Two Senses of Persuasion

My last post about discovering the Institute for the Future generated more traffic than this little blog has ever seen before (although this isn’t actually saying a lot). One of the most interesting comments that I noticed was one that mentioned Aldous Huxley and persuasion.

I was pondering this all week and felt that it was time to draw a distinction between two form of persuasive technology, at least in the context of my previous post where I suggested that we wish to use persuasive and argumentative technology “to influence people to make the correct decisions”. In this context we have to ask the question, what do we mean by “make the correct decisions”?

I see two senses of this that can be delineated based upon viewpoint:

1. In the first sense a correct decision is one that is made in the argumentation theoretic sense of a decision that is based upon sound and justifiable reasoning. This follows from the de facto meaning of scepticism in which we say that a sceptical reasoner will come to a decision if they have a reason to do so. In this sense persuasive technology can be seen as a supportive technology, helping people to come to concious decisions and ensuring that they understand their own reasons for doing so. Technically though this isn’t actually persuasion but is closer to a form of deliberation, in the Walton & Krabbe (1995, “Commitment in Dialogue”) sense, although to my mind, supporting the deliberative process is one of the more benign uses to which persuasive (and related) technologies could be put.
2. The second sense is more coercive. In this sense a correct decision is from the perspective of the person directing the persuasive technology. The correct decision is whichever decision that that person wishes the audience to make. It is in this context that most forms of persuasive technology will probably be used as  it is the form of the technology that can be used to sell things and influence peoples behaviour.

A good place to start lucking at coercive persuasion from a layman’s perspective is probably with Douglas Rushkoff’s “Coercion” which explains how sellers use coercion, usually surrepticiously via psychological tricks and understanding of behaviour, to persuasde us to do what they want us to do. Because this sense of persuasion is already in the wild it makes sense to study it and to begin to identify and construct defences against it.