ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the ways that persuasion has been defined. We offer our own rather broad-based, far-reaching conceptualization of persuasion based on five limiting criteria. It presents our own model of what persuasion is (Gass & Seiter, 1997, 2000, 2004) and examines three additional models (Chaiken, 1979, 1987; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986a, 1986b; Kruglanksi & Thompson, 1999a, 1999b) of how persuasion functions. The chapter begins by presenting a preliminary model of persuasion that distinguishes pure from borderline cases of persuasion. The chapter identifies five limiting criteria for defining persuasion that are reflected in our own model of persuasion. It follows our model with our own broad-based, far-reaching definition of persuasion. The chapter provides a brief explanation of Petty and Cacioppo's elaboration likelihood model (ELM) of persuasion and Chaiken and Eagly's heuristic systematic model (HSM) of persuasion. An alternative to dual-process models, the unimodel, also was presented.
