interpreted as using personal or positional resources to change people. Propaganda is a form of persuasion used to indoctrinate a population towards an individual or a particular agenda. Coercion is a form of persuasion that uses aggressive threats and
189-436: A favor or provide payment when offered a free service or gift. As a result, reciprocation is a widely held principle. This societal standard makes reciprocity extremely powerful persuasive technique, as it can result in unequal exchanges and can even apply to an uninvited first favor. Reciprocity applies to the marketing field because of its use as a powerful persuasive technique. The marketing tactic of "free samples" demonstrates
252-423: A manufacturer of a product displaying an ad that refutes one particular claim made about a rival's product, so that when the audience sees an ad for said rival product, they refute the product claims automatically. Narrative transportation theory proposes that when people lose themselves in a story, their attitudes and intentions change to reflect that story. The mental state of narrative transportation can explain
315-409: A message often stands or falls on the weight of its ideas and arguments, a person's attributes or implied authority can have a large effect on the success of their message. In The True Believer , Eric Hoffer noted, "People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility
378-425: A monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force". Morris argues that the state can operate through incentives rather than coercion. Healthcare systems may use informal coercion to make a patient adhere to a doctor's treatment plan. Under certain circumstances, medical staff may use physical coercion to treat a patient involuntarily. The purpose of coercion is to substitute one's aims with weaker ones that
441-469: A more famous example of " Innocent until proven guilty ", although this line of presumption or burden of proof may not always be followed. While Keith and Lundberg do go into detail about the different intricacies of persuasion, they do explain that lapses in logic and or reasoning could lead to persuasive arguments with faults. These faults can come as enthymemes , where more likely than not only certain audiences with specific pieces of knowledge may understand
504-448: A peer-group, or creating feelings of guilt/obligation via a display of anger or hurt by someone whom the victim loves or respects. Persuasion Persuasion or persuasion arts is an umbrella term for influence . Persuasion can influence a person's beliefs , attitudes , intentions , motivations , or behaviours . Persuasion is studied in many disciplines. Rhetoric studies modes of persuasion in speech and writing and
567-437: A sense of incompleteness and discomfort. For example, a person who is addicted to smoking cigarettes but also suspects it could be detrimental to their health suffers from cognitive dissonance. Festinger suggests that we are motivated to reduce this dissonance until our cognition is in harmony with itself. We strive for mental consistency. There are four main ways we go about reducing or eliminating our dissonance: Revisiting
630-413: A sexual undertone, inserting uplifting images and/or music etc. and then ending the commercial with a brand/product logo. Great examples of this are professional athletes. They are paid to connect themselves to things that can be directly related to their roles; sport shoes, tennis rackets, golf balls, or completely irrelevant things like soft drinks, popcorn poppers and panty hose. The important thing for
693-417: A supervisor, dressed in a white scientist's coat, to ask the learner questions and punish him when he got a question wrong. The teacher was instructed by the study supervisor to deliver an electric shock from a panel under the teacher's control. After delivery, the teacher had to up the voltage to the next notch. The voltage went up to 450 volts. The catch to this experiment was that the teacher did not know that
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#1732772869197756-432: A very dull task for an hour. Some were paid $ 20, while others were paid $ 1, and afterwards they were instructed to tell the next waiting participants that the experiment was fun and exciting. Those who were paid $ 1 were much more likely to convince the next participants that the experiment really was enjoyable than those who received $ 20. This is because $ 20 is enough reason to participate in a dull task for an hour, so there
819-533: A virus that can easily be defeated to prepare the immune system should it need to fight off a stronger form of the same virus. In much the same way, the theory of inoculation suggests that a certain party can introduce a weak form of an argument that is easily thwarted in order to make the audience inclined to disregard a stronger, full-fledged form of that argument from an opposing party. This often occurs in negative advertisements and comparative advertisements—both for products and political causes. An example would be
882-409: Is exposure / response prevention for OCD. Conditioning plays a huge part in the concept of persuasion. It is more often about leading someone into taking certain actions of their own, rather than giving direct commands. In advertisements for example, this is done by attempting to connect a positive emotion to a brand/product logo. This is often done by creating commercials that make people laugh, using
945-476: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Coercion Coercion involves compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner by the use of threats , including threats to use force against that party. It involves a set of forceful actions which violate the free will of an individual in order to induce a desired response. These actions may include extortion , blackmail , or even torture and sexual assault . Common-law systems codify
1008-545: Is children being made to repeat the Pledge of Allegiance each morning and why marketers make you close popups by saying "I'll sign up later" or "No thanks, I prefer not making money". Social learning, also known as social proof , is a core principle among almost all forms of persuasion. It is based on the idea of peer influence, and is considered essential for audience-centered approaches to persuasive messages. The principle of social proof suggests what people believe or do
1071-404: Is considered to be the center of their latitude of acceptance, the position that is most acceptable to them. An audience is likely to distort incoming information to fit into their unique latitudes. If something falls within the latitude of acceptance, the subject tends to assimilate the information and consider it closer to his anchor point than it really is. Inversely, if something falls within
1134-400: Is either lazy or lacking in economic intuition is utilizing a dispositional attribution. Situational attribution , also referred to as external attribution, attempts to point to the context around the person and factors of his surroundings, particularly things that are completely out of his control. A citizen claiming that a lack of economic progress is not a fault of the president but rather
1197-464: Is more attractive than freedom from restraint. . . . They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility." In the Milgram study , a series of experiments begun in 1961, a "teacher" and a "learner" were placed in two different rooms. The "learner" was attached to an electric harness that could administer shock. The "teacher" was told by
1260-730: Is more likely to honor that commitment. This is especially true for written commitments, as they appear psychologically more concrete and can create hard proof. Someone who commits to a stance tends to behave according to that commitment. Commitment is an effective persuasive technique, because once you get someone to commit, they are more likely to engage in self-persuasion, providing themselves and others with reasons and justifications to support their commitment in order to avoid dissonance. Cialdini notes Chinese brainwashing of American prisoners of war in Korean War to rewrite their self-image and gain automatic unenforced compliance. Another example
1323-450: Is no dissonance. Those who received $ 1 experienced great dissonance, so they had to truly convince themselves that the task actually was enjoyable to avoid feeling taken advantage of, and therefore reduce their dissonance. Persuasion has traditionally been associated with two routes: The Elaboration likelihood model (ELM) forms a new facet of the route theory. It holds that the probability of effective persuasion depends on how successful
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#17327728691971386-539: Is often taught as a classical subject . Psychology looks at persuasion through the lens of individual behaviour and neuroscience studies the brain activity associated with this behaviour. History and political science are interested in the role of propaganda in shaping historical events. In business, persuasion is aimed at influencing a person's (or group's) attitude or behaviour towards some event, idea, object, or another person (s) by using written, spoken, or visual methods to convey information, feelings, or reasoning, or
1449-499: Is proven to send favorable messages/impressions of other traits that a person may have, such as talent, kindness, and intelligence. The second factor is similarity. People are more easily persuaded by others they deem as similar to themselves. People are more prone to believing those with authority. They have the tendency to believe that if an expert says something, it must be true. People are more likely to adhere to opinions of individuals who are knowledgeable and trustworthy. Although
1512-508: Is the use of force in persuasion, which does not have any scientific theories, except for its use to make demands. The use of force is then a precedent to the failure of less direct means of persuasion. Application of this strategy can be interpreted as a threat since the persuader does not give options to their request. Robert Cialdini , in Influence , his book on persuasion, defined six "influence cues or weapons of influence": Influence
1575-410: Is the most commonly considered form of coercion, where the content of the conditional threat is the use of force against a victim, their relatives or property. An often used example is "putting a gun to someone's head" ( at gunpoint ) or putting a "knife under the throat" ( at knifepoint or cut-throat) to compel action under the threat that non-compliance may result in the attacker harming or even killing
1638-409: Is the process of changing. The principle of reciprocity states that when a person provides us with something, we attempt to repay them in kind. Reciprocation produces a sense of obligation, which can be a powerful tool in persuasion. The reciprocity rule is effective because it can be overpowering and instill in us a sense of obligation. Generally, we have a dislike for individuals who neglect to return
1701-581: Is typically learned by observing the norms of those around us. People naturally conform their actions and beliefs to fit what society expects, as the rewards for doing so are usually greater than standing out. "The power of the crowd" is thought to be highly involved in the decisions we make. Social proof is often utilized by people in a situation that requires a decision be made. In uncertain or ambiguous situations, when multiple possibilities create choices we must make, people are likely to conform to what others do. We take cues from those around us as to what
1764-483: The fall of the Western Roman Empire , most institutions of Roman public law fell into disuse, but much of Roman political theory remained. In a letter, Duo Sunt , Pope Gelasius I argued that Christendom was ruled, in theory, by the priests and princes. The former had the spiritual authority, which was identified with auctoritas, while the latter had temporal power, identified with potestas. At first,
1827-863: The Pope crowned secular rulers after Pope Stephen II crowned the Frankish king Pepin the Short in January 754, and secular rulers often appointed local bishops and abbots, but after the Investiture Controversy the Pope was instead chosen by the College of Cardinals and, at least in theory, approved episcopal nominations. As the effective power of the Holy Roman Empire declined, kingdoms asserted their own independence. One way to do this
1890-512: The act of violating a law while under coercion as a duress crime . Coercion used as leverage may force victims to act in a way contrary to their own interests. Coercion can involve not only the infliction of bodily harm, but also psychological abuse (the latter intended to enhance the perceived credibility of the threat). The threat of further harm may also lead to the acquiescence of the person being coerced. The concepts of coercion and persuasion are similar, but various factors distinguish
1953-401: The actions of others through either dispositional attribution or situational attribution. Dispositional attribution , also referred to as internal attribution, attempts to point to a person's traits, abilities, motives, or dispositions as a cause or explanation for their actions. A citizen criticizing a president by saying the nation is lacking economic progress and health because the president
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2016-408: The advertiser is to establish a connection to the consumer. This conditioning is thought to affect how people view certain products, knowing that most purchases are made on the basis of emotion. Just like you sometimes recall a memory from a certain smell or sound, the objective of some ads is solely to bring back certain emotions when you see their logo in your local store. The hope is that repeating
2079-419: The aggressor wants the victim to have. For this reason, many social philosophers have considered coercion as the polar opposite to freedom . Various forms of coercion are distinguished: first on the basis of the kind of injury threatened, second according to its aims and scope , and finally according to its effects , from which its legal, social, and ethical implications mostly depend. Physical coercion
2142-492: The appropriate behavior is in that moment. People often feel they will make fewer mistakes "by acting in accord with social evidence than by behaving contrary to it." This principle is simple and concise. People say "yes" to people that they like. Two major factors contribute to overall likeness. The first is physical attractiveness. People who are physically attractive seem more persuasive. They get what they want and they can easily change others' attitudes. This attractiveness
2205-501: The argument you're making. Hypothetical examples are made-up. When arguing something, speakers can put forward a hypothetical situation that illustrates the point they are making to connect better with the audience. These examples must be plausible to properly illustrate a persuasive argument. There are many psychological theories for what influences an individual's behaviour in different situations. These theories will have implications about how persuasion works. Humans attempt to explain
2268-581: The art of persuasion: He described three fundamental ways to communicate persuasively: Many philosophers have commented on the morality of persuasion. Socrates argued that rhetoric was based on appearances rather than the essence of a matter. Thomas Hobbes was critical of use rhetoric to create controversy, particularly the use of metaphor. Immanuel Kant was critical of rhetoric, arguing that it could cause people to reach conclusions that are at odds with those that they would have reached if they had applied their full judgment. He draws parallels between
2331-502: The authority of making choices in parliament (full powers). This, in turn, helped Edward I coerce shire representatives to grant taxes. In some of the Italian city states , the term "Potestas" describes the authority of a magistrate developed into " Podestà ", which was the chief magistrate's title. This legal article about a Latin phrase is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about Roman law
2394-460: The boundary of the latitude of acceptance if the goal is to change the audience's anchor point. Repeatedly suggesting ideas on the fringe of the acceptance latitude makes people gradually adjust their anchor points, while suggesting ideas in the rejection latitude or even the non-commitment latitude does not change the audience's anchor point. Persuasion methods are also sometimes referred to as persuasion tactics or persuasion strategies . There
2457-455: The communication is at bringing to mind a relevant mental representation, which is the elaboration likelihood. Thus if the target of the communication is personally relevant, this increases the elaboration likelihood of the intended outcome and would be more persuasive if it were through the central route. Communication which does not require careful thought would be better suited to the peripheral route. Functional theorists attempt to understand
2520-402: The divergent attitudes individuals have towards people, objects or issues in different situations. There are four main functional attitudes: When communication targets an underlying function, its degree of persuasiveness influences whether individuals change their attitude after determining that another attitude would more effectively fulfill that function. A vaccine introduces a weak form of
2583-471: The example of the smoker, they can either quit smoking, reduce the importance of their health, convince themself they are not at risk, or decide that the reward of smoking is worth the cost of their health. Cognitive dissonance is powerful when it relates to competition and self-concept . The most famous example of how cognitive dissonance can be used for persuasion comes from Festinger and Carlsmith's 1959 experiment in which participants were asked to complete
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2646-458: The fact that he inherited a poor economy from the previous president is situational attribution. A fundamental attribution error occurs when people wrongly attribute either a shortcoming or accomplishment to internal factors while disregarding all external factors. In general, people use dispositional attribution more often than situational attribution when trying to explain or understand the behavior of others. This happens because we focus more on
2709-649: The function of rhetoric and the deterministic function of the mind like a machine. Aristotle was critical of persuasion, though argued that judges would often allow themselves to be persuaded by choosing to apply emotions rather than reason. However, he argued that persuasion could be used to induce an individual to apply reason and judgment. Writers such as William Keith and Christian O. Lundberg argue that uses of force and threats in trying to influence others does not lead to persuasion, but rather talking to people does, going further to add "While Rhetoric certainly has its dark side that deals in tricks and perceptions...
2772-475: The highest standard for a successful politician. All trials were held in front of the Assembly, and the likelihood of success of the prosecution versus the defense rested on the persuasiveness of the speaker. Rhetoric is the art of effective persuasive speaking, often through the use of figures of speech, metaphors, and other techniques. The Greek philosopher Aristotle listed four reasons why one should learn
2835-633: The individual when we lack information about that individual's situation and context. When trying to persuade others to like us or another person, we tend to explain positive behaviors and accomplishments with dispositional attribution and negative behaviors and shortcomings with situational attributions. The Theory of Planned Behavior is the foremost theory of behaviour change. It has support from meta-analyses which reveals it can predict around 30% of behaviour. Theories, by nature however, prioritize internal validity, over external validity. They are coherent and therefore make for an easily reappropriated story. On
2898-410: The latitude of rejection, the subject tends to contrast the information and convince themself the information is farther away from their anchor point than it really is. When trying to persuade an individual target or an entire audience, it is vital to first learn the average latitudes of acceptance, non-commitment, and rejection of your audience. It is ideal to use persuasive information that lands near
2961-463: The latitude of rejection. The size of these latitudes varies from topic to topic. Our "ego-involvement" generally plays one of the largest roles in determining the size of these latitudes. When a topic is closely connected to how we define and perceive ourselves, or deals with anything we care passionately about, our latitudes of acceptance and non-commitment are likely to be much smaller and our attitude of rejection much larger. A person's anchor point
3024-414: The learner was an actor faking the pain sounds he heard and was not actually being harmed. The experiment was being done to see how obedient we are to authority. "When an authority tells ordinary people it is their job to deliver harm, how much suffering will each subject be willing to inflict on an entirely innocent other person if the instructions come 'from above'?." In this study, the results showed that
3087-409: The limited use of actual force to back up the threat, to induce an adversary to behave differently than it otherwise would." Coercion does not in many cases amount to destruction of property or life since compliance is the goal. Pain compliance is the use of painful stimulus to control or direct an organism. The purpose of pain compliance is to direct the actions of the subject, and to this end,
3150-420: The message several times makes consumers more likely to purchase the product because they already connect it with a good emotion and positive experience. Stefano DellaVigna and Matthew Gentzkow did a comprehensive study on the effects of persuasion in different domains. They discovered that persuasion has little or no effect on advertisement; however, there was a substantial effect of persuasion on voting if there
3213-482: The other hand, they will correspond more poorly with the evidence, and mechanics of reality, than a straightforward itemization of the behaviour change interventions (techniques) by their individual efficacy. These behaviour change interventions have been categorized by behavioral scientists. A mutually exclusive, comprehensively exhaustive (MECE) translation of this taxonomy, in decreasing order of effectiveness are: A typical instantiations of these techniques in therapy
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#17327728691973276-494: The pain is lessened or removed when compliance is achieved. This provides incentive to the subject to carry out the action required. In psychological coercion, the threatened injury regards the victim's relationships with other people. The most obvious example is blackmail , where the threat consists of the dissemination of damaging information. However, many other types are possible e.g. " emotional blackmail ", which typically involves threats of rejection from or disapproval by
3339-404: The persuasive effect of stories on people, who may experience narrative transportation when certain contextual and personal preconditions are met, as Green and Brock postulate for the transportation-imagery model. Narrative transportation occurs whenever the story receiver experiences a feeling of entering a world evoked by the narrative because of empathy for the story characters and imagination of
3402-487: The power of the Senate and the prudentes , a common way to refer to Roman jurists . While the magistrates had potestas , the prudentes exercised auctoritas . It is said that auctoritas is a manifestation of socially recognized knowledge, while potestas is a manifestation of socially recognized power. In Roman political theory, both were necessary to guide the res publica and they had to inform each other. After
3465-489: The provocation of fear and/or shame to influence a person's behavior. Systematic persuasion is the process through which attitudes or beliefs are leveraged by appeals to logic and reason. Heuristic persuasion, on the other hand, is the process through which attitudes or beliefs are leveraged by appeals to habit or emotion. The academic study of persuasion began with the Greeks , who emphasized rhetoric and elocution as
3528-569: The reasoning being presented with missing logic, or the more egregious example of fallacies where conclusions may be drawn (almost always incorrectly) through invalid argument. In contrast to the reasoning behind enthymemes, the use of examples can help prove a person's rhetorical claims through inductive reasoning , which assumes that "if something is true in specific cases, it is true in general". Examples can be split into two categories real and hypothetical. Real examples come from personal experience or academic/scientific research which can support
3591-424: The reciprocity rule because of the sense of obligation that the rule produces. This sense of obligation comes from the desire to repay the marketer for the gift of a "free sample." Consistency is an important aspect of persuasion because it: Consistency allows us to more effectively make decisions and process information. The concept of consistency states that someone who commits to something, orally or in writing,
3654-544: The story plot. Social judgment theory suggests that when people are presented with an idea or any kind of persuasive proposal, their natural reaction is to immediately seek a way to sort the information subconsciously and react to it. We evaluate the information and compare it with the attitude we already have, which is called the initial attitude or anchor point. When trying to sort incoming persuasive information, an audience evaluates whether it lands in their latitude of acceptance, latitude of non-commitment or indifference, or
3717-452: The systematic study of rhetoric generally ignores these techniques, in part because they are not very systematic or reliable." There is also in legal disputes, the matter of the burden of proof when bringing up an argument, where it often falls on the hands of the one presenting a case to prove its validity to another person and where presumptions may be made where of the burden of proof has not been met, an argument may be dropped such as in
3780-413: The two. These include the intent, the willingness to cause harm, the result of the interaction, and the options available to the coerced party. John Rawls , Thomas Nagel , Ronald Dworkin , and other political authors argue that the state is coercive . In 1919, Max Weber (1864–1920), building on the view of Ihering (1818–1892), defined a state as "a human community that (successfully) claims
3843-470: The victim. These are so common that they are also used as metaphors for other forms of coercion. Armed forces in many countries use firing squads to maintain discipline and intimidate the masses, or opposition, into submission or silent compliance . However, there also are nonphysical forms of coercion, where the threatened injury does not immediately imply the use of force. Byman and Waxman (2000) define coercion as "the use of threatened force, including
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#17327728691973906-441: Was face-to-face contact. Leon Festinger originally proposed the theory of cognitive dissonance in 1957. He theorized that human beings constantly strive for mental consistency. Our cognition (thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes) can be in agreement, unrelated, or in disagreement with each other. Our cognition can also be in agreement or disagreement with our behaviors. When we detect conflicting cognition, or dissonance, it gives us
3969-440: Was to claim that the king had, in his kingdom, the same power as the emperor in the empire, and so the king assumed the attributes of potestas. The concept of plena in re potesta was often used in 13th-century Europe, of ownership as being "in full power" to do what one likes with one's property. The use of the dogma was also used by Edward I. Although its ultimate use is ambiguous, it was used to give to parliament representatives
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