Persuasion Scripts Blog

I will be releasing my new website, PersuasionScripts.com, in January 2008. One success indicator I’ll be tracking will be how often the term, “persuasion scripts,” appears on the Internet. To that end, on January 21, 2008 I conducted a Google search on “persuasion scripts” to discover how many times this phrase had been used on the Internet. That search produced 17 different URLs. (You’ll find the descriptions and addresses at the Blog Page, “Pretest of Terms” on the home page of the blog.) If my idea begins to spread, I hope to see an increase in usage.

Most importantly, I was surprised to find only 17 uses of the quoted term. (If you do an unquoted search, you’ll get a ton of listings that mainly include Ms. Jane Austen’s novel. It’s one of the occupational hazards of persuasion work.) I had expected to find at least hundreds of hits, if not thousands because the phrase seems so common sensical. But, as with so many other examples in my past, I was wrong.

If you visit the websites or just read the description here, you’ll see that most of them use persuasion scripts in political and sales contexts. Furthermore, the scripts appear to be used as both a persuasion tactic and as an organizational control function. In the political context, a persuasion script is somewhat similar to the notion of “talking points” which is a collection of key messages everyone in a campaign should use that day, every day, or in specified settings. However, most of these uses veer away from the meaning I prefer for the term “persuasion scripts” as a structured sequence of messages aimed at changing thoughts, feelings, or behaviors.

Interestingly enough I found one academic source, The Psychology of Tactical Communication, an edited volume by Cody and McLaughlin that includes the notion of “persuasion scripts” within interpersonal relationships as described by Bisanz and Rule. This work focuses upon the conceptual development of scripts and schemas as elements cognitive psychological theorizing. Here the emphasis is upon script as theory versus the script as practical tool.

After visiting these sites, I think my perspective on persuasion scripts has its own little niche, a private universe of meaning that swerves just enough to be different in focus and application. This isn’t a copyright concern, but rather a belief that if the idea isn’t different, independent, and unique, then why would anyone be interested?

Of course, my opinion is considerably less important than, say, yours. Please check out the websites at Pretest and let me know what you think. Post up a comment.