BEP 63 PP: Indirect Persuasion in a Social Context

Life is actually a constant exercise in persuasion¹, wouldn’t you say? What I mean is we don’t just need to persuade people in the meeting room; actually, we are constantly using the tools of persuasion across a wide variety of situations ranging from serious to casual. In addition to formal situations, everyday persuasions² include when to meet, whether to extend a deadline, and even such common things as where to have lunch or which movie to see.

So the persuasive³ process we learned in BEP 59 , 60 & 62 is useful not just for formal business situations, but across all sorts of contexts that come up many times every day. You don’t always want to use the indirect approach to persuasion, but it’s often very useful.

Here’s an example of the persuasive process at work in an everyday situation: Julie is persuading her husband, Steve, to try a new vacation spot.

As you listen, see if you can identify the five steps of the Monroe sequence:
1) Getting attention
2) Establishing need
3) Satisfying that need
4) Visualizing⁴ the future
5) Asking for action

Because this is an informal situation, the language Julie uses is obviously quite casual and she doesn’t include any numbers or statistical⁵ data; but, as always, a convincing description of the problem in the need step is the key to successful persuasion. And it’s important to state the problem from the perspective of the audience, which in this case is Julie’s husband.

1 persuasion   

n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派

参考例句：

• He decided to leave only after much persuasion.经过多方劝说，他才决定离开。
• After a lot of persuasion,she agreed to go.经过多次劝说后，她同意去了。

2 persuasions   

n.劝说，说服（力）( persuasion的名词复数 )；信仰

参考例句：

• To obtain more advertisting it needed readers of all political persuasions. 为获得更多的广告，它需要迎合各种政治见解的读者。 来自辞典例句
• She lingered, and resisted my persuasions to departure a tiresome while. 她踌躇不去，我好说歹说地劝她走，她就是不听。 来自辞典例句

3 persuasive   

adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的

参考例句：

• His arguments in favour of a new school are very persuasive.他赞成办一座新学校的理由很有说服力。
• The evidence was not really persuasive enough.证据并不是太有说服力。

4 visualizing   

肉眼观察

参考例句：

• Nevertheless, the Bohr model is still useful for visualizing the structure of an atom. 然而，玻尔模型仍有利于使原子结构形象化。
• Try to strengthen this energy field by visualizing the ball growing stronger. 通过想象能量球变得更强壮设法加强这能量场。

5 statistical   

adj.统计的，统计学的

参考例句：

• He showed the price fluctuations in a statistical table.他用统计表显示价格的波动。
• They're making detailed statistical analysis.他们正在做具体的统计分析。