It’s interesting to me that practical persuasion isn’t taken very seriously. There are dribs and drabs spread out all over the place. Books like Influence and The Culture Code have bits and pieces of the puzzle, but I haven’t seen a holistic treatment of the subject.

Some examples:

  • Rhyming. It used to be that poetry was a technology that empowered people’s memories. That mantle has since been taken up by rap. Regardless of who uses it well, it’s pretty clear that it’s an effective tool for convincing people of beliefs and making those beliefs memorable.
  • Graphic imagery. This, in part, is what poetry moved to from rhyming. Similar to rhyming it can be inconsistent; for those people upon whom it works well, graphic imagery is one of the most powerful ways to engage the imagination and cement a belief in that person’s mind.
  • The various logical fallacies. Too many to list individually, but they all work to one degree or another.
  • Value alignment. Telling people what they want to hear.