Strategies of Influence

Format:Print
| Pages:27

Abstract

Strategies of Influence (SOI) is a stand-alone session that teaches students about the psychology of persuasion. Students are presented a series of mini-case vignettes, each of which illustrates a specific strategy that negotiators can use to make their ideas, offers, proposals, and requests more compelling—i.e., more likely to elicit a “yes” rather than a “no”. The session is designed as an efficient method for discussing psychological influence, and is easy to incorporate into almost any course: it can be lengthened or shortened to fit most reasonable time constraints (from as little as ~30 minutes to 90+ minutes). The session involves extensive student participation, but requires no advance preparation on the part of students.