Ethical Persuasion Research Articles

Exploring gender dynamics: multigroup analysis of workplace persuasion and intimate co-creation using structural equation modeling

PurposeOne of the novel concepts in the management literature is intimate co-creation. Considering it as the outcome of workplace persuasion, this study examines its effect via team-member exchange and ethical climate for the assessment of multigroup analysis. Finding a relationship among variables is not the core objective of the study. The core objective was to assess multigroup analysis for examining measurement scales' uniformity or perceptual differences across the male and female groups using measurement invariance.Design/methodology/approachThis was a quantitative study for a survey of faculty members from the top 10 Pakistani universities. It employed state-of-the-art statistical techniques, including the application of the foundational social exchange theory and the utilization of multigroup analysis in structural equation modeling (SEM) with the Analysis of Moment Structure (AMOS). The research methodology was designed to investigate the relationships between workplace persuasion, ethical climate, team member exchange and intimate co-creation. A specific emphasis was placed on assessing whether gender influences these relationships consistently across male and female groups, as determined by measurement invariance tests.FindingsThis study underscores the significant impact of ethical persuasion in the workplace on enhancing intimate co-creation among individuals, offering invaluable insights for organizational leaders. Importantly, it emphasizes that gender dynamics do not influence this relationship, underscoring the imperative of addressing gender-related workplace issues to optimize intimate co-creation. This holds particular relevance for service-based organizations, such as universities in this case.Originality/valueThis study makes a significant contribution by exploring the concept of intimate co-creation within the realm of organizational science, while also highlighting the crucial importance of considering workplace gender dynamics. It offers fresh insights into how these dynamics influence group creativity, guiding human resource practices toward fostering innovation within gender-inclusive workplaces. These insights gain added relevance in the evolving post-COVID-19 era and in the context of AI integration. Notably, a distinctive contribution of this study to social exchange theory lies in its innovative application of multigroup analysis to variables related to gender.

From Poacher to Protector of Attention: The Therapeutic Turn of Persuasive Technology and Ethics of a Smartphone Habit-breaking Application

This paper critically investigates the ethical perspectives and practices of individuals and organizations who make persuasive technologies (“persuasive technologists”). An organization that claims to be at the forefront of ethical persuasion is behavioral software company Boundless Mind. Yet Boundless Mind sells ostensibly oxymoronic software products: an Application Programming Interface for third-party applications that optimizes the capture of end user attention, and an application for end users on how to make third-party applications less persuasive. Drawing upon Foucault’s interpretation of ethics as an “aesthetics of existence” and the related concept of “therapeutic authority,” I argue Boundless Mind justify the “poaching” and “protecting” of user attention based on a view of the human subject as fixable and their capability to instrumentalize user subjectivity to socially desirable ends. I walkthrough Boundless Mind’s technology-habit-breaking application Space and highlight a behavioral technique administered by Space called stimulus devaluation, which enables the user to develop a transformative relationship with their technology habits and persuasive applications. I conclude the paper by arguing that a persuasive technology ethics based on fixing the user obfuscates the power of persuasive technologists by limiting the scope of ethical inquiry to the activities of the user.

<em>Screen Stories: Emotion and the Ethics of Engagement</em>

In this overview and discussion of my recent book, I outline its major topics and arguments and ruminate on its purpose, its implications, and possible objections to the very idea of an ethics of screen stories. Screen stories are narratives that appear on screens, and in this book I focus on long-form screen stories. The book has three parts. Part I develops a theory of the persuasive or rhetorical power of screen stories. Part 2 argues that while one dominant response to that power in film and media studies has been what I call “estrangement theory,” it is in fact an “engagement theory” that offers more promise for the development of an ethics of screen storytelling. Part 3 examines some of the contours of engagement, or, in other words, some of the means by which screen stories engage the viewer in ethical thinking and moral persuasion. There, I focus on character engagement, narrative structure (and especially endings), and narrative paradigm scenarios.

Ethical Resonance

AbstractThis essay defines ethical resonance through an ethnographic interlude that paves the way for a broader theorization of the concept. It begins by contextually recounting the story of an individual who had stayed at Sevagram, Mahatma Gandhi’s last ashram in 1944, shadowing Gandhi for some 20 days. The young man’s brief meeting with Gandhi in which Gandhi uttered only one sentence transformed him for his lifetime. I reflect on the experience and its narrative qualities to explore the broader question of why one is moved, and moved enough to be altered. I propose that the theorization of resonance in modern physics, in phenomenology, and in 11th‐century Sanskrit poetics is productive for understanding the subjective and the trans‐subjective elements that underlie ethical persuasion. I argue that the idea of resonance helps bridge the affective and the aesthetic in moral self‐formation that occurs in everyday life.

Thinking Thinking Literature Across Continents Across Generations

Thinking <i>Thinking Literature Across Continents</i> Across Generations

Ethical persuasion: the rhetoric of communication in critical care.

This article reviews the ethics of rhetoric in critical care. Rational appeals in critical care fail to move patients or surrogates to a better course of action. Appeals to their emotions are considered illegitimate because they may preclude autonomous choice. This article discusses whether it is always unethical to change someone's beliefs, whether persuasive communication is inherently harmful and whether it leaves no space for voluntariness. To answer these questions, the article engages with Aristotle's work, Rhetoric. In considering whether there is a place for emotionally charged messages in a patient-provider relationship, the article intends to delineate the nature of this relationship and describe the duties this relationship implies. The article presents examples of persuasive communication used in critical care and discusses whether providers may have a duty to persuade patients. This duty is supported by the fact that doctors often influence patients' and families' choices by framing presented options. Doctors should assume responsibility in recognizing these personal and contextual influences that may influence the medical choices of their patients. They should attempt to modify these contextual factors and biases in a way that would assist patients and families in reaching the desired outcomes. The opening sections surveyed a number of definitions found in relevant literature and outlined some of the concepts included in the proposed definition. This definition helps to distinguish instances of persuasion from cases of manipulation, coercion and deception. Considering the fact that patients and families often make irrational decisions and the fact that doctors inadvertently influence their choices, the article suggested that persuasion can be a positive tool in medical communication. When patients or families clearly do not understand the risks or make decisions that contradict their long-term goals, persuasion can be used as a positive influence.

Book Review: Howard Sklar, The Art of Sympathy in Fiction: Forms of Ethical and Emotional Persuasion

Book Review: Howard Sklar, <i>The Art of Sympathy in Fiction: Forms of Ethical and Emotional Persuasion</i>

Evangelism in the Classroom

IT IS FREQUENTLY SAID that evangelism or proselytizing has no place in the classroom. The purpose of this essay is to counter this generalization and to explore the nature of legitimate religious influence in the classroom. In doing so I will offer some criteria to help us determine what is and what is not acceptable by way of religious persuasion in the classroom, drawing on my recent work, The Ethics of Evangelism: A Philosophical Defence of Ethical Proselytizing and Persuasion (2011).

Introduction: Incarnations of Christ in Twentieth-Century Fiction

The history of western literature's intersection with Christianity is a long, often complicated, but strangely complementary one. The latter has provided the ideological basis for the former, either explicitly as a reassertion of the religion's supremacy, or, more restrictively, as the ethical persuasion underlying literature, while western literature has often been used to clarify and expand, or question and challenge the theological premise of Christianity. This relationship is, of course, neither surprising nor inevitable: Christianity was (and still is) one of the western world's most dominant and expansive metanarratives and has seeped into every aspect constituting human existence, be it personal values, community identity, or even state policies. As a discourse operating within and directed by the compass of this metanarrative, literature necessarily reflects, sometimes if only to satirize or parody, Christianity's trajectory. This relationship is further reinforced by the fact that as a foundational discourse familiar throughout the West, the Bible has also provided writers with various narrative strategies and an astonishing range of symbols from which to draw, and which in turn either specifically or obliquely inform the ideological and aesthetical tenors of their literary work. However, while these two institutions may have complemented each other, they were never equals, and the relationship remained, for much of their shared histories, an uneasy one. The worth of literature was heavily dependent on aligning itself with the faith's truth claims. In this regard, C. W. du Toit's observation that the novel, being free, is therefore able to pose and challenging invaluable to theology, uncomfortable to the God of dogmas and creeds, is only partially accurate and largely specific to writings after the Second World War (818). Prior to this, there were limits as to how far literature could confront Christianity, thus circumscribing the kinds of critical and challenging questions literature could pose. Works that blatantly undermined or lampooned Christianity (or, more often, the church), such as Diderot's The Nun, may at best be permitted as expressions of the corruption in the cultural and social imaginations that resulted from the abuse or abandonment of religion (and their writers labeled ungodly, perverse, and decadent). At worst, they would be heavily censored or banned (such as Voltaire's Candide). A similar fate befell writings that were explicitly concerned with issues the church deemed spiritually compromising: paramount were those that involved sexuality. In the first half of the twentieth century alone, several literary works, including D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover, Radclyffe Hall's Well of Loneliness, and Edmund Wilson's Memoirs of Hecate Country, have been variously censored or banned by one or more western countries. While not directly instrumental in prohibiting these works, Christianity's influence on these nations' legal systems is undeniable. But even while Christianity remained a fundamental premise of western thought and ideologies during this period, it was also clear that the church and the state were incontrovertibly separating. Indeed, it is arguable that a proliferation of fictive works transgressing Christian proscriptions could be viewed--alongside the western populace's increasing disappointment with and renunciation of Christianity--as an attestation to the religion's gradual loss of authority. As the years after World War II unfolded, during which identity politics and laws relating to censorship and obscenity would undergo significant reformation that not only disavowed religious pressure but also reflected a distinct secular position, forbidden works would once again become available, and those that were censored would have their expurgated sections reinstated. The decline of Christianity's power over literature did not, however, signify a complete separation of spheres. …

Book Review: Elmer Thiessen, The Ethics of Evangelism: A Philosophical Defence of Ethical Proselytizing and Persuasion

Book Review: Elmer Thiessen, <i>The Ethics of Evangelism: A Philosophical Defence of Ethical Proselytizing and Persuasion</i>

Strategic Engagement of the Science-Business Media

As surely as the bio-enterprise can benefit from positive media coverage, it cannot thrive in the face of unanswered negative and/or inaccurate media attention. On all counts, the bio-enterprise must be able to strategically engage with the media at every stage in its life cycle. This article describes the global science-business media landscape, including traditional media and emergent social media and information in the online space. Current research is used to document the interdependence of media, how sources of information feed media coverage, the challenges of science communication in the broader context of business, and the effect of media engagement by the CEO. A strategic model is presented which relates the bio-enterprise to global media, providing a larger framework within which to develop media action plans at critical junctures in the life of the bio-enterprise. Further documented is the difference between journalistic and non-journalistic media, and how journalistic ethics and standards guidelines work with ethical persuasion practices to the benefit of the bio-enterprise.

Ethics in public relations: a guide to best practice

Ethics in Public Relations: A Guide to Best Practice. Patricia J. Parsons. Sterling, VA: Kogan Page Limited, 2004. 187 pp. $35 pbk. Ethics in Public Relations fills a textbook void by acknowledging, upfront, the inherent dilemmas and conflicts that may arise among practitioners who are faced with ethical situations on the job. The book then provides a breadth of decision-making tools that may be used to grapple with issues and to reach responsible and defensible solutions. The author, who teaches strategic communication and ethics, brings the issues pragmatically to the forefront for examination by future public relations practitioners. Patricia J. Parsons, associate professor and past chair of the Department of Public Relations at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, brings a wealth of professional and classroom expertise to the textbook. She has written two other public relations books: Manager's Guide to Projects: A Practical Approach in 2003 and Beyond Persuasion: The Healthcare Manager's Guide to Strategic Communication in 2001. Additionally, she serves as a public relations consultant in the health care arena. After acknowledging the tendency to judge public relations ethics as an oxymoron, Parsons avoids the black-andwhite approach and shows novice practitioners how to navigate through the grey haze of ethical public relations practice. Yes, it can be done. The book is divided into four sections. It does not wax poetically about the great philosophers. Rather, readers will receive a brief grounding in ethical principles, particularly as they relate to this discipline, with the remaining three-fourths of the book devoted to doing ethical public relations. The first part of the text addresses principles of ethical thinking, including roots of professionalism, truth-telling, responsibilities, rights, and loyalties. It's a quick look (forty-seven pages) at the basic foundations, including deontology, utilitarianism, and situational ethics. The second part focuses on the individual's moral sense of self, including moral development, ethics codes, conflicts, and the inherent dilemmas of the practice. The strategies and tactics section delves into those dilemmas more fully and outlines potential strategies for dealing with them. Here, Parsons does an exemplary job shedding light on the nuances of ethical persuasion. In the last section, she focuses on public relations practitioners' roles in the ethics of an organization. It is within this section that various decision-making tools are introduced-the Potter Box, use of PR pillars, Peter Drucker's mirror test, and criteria for second guessing. …

Public relations, the public interest and persuasion: an ethical approach

PurposeThis paper aims to consider whether ethical persuasion can be part of public relations practice.Design/methodology/approachThe paper contends that the critical issue for practitioners is not whether they engage in persuasion, but whether they do so ethically. Accordingly, a definition of ethical persuasion is derived by examining unethical propaganda. The paper then considers what standard might be used to assess the ethics of persuasion. The notion of “the public interest” – ubiquitously linked to ethical practice in public relations – is considered but found to be too elusive to guide the practice individual practitioners. Other more assessable standards are identified, as is a guiding approach to ethics. The approach to ethics adopted in this paper is rule utilitarianism. The methodology of this paper is deductive and derivative analysis, argument and synthesis, drawn from a broad body of literature.FindingsPersuasion can be ethical, and a definition of ethical persuasion is proffered. The public interest is not a standard that individual practitioners can determine, decide, know, or apply to assess the ethics of their practice. Ethical persuasion can, however, be assessed using other standards, discussed in the paper. Consequently, a set of criteria and standards to practicing ethical persuasion is developed.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper does not extend into a discussion of practical persuasive techniques. Therefore, an extension of this examination could consider a thorough assessment of the ethics of practical persuasive communication techniques.Practical implicationsDirectly relevant to the daily work of public relations practitioners, communicators, adertisers and marketers, who are interested in acting ethically. The paper provide a basis for a guide to assessing the ethics of persuasive practice.Originality/valueThis paper confronts both the question of whether practitioners can use the notion of the public interest to assess the ethics of practice, and also what constitutes ethical (and unethical) persuasion, and considers how persuation can be used ethically.

Are We Sending Mixed Messages? How Philosophical Naturalism Erodes Ethical Instruction

To develop critical thinking skills, higher order ethical reasoning, a better grasp of the implications of ethical decisions, and a basis for ethical knowledge, it is necessary to explore the philosophical premises foundational to one’s ethical persuasion. No philosophical premises are more important than those pertaining to the nature of human personhood and business’ responsibility to respect the inherent value of human beings. Philosophical naturalism assigns the essence of human personhood strictly to causal interactions of physical matter. Substance dualism, on the other hand, posits both a physical aspect and an immaterial substance to personhood, interacting within the totality of each being. This paper argues for the logical superiority of substance dualism in achieving the overriding objective of discerning ethical knowledge. Substance dualism offers a better explanation – and one that more closely follows the way most people commonly experience themselves and others–than naturalism for free agency and accountability, meaningful moral standards, confidence in knowing what ethical decisions to make, and the moral drive residing in conscience.

Ethics in public relations: a guide to best practice

Part 1 What lies beneath... Chapter 1 Before we begin: new profession... or one of the oldest? Public relations ethics: oxymoron? A tarnished history Defining our terms A profession or professionalism? Aspiring to professionalism Measuring your professionalism quotient Chapter 2 A tangled web: the truth about PR ethics An epidemic of lying The 'truth' in public relations Predicting honesty on the job Truth telling as a principle of behaviour Chapter 3 To do no harm: the issue of trust Truth and trust The limits of organizational responsibility To whom are you loyal? Chapter 4 Whose rights are right? Rights and responsibilities When my right conflicts with yours Conflicting rights in public relations Chapter 5 The trouble with rules Rules rule our lives Those darn deontologists The real trouble with rules 'Situations alter cases' Moral relativism and situations The problem with situations Chapter 6 Robin Hood ethics What the heck is 'utilitarianism? Motives be damned Problems with Robin Hood Part 2 Ethics and the practitioner... Chapter 7 Your staircase to respect R-E-S-P-E-C-T Still the moral child The moral child grows up An ethical litmus test? More than good manners: ethics and etiquette Morality and your level of competence Chapter 8 The good, the bad and the almost ugly: ethics codes Codes as contracts Minimum standards or ideals? Who needs codes, anyway? A global code? Relying on a personal code Using personal values Developing your own code Chapter 9 Sex and the single (or not) PR practitioner: conflict of interest Defining a conflict Sleeping with... the enemy? Practicalities before ethics Outside conflicts Personal relationships and ethical principles Other conflict situations Chapter 10 You... against the world A dilemma you don't need A continuum of tattling How to be a whistleblower Tattling The temptations of moonlighting Part 3 Strategies and dilemmas... Chapter 11 Media relations: breeding ground for ethical problems Ethics of the relationship Honesty in media relations Media access and ethics Journalists have codes, too Aspects of ethical media relations Chapter 12 Persuasion -- or propaganda? Engineering consent Ethical persuasion... an oxymoron? PR for biker gangs? Any client, any time? The advocate arises The 'right' to PR counsel Sneaky propaganda A war of words The pitfalls of euphemism Doublespeak The 'controlled lexicon' The vocabulary of public relations Persuasion by lobby Transparency versus obfuscation Chapter 13 Good causes and bad taste 'Aware' of the issues A staple of community relations From good causes to good taste Chapter 14 PR and plagiarism A PR practice Defining plagiarism Crossing the line Part 4 Organizations, ethics and public relations Chapter 15 The true reality of everyday ethics: making decisions Why make a decision at all? The best you can hope for Ethical dilemmas: not all the same Decision steps Making those ethical decisions in PR A case in point Other approaches Criteria for second guessing PR practitioners as ethical decision-makers The researcher told us so Chapter 16 PR and the corporate ethics programme Organizational ethics/PR ethics: not the same thing Ethics as window-dressing Social responsibility defined Public relations' role Chapter 17 Making business accountable: the 'new breed' of PR Back to the classroom Teaching and learning Learning about ethics Drawing to a conclusion

The TARES Test: Five Principles for Ethical Persuasion

Whereas professional persuasion is a means to an immediate and instrumental end (such as increased sales or enhanced corporate image), ethical persuasion must rest on or serve a deeper, morally based final (or relative last) end. Among the moral final ends of journalism, for example, are truth and freedom. There is a very real danger that advertisers and public relations practitioners will play an increasingly dysfunctional role in the communications process if means continue to be confused with ends in professional persuasive communications. Means and ends will continue to be confused unless advertisers and public relations practitioners reach some level of agreement as to the moral end toward which their efforts should be directed. In this article we advance a five-part test (the TARES test) that defines this moral end, establishes ethical boundaries that should guide persuasive practices, and serves as a set of action-guiding principles directed toward a moral consequence in professional persuasion. The TARES Test consists of five principles: Truthfulness (of the message), Authenticity (of the persuader), Respect (for the persuadee), Equity (of the persuasive appeal) and Social Responsibility (for the common good). We provide checklists to guide the practitioner in moral reflection and application of TARES Test principles.

The TARES Test: Five Principles for Ethical Persuasion

The TARES Test: Five Principles for Ethical Persuasion

Ethics and professional persuasive communications

Public relations practitioners are torn between two distinct heritages: the objectivity ethic of the journalist, and the persuasion ethic of the advocate. Moral confusion has resulted. This article argues that the persuasion ethic is defensible and laudable in a participatory democracy. The social role of any professional needs examining and justifying before ethical limits are identified. Here, the role of the public relations practitioner has been likened to that of a lawyer. Both are advocates in an adversarial society, advancing their clients' interest by distributing selectively favorable information. They rightfully assume others will accept the social role of generating counterbalancing messages. Such a role justifies the distribution of “selective truth,” relieving the public relations person from the obligation to tell “objective truth”, and allows for ethical persuasion. However, it does not delineate the parameters of ethical behavior. An appropriate model for resolving the problem is Sissela Bok's test for deceit.

An ethical evaluation of the persuasive strategies of Glenn W. Turner of Turner Enterprises

This paper examines the ethical quality of the persuasive strategies of Glenn W. Turner of Turner Enterprises. Based on the premise that ethical persuasion is characterized by adherence to social utility principles, the study examines two aspects of Turner's practices: the nature of the course of action he advises, and the means of peruasion he employs to gain acceptance of the action. The paper concludes that his persuasion is unethical because it violates social utility principles in both aspects.