New Ideas in Psychology 29 (2011) 19

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New Ideas in Psychology

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Imaginative research on Persuasion: Subverting apparent certainty

Martn Savransky Duran*
Department of Social Psychology, Facultat de Psicologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Available online 22 October 2009

a b s t r a c t
In this paper it is my intention to contribute to the Discursive approach to one of the most popular topics in Social Psychology: Persuasion. On the one hand, during the last ve or six decades there has been great interest by Cognitive Psychologists on the matter of constructing explicative models that would explain, in their own terms, how persuasive communication works and which variables might be at stake. On the other hand, Discursive Psychologists (see for instance Billig, 1987; Shi-Xu, 2006) have continually criticized cognitive and mentalist notions of Persuasion by arguing that Persuasion is actually an inherent and complex rhetorical component of all texts and talk, and ought to be thought of more as a linguistic skill than as a mental process. As Billig (1987) has cleverly stated, it is imaginative research that discovers recalcitrant situations that ultimately shatters the notions of scientic certainty. This paper undertakes to reexamine some of the most famous classical studies on Persuasion in order to emphasize the complexity of the rhetorical phenomena involved and to show the importance of providing alternative frames of analysis. 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

PsycINFO classication: 2700 2720 2750 2930 3000 3020

1. From cognitive social psychology to constructionist and discursive social psychology The theoretical thesis sustaining this article is, of course, not a new one. Since the rst publications in Discursive Social Psychology (DSP) (e.g., Billig, 1987; Edwards & Potter, 1992; Potter, 1996; Potter & Wetherell, 1987) theres been much controversy regarding the nature of persuasion and

* Tel.: 34 650 850 948. E-mail address: m.savransky@gmail.com. 0732-118X/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.newideapsych.2009.10.001

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communication in general. Cognitive notions of persuasion have dened it as the act of trying to modify another persons behavior by means of symbolic interaction (Reardon, 1991) or as any modication of a persons attitudes due to communicational exposure (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). By contrast, Discursive Psychologists deem Persuasion to be inherent in every text and talk and to be related to rhetorical mechanisms instead of emerging from an inner-psychological mind (Billig, 1987; Shi-Xu, 2006). The Discursive conception tends, as will be seen, to include broader frames of analysis than those of Cognitivism: great attention is paid to social and cultural constructions of accounts and facts and their reexive and indexical properties (Potter, 1996; Shi-Xu, 2005). Related to these are the constructionist ideas behind DSP (1) that people are constructing their worlds through their accounts and descriptions and (2) that these accounts and descriptions are themselves constructed in occasions of talk or text (Potter, 1998). As can be inferred from the latter, this associates DSP with a relativist metatheory, rather than a realistic or positivistic one, which is the case of Cognitive Psychology (e.g., Billig, 1987; Gergen, 1996; and Potter, 1998, for great insights on Social Constructionist meta-theory and its epistemological principles). This relativist premises are, of course, intimately connected with a rethinking d in most cases a dismissal d of notions such as cumulative knowledge, scientic progress, certainty, universal truth, regular patterns of behavior, among many other positivist epistemological principles (see, for example, Billig, 1987; Gergen, 1985, 1996; Potter, 1996; and Shotter, 1993 for specic discussions on these topics). One of the most salient concerns in much classical Social Psychological research d and persuasion studies are no exception to the general trend d is certainty. As Billig (1987) suggests, since the rst Social Psychological studies on the matter (e.g., Hovland, Lumsdaine, & Shefeld, 1949), the use of experimentation to come up with answers to age-old questions has been driven by the search for previously unknown general laws that would explain and predict the persuasive effects of different types of senders, messages, settings, etc. That is, to know for certain what persuasion is and how it can be controlled. Because it is their belief that knowledge is cumulative, each well-conducted experiment would settle a small problem, and, thereby, it would remove a small portion of uncertainty. As more and more experiments were conducted, the total amount of uncertainty would be reduced. (Billig,1987, p. 72). Billig suggests that, actually, each investigation, rather than reducing uncertainty by providing answers to previous problems, increases it by offering new questions. Each experiment then, not only fails to lead us towards certitude but it systematically magnies the complexity of the matter at stake. The problem is one of scientic imagination, Billig (1987, p. 76) states, suggesting that in the search for general laws of behavior and patterns of thought scientists fail at nding exceptions and alternative interpretations to those laws. Combining cumulative knowledge with the standard metatheory of Cognitive Psychology prompts Cognitive Psychologists to use an attributive rhetoric of mental entities that are crystallized inside individuals heads, preventing the analytic exploration of their reexive and indexical properties (Potter, 1996). Cognitive explanations are then put forward as certainties about the social worlddas settled truths on how persuasive phenomena work inside our heads. Meanwhile, the reexive properties of cognitive psychologists own explanations and theoretical concepts are conveniently overlooked. Is persuasion really of an inner-psychological nature? Are cognitive interpretations of experiments the only plausible accounts for those ndings? Shouldnt we, perhaps, explore the uncertainty of those ndings, provide alternative accounts and ask questions? This article follows a notion of theory as a form of action or practice (Gergen & Zielke, 2006; Stephenson & Kippax, 2006) that argues for the value of engaging critically and productively in reworking concrete social problems of everyday life. This article is all about asking questionsdin Billigs words, being imaginative. By reexamining some studies of persuasion, it will be argued that it is indeed useful and necessary to embrace uncertainty rather than constrain imagination to mainstream accounts of what is supposed to be certain. For it is not my intention to try to undermine every scientic study I examine, but to encourage alternative thinking. I will follow a constructionist approach in terms of metatheory, while the analyses will not necessarily be discursively oriented in the strict sense. 2. Variable analysis or alternative thinking In the following section, research on the effects of several variables in a communicative situation will be reexamined imaginatively.

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2.1. The sender: credibility as cultural values and conversational positions A lot of attention has been drawn to the role that the sender d that is, the persuader d plays in determining the effectiveness of persuasive messages. Studies state that efcient senders differ from inefcient senders along a number of variables and characteristics which all converge on what has been understood as the senders credibility (Pratkanis & Aronson, 1992). Real or made up, a certain number of factors that make up the senders image are needed for him to have enough credibility. But what are those factors? Why is a man or woman dressed up in a white lab coat more trustworthy than a casually dressed person? While Cognitive research would point to the concept of Informational Inuence (Deutsch & Gerard,1955), which is regarded as as a human need to be right, other theoretical frameworks should be able to give an account of this issue. Bourdieus (1984,1991, 2001) concept of Symbolic Capital ddened as an individuals available resources in relation to honor, prestige and recognition dmay be useful for giving an alternative, culturally oriented account. The cultural construction of the doctor as a symbolic representative for some of the proudest Western values, such as the ability to cure through the exercise of medicine thereby prolonging life (Gergen, 1996), gives the white coat enormous symbolic capital, because it functions as an authoritative embodiment of these cultural values. Who is, then, more credible telling us what to do than the one who looks after our well-being? Furthermore, it has been said that the production of sincere images is of great importance in the construction of credibility. The two ways of creating an image of sincerity that have shown to be successful consist of either hiding the senders real intentions or talking against them (Eagly, Wood, & Chaiken, 1978; Pratkanis & Aronson, 1992). A common example in Persuasion Handbooks is the case in which a person goes into a shop to buy a digital camera and the salesman tells him/her that he is fond of photography d thereby hiding his real intention of selling a digital camera. In such a case, the customer would be probably more inclined to believe what the salesman says about cameras, than if he told him/her, directly, that he just wants to sell the customer whatever he can. It is also said that the customer would be readily persuaded by a salesman if he suggested not buying a certain camera because of a serial [serious?] defect he is not supposed to tell you about but to buy another camera instead d at twice the price of the rst one. What is this supposed to mean? Do humans have a cognitive attitudinal preference for sincerity? Is it, as cognitive interpretations would suggest, a matter of routes to persuasion (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), so that when the salesman tells a personal story the customer gets diverted onto a different route and thereby becomes more easily persuaded? Perhaps an alternative explanation is also plausible. One could analyze the variable of sincerity from a discursive point of view, such as the one provided by Positioning Theory (Harre & Van Langenhove, 1999). One could argue that when a salesman or saleswoman starts giving personal accounts about a product, he or she is trying to take a different position conversationally. Saying how she or he feels or thinks about a product changes the storyline as well as the moral order of the conversation. Suddenly, the salesman-client order is reconstructed into a friend-to-friend talk. This repositioning invites the participant to throw all suspicions away and engage in other kinds of conversation, the kinds that normally are said to be sincere. Sincerity then would be produced relationally, by means of conversational interaction, and not by mental representations or lack of attention. Similar social processes occur with other characteristics of the sender, which need neither to be related to the persuasive message itself nor have to be fabricated: power (mostly political), fame and beauty are some examples (Pratkanis & Aronson, 1992). Taking a birds-eye view of these sender variables, it is not hard to realize that when it comes to deciding who to believe and why, there is actually no thorough rational thinking in the audience. Put into play instead are cultural evaluations and correspondences with a cultural-historical image of what a sincere man/woman should look like and how he or she should talk. In other words: a predominance of cultural values (Gergen, 1996) that are reproduced in speech and through symbolic exchanges. As a matter of fact, if one were ever to wonder why Madonnas face is on a make-up ad instead of a pharmacists, studies show that the persuaders effectiveness relies much more on beauty or sexappeal than perceived competence: less cogency in the arguments is required and interests dont even need to be hidden (Mills & Aronson, 1965). Whatever the aws in the spoken or written message, Madonna, as a symbol, shapes and reproduces our cultural values of beauty, happiness and sincerity perfectly well d she is a singer, after all, not a professional liar.

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2.2. The message: variables of style, form and content A lot of attention has been paid to the intrinsic characteristics of messages in order to maximize their persuasive effects (Pratkanis & Aronson, 1992). Thus, different studies regarding the effectiveness of varying message styles, forms and content will be reexamined. Pierre Bourdieu (2001) has stated that there is no such thing as innocent words. [.] Every word, every locution can cover two antagonistic meanings depending on how the sender and the receiver are willing to interpret it (p. 15); that is, depending on the micro-social exchange involved. Aware of this as they are, professional persuaders tend to keep their discursive constructions and images as exible as possible, in order to set the basis for their social inuence; this technique is also known as pre-persuasion (Pratkanis & Aronson, 1992). 2.2.1. Message style: thinking and feeling as dialogue Messages can have many forms. Classical research tends to classify them stylistically as either rational based on facts and quantitative data) or emotional (based on persuasion by leading the audience into different emotional states like fear, guilt, happiness, etc., according to Brinol, De la Corte Ibanez, & Becerra Grande, 2001). Despite appearances, this kind of classication does not escape social construction either. Regarding rational messages: is reasoning really an individual process? Following Vygotsky (1988) perspective on thought as internal speech, Billig (1999) claims that reasoning isnt inherently private but is immersed in the traditional practice of argumentation taking the form of an internal dialogue: it is, therefore, dialogical. Gergen emphasizes the social construction of thought by stating that It is not the individual who thinks and then argues, but is the social forms of arguing the ones that think the individual (1996, p. 269). Moving now on to emotional messages, a similar argument could be applied. On the one hand, when talking about emotions we are taking for granted that they actually exist, that they are personal, and refer to a certain inner state. Cognitive research provides many indicators for measuring emotions as physiological alterations in the body and several theories of how they work (for general approaches see Kandel, Schwartz, & Jessel, 2006; Carlson, 2006; Frijda, 1987) and their relationship with cognition (Schachter, 1964), memory (Blaney, 1986), etc. On the other hand, Wittgenstein (1953) argued that the existence of a public vocabulary of psychological words must be grounded in outward criteria. The concepts of emotions are bound to social relations, expectations and a sense of morality. Social Constructionist approaches on this subject suggest that emotions are socially elaborated within certain cultural standards (Gergen, 1996) and that emotional feelings are to be understood as discursive phenomena: expressed judgments and performed social acts (Harre, 1987). This is consistent with cross-cultural anthropological and historical research suggesting that the vocabulary of emotions as well as their expression vary from one culture to another (for a review of Ifaluk emotional life see Lutz, 1988). Furthermore, emotions like guilt or fear, which are considered particularly powerful means of effecting persuasion (Pratkanis & Aronson, 1992), necessarily refer to a broader cultural framework of morality (Gergen, 1996). It is worth asking ourselves whether emotions, as cognitive and cerebral states, cloud our judgment and make as more vulnerable, or, as discursive phenomena, help us express judgments about a topic and perform determinate social acts, which themselves are shaped by culture. From this standpoint, the discursive control of emotions within the persuasive message could be seen as a form of cultural interpellation that incites us to perform and conform to rules rather than manipulate anyones psychological inner-self. 2.2.2. Variables of content: the social construction of agreement The content of a message is to be understood as the kind of verbal or visual argumentative information it contains. For content, the goal should be the achievement of the maximum possible prepersuasion. Cognitive research states that the persuader must dene a social situation in such a way that his interests and those of the person he is trying to persuade are believed to be satised (Brinol et al., 2001). However, the rhetoric used in these denitions suggest an individualistic approach to the matter of constructing agreements. Drawing from Conversation Analysis (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1978), Discursive Psychology has emphasized the relational nature of conversation and the narratives that are thereby constructed (Harre & van Langenhove, 1999; Potter, 1998). An alternative way to speak

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about content should therefore point out the discursive construction of a relational nucleus between the persuader and the audience so that a local ontology can be rapidly achieved and the representation methods shared (Gergen, 1996). If the persuader brings about agreement (e.g., this product is good) within this social sphere he would be able to coordinate that micro-social truth. The latter is consistent with most classical studies, which show that as the message is adapted to the audiences social values the likelihood of acceptance increases (Brinol et al., 2001). A proper cultural adaptation combined with an audience deprived of standard education can produce really disturbing results. An Argentinean writer, Ignacio Irigoyen, carried out an opinion poll asking rural people from the Argentinean countryside how well they knew Hitler and Nazism (Minghetti, 2007). The results were shocking: out of 252 subjects interviewed, 80% of them did not know who Hitler was. Some even thought he was Che Guevara or Juan Peron. Having made this discovery, Irigoyen conducted an experiment on political clientelism, a very common form of unofcial political persuasion technique in Latin America and other emerging democracies. He pretended to be a messenger from Hitlers party d a ctional Argentinean one d and told them that Hitler was a politician from Buenos Aires who had just founded the National Socialist Party and wanted to expel all the Jews and foreigners from Argentina. He also told them he wanted the best for the rural people. Moreover, in accordance with political clientelist mechanisms, he bribed the people with money and material goods in exchange for their votes. In no time he had many followers who were willing to vote for him. Again, the better adapted the message is, the more powerful it can be. Furthermore, classical studies can be interpreted in terms of which ways of creating a relational nucleus are most effective. In Western culture, the introduction of causality seems to be very persuasive (Brinol et al., 2001). An experiment conducted by Langer, Blank & Chanowitz (1978) illustrates this matter with great precision. An experimenter had to approach the rst person in a line waiting to use a Xerox machine. His aim was to get the others to let him use the machine rst. Three different types of requests were tested. The rst one was a simple request: Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the Xerox machine? The second type of request contained what the authors called placebo information: Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make photocopies? The third and list type contained what the authors labeled as real information: Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the Xerox machine, because Im in a rush? Results show that the percentages of success (being allowed to go rst) were very similar for the second and the third type of request, which both had much rates of success than the rst type (Langer, Blank, & Chanowitz, 1978). While Langer et al. (1978) treated their results as paradoxical, there are conversational and moral reasons for them, which, in my opinion, were not thoroughly analyzed. In the rst type of request, the experimenter is positioning (Harre & Van Langenhove, 1999) him(her)self as an independent agent, thereby creating a dominant-submissive narrative and offering the other a position call (Drewery, 2008) of obedience. The passive subjects position is normally rejected by responding negatively to the request, repositioning the subject as equally agentive. Both in the second and third types of request, providing needs separates the power of agency from the subject asking the question and relocates it above him. In both cases the experimenter presents himself as being forced by time (3) or an unknown power (2) to accomplish the task. In these types of request, a narrative of solidarity is constructed, where the moral order puts the power of the social act in hands of the addressee. This position call is apparently more appealing to the addressee than a position call to obey would be. Specifying the task as 5 pages yields a minimal factual construction of the extent of the need, thereby inviting the subject to accept the request. The placebo information is, thus, not placebo at alldit plays an important moral role in the conversational interaction. One question is still left unanswered. Although the rst type of request didnt have great persuasive effect d in other terms, it constructed a relational subjectivity (Drewery, 2008) that didnt serve the purpose of the persuader d this doesnt mean that no one accepted it. A plausible explanation for the acceptance of the rst construction could be that in some cases the 5 pages itself acted as a reason d what if the addressee had had 100 pages to copy? d instead of as a denotative detail. In that case the narrative construction might have been aligned with the other two, where the agentive power is put in the hands of the person addressed. The narrative moral order would then be one of economic and mutual benet.

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2.2.3. Message and sender: details, out-there-ness, and category entitlements The cultural relational values set models for verisimilitude in which speech itself acts in relation to the surrounding context. From this standpoint, messages are not only messages but also indirect performative speech acts with perlocutionary effects (Austin, 1980). If the message ts the model, it comes to be seen as more likely to be true and it is more likely to be accepted. As Potter (1996) argues, the out-there-ness construction is of great importance in the achievement of the discursive construction of independent real facts. Recalling what was said about the senders credibility, classical studies suggest that there are also ways to alter the senders image simply by altering the message. Studies state that the number of arguments provided or the level of detail given often inuences the effect of the message and the credibility of the sender (Brinol et al., 2001). The more arguments the message contains, the more verisimilar and competent the sender looks. Or from another point of view, the greater the amount of detail, the better the constructed factuality of the narration (Potter, 1996). The rhetorical strategy of detail intervenes in the production of a real and vivid version: it describes a situation exactly as it would have been observed. They reduce the receivers distance from the story being told, by giving him an impression of vicarious perception (Potter, 1996). It also helps to build up a category entitlement as a witness or an expert. 2.2.4. Variables of form: order of arguments and repetition, speech community and the power of discursive reality Cognitive research has focused on formal aspects of central concepts in the persuasive message, such as the order of the arguments within the text and the repetition or non-repetition of concepts. The analyses that follow are far from being a complete summary of all the existent variables in the study of persuasion (for others see Brinol et al., 2001; OKeefe, 2002). However, the dynamic components of the chosen variables make them especially interesting for this exercise of reinterpretation. 2.2.4.1. Order of arguments: climax and anticlimax. In every piece of argumentation there are necessarily several arguments that form the message. As Billig (1987) proposes, the outer rhetorical meanings of attitudes as opposed to their cognitive inner psychology d imply an inherent structuralism according to which, for instance, holding an attitude in favor of euthanasia implies being against views that are opposed to euthanasia. The person who undertakes to defend euthanasia d undoubtedly an exercise of argumentation d may have stronger and weaker arguments in favor of the position that he or she has taken. Which will go rst, the strongest or the weakest? Although studies have produced inconsistent results (for different perspectives on the matter see Brinol et al., 2001; Sponberg, 1946), it is believed the difference in effectiveness between climax and anticlimax order is a function of time. In short messages, the climax order (building from the weakest argument to the strongest) seems to be more effective while in long ones an anticlimax order tends to prevail (Brinol et al., 2001). One explanation for these effects is a pragmatic one. Consider what may happen when argumentation is put into contextual practice; e.g., a salesman/woman knocks at ones door offering a new international phone-call service. If the climax order of arguments is chosen, the salesman/woman may not have enough time to express the strongest argument he or she has before one decides to slam the door thereby avoiding the remainder of the persuasive communication. On the other hand, if the setting is a conference room where the leader of a religious group is trying to gain future disciples, if he or she chooses a climax order of arguments and his/her speech is too long, the audience might lose interest at the end. Another possible answer to this question, which brings us back to the exercise of imaginatively reinterpreting the variables of effective persuasive speech, relates the order of arguments to the ethnographic concept of communicative competence (Hymes, 1964, 1974). Because communicative competence is ruled by cultural and contextual conventions, both the sender and the receiver of the message will normally be well aware of the uses and modalities of speech within their linguistic repertoire for different contextual situations. Yet the linguistic communitydpeople who share the same languagedis not necessarily identical to the speech community. In that case, basic communicative strategies may not be shared and the communally constructed expectation as to where the strongest argument must be enunciated may vary from the sender to the receiver and consequently be

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misinterpreted (Hymes, 1974). Thus, the effectivenss of climax or anticlimax order is always dependent on whether sender and receiver belong to the same speech community. 2.2.4.2. Repetition: familiarity or the constitutive effects of discourse. It is common to hear about the annoyance caused by advertisements that are repeated several times in a row on TV or elsewhere. However, repetition is one of todays most popular persuasion strategies among agencies. Apparently, studies show the more an ad is repeated, the greater the increase in sales for the advertised product or service (Tellis, 2004). Cognitive research sustains that repetition increases the attraction to the repeated stimulus (Zajonc, 1968). Yet, cognitively, repetition also has a drawback. Sometimes it causes boredom and rejection instead of attraction. Looking for a solution to this drawback, psychologists found out that the way to avoid rejection consists in the introduction of variations in the message (Pratkanis & Aronson, 1992). Pragmatically, this discovery is more than useful. In order for advertisers to maximize repetition d along with sales d and to avoid all possible inconvenience, they ought to present different versions of the same ad and everything would be all right. Unfortunately, this does not quite explain why sometimes a repeated message attracts us and sometimes it just bores us. Is there an alternative approach to explaining repetition and its contradictory effects? First, let us reconsider the attribute of existence as being as dependent on culture as any other attribute. An illustrative example for this is the construction of diseases and their cures. As Gergen (1996) argues, Western Medicine establishes certain events known as diseases as well as their respective cures, thereby culturally dening the existence of diseases and cures. Foucault (1972) was one of the rst to state that discourses form the objects of which they speak thereby emphasizing their constitutive effect. A few decades ago, there existed in DSM III a mental disorder called Homosexuality. Years passed and the Homosexuality Disorder ceased to exist as an illness (it is not in DSM IV) not because homosexuality disappeared, but because we culturally redened its existence. Besides, the smaller the community of convention is, the easier the construction of reality might be, for the symbolic exchange of meanings can spread more quickly. The media, however, tend to target several communities at once while trying to maximize their control over meaning. Repetition ensures access to different markets and success over tons of other, less often repeated competitive discourses, and by increasing familiarity with the product, the media discursively create the product. Therefore, familiarity produces controlled symbolic reality. To clarify, lets look at an empirical example. Some time ago, a life insurance company called Northwestern Mutual carried out a nationwide marketing survey to nd out how well Americans knew the companys name. It turned out to be thirty-fourth in name recognition among the insurance companies ranked. After two weeks and $1.5 million in television spots, Northwestern Mutual had reached third place in the ranking (Pratkanis & Aronson, 1992). The enhanced name recognition was symbolically constructed through repetitive discourse for all those persons who answered yes to the question Does this name sound familiar to you? the second time the survey was conducted. Regarding the previously mentioned drawback, one explanation could be that once existence is established, insistence through repetition might have no further use. As time goes by, the repeated advertisements impact will necessarily be smaller, and for those who already gained familiarity with the product in question, repetition may just count as an afrmation of the already agreed and accepted reality and will start being oppressive. 2.3. Gender and persuasion: constructing vulnerability Studies of gender differences regarding persuasion provide interesting results, illustrating the social construction of gender as well as the social construction of scientic knowledge. Gender differences regarding response to persuasion are basically insignicant when their answers are said to be private. However, if they are not d that is, if experimental subjects are told that their responses will be published d women show up as being more persuadable than men (Brinol et al., 2001; Reardon, 1991). Is there really a public difference between men and women when it comes to being persuaded? As MacConnell and Eckert (2003) emphasize, gender, unlike sex, is not something we are born with but something we constantly perform. We socially construct gender, matching it up with biological assignments. Labeling someone as man or woman is not an inferable conclusion from scientic knowledge but mainly a social decision guided only by our beliefs (Fausto-Sterling, 2000).

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Thus, on the one hand, we socially dene what a man and a woman are, why, and how they must behave. But there is also a social desire to play the constructed gender role properly. This could be explained due to a cyclic power relation that is both productive and oppressive, creating and constraining our social practices of gender (Radtke & Stam, 1994, p. 10). And this could be why women seem to be more persuadable when they believe their answers will be socially shared. They are just complying with the socially dened dominant-submissive power relation. On the other hand, such results might as well be constrained by a scientic construction of truth, which falls under the same dominant-subordinate power relation mentioned above constituting a selffullling prophecy (Watzlawick, 1984). 3. Conclusion: on theory as practice As has been shown throughout this essay, social psychological constructs such as Persuasion, when examined critically, are far more complicated than they might have seemed. It would, in my opinion, be a mistake to think of such reexamination as an attempt to simply debunk scientic research destructively. On the contrary, it is an attempt to think and argue constructively. Alternative interpretations are ways of doing so. In this far from complete reexamination of the variables regarding studies on persuasive communication d for theories are constitutive of various forms of life (Wittgenstein, 1953) d the Constructionist approach has allowed for some insights into the discursive, social and cultural aspects of Persuasion that were at least somewhat dimmed by Cognitive approaches. This last remark is not to be thought of as purely theoretical but also as practical. As suggested at the beginning of this article, reexamining studies of persuasion is an invitation to practice by exercising theory, rather than a new theory unto itself. Because there is no principled difference between theoretical discourse and other forms of discourse used in divergent contexts (Gergen & Zielke, 2006; Stephenson & Kippax, 2006), theorizing alternatively is not different from thinking alternatively; ultimately, it could lead to acting alternatively. Billigs (1987) call for imaginative research is not just an appeal for academic research but for imaginative thinking. The value of asking questions rather than providing answers, the richness of uncertainty as a way of acknowledging the complexity of social life is, in my opinion, underestimated not only in scientic discourses but in everyday interactions as well. The call for alternative thinking is a call for the exercise of constructive critique, whether in academic contexts or elsewhere. References
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