Instructor Resource
Duck/McMahan, Communication in Everyday Life, 3e
SAGE, 2018
Lecture Notes
Chapter 14: Public and Personal Influence
Outline and Key Terms
I. Public Address and Relating to Audiences
A. Why presentations resemble personal relationships
1. People seek to inform, understand, persuade, respect, trust, support, connect,
satisfy, and evoke particular responses from one another—in personal
relationships and in public speaking.
2. Speakers must adjust to each unique audience to satisfy their goals just as
people must adjust to one another in personal relationships
3. Speakers create meaning and understanding that goes beyond simple exchange
of symbols
4. Relational connections with audiences are often established by noting
identification with the audience.
B. Analyzing Audiences
1. Analyzing audiences involves determining the best way to maintain a positive
relationship with the audience and between the audience and material.
2. Relationship With the Speaker
a. As a speaker, your relationship with the audience is an important
persuasive tool.
1) By noting identification, or how you and the audience are alike,
you can accomplish this connection.
2) People tend to trust and like others whom they perceive as
similar to them.
b. Speakers base speeches on a relationship with the audience, whether a
prior relationship between speaker and audience already exists.
c. Relationships that exist outside the public speaking context will affect
the relationship in the presentation and vice versa.
d. A speaker’s credibility is crucial to the success of a presentation.
1) Three dimensions of credibility are knowledge, trustworthiness,
and goodwill.
2) Components are attributed to those with whom you share a
personal relationship.
3) Perceptions of credibility are often based largely on the actual
relationship shared with someone.
C. Relationship With the Issue and Position
1. An audience may have a positive, a negative, or an impartial view of an
issue before a speaker even begins to speak.
Instructor Resource
Duck/McMahan, Communication in Everyday Life, 3e
SAGE, 2018
2. You must take this existing evaluation into consideration when preparing
a speech because it will likely affect how the audience receives the
presentation and the audience’s relationship with you.
3. Previous knowledge of the issue by the audience will affect the
presentation.
D. Attitudes, Beliefs, and Values
1. Attitudes are learned predispositions to evaluate something in a positive
or negative way that guide thinking and behavior.
a. Attitudes do not change readily but instead remain relatively
constant.
b. Audience’s attitudes will affect their view of a speaker, the
topic, the occasion, and the evidence.
2. Beliefs are what people hold to be true or false and are formed through
direct experience as well as through media, public and personal
relationships, and cultural views.
a. Knowing the beliefs of the audience will help speakers
determine their attitude but also help the speaker in focusing a
presentation.
b. Knowing the beliefs of the audience affects how directly
speakers must support facts or opinions in the speech.
3. Values are deeply held and enduring judgments of significance or
importance that often provide the basis for beliefs and attitudes.
I. Presentations to Convince and Presentations to Actuate
A. Presentations to convince are delivered in an attempt to influence
audience thinking.
1. A claim of policy maintains that a course of action should or
should not be taken, either in support or opposition.
2. A claim of value maintains that something is good or bad,
beneficial or detrimental, or some other criterion, and deals
largely with attitudes.
(1) Speakers must let the audience know what criteria were
used to determine and judge the value.
(2) Speakers must also exhibit how the value meets those
criteria.
3. A claim of fact maintains that something is true or false in
present time.
4. A claim of conjecture contends what will be true or false in the
future.
5. Audience Approaches to Presentations to Convince
The audience’s existing attitudes and beliefs will influence what
speakers attempt to achieve and methods to employ.
(1) Reinforce an existing way of thinking
(2) Alter an existing way of thinking
(3) Create a new way of thinking
Instructor Resource
Duck/McMahan, Communication in Everyday Life, 3e
SAGE, 2018
B. Presentations to actuate are delivered in an attempt to influence audience
behavior. 1. Reinforcing an existing behavior
2. Altering an existing behavior
3. Ceasing an existing behavior
4. Enacting a new behavior
5. Avoiding a future behavior
III. Sequential Persuasion is about persuading people gradually over time.
A. The foot-in-the-door technique involves making a small request and then
following up with a second, larger request.
1. Why Does Foot in the Door Work?
a. Self-perception theory argues that people come to understand
their attitudes, beliefs, and values through their actions.
b. Cognitive dissonance theory argues that people prefer their
actions to be consistent with their attitudes and beliefs and avoid
actions that counter them.
c. Both theories can be more fully understood by taking into
account relationships with others.
2. When Is Foot in the Door Most Successful?
a. Works best for prosocial reasons
b. Works best when different people make the requests
c. When the initial request is large enough (significant request)
that it will be meaningful to the person being asked
d. Works best when people are not given material incentives to
comply
B. The door-in-the-face technique involves making a request so large that it will be
turned down and then following up with a second, smaller request.
1. Why Does Door in the Face Work?
a. The perceptual contrast effect maintains that people generally
comply with the second request because compared to the initial
request, it appears much smaller.
b. Reciprocal concessions maintain that people comply with the
second request because they feel that the requester is willing to
concede something, so the person should match the concession
with one of his or her own.
c. Self-presentation maintains that people are concerned that
other people may view them in a negative light and complying
may prevent or decrease that possibility.
2. When Is Door in the Face Most Successful?
a. Works best for prosocial reasons
b. Works best when the same person makes the second request
c. Works best when there is a relatively brief delay between
requests
Instructor Resource
Duck/McMahan, Communication in Everyday Life, 3e
SAGE, 2018
C. The pregiving technique maintains that when a person is given something or
offered favors by someone else, that person is more likely to comply with the
subsequent request.
1. Why Does Pregiving Work?
a. The norm of reciprocity argues that people comply because
they want to pay back the person who provided gifts.
b. Increased liking for the giver causes people to like the giver
more.
2. When Is Pregiving Most Successful?
a. Works best when the same person or organization makes the
request
b. Works best when there is a relatively brief delay between
receiving the gift or favor and the request
c. Works best when the gift or favor is not seen as a bribe or
having ulterior motives (no bribe or ulterior motive)
IV. Emotional Appeals
A. Emotion is increasingly an area of focus in studies of human behavior and
motivation. It is relevant to communication because the meanings of emotion and
feelings are learned through communication in relationships and culture. Emotion
is also very much a symbolic activity and a relational activity.
B. Fear: Buy This Book and No One Gets Hurt!
1. Extended Parallel Process Model explains the process of fear appeals.
a. Perceived threat entails the extent to which a person believes she
or he is susceptible to the threat and the severity of the threat.
b. Perceived efficacy entails the extent to which a person believes a
recommended course of action will work and whether he or she is
capable of performing the recommended action.
c. If people experience fear because of a perceived threat, they will
engage in either fear control or danger control, and this choice is
determined by reactions to perceived efficacy.
1) When engaging fear control, people focus on fear itself
by denying its existence, not thinking about it, or hoping it goes
away. 2) When engaging in danger control, people do something
about the threat.
C. Guilt: Have You Ever Seen Two Grown Professors Cry?
1. Guilt appeals in advertisements are made up of evocation of guilt and a
path to atonement.
2. Guilt is used in interactions with others and is squarely based in
relationships with others.
a. You are more likely to use guilt in close personal relationships.
b. You are most likely to use guilt when attempting to persuade
someone.
D. Lost Emotions of Persuasion
Instructor Resource
Duck/McMahan, Communication in Everyday Life, 3e
SAGE, 2018
1. Anger appears positively related to changes in attitude.
2. Disgust has been found to be negatively correlated with attitude change
when it comes to be associated with a position.
3. Happiness has been associated with humor in terms of its persuasive
power, although findings are mixed.
4. Hope as a persuasive emotion has received little attention but may be
similar to fear in that people may have to perceive a suggested action to
be viable.
V. Compliance Gaining
A. Involves interpersonal attempts at influence, especially attempts to influence
someone’s behavior
1. Focused on relational or dyadic influence
2. Rather than focusing on the person being persuaded, compliance
gaining is more focused on the person doing the persuading.
3. Rather than focusing on the primary goal of persuasion, compliance
gaining recognizes the existence and importance of secondary goals.
B. Relational influence goals include the following seven types.
1. Gaining assistance is dedicated to obtaining resources or services.
2. Giving advice is dedicated to providing guidance.
3. Sharing activities is dedicated to engaging in joint endeavors.
4. Changing orientations is dedicated to changing a person’s
position on an issue.
5. Changing relationships is dedicated to altering the relationship of
the interactants.
6. Obtaining permission is dedicated to receiving authorization for
an action.
7. Enforcing rights and obligations is dedicated to making someone
fulfill a commitment or role.
C. Secondary Goals of Compliance Gaining
1. Identity goals of compliance gaining recognize that people desire
to act in accordance with the personal and relational identities they
attempt to transact and/or the personal and relational identities
most appropriate to the situation.
2. Interaction goals recognize the desire to act appropriately when
attempting to gain compliance.
3. Resource goals recognize the desire to maintain relational
resources, including future needs.
4. Arousal goals recognize the desire to keep arousal at an acceptable
level.
D. Compliance-Gaining Strategies
1. Original Typology
a. Rewarding activities seek compliance through positivity,
including promises, acting nicely, or pregiving.
Instructor Resource
Duck/McMahan, Communication in Everyday Life, 3e
SAGE, 2018
b. Punishing activities seek compliance through negativity,
including making threats.
c. Expertise activities seek compliance through perceptions
of credibility or wisdom, particularly based on perceptions
of knowledge of the situation or ways of the world.
d. Activation of impersonal commitments seeks compliance
through the manipulation of internal feelings of obligation
and appropriate behavior, including positive and negative
self-feelings.
e. Activation of personal commitments seeks compliance
through appealing to obligations to others.
2. Contextual Influences
a. Dominance is based on power dimensions within a
relationship.
(1) Reward power is used when someone has
something another person wants or possesses the
ability to provide it.
(2) Coercive power is used when someone is capable
of imposing punishment on another person.
(3) Expert power is used when someone possesses
needed knowledge or information.
(4) Legitimate power is used when someone holds a
formal position or role.
(5) Referent power is used when someone wants to
influence another person who wishes to emulate or
happens to admire him or her.
b. Intimacy is based on the relational connection among
interactants.
c. Resistance is based on anticipated opposition from the
other person.
d. Relational consequences are based on the perceived
effects of compliance on a relationship, including the
potential of harming the relationship, losing a source of
future support or resources, or the enhancement of the
relationship and reinforcement of a potential source.
e. Personal benefit is based on potential personal gain and
the gain of the person being influenced.
f. Rights is a contextual influence based on the degree to
which the desired outcome seems justified.
g. Apprehension is based on anxiety resulting from the
circumstances, such as asking for a raise versus asking
someone to pass the salt.