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Persuasion technology is technology that can be used for presenting or promoting a point of view. Any technology designed and deployed for those purposes can be considered a persuasion technology. Such aids are regularly used in sales, diplomacy, politics, religion, military training, cult recruiting and management, and may potentially be used in any area of human interaction. Technology (Gr. ...
Sales, or the activity of selling, forms an integral part of commercial activity. ...
This page is about negotiations; for the board game, see Diplomacy (game). ...
Politics is the process and method of making decisions for groups. ...
A military or miltary force (n. ...
In religion and sociology, a cult is a group of people (often a new religious movement) devoted to beliefs and goals which may be contradictory to those held by the majority of society. ...
Management (from Old French ménagement the art of conducting, directing, from Latin manu agere to lead by the hand) characterises the process of leading and directing all or part of an organization, often a business, through the deployment and manipulation of resources (human, financial, material, intellectual or intangible). ...
Generally, persuasion technology is used to augment a human face-to-face or voice interaction, particularly in a selling or other situation where the persuader or 'seller' seeks to gain an edge on the recruit or 'buyer'. In this general sense, 'sellers' can be those promoting any particular point of view, and 'buyers' anyone they attempt to recruit. Political or religious views can be (and often are) promoted using the same general methods and technologies. A point of view, viewpoint or POV, is the following: On a given topic, a point of view is a cognitive perspective. ...
Examples Examples of technologies that can be used for persuasive purposes are: Some technologies are used primarily for overt persuasion. Others are more suitable for a more subtle covert approach. However most can be used either way. A book is a collection of leaves of paper, parchment or other material, bound together along one edge within covers. ...
A pamphlet is an unbound booklet (that is, without a hard cover or binding). ...
(See also List of types of clothing and Clothing terminology) Humans often wear articles of clothing (also known as dress, garments or attire) on the body (for the alternative, see nudity). ...
Louis XIV King of France and Navarre By Hyacinthe Rigaud (1701) Louis XIV (Louis-Dieudonné) (September 5, 1638–September 1, 1715) reigned as King of France and King of Navarre from May 14, 1643 until his death. ...
White lace is often used in collars and other fabric borders. ...
Mass media is the term used to denote, as a class, that section of the media specifically conceived and designed to reach a very large audience (typically at least as large as the whole population of a nation state). ...
The folder of newspaper web offset printing press Printing is an industrial process for reproducing copies of texts and images, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. ...
Computer software (or simply software) refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of a computer for some purpose. ...
Hardware is equipment such as fasteners, keys, locks, hinges, wire, chains, plumbing supplies, tools, utensils, cutlery and machine parts, especially when they are made of metal. ...
Microsoft PowerPoint is a popular presentation program developed for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS computer operating systems. ...
This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...
A subliminal message is a signal or message designed to pass below (sub) the normal limits of perception. ...
A simulation is an imitation of some real device or state of affairs. ...
Model may refer to more than one thing : For models in society, art, fashion, and cosmetics, see; role model model (person) supermodel figure drawing modeling section In science and technology, a model (abstract) is understood as an abstract or theoretical representation of a phenomenon,see; geologic modeling model (economics) model...
Democracy is a form of government under which the power to alter the laws and structures of government lies, ultimately, with the citizenry. ...
A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ...
A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ...
Typical junkmail. ...
Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...
History Persuasion is as old as humanity itself, and records exist to show that the available technology of the day has been used to assist with persuasion for many thousands of years, and has evolved over the centuries to become more effective. The earliest persuasive technologies were those that facilitated verbal communication. The first major advancement though was the technology that facilitated books, flyers, pamphlets, billboards and other forms of widely reproduced written and later visual communication. Sometimes these have a profound effect on culture - for example the Shanghai lady image in 1930s China. Today there are a plethora of electronic technologies that can be used for persuasive purposes. Shanghai woman is an English expression for a prostitute, but it has a far more complex and interesting history than most such expressions. ...
Events and trends Technology Jet engine invented First atom was split with a particle accelerator Golden Age of radio begins in U.S. Disney adopts a three-color Technicolor process for cartoons First Kit Kat in UK The photocopier is invented by Carlson Air mail service across the Atlantic Science...
The key difference between "persuasion technology" in the modern sense and the persuasion that might have been used by a Roman emperor or a radical cleric supporting the reformation is the degree of reciprocal technical equality. In ordinary conversation unaided by persuasive technology, an individual may be more eloquent and persuasive than another individual, depending on their relative talents and training. But persuasive technology can give one interlocutor a technological edge and this might be the decisive factor. Improving intrusive technology e.g. RFID tags make this a rather more subversive process. The Protestant Reformation was a movement which began in the 16th century as a series of attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church, but ended in division and the establishment of new institutions, most importantly Lutheranism, Reformed churches, and Anabaptists. ...
There are recorded incidences of carpenters or stonemasons defeating highly respected scholars in classical rhetorical history. This would be more difficult today. Carpenters and stonemasons generally do not have the same access to persuasive technology as experts do.
Reciprocal equality What distinguishes a persuasion technology from simple "persuasion" is that the individual being persuaded cannot easily respond by creating an equally effective counter-presentation in real time - a lack of reciprocal equality. The means used to achieve this dominance or advantage can be considered in two classes: - Physical persuasion tools (usually electronic) which can be used to skew the balance of persuasive power between the participants. Examples include computers, broadcast equipment, pamphlets, photographs, charts, and the like.
- Methods of persuasion. These combine psychology with careful preparation. Salespeople and other professional persuaders, are commonly trained to work within a carefully prepared conceptual framework and have a series of contingency plans which structure and clarify the customer interaction for them. Whereas a typical buyer or recruit is interacting on an ad hoc basis, a well-trained and well-prepared persuader has a ready-made set of psychologically tested and effective strategies to deal with objections and overcome resistance. Supporters of the theory claim that the difference between mere salesmanship and a persuasion technology is the utilisation of well-researched quasi-scientific psychological (some say psychological warfare) methods to develop persuasive strategies and train the persuaders.
The U.S. Department of Defense defines psychological warfare (PSYWAR) as: The planned use of propaganda and other psychological actions having the primary purpose of influencing the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of hostile foreign groups in such a way as to support the achievement of national objectives. ...
Criticisms of the theory Detractors of the theory say that salesmanship, is as old as commerce itself, and persuasion is as old as human interactions. They claim that persuaders have always had the advantage in knowledge, preparedness, persuasion tools, and the researching of persuasive techniques. They claim that even though it is true that persuaders have become better at their art, the recruits have also become more sophisticated. Most people today are critical, even cynical, of persuasive techniques. The imbalance has not changed very much over the centuries. Some would even argue that parents today with all their persuasive technology, are not as effective in persuading their children as they were in previous centuries when children were relatively unaware of persuasive techniques. Advertisers claim that to be effective today, a message must be much more persuasive than decades ago and the reason they give is that the viewers of advertisements have become persuasion savvy. Viewers of persuasive technology today see it as a game or a challenge: they no longer see an advertisement as a credible source of information. The only solution to any imbalance that might exist, according to the detractors, is the further education of recruits and the wider dissemination of persuasion technology to all. This is the only way of creating a "level playing field". To the detractors, persuasion technology is a force for good. If there is a villain in this drama, it is the ignorance of those that can be easily influenced because of their reluctance to embrace and understand persuasive technologies and techniques.
Detractors also see a serious logical flaw in the argument that a well researched persuasive technique gives a persuasive advantage relative to an equivalent and just as effective persuasive technique that has not been researched.
Detractors also claim that the division of technology into two types, persuasive and non-persuasive, is a false dichotomy. Neither persuasive nor non-persuasive technology exists. All technology can be used for persuasive purposes. And all technology can be used for non-persuasive purposes. Even the most overtly persuasive technology, advertising, need not be persuasive. Marketers use advertisements for three purposes : 1) persuasion, 2) dissemination of information (useful during a new product launch or any time the consumer is not familiar with a product or how to use it), and 3) institutional (just getting the name of the company or institution out to the people). It is better to think of this division as two fictitious terminal points on a continuum. All real technologies lay on the continuum and can be categorized only by differences in degree, not differences in kind. So called persuasive technology is merely technology that tends to be used for persuasive purposes more often than so called non-persuasive technology.
Socio-political concerns On the broader macro level, some types of persuasion technology (such as mass media) are largely controlled by a select few individuals. Alternative view points are seldom presented. Because media is paid for by advertising, advertisers tend to have an editorial influence too. It becomes quite difficult to establish any equality between those who control the media and their guests, and those who would wish to challenge them. Edward S. Herman has written extensively on this topic, and considers it a major social question. Concern has been expressed that such techniques disempower those who do not have knowledge of them and access to them. This is of particular concern in a democracy. Mass media is the term used to denote, as a class, that section of the media specifically conceived and designed to reach a very large audience (typically at least as large as the whole population of a nation state). ...
Edward S. Herman is an economist and media analyst with a specialty in corporate and regulatory issues as well as political economy and the media. ...
Use in business Interestingly, the computer industry itself provides some examples of rejecting certain technologies simply for their power to persuade. Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems declared his company a PowerPoint-Free Zone, which was seen as a simple attack on his rival Bill Gates of Microsoft. But Lou Gerstner of IBM went further, and declared that no presentation technology at all would be used in his office, but that proposals would have to be presented on a single overhead slide with a single color of marker. He spoke strongly against the distraction of effort into persuasive presentations, and away from the core elements of business cases and real customer service. He did not, unlike Sun, ban his own salespeople from using these, a tacit acknowledgement that there was indeed power to sway decisions in such methods and technologies, and that he considered it an obligation to stockholders not to be himself swayed by it in his own office. Scott McNealy Scott McNealy (b. ...
Sun Microsystems is a computer, semiconductor and software manufacturer headquartered in Santa Clara, California, in Silicon Valley. ...
Microsoft PowerPoint is a popular presentation program developed for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS computer operating systems. ...
Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955), commonly known as Bill Gates, is an American businessman and a microcomputer pioneer. ...
Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT) headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. ...
Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. ...
International Business Machines Corporation (IBM, or colloquially, Big Blue) (NYSE: IBM) (incorporated June 15, 1911, in operation since 1888) is headquartered in Armonk, New York, USA. The company manufactures and sells computer hardware, software, and services. ...
The generally accepted purpose of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is to enable organizations to better serve their customers through the introduction of reliable processes and procedures for interacting with those customers. ...
A shareholder or stockholder is an individual or company (including a corporation), that legally owns one or more shares of stock in a joint stock company. ...
Use in education Edward Tufte has decried the use of persuasion technology and the adoption of its style in education. "Particularly disturbing is the adoption of the PowerPoint cognitive style in our schools. Rather than learning to write a report using sentences, children are being taught how to formulate client pitches and infomercials. Elementary school PowerPoint exercises (as seen in teacher guides and in student work posted on the Internet) typically consist of 10 to 20 words and a piece of clip art on each slide in a presentation of three to six slides -a total of perhaps 80 words (15 seconds of silent reading) for a week of work. Students would be better off if the schools simply closed down on those days and everyone went to the Exploratorium or wrote an illustrated essay explaining something." [1] (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html) Edward Rolf Tufte (born 1940) is a professor of statistics, graphic design, and political economy at Yale University and an expert in the presentation of informational graphics, such as infographics, charts and graphs. ...
Microsoft PowerPoint is a popular presentation program developed for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS computer operating systems. ...
The Exploratorium is a public science museum located in the Marina District at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, California. ...
Related topics Other subjects that are not normally considered part of persuasion technology but which have some overlap or features in common with it include: Collaborative software, also known as groupware, is application software that integrates work on a single project by several concurrent users at separated workstations (see also Computer supported cooperative work). ...
A Wiki or wiki (pronounced , or ; see Pronunciation below) is a web application that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content. ...
Psychology (ancient Greek: psyche = soul and logos = word) is the study of behaviour, mind and thought. ...
North Korean propaganda showing a soldier destroying the United States Capitol building. ...
Rhetoric (from Greek ρητωρ, rhêtôr, orator) is one of the three original liberal arts or trivium (the other members are dialectic and grammar). ...
Public speaking is speaking to a group of people in a structured, deliberate manner. ...
The Iron Maiden of Nuremberg was a famous torture device Torture is the infliction of severe physical or psychological pain as an expression of cruelty, a means of intimidation, deterrent or punishment, or as a tool for the extraction of information or confessions. ...
A coach is a person who teaches and directs another person via encouragement and advice. ...
Grooming--When two ape or primitive beings clean each other by combing through the hair and extracting foreign objects such as bugs and leaves, dirt and twigs. ...
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is based on the assumption that the unconscious mind might be programmed like a computer through the use of language, as well as through images, sounds, and other sensory input. ...
See also Generally speaking, advertising is the paid promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas by an identified sponsor. ...
Artificial intelligence (also known as machine intelligence and often abbreviated as AI) is intelligence exhibited by any manufactured (i. ...
Brainwashing or thought reform is the application of coercive techniques to change the beliefs or behavior of one or more people for political purposes. ...
Coercion is the practice of compelling a person to act by employing threat of force. ...
Human rights are rights which some hold to be inalienable and belonging to all humans. ...
Morality is a system of principles and judgments based on cultural, religious, and philosophical concepts and beliefs, by which humans determine whether given actions are right or wrong. ...
See also: Persuasion the last novel written by Jane Austen. ...
In futurism, a technological singularity is a predicted point in the development of a civilization at which technological progress accelerates beyond the ability of present-day humans to fully comprehend or predict. ...
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