The art of persuasion

As many of you will know I've been chronicling the weekly happenings on The Apprentice and the debating tactic used on the show often seems to be as simple as shouting out your point of view at ever increasing decibels in the hope that you can verbally bludgeon your opponent to death.  They act as though no other alternative to their own point of view exists.

Being the nerdy kinda guy I am this tactic is regularly used in discussion forums around the world, be it when discussing climate change, the Middle East or who should play up front for England.  It seems almost instinctive to ignore any flaws in your argument for risk of drawing attention to them and exposing a chink in your armour.

So it was interesting to read an old meta-study by Daniel O'Keefe this morning investigating this very matter called Argumentation explicitness and persuasive effect.

His meta study looked at over 100 studies into persuasion and provides valuable insight into this topic.  He found that including two sides to your argument you are much more persuasive than debating with your blinkers on.

His only proviso was that when you present an opposing view you should raise a counter-argument.  If you don't do this it can make even your two sided approach less persuasive than your one sided opponents, which may explain why people so often take the blinkered approach for fear of adopting a more advanced debating method and getting it wrong.

But if we bring up opposing arguments, then shoot them down, not only is the audience more likely to be swayed, we also see a boost in our credibility.

So there you have it.  If you want to be persuasive you have to take a two sided approach to debating.