persuasion

For any idea, effective negotiation and selling is necessary in order to persuade your target audience. Through means of systematic persuasion the communicator will appeal to reason and logic to help change attitudes, or they may appeal to emotion and habit by means of heuristic persuasion to change beliefs. Every communicator aims to gain different and desired results. For example, sales people, politicians, and leaders in other areas all have different goals and audiences, but use persuasion to their benefit. Cult leaders and other extremists in history have used persuasion to immerse followings and gain social loyalty. Over time they have evolved with different religious, political, and revolutionary motives. A cult by definition is a small religious group that is not part of a larger and more accepted religion and that has beliefs regarded by many people as extreme or dangerous. They are typically characterized by their distinct beliefs and rituals related to devotion to a god or person, are isolated from their surrounding “evil culture,” and have a charismatic leader (Myers, 252). These charismatic leaders of will use persuasion to influence the intentions, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and motivations of different individuals (Thoms and Walden, 2007). Vulnerability in the larger community is the main reason individuals find consolation in cults (Richard, 2010). Feelings of inferiority, ignorance, social threat, and other such factors influence an individual’s ability to be persuaded into a cult. After a person converts into the beliefs and practices of the cult, the cult’s way of life becomes second nature. Isolation, and un-acceptance of the cult’s beliefs by the larger community makes leaving very difficult. There have been several great cults around the world, with effective leaders, including Reverend Sun Myung Moon, Reverend Jim Jones, and Marshall Applewhite. In 1954, Reverend Sun Myung Moon founded Unification Church in South Korea.