ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes to limit the scope to questions involving persuasion as opposed to communication or characterization. It attempts to integrate areas of social psychology, political psychology, political science, and communication. Although the theoretical support for the use of metaphors as persuasive devices is strong, the experimental research supporting the theories is sparse and equivocal. Johnson and Taylor found support for the persuasiveness of metaphors, but they found this to be true only for subjects who were politically sophisticated. This ran counter to their predictions, as they predicted that politically unsophisticated individuals would be more susceptible to metaphorical manipulations, whereas the politically sophisticated would not be so susceptible, as their knowledge of the topics being discussed would innoculate them from simplistic characterizations. Metaphor and other forms of symbolic language have long been assumed to be effective persuasive devices.
