ABSTRACT
Persuasion is the process of changing thinking or behavior in others. This chapter begins with various approaches to understanding and thinking about motivational appeals before talking about persuasive speech making. A motivational appeal is either a visualization of a desire and a method for satisfying it or an assertion that an entity, idea, or course of action holds the key to fulfilling a particular motive need. This is the cornerstone of persuasion. The chapter shows the three motive clusters—affiliation, achievement, and power—as well as some motivational appeals within each cluster. In practice, motivational appeals are seldom used alone; speakers usually combine them. The chapter shows how to make decisions about the use of credibility as an effective tool in persuasion. The motivated sequence ties problems and solutions to human motives. The motivated sequence for the presentation of verbal materials is composed of five basic steps: attention, need, satisfaction, visualization and action.
