The Roots of Research in (political) Persuasion: Ethos, Pathos, Logos and the Yale Studies of Persuasive Communications

Abstract

In ancient Greece, Aristotle claimed in his Rhetoric that the function of rhetoric was not to persuade, but to discover the means of persuasion in each case. It is remarkable how the empirical approach towards persuasion embedded in ‘ethos, pathos, logos’ of Aristotle seems to be revisited by the Yale study group in 1950s, with the aim of discovering the laws of persuasive communications in laboratory settings. The contemporary quest carried out by the Yale research program on persuasion reflects the Aristotelean tradition of examining ‘the ethos, pathos and logos’ aspects of persuasion closely. This article aims to draw the reader’s attention to this strong influence of Aristotle’s perspective on the Yale research group. Adopting a learning theory approach, the Yale study group, led by psychologist Carl Hovland, tried to find out the stimulus-response effects of many variables concerning persuasion and thus paved the way for more elaborate research in persuasion in the years to come. The characteristics of the elements of persuasion, which have been studied by the Yale research group, are explained in this article by giving examples from their experimental research. The major contribution of Hovland and his colleagues has been the specification of an initial set of characteristics to understand the principles and processes of persuasion. Since persuasion is an important dimension of politics in general and negotiation/conflict resolution in particular, the tradition of studying (political) rhetoric deserves the attention of disciplines like political science and international relations as well.

Keywords

• Political rhetoric
• persuasion
• the Yale studies of persuasive communications

References

1. Boster, F. J., & Mongeau, P. (1984). “Fear-arousing persuasive messages”. Communication Yearbook, 8, pp. 330-375.
2. Chaiken, S. (1979). “Communicator physical attractiveness and persuasion”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(8), pp. 1387-1397.
3. Chaiken, S. & Eagly, A. H. (1976). “Communication modality as a determinant of message comprehensibility”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, pp. 605
4. Deaux, K., Dane, F.C. & Wrightsman, L. S. (1993). Social Psychology in the 90s. CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing: Company.
5. Eagly, A. H. & Carli, L.L. (1981). “Sex of researchers and sex-typed communications as determinants of sex differences in influenceability: A meta-analysis of social influence studies”. Psychological Bulletin, 90, pp. 1-20.
6. Fishbein M. & Azjen I. (1981). “Acceptance, yielding and impact: cognitive processes in persuasion”. In R.E. Petty, T.M. Ostrom & T.C. Brock (eds.) Cognitive Responses in Persuasion. New Jersey: Erlbaum.
7. Goethals, G. R. & Nelson, R.E. (1973). “Similarity in the influence process: The belief- value distinction”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 25, pp.117-122.
8. Goldstein, M. J. (1959) “The relationship between coping and avoiding behaviour and response to fear-arousing propaganda”. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, , pp. 247-257.

9. Heywood, A. (2002). Politics. New York: Palgrave.
10. Hovland, C.I., Mandell, W., Campbell, E. H., Brock, T., Luchins, A. S., Cohen A. R., McGuire, W. J., Janis, I. L., Feirerabend, R. L., & Anderson, N.H.(eds.) (1957). The Order of Presentation in Persuasion.New Haven: Yale University Press.
11. Hovland, C.I., Janis I.L., & Kelley H.H. (1953). Communication and Persuasion. New Haven: Yale University Press.
12. Hovland, C.I., Lumsdaine. A.A., & Sheffield, E.D. (1949). Experiments on Mass Communication. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
13. Hovland, C.I., & Weiss, W. (1951). “The influence of source credibility on communication effectiveness”. Public Opinion Quarterly, 15, pp. 635-650.
14. Jowett, G.S. & O’Donnell V. (1992). Propaganda and Persuasion. Newbury Park: Palgrave.
15. Kağıtçıbaşı, Ç. (2008). Günümüzde İnsan ve İnsanlar.İstanbul: Evrim.
16. Larson, C.U. (1992). Persuasion:Reception and Responsibility. Belmont: Wadsworth.
17. Ledgerwood, A., Chaiken S., Gruenfeld, D. H. & C.H. Judd (2006). “Changing minds: Persuasion in negotiation and conflict resolution”. In Deutsch, M., Coleman, P.T., & E. C. Marcus (eds.) The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice. San Fransisco: Jossey Bass.
18. McCroskey, J. C. (1969). “A summary of experimental research on the effects of evidence in persuasive communication”. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 55, pp.169-176.
19. Miller, D. (1991). “Politics” in Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political Thought, V. Bogdanor (ed.) (Oxford and Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell) pp. 390-1.
20. O’Keefe, D. J. (2002). Persuasion: Theory and Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
21. Perloff, R. M. (1993). The Dynamics of Persuasion. New Jersey: Erlbaum.
22. Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). “The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion”. In L. Berkowitz (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 19, pp. 205. New York: Academic Press.
23. Roberts,W.R.(trans.)1954.Rhetoric,Aristotle.http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotl e/a8rh/complete.html
24. Smith, M. B. (1981). Foreword to R.E. Petty, T.M. Ostrom, and T.C. Brock (eds.), Cognitive Responses in Persuasion (pp.xi-xii). Hillside: Erlbaum.
25. Stiff, J. B. (1993). Persuasive Communication. New York: Guilford.
26. Sussman, L. (2003). “How to frame a message: The art of persuasion and negotiation”. In Lewicki, R. J., Saunders, D. M., Minton, J.W. & B. Bruce (ed.) Negotiation: Readings, Exercises, and Cases. New York: McGraw-Hill.