Page 185 - Between One and Many The Art and Science of Public Speaking

152 Part 2 Between Audience and Speaker

Exhibit 6.3
A Belief System
Central beliefs
(types C and D)
are more resistant to
change than are
peripheral beliefs.
Core beliefs
(types A and B)
seldom change
and anchor the
overall belief
system.

Peripheral
beliefs (type E) are
ones that are
easily changed.

Attitudes
An attitude is “a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favorable
attitude
or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object.” Attitudes are not sim-
24
A learned predisposi-
ply beliefs but rather ways of responding, based in part on beliefs. Over the
tion to respond in a
course of our lives, we develop innumerable attitudes on everything from our
consistently favorable or
f
un avorable manner with favorite brand of soft drink to globalization of world business. These attitudes
respect to a given object. affect how we respond to the messages we hear. Thus knowing your audience’s
attitudes toward your topic is crucial to your success as a speaker, as one speaker
learned when she tried to challenge her classmates’ aversion to eating a certain
type of food—insects. Eating insects is rare in American culture, and most of
her classmates groaned when they heard her topic. She attempted to convince
her classmates that eating “bugs” actually could be healthy. Not everyone was
convinced, but several of her classmates (and even the professor) ended up sam-
pling her “mealybug chocolate chip cookies.” While not dramatically changing
her audience’s attitudes, the speaker did induce at least some class members to
soften their strong attitude against this type of food.
How do you learn your audience’s attitudes? Sometimes they are fairly pre-
dictable. Most Americans don’t eat bugs. On the other hand, without asking, it’s
not easy to know what your classmates think about the Kyoto Protocol on global
warming or how many of them are vegetarians. Never assume that all members
of a particular group of people share the same attitudes: Not all Republicans
think alike, any more than Democrats do. Nor do all members of a religion—
whether Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Baptists, or Muslims—subscribe to exactly
the same religious convictions.
It is entirely possible, in fact probable, that in a diverse audience, individu-
als will have confl icting and even contradictory attitudes. The more you know