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Structuring Messages and
Message Appeals
Language Variables
Denotative Meaning – Literal meaning
of the word; “dictionary definition”
 Connotative Meaning – Emotional or
attitudinal responses attached to and
evoked by the word

– Connotations can be positive and negative
Considerations for
Denotative Meaning

Level of Abstractness can lead to
misunderstanding
 Technological Terms (Jargon)
 Euphemisms are used to make language
pleasant to the receivers by substituting
vague terms for more harsh specific ones (i.e.
“Throwing up” vs. Puke, Spew or Chunder)
 Legalese (Jargon) difference of language
meaning to lawyers vs. laypeople

Book suggests ways to reduce
misunderstanding (page 212)
Connotative Meaning
Recall Osgood’s 3 major dimensions of
meaning: Evaluative (good-bad), Activity
(active-passive) and Potency (strong-weak)
 How can connotative language impact
persuasive communication?

– Language Intensity (manipulated through
adjectives, nouns and adverbs)
– Powerful vs. Powerless Style Speech
Language Intensity
(emotional and evaluative language)

General Findings:
– Male speakers using intense language are more
effective persuaders than female speakers
– Audiences neutral to a topic are more influenced
by highly connotative (opinionated) language
• Because this demonstrates that the speaker is
passionate about the topic (holds a strong attitude)
– Got High credibility? Feel free to be intense.
Don’t? Don’t.
– Intense language can help reinforce existing
attitudes
– Polarizes receiver’s response based on initial
perceived similarity (makes this distinction more
pronounced)
Powerful and Powerless Style Speech

Impacted through:
– Intensifiers, Hedges, Questioning or Hesitation

General Findings:
– Overall, Powerful style speech causes people to
rate speakers as more credible
– Bonus: Credibility and Attraction will increase with
low levels of hedges and hesitations
• Why?
– People do not want members of their own gender
to appear powerless (powerless decreases cred)
– The Importance of powerful speech styles is
intensified when the message is written
Message Organization

Organized messages are rated higher in
credibility and are more persuasive
 Spatial order – arranging information “in
space”
– Example: starting at the front of the bus we have
the headlights, then moving inside we have Otto,
the driver, in the middle of the bus we have a few
rugrats, and at the rear are the brake lights
Message Organization (cont’d)
Temporal Order – Arranging information “in
time” (like chronological order)
 Deductive Order (from general to specific)
 Inductive Order (from specific to general)
 Problem-Solution Order – Presenting a
problem, then giving the solution

– The worst approach is presenting a problem and
not proposing a solution
Message Organization (cont’d)

Psychological Order – Predicting the
psychological reactions of the audience
– Example: Monroe’s Motivated Sequence
•
•
•
•
•
Attention
Need
Satisfaction
Visualization
Action
Message Organization (cont’d)

Toulmin Model
– Provides a pattern for structuring arguments,
outlining three elements:
• Evidence – Information (data, testimony, etc.) that is
relevant to the argument
• Claim – Statement that the persuader wants the
audience to believe
• Warrant – explains why the data is linked to the claim
– Can be implied or explicitly stated
– Strong warrants are logically sound
Three Primary Characteristics of
Persuasive Appeals (Aristotle)
Logos – The logical appeal of the message
 Pathos – The emotional appeal of the
message (passion)
 Ethos – The perceived “ethics” of the source
(credibility)


Although persuasive strategies will usually
focus primarily on one of these three factors,
all three should be considered when
developing persuasive messages
Forewarning and After-Warning
(Allyn & Festinger, 1961; Benoit, 1998)


Forewarning has been shown to have an important
effect on message evaluation
When receivers are forewarned about a source’s
position or intention they are more likely to begin
internal counterarguing
– Especially when they believe the source’s position is
incongruent with their own
– Research indicates that prior knowledge or experience
relating to the message content affects counterarguing since
people will use internally generated messages based on this
past experience when evaluating a message (Hamilton &
Stewart, 1993)

Although forewarning can diminish the
persuasiveness of a message, afterwarning has no
impact (Kiesler & Kiesler, 1964)
One-sided vs. Two-sided Messages

2-sided messages are usually preferable,
especially when:
– The audience is more educated
– The audience disagrees with the source’s position
– The audience may be exposed to messages
opposing the source
– A celebrity is endorsing a product

1-sided messages are preferable when the
audience already agrees with the source
Fallacies in Reasoning

Messages are sometimes designed to
exploit fallacies in reasoning that are so
common that they seem systematic
– It is hard to uncover the influence of such
appeals
– A very common strategy deals with transfer
Transfer
“Transfer” is the linking of otherwise unrelated
objects or symbols together to transfer
characteristics such as: positioning a product
with an American Flag
 Ad Hominem attacks (name calling) are a
form of transfer, linking a person or idea to a
negative symbol in order to raise suspicion
 A more subtle form of transfer would involve
connotative language: A politician supports
budget cuts is called “thrifty” by supporters,
but “stingy” by the opposition

Transfer (cont’d)

Testimonials are another form of
transfer:
– Celebrity Endorsements
– Plain-Folks Appeal
• “if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for
me”
Logical Fallacies (cont’d)
Social Proof - a bandwagon appeal
uses social proof, and the implicit
argument is: “everyone else is doing it,
and so should you”
 Extrapolation – tendency to make huge
predictions about the future based on a
few small observations (also called
“slippery slope”)

Message Appeals

Emotional Messages are very
persuasive, they:
– Grab receiver’s attention
– May decrease counterarguing
– May be more vivid, memorable, and
image-provoking
– May be difficult to oppose
Message Appeals (cont’d)

Types of Emotions
– Biologically based emotions
• Reptillian (sex, aggression)
• Individualistic (anger, fear)
• Prosocial (attachment, bonding)
– Socially based Emotions (love, pride, guilt,
shame, envy, jealousy, pity, scorn)
– Cognitively based emotions (Curiosity, surprise,
interest, boredom)
– Moral Emotions (feelings of justice)
Message Appeals (cont’d)

Fear Appeals
– All other things being equal, the more frightened
people are by a communication, the more likely
they are to take preventive action
• Recall, source must provide a “coping mechanism”
through which the receiver can eliminate the fear
• Person must believe the coping mechanism will
effectively address the threat
• Person must believe they are capable of performing the
recommended behavior
Message Appeals (cont’d)

Humor Appeals
–
–
–
–
Found to influence attention
May increase recall
Better for non-durable products and services
Better for younger, better-educated, upscale,
male, and professionals
– Humor appeals do not increase credibility or
attitude change
– Humor should be related to the product or its use
or function
Message Appeals (cont’d)

Warmth Appeals (kindness, nostalgia, pride,
togetherness etc.)
–
–
–
–
Are used in interpersonal settings
Cause physiological responses (GSR)
Ideally placed after a humorous appeal
Relate to liking and recall of the ad, and
sometimes (to a lesser extent) to the intention to
buy the product
Nonverbal Communication:
All communication that transcends
the spoken or written word (Knapp)
Nonverbal as Universal language?

Although much nonverbal communication is
culturally specific, some has evolutionary
significance
 Research using the Facial Action Coding
System (FACS)—which is used to study facial
expressions and the messages that they
convey—suggests that: anger, fear, disgust,
sadness, happiness, and surprise are
universally recognized emotional displays
 Reactions to other aesthetic characteristics
(seen as desirable or undesirable) may also
have resulted from biological (evolutionary)
origins
– Ex: Child abuse and the Neoteny
3 Different Relationships between
verbal and nonverbal communication

Substituting Relationship: replacing the
action meaning “yes” for the word “yes”
 Conflicting Relationship: as a receiver you
should rely more heavily on the nonverbal
aspect of communication
– Leakage

Accenting Relationship: the nonverbal
message further stresses the verbal one
Some areas of Nonverbal Research

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Paralanguage: Vocal cues
Kinesics: Body Movements
Facsics: Facial Expressions
Ocalics: Eye Movements
Haptics: Touching
Proxemics: Spatial Communication
Olfactics: Smell
Aesthetics: Height and Attractiveness
Chronemics: Time-related Patterns
Artifacts: Objects used to convey meaning
(rolex, power ties)
Paralinguistic Codes

Vocal cues that tell us about the personality of
the speaker, emotional states, sincerity, etc.
 Play a significant role in persuasion
 People are mostly persuaded by:
–
–
–
–
Fluent, non-hesitant speech
Shorter response latencies
More pitch variation
Louder and faster speech
Paralinguistic Codes (cont’d)

Paralinguistic communication generally
consists of voice qualifiers and vocalizations
 Voice Qualifiers
– Speech rate, pitch, articulation, etc.

Vocalizations
– Sounds without specific meaning (speech
disturbances—inhibiting fluent speech)
– Ah, uh, umm, eh, etc.
– Word/phrase repetitions, stuttering, slip of the
tongue, sentence correction, grammatical error
(related to anxiety or ignorance)
5 Gestural Codes (Ekman &
Friesen)

Emblems
– Nonverbal acts that have a direct verbal
translation or dictionary definition usually
consisting of a word or two
– Culturally specific
• Nodding yes, no; “OK”, waving goodbye in Italy

Illustrators
– Kinesic acts accompanying speech that are used
to aid in the description of what is being said
– Can be used to trace the direction of speech (the
fish that got away)
5 Gestural Codes (Ekman &
Friesen; cont’d)

Regulators
– Nonverbal acts that maintain and control the backand-forth nature of speaking and listening
between two or more people
– Nods of the head, eye movements, and body
shifts are all regulators used to encourage or
discourage conversation
• Malachy

Adaptors
– Movements that accompany boredom, show
internal feelings or regulate a situation by meeting
physical or emotional needs
– Two types of adaptors: Self (scratching, biting
fingernails) and Object (playing with keys,
rubberbands, rocking chairs)
5 Gestural Codes (Ekman &
Friesen; cont’d)

Affect Displays
– Facial gestures that show emotions and
feelings such as sadness or happiness
– Smiling, pouting, winking, etc.
Nonverbal Behaviors associated
with Persuasiveness
Body Movements
 Eye-Contact Rate
 Distance and Touching
 Delivery Style
 Speech Rate
 Voice Qualities

Nonverbal Behaviors associated
with Persuasiveness (cont’d)

Body Movements
– DO: Make increased eye contact, nodding,
smiling, illustrating
– Avoid distracting adaptors, vocalizations
– Indicators of extroversion:
• High energy level/enthusiasm
• Affiliation (forward lean, direct body orientation)
Nonverbal Behaviors associated
with Persuasiveness (cont’d)

Eye-Contact Rate
– This is culturally-specific
– In U.S., people who maintain high levels of eyecontact appear trustworthy and receivers believe
they are friendly and sincere
– Normal rates: 29-70% (percent of total time
interacting)
– 20-40% actually is detrimental to persuasiveness
– 60-90% eye contact will increase persuasiveness
Nonverbal Behaviors associated
with Persuasiveness (cont’d)

Distance and Touching
– Specific implications are culturally-bound
– Generally, increased proximity is associated with
intimacy, liking, arousal and attraction
– Two proposed models dealing with proximity:
• If complying to the request requires effort or cost, then
being too close can make the receiver defensive
(Patterson)
– Panhandling implications?
• Normative expectations and attractiveness (liking) of the
source (Burgoon) – moving closer + liking  increased
persuasion
Nonverbal Behaviors associated
with Persuasiveness (cont’d)

Speech Fluencies and Delivery Style
– Two types of nonfluencies:
• Repetitions ( Competence and Dynamism)
• Vocalized Pauses ( Competence)
– Conversational vs. Dynamic Delivery
• People have stereotypes about each delivery
• Americans prefer Conversational
Nonverbal Behaviors associated
with Persuasiveness (cont’d)

Speech Rate
– Rates:
• Slow: 102-111 wpm
• Moderate: 140 wpm
• Fast: 191 wpm
– Only Extremely Fast speech decreases
comprehension
• Micromachines; radio disclaimers
– Moderate to fast levels:
• Speakers appear competent and socially attractive
• People seem to prefer speech rates 1-1.5 times faster
than their’s
– Implications for campaign design?
Nonverbal Behaviors associated
with Persuasiveness (cont’d)

Voice Qualities
– People possess vocal stereotypes, make
judgments based on these
– Addington listed 7 characteristics: Nasality,
breathiness, thiness, flatness, tenseness,
throatiness, orotundity (deep resonating
quality; think Michael Clarke Duncan:
– People generally don’t like
throaty, nasal or tense voices
Interactional Patterns and
Communication Accomodation

Two communicators become more
similar to each other as they talk when:
– They need approval
– They want to be efficient
– They want to identify with another person
or group
• Realize that you can use this to your advantage
Power, Status and Dominance

Source has most potential for influence, when
the receiver believes the source has power,
status or dominance
 Three variables relevant to this image:
– Height
• Males: extra $400 per inch!!
– Does this include NBA? Hmm…
– Clothing
• Power Ties
– Artifacts – objects used to immediately signify
status
• Rolex, a “Jag” or “JagUar”
Power, Status and Dominance
(cont’d)

Territory and Space:
– People with power use gatekeepers
– People with power can invade subordinate’s
space at will
– People with power can initiate touch

Body Movement and Gaze behavior
– People with power maintain longer periods
of eye contact—subordinates show
deference by looking away
– People with power can adopt a more
relaxed posture
Power, Status and Dominance
(cont’d)

Speaking Turns and Interruptions
– Louder, deeper voice communicates
greater size and strength
– Dominant people talk more, and interrupt
others more

Use of Time
– People in power make others wait, and do
not feel obligated to apologize
Next Time…
-Deception
-Persuasion in Interpersonal Relationhips