Resistance and Persuasion

by Eric S. Knowles (Editor), Jay A. Linn (Editor)

Resistance and Persuasion is the first book to analyze the nature of resistance and demonstrate how it can be reduced, overcome, or used to promote persuasion. By examining resistance, and providing strategies for overcoming it, this new book generates insight into new facets of influence and persuasion. With contributions from the leaders in the field, this book presents original ideas and research that demonstrate how understanding resistance can improve persuasion, compliance, and social influence. Many of the authors present their research for the first time. Four faces of resistance are reactance, distrust, scrutiny, and inertia. The concluding chapter summarizes the book's theoretical contributions and establishes a resistance-based research agenda for persuasion and attitude change. This new book helps to establish resistance as a legitimate sub-field of persuasion that is equal in force to influence.

Resistance and Persuasion offers many new revelations about

*Acknowledging resistance helps to reduce it.

*Raising reactance makes a strong message more persuasive.

*Putting arguments into a narrative increases their influence.

*Identifying illegitimate sources of information strengthens the influence of legitimate sources.

*Looking ahead reduces resistance to persuasive attempts.

This volume will appeal to researchers and students from a variety of disciplines including social, cognitive, and health psychology, communication, marketing, political science, journalism, and education.

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Psychology

350 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2003

About the author

Eric Knowles is an emeritus professor at the Department of Psychological Science, University of Arkansas. Until his retirement in 2007, Eric did research in Social and Personality Psychology, Quantitative Psychology and Psychometrics. His social research and writing focused on understanding and overcoming resistance to persuasion. His personality and psychometric work studied how the measurement process changed the measurement.

Reviews

[Matt Fox]

This is written as a text book and not a traditional business book. The information is great but it's not a leisurely read.