Social Influence, Power, and Multimodal Communication

Description

Social Influence, Power, and Multimodal Communication reveals how democratic leaders and dictators exploit multimodal communication to convince or seduce their audiences, using words, voice, gesture, face, gaze, and posture to boast about their merits or insult and ridicule rivals. Poggi and D'Errico explore questions such as what is charisma, and how do we perceive it in a leader? And how do politicians display their dominance over opponents, or discredit them in TV debates and social media? Starting from a sociocognitive model of social interaction, observational studies reveal the rhetoric of words, hands, and faces, explaining how to see beyond their literal meanings, while experimental studies test their uses and persuasive effects. The authors affirm that multimodality helps others to influence us through displays of dominance, and by undermining our power through comments, insults, irony, ridicule, and parody. The devices of social influence and its multimodal management are illuminated, giving readers insight into how people influence others’ lives by using body language and verbal communication, either explicitly or in subtle but inexorable ways. This fascinating text is a superb resource for students of psychology, communication, pragmatics, and political sciences, as well as for school teachers, politicians, spin doctors, active citizenship workers, and anyone seeking to understand how communicative power is managed, both in politics and everyday social contexts. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents Introduction I.1 Social influence and communication I.2 Multimodal communication in debates Acknowledgments 1. A sociocognitive model of mind, social interaction, emotion, and communication 1.1 Goals, actions, and beliefs 1.2 The choice 1.3 Action, knowledge, and the world 1.4 Power 1.5 Social relations and social interactions 1.6 Evaluation 1.7 Image and self-image 1.8 Competition and hierarchy 1.9 Emotions 1.10 Communication 1.10.1 The communicative act 1.10.2 Indirect communication 1.10.3 From sentence to discourse, through words or body signals 1.10.4 Multimodality 1.10.5 Deception 1.11 Social influence 1.11.1 Ways to influence 1.11.2 Direct influence and goal hooking 1.11.3 Communicative and noncommunicative influence 1.11.4 Influence and emotions 2. Social influence and persuasion 2.1 Influencing others 2.1.1 Goal generation 2.1.2 Goal activation 2.1.3 Goal choice: The importance of value 2.2 How to have others do what you want? 2.2.1 Direct influence 2.2.2 Goal hooking 2.2.2.1 Cognitive hooking 2.2.2.2 Emotional hooking 2.3 Communicative and noncommunicative influence 2.4 Types of communicative influence: To comply vs. to be convinced 2.4.1 Inducement 2.4.1.1 Coercion: The power of threat 2.4.1.2 Allurement: The power of promise 2.4.2 Convincing: Influence through free choice 2.4.3 Certainty and influence 2.5 Persuasion as communicative noncoercive influence 2.6 The routes to persuasion 2.6.1 Goal hooking and evaluation 2.6.2 The force of conviction 2.7 Logos, ethos, pathos 3. Persuasive discourse 3.1 Persuasion as a hierarchy of goals 3.2 A pre-election interview 3.3 A case of speaker-oriented persuasive dialogue: The pharmaceutical counselor 3.4 The health operator and the patient: A case of altruistic persuasive dialogue 4. Persuasive gesture and persuasive gaze 4.1 Persuasive gestures 4.2 Gestures and persuasive discourse 4.3 Looking for persuasive gestures 4.4 Gestures in political persuasion: A research study 4.5 Gestures with a persuasive import 4.6 Persuasive gesture and persuasive expressivity 4.7 Persuasive hands in political discourse 4.8 Persuasive gaze 4.9 Conclusion 5. Dominance and its signals 5.1 Dominance 5.2 Signals of dominance 5.3 A definition of dominance in terms of goals and beliefs 5.4 Dominance signals in debates 5.4.1 Hypothesis 5.4.2 Method 5.4.3 Results: Dominance strategies 5.4.3.1 Aggressiveness 5.4.3.1.1 Imperiousness 5.4.3.1.2 Judgment 5.4.3.1.3 Invasion 5.4.3.1.4 Norm violation 5.4.3.2 Defiance 5.4.3.3 Touchiness 5.4.3.4 Victimhood 5.4.3.5 Haughtiness 5.4.3.6 Ridicule and irony 5.4.3.7 Easiness 5.4.3.8 Carelessness 5.4.3.9 Assertiveness and calm strength 5.5 Conclusion 6. Charisma: The gift of influence 6.1 Power and influence, leadership, and charisma 6.2 What is charisma? 6.3 A definition of charisma 6.4 The external features of charisma 6.5 The internal features of charisma: A multidimensional account 6.6 The adjectives of charisma 6.7 Measuring the perception of charisma 6.8 Charisma in voice 6.9 Different types of charisma 6.10 Conclusion 7. Benito Mussolini: Charisma of a Italian dictator in his words and multimodal communication 7.1 Mussolini's speeches: A quantitative analysis 7.2 A qualitative analysis of Mussolini's speeches 7.2.1 Mussolini's words 7.2.2 Mussolini's speech acts 7.2.2.1 Incitements 7.2.2.2 Orders and requests for commitment 7.2.2.3 Rhetorical questions 7.2.2.4 Threats 7.2.2.5 Discrediting acts 7.2.2.6 Expressions of affect 7.2.2.7 Expressions of empathy 7.2.2.8 Praise 7.2.3 Creativity in language 7.3 Charisma in Mussolini's body 7.4 Multimodal charismatic communication 7.5 The features of charisma in Mussolini's body communication 7.5.1 Gesture 7.5.2 Voice 7.5.3 Body 7.6 The charisma of an Italian dictator: Internal features and multimodal external manifestations 7.7 Annotating multimodal charisma 7.7.1 An annotation scheme of multimodal charisma 7.7.2 The features of charisma 7.7.3 The types of charisma of Mussolini's multimodal communication 7.8 Conclusion Note 8. How to increase one's power by decreasing the other's? The force of discredit 8.1 Momus, the god of backbiting 8.2 The importance of image in persuasion 8.3 Attacking the other's image 8.4 Casting discredit 8.5 Discrediting moves in debates: An observational qualitative study 8.5.1 Corpus and analysis 8.5.2 Results: Types of discrediting moves 8.5.3 The route: Person, topic, and mode 8.5.3.1 Person 8.5.3.2 Topic 8.5.3.3 Mode 8.5.4 The target features of discredit: Flaws in competence, dominance, and benevolence 8.5.4.1 Competence - Ignorant 8.5.4.2 Competence - Stupid 8.5.4.3 Dominance - Helplessness 8.5.4.4 Dominance - Ridiculous 8.5.4.5 Dominance - Inconsequential 8.5.4.6 Benevolence - Immoral 8.5.4.7 Benevolence - Dishonest 8.5.4.8 Benevolence - Cheater 8.6 Effects of verbal and bodily discrediting moves: An experimental study 8.6.1 Hypotheses and research questions 8.6.2 Experimental design and procedure 8.6.3 Results 8.6.4 Discussion and conclusion Note 9. Subtle ways to discredit in debates: Comments by words, face, and body 9.1 The third listener 9.2 Comments in discourse studies 9.3 A definition of "comment" 9.3.1 An informative communicative act 9.3.1.1 Interpretative comment 9.3.1.2 Evaluative comment 9.3.2 Additional but pertinent information 9.3.2.1 Additional 9.3.2.2 Pertinent 9.4 Body comments in political talk shows 9.4.1 Reciprocal perception and communication in political talk shows 9.4.2 Interactional roles in TV broadcasted debates 9.4.3 How to recognize a comment? 9.5 Multimodal comments in political talk shows 9.5.1 Method 9.5.2 Results 9.5.2.1 Comments vs. noncomments 9.5.2.2 Verbal direct and indirect comments 9.5.2.3 Direct and indirect body comments 9.6 Conclusion Note 10. Attacking the opponent's image: Insult as a weapon for political discredit 10.1 Insult and other forms of aggressive communication 10.1.1 Curse 10.1.2 Imprecation 10.1.3 Bad words 10.2 Insults 10.2.1 The intention of offending 10.2.2 A negative property and a degrading category 10.2.3 Spoiling the target's image and self-image 10.2.4 Bad words, imprecation, curse, and insult 10.3 Verbal and bodily, direct and indirect insults 10.3.1 Verbal direct insults 10.3.1.1 Semantic aspects of insults 10.3.1.2 Syntactic aspects of insults 10.3.2 Direct vs. indirect verbal insults 10.3.3 Bodily direct and indirect insults 10.3.4 A serial of insults 10.4 Aggressive communication on the web 10.5 Conclusion Notes 11. A laughter will bury you: Ridicule as a discrediting move 11.1 Laughter 11.2 Humor 11.3 Ridicule 11.4 Ridicule in political debates 11.4.1 Corpus and analysis 11.4.2 Results: The targets of ridicule 11.4.2.1 Benevolence 11.4.2.2 Competence 11.4.2.3 Dominance 11.4.3 How to make fun of the opponent? 11.4.3.1 Laughter + words 11.4.3.2 Laughter only 11.4.3.3 Smile + words 11.4.3.4 Smile only 11.4.3.5 No smile nor laughter 11.4.3.6 Tongue in cheek 11.4.3.7 Lick lips 11.4.3.8 Look around 11.4.3.9 Irony 11.4.3.10 Imitation and parody Note 12. Irony and ridicule in a judicial debate 12.1 Irony 12.1.1 Irony as a rhetorical figure 12.1.2 The irony alert 12.2 Persuasion in judicial debates 12.3 Influence and power in the "Clean Hands" trial 12.4 Irony in the "Clean Hands" trial 12.5 Ridicule in the "Clean Hands" trial 12.6 Truth and power, irony and ridicule 12.7 Conclusion Note 13. Parody as a political weapon 13.1 Works on parody 13.2 A sociocognitive model of parody 13.3 Imitation and allusion 13.4 The elements of parody 13.5 The parody of a politician: A qualitative analysis 13.5.1 Allusions and parody in Alemanno's costume and in the background scene 13.5.2 Allusions and ridicule in Alemanno's words 13.6 "Surface" vs. "deep" parody 13.7 Cognitive processes in the production of parody 13.7.1 Devising the target's humorous features 13.7.2 Communicating the target's humorous features 13.7.2.1 Target identification 13.7.2.2 Event 13.7.2.3 Flaw 13.7.2.4 Re-categorization 13.7.2.5 Stereotypes 13.7.2.6 Prototypes 13.7.2.7 Humor 13.8 Political parodies: A qualitative analysis 13.9 Multimodality of parody 13.9.1 Scene background 13.9.2 Suit and make up 13.9.3 Morphological traits 13.9.4 Head and face 13.9.5 Gesture, posture, and body movement 13.9.6 Voice 13.9.7 Conversational behavior 13.9.8 Words, sentences, and discourses 13.9.9 Names and puns 13.10 Stereotypes in parody 13.10.1 Sexist stereotypes 13.10.2 Social stereotypes 13.10.3 Cultural stereotypes 13.10.4 Linguistic stereotypes 13.11 Cognitive processes in the comprehension of parody: Understanding humor 13.12 The comprehension of parody: An experimental study 13.12.1 Basic vs. complex comprehension and evaluation: Working hypotheses and research questions 13.12.2 Experimental design 13.12.3 Stimulus material 13.12.4 Manipulation check 13.12.5 Results 13.12.6 Discussion 13.13 Conclusion Note 14. Cognitive, affective, and persuasive effects of political parody 14.1 Persuasive effects of political satire 14.2 Parody as moral and affective priming 14.3 Study one. What are the affective and evaluative effects of parody? 14.3.1 Experimental design 14.3.2 Results 14.3.2.1 Emotions 14.3.2.2 Evaluation 14.3.2.3 Negative/critical thoughts 14.3.3 The effects of different types of parody. Hypotheses 14.3.4 Results 14.3.5 Parody, elicited emotions, evaluation of the character and of the real person. A mediational analysis 14.3.6 Critical thoughts and the target of distrust 14.3.7 Political orientation 14.4 Study two: What's the role of gender in the effects of Parody? 14.4.1 Material and method 14.4.2 Stimulus material 14.4.3 Results 14.5 General discussion 14.6 Conclusion Note 15. Conclusion 15.1 Modalities and levels of political communication 15.2 Future work 15.3 Multimodal communication and the laws of influence and power References Index