COMM314 - Persuasion

A word that either excites or infuriates a person depending on which end of persuasion you are on. I looked up the definition of the word on Encarta Dictionary and it came up with several of which the most common is “the act of persuading somebody to do something.”

I wondered how I use persuasion…

We have children, although grown, I can remember many occasions where I had to use persuasion to accomplish a task. Let’s talk homework.

I have friends who have children and log into the homework hotline to find all the assignment due. In the 70’s and 80’s technology wasn’t as advanced and parents had to rely on homework sheets sent home by the teachers along with the nightly inquisition of the children to make sure we knew everything. I know that I used several forms of persuasion to get the homework completed.

The first bribery, yes I said it bribery. An example from our elementary school attempts – “If you get all you homework done we’ll go to McDonalds.” Middle school was more completed – if you do all your homework this semester we’ll go to Hershey Park and you can take 3 friends.” High school was incredibly difficult when it came to bribery – “if you do all you homework this semester we’ll go to Wildwood (NJ)”.

The second discipline…Can you believe that a parent would actually discipline a child? What a novel concept in this day of “timeouts.” I distinctly remember turning into my mother and saying “if you don’t get al your homework done you’ll be spending the entire weekend with me!” Believe me she meant it. I remember one weekend when I didn’t adhere to my mothers warning and spent a very long Saturday at a Polka Festival. I still get a cold chill up my spine and flash back to the festival whenever I hear “Roll out the barrel.” I digress…


Fast forward to 2009

My husband recently purchased a new Mercedes sedan – it is wonderful to ride in! Heated seats, navigation system, tinted windows, all the bells and whistles. I walk out in the morning and see my cute but uncomfortable 2001 Mazda Miata and wonder what form of persuasion would work for me to get a new car this year and even better within the next three months.

I’ve got it…the old stand by kill him with kindness and paste pictures of the new car I want everywhere. That’s right, its time to work on visualization (many know this as The Secret) and place the image on the refrigerator, bathroom mirror, and his computer screen saver, etc.

I’ll keep you posted…