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CHAPTER

1

The Study of Persuasion

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Defining Persuasion

ng Persuasion

Questions and Projects for Further Study References

nvestigative journalist Ja ner Malcolm (1999) relis the story about a defense atto rney who wound up in jai l for a yea r because she could not, o r wo uld nor, tell a persuasive stofY in her own defense. lnstead of winning an acquittal for he r eli· em, she wound up incriminating herself-o r so a jury found. The prosecution con ­ vinced the jurors that the woman had crossed the line between defending a con artist and collaborating with him. Yet the woman was innocent, Malcolm insists. Indeed, she was too innocent! Had she assembled for the jurors a convincing narrative from the wholly accurate facts at her command, any jury would have acquitted her. Bur the woman did not believe in coherent, convincing narratives. She preferred what she thought of as the raw, objective rrurh-wha t really happened-however messy, incoherent, and unsatisfYing. And so the woman, says Malcolm, was figurati vely guilty of another crime: She bored het ju ro rs to death. [n one ofPlaw's Dialogues on persuasio n, {he co nve rsa ti on {Urns on (he questio n of whether rheto ric, the an of persuasio n, is a co rru pt an . As was his habit in rhe

AUTHOR'S NOTE: As an add itional convenience fo r readers. page numbers are provided fo r some cires.

~n when not required by usual 6rat ion srandards.

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Picture 1.2. Barbie Dolls as Cuicurallcons, Milan, Italy

SOURCE: Reutcrs/JcffChrisrcnscn Archive Photos. Used wi[h p(:rmission.

Some textbooks treat paradigm cases as the whole of persuasion, but this book

does nm , Amon g the cases in the gray areas of persuasion

afC

th ose in w hich intent to

influence another's judgments is masked, played down, or combined with other communicative mmivcs. As Chapter 3 argues, our culrure often neglects cases in

which persuasio n and expressio n, persuasion and...