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(…continued from last week)

The Emotional Challenge

For just a moment, let’s slip back through history to the 5th Century BC, when the Greeks were hypothesizing and working at generating a new form of government. The Athenians rapidly realized that to succeed in a democracy, they had to be persuasive. Leaders used powerful strategies of persuasion, then called “rhetoric”, to gain agreement and win over support for their pet projects and ideals.

Daily, the Greek citizens used persuasive arguments before a new political body that analyzed the law and it was called a “jury.” Recognizing its importance, Greek scholars like Plato and Aristotle began to analyze the subtle and powerful forms of persuasion.

In 435 BC Aristotle defined three elements of the process of persuasion. He said they are, Logos, which appeal to a person’s logic, thinking ability and facts. Second is Pathos, which appeals to feelings and emotions. Last is Ethos, which appeals to a speaker’s confidence, credibility, identity and character.

Both Plato and Aristotle found one or more of these appeals—logos, pathos or ethos—reside in all instances where one person is trying to convince or persuade another person. I believe it could also be said that one or more of these are also being applied, when you’re trying to talk yourself into doing something.

The Most Impactive

During his life, Aristotle wrote three highly detailed books about influence and persuasion. Among his many conclusions, he said that logic “should be” the best persuasive element because it appeals to our higher nature. But, it’s a “human failing” that the majority of people are persuaded more by pathos or emotion, than they are by logos, or logic and reason. Social psychology now knows in great detail why passion sells and persuades much more strongly than does logic.

Persuasive styles of rhetoric in ancient Greece proved to be enormously effective in politics, business, law, medicine, romance and everyday family life. When Greece was conquered by the Romans, the Romans picked up the study and application of these skills of persuasion. Caesar, for instance, learned persuasion extremely well, and became a master persuader primarily by using a combination of pathos and ethos.

He was well known for starting off his speeches with, “Veni! Vidi! Vici!” “I came! I saw! I conquered!” Through using this emotional and character strengthening appeal, he rapidly won over countries he conquered, and others who would become allies.

The Study Continues

If we move from ancient times up into modern day and we look at the analysis being done, starting early in the 1900’s on up, by Freud, Jung, Napoleon Hill, Norman Vincent Peale, leaders like Roosevelt, Churchill, as well as universities like Columbia, Cambridge and Yale, there was a massive amount of information being generated on how to make things happen and the human psyche.

The body of knowledge was growing at a rapid rate from business and universities seeking deeper and greater understanding of more effective ways to get people to take desired actions.

The search for knowledge of persuasion is still moving at a rapid pace today. There is a huge body of researchers studying the genome and our DNA changes that affect the human body, while simultaneously there are also major groups studying the mind/body/brain connection. This research is looking at how people become motivated. How we get people to agree with us. What needs to be done to make a change when it’s desired. How do we get people to buy in and go along with what we want. How do we convince people to make the answer “yes”, when we want them to answer “yes”.

Dr Joseph LeDoux, a York University neuroscience researcher said, “The amygdala (the emotional trigger in the brain) has a greater influence on the cortex (which is the thinking part) than the cortex has on the amygdala. As a result, this allows human emotions to dominate and control one’s thinking patterns.”

Zig Ziglar said, “People justify their purchases with logic but they buy on emotion.”

Both of these statements draw the same conclusion—that we are feeling-centered beings. In effect, we are not thinking beings that feel, instead, we are feeling beings that also think.

(to be continued…)

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