The Power of Persuasion

Someone persuades you over 400 times a day, 2,800 times a week, and 145,600 times a year. You may give in to some attempts and hold back on others. There is, however, an incredible power behind the things that you do give in to. Through history and books like Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Animal Farm by George Orwell we can learn from successful endeavors of persuasion and discover the principles that define the powers that persuasion holds. First, let’s start at the very beginning.

Satan is often referred to as the tempter, and at the root of every temptation is the power of persuasion. Temptation is so strong that it even led to the fall of humanity. In Genesis 3, Satan deceives the woman, Eve, by saying that “You will not surely die…For God know that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” And the rest is history. But, what’s important here is the fact that Satan offers her a reward. He says that if Eve eats the fruit, she will be like God. Eve falls into the trap of the first principle of persuasion: reward. Rewards surround our lives today like it surrounded Adam and Eve’s lives at the beginning of history. Today, we hold out the opportunity of a vacation for a salesman who sells enough of the company’s products. We promise candy to a four-year-old if he keeps quiet in the grocery store. We dangle an A before a student to get her to study harder. Rewards make us work harder, whether we want to admit it or not. Alfie Kohn disagrees and states, “when we are working for a reward, we do exactly what is necessary to get it and no more” (Kohn, 63). However, Kohn is flawed in his thinking. Think of what would happen if both teams who played in the Super Bowl got identical trophies ...

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...uasion that I want to cover isn’t truly a principle, but is a necessary component to the power of persuasion. This component is classified to a group of individuals who get whatever the what, whenever they want. They can even persuade a serial killer not to fire. They are called babies. A baby’s cry and appearance are the main factors that contribute to the powerfulness of the baby’s persuasiveness. “The helpless cry of a human baby is not weak and ineffective and archaic. It is the most profound and powerful force in nature. Until a father and mother first hear it, parenthood lies dormant in them….The [infant’s] cry is not into space but down into the profound of human love and pity” (Dutton, 32). When a baby cries, it drives “mothers to distraction and fathers from their homes” (British Medical Journal). The cry of a baby is up there on everyone’s list of aversive