The Ethics of Persuasion

The art of persuasion has been studied for countless years by people all over the world with the intention of using it in both positive and negative ways. In fact, chances are excellent that you have purchased items, supported causes, voted for politicians, and more because you had fallen prey to someone else's mastery of persuasion. However, by learning about this topic, you can help protect yourself against manipulation as well as learn important tools that can help you in your business and professional life.

In talking about persuasion, it is important to understand what, exactly, persuasion includes. In its simplest terms, persuasion is the influence on someone's beliefs, intentions, behaviors, attitudes, motivations, and more. Words that have similar meanings and may be related to persuasion can include manipulation, propaganda, advertisement, marketing, and so on. Persuasion is usually considered an inherent aspect of human nature, particularly as it can be seen in the activities of even small children. Persuasion is an extremely important aspect of the political process, sales and business, interpersonal relationships, social structures such as organized religions, military, and more. While most persuasion is built on aspects of psychology, sociology, and (above all) social psychology, there is also a neurobiological side to persuasion. Our individual likelihood of being susceptible to persuasion can depend very largely on our existing social networks, the way that we were raised, and our participation in social groups.

There are countless methods of persuasion and numerous ethical considerations when determining the correct time, place, purpose, and style for persuasion. Ethics is a branch of philosophy that evaluates and systematically ranks the concepts of right and wrong. Similar to the idea of morals, ethics help determine how an individual or group should act. Although there are several different aspects of the study of ethics, all are committed to determining whether a particular action may be considered right or wrong and under what circumstances the final decision may change. Ethical considerations must be made in virtually every decision of life from what you teach your children to believe to how you do your job. In fact, colleges and universities throughout the world teach ethics relating to virtually every field of study or profession simply because ethical questions are so pervasive throughout our lives.