Patterns of political persuasion
This is the introduction to a multi-post series on political persuasion. Other posts in the series are linked below.
Politics, we keep hearing, is partisan, emotional, “tribal” and generally devoid of rationality, with voters who are essentially impossible to persuade. There’s much truth to that — but it can’t be the whole story! Election outcomes are not all foreordained. Campaigning and other political persuasion do actually influence political outcomes.
How does this influence work? While a complete exposition is obviously beyond the scope of this blog, I think we can cover substantial ground.
0. Let’s start by acknowledging a central truism — voters’ views are generally some combination of:
- “Things are good, or on track to being good, and I want that to keep going.”
- “Things are bad, or at risk of becoming bad, and I want that to change.”
In recent elections, the change orientation has usually been dominant.
1. Changing people’s minds and feelings outright is very difficult, and it’s rare that you get to pitch at a tabula rasa. So if you’re trying to influence somebody’s heartfelt beliefs, your best chances are usually to:
- Strengthen or undermine their confidence in something they already believe to be true.
- Increase or lower the importance they assign to something they believe is happening.
- Conflate these two approaches into generally strengthening or weakening their views.
That part of the framework was spelled out in an earlier post on modifying beliefs.
2. Many negative emotions can play into voters’ desires for change. The most broadly applicable is surely fear. But while fear is a hugely powerful motivator, it’s an unreliable one.
- We spend our entire lives being urged and persuaded to overcome our fears. We’re susceptible to such persuasion working. And that’s a good thing; if you can’t overcome your fears, you can’t really function at all.
- Fairly often, the credibility of fear messaging can be successfully undermined, by good arguments and bad ones alike. As just one example, please consider how many people do not fear catastrophic climate change, because they believe that 97% of the relevant scientists are biased, misguided or corrupt.
Along with fear, the other key negative political emotion is outrage. In practice, “outrage” equates roughly to “anger hot enough that somebody is motivated to act on it”. So if you want quick results, “outrage” is where you should look. But outrage can also be characterized as “anger at outrageousness”, where outrageousness is:
- Violation of what are or should be standards or norms of behavior …
- … by identifiable villains.
Those points are spelled out across several posts, with subjects that include fear, outrage, or negative emotions in general.
3. People worry not only about their own emotions, but also what they believe the feelings of leaders and other powerful folks to be. The respect/disdain spectrum is important here; Hillary Clinton was punished by her “deplorables”, Mitt Romney by his “47%”. Even more important, I think – and certainly more connected to practical consequences – is the judgment as to whether leaders and “elites” care about the same things voters do.
That’s spelled out in a post about accusations of recklessness or insufficient caring.
4. Identity-based politics have been around for all of recorded history. If nothing else, identity-based nationalism is central to a large fraction of all war efforts. The patrician/plebian distinction dates back to the beginnings of ancient Rome. The Sunni-Shiite split started upon the death of Mohammed.
Identity is also huge in modern democracies, be it in terms of race, religion, region, gender, class or other divisions. Some reasons are almost immune to persuasion, for example:
- “I wish people in my group well. I like to see them succeed.”
- “I want people to look up to someone who resembles me. Maybe they’ll treat me better then too.”
But actual identity-based persuasion is also important, in multiple ways.
- Outrage stories typically have us-vs.-them aspects.
- Identity – group- and/or resume-based as the case may be – can support authenticity/credibility in multiple ways.
- In particular, identity can support claims as to who or what a candidate cares about.
5. Indeed, I believe that a political version of the layered messaging model could be based on a consequences chain like:
Identity + Biography –> Priorities + Abilities –> Results
The basic idea here is:
- “Results” proof:
-
- I’ll deliver the results you want and need …
- … because …
- … it’s my priority to do so and I have the ability to pull it off.
- “Priorities” proof:
- My priorities …
- … grow out of my identity …
- … and/or are confirmed by …
- … my biography.
- “Abilities” proof
- My biography demonstrates abilities I have shown in the past.
6. There’s yet one more major theme in political persuasion we could discuss, namely hope. But these days, it’s hard to think of anything say about that topic. 🙁
Related links
- Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’ introductory video was an instant classic, due to the brilliance of its identity-centric messaging.
- Hope was of course the last item left in Pandora’s “Box”.
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[…] This post is part of a series focused on political persuasion. Others in the series are linked from an introductory overview. […]
[…] This post is part of a series focused on political persuasion. Others in the series are linked from an introductory overview. […]
[…] This post is part of a series focused on political persuasion. Others in the series are linked from an introductory overview. […]
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