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Attitudinal Change Theory
Attitudinal Change Theory suggests three domains that influence behavior, starting with feelings that motivate our decision-making. These attitudinal domains are: Affective, Cognitive, and Psychomotor.
Attitudinal Change Theory suggests three domains that influence behavior, starting with feelings that motivate our decision-making. These attitudinal domains are: Affective, Cognitive, and Psychomotor.
- Affective domains, which influence our feelings.
- Cognitive domains, which influence our decisions.
- Psychomotor domains, which influence our behaviors.
Rhetoric Theory
Rhetoric theory has alluring parallels that can be useful in gaining a deeper understanding of these domains, and we will do well to consider the three modes of persuasion it prescribes and how they relate to communication: Pathos, Logos, and Ethos.
With such an understanding we can infer that before we ever hope to influence the behavior of others, we must first appeal to their sense of logic. But how do we do that?
Rhetoric theory has alluring parallels that can be useful in gaining a deeper understanding of these domains, and we will do well to consider the three modes of persuasion it prescribes and how they relate to communication: Pathos, Logos, and Ethos.
- Pathos is an appeal to feelings and emotions (i.e. affective domain).
- Logos is an appeal to rational reasoning and logic (i.e. cognitive domain).
- Ethos is an appeal to character and ethics (i.e. psychomotor domain).
With such an understanding we can infer that before we ever hope to influence the behavior of others, we must first appeal to their sense of logic. But how do we do that?
The Three E's of Positive Influence
As a Facilitator of Fascination, I use The Three E’s of Positive Influence to communicate knowledge and skills in a way that allows the people I serve the opportunity to transfer their new knowledge and skills to their everyday lives: Engage, Empower, and Encourage.
As a Facilitator of Fascination, I use The Three E’s of Positive Influence to communicate knowledge and skills in a way that allows the people I serve the opportunity to transfer their new knowledge and skills to their everyday lives: Engage, Empower, and Encourage.
Motivators to A.I.D. Engagement
As a Facilitator of Fascination, there are three key motivators I use to engage clients: Attention, Interest, and Desire. Whether in a classroom, boardroom, theater—wherever your work takes you—you can use these same motivators to A.I.D. engagement with your own audiences—and in so doing, making stronger connections with the people you serve.
1. Attention
Gaining attention activates a temporary state of curiosity through external stimuli, motivating people to respond with perceptual curiosity—the tendency to investigate novelties in the environment. Any sudden change in the environment can be sufficient for generating attention, such as:
In my own work, I play the ukulele and perform visual magic tricks to generate attention. Attention wanes quickly, however, which is why we must transition efficiently from mere attention to interest. And that’s the key to this motivator: attention unlocks the potential to foster interest in experiencing more, inspiring your audience to sustain their attention.
2. Interest
Interest can be longer-lasting than mere attention because it relies on what people already intrinsically care about, motivating them to respond with epistemic curiosity—the tendency to investigate unanswered questions and develop deeper understandings. By connecting a message to what your audience cares about, you motivate a deeper level of curiosity, inviting people to engage more meaningfully in the experience.
Crafting a message in a way that speaks to emotions and strongly held beliefs can work well here. Topics and themes such as love, money, health, happiness, power, anger, sadness, revenge, and so forth, can all work well. These are just a few samples to help get you started thinking about what is inherently motivating for your audience.
In addition, it’s worth noting the valuable role stories can play in unlocking interest. Humans are wired to understand life through metaphor, and a well-crafted story employed at just the right time can do wonders for motivating a deeper level of interest. As the saying suggests: "You can't help anybody if you can’t tell the right story.” What stories will you share with others?
3. Desire
When genuine interest is activated, it can become fuel to drive your audience to get involved, motivating your audience to respond with social curiosity—the tendency for people to value what they help create. This final engagement motivator is where you invite your audience to follow your lead and become co-creators of the experience.
Musicians do this effectively with the chorus of their songs. How often have you found yourself suddenly singing along while listening to music, without even realizing right away that you had join? Such can be the magnetic pull to get involved when an empowered communicator activates all three engagement motivators.
Musicians also do this with “call-and-response” sections. Educators use the “repeat-after-me” method. Trainers use the “do-as-I-do” method. And role models use their own behaviors and results as fuel to lead the way and motivate desire in others to get involved.
Another valuable way to activate desire is your ability to demonstrate authenticity, likeability, and trust—the dance between who you are, what you do as an expression of who you are, and the attitude you express towards your relationship with the people you serve. Simply put, if people like you then they will want to engage with you, and if they don’t then they won’t.
As a Facilitator of Fascination, there are three key motivators I use to engage clients: Attention, Interest, and Desire. Whether in a classroom, boardroom, theater—wherever your work takes you—you can use these same motivators to A.I.D. engagement with your own audiences—and in so doing, making stronger connections with the people you serve.
1. Attention
Gaining attention activates a temporary state of curiosity through external stimuli, motivating people to respond with perceptual curiosity—the tendency to investigate novelties in the environment. Any sudden change in the environment can be sufficient for generating attention, such as:
- the appearance of a peculiar object,
- change in body movements,
- altered speech pattern (tempo, tone, or inflection),
- music, sound effects, or vocal cues,
- change in scented aroma,
- temperature change,
- and so forth.
In my own work, I play the ukulele and perform visual magic tricks to generate attention. Attention wanes quickly, however, which is why we must transition efficiently from mere attention to interest. And that’s the key to this motivator: attention unlocks the potential to foster interest in experiencing more, inspiring your audience to sustain their attention.
2. Interest
Interest can be longer-lasting than mere attention because it relies on what people already intrinsically care about, motivating them to respond with epistemic curiosity—the tendency to investigate unanswered questions and develop deeper understandings. By connecting a message to what your audience cares about, you motivate a deeper level of curiosity, inviting people to engage more meaningfully in the experience.
Crafting a message in a way that speaks to emotions and strongly held beliefs can work well here. Topics and themes such as love, money, health, happiness, power, anger, sadness, revenge, and so forth, can all work well. These are just a few samples to help get you started thinking about what is inherently motivating for your audience.
In addition, it’s worth noting the valuable role stories can play in unlocking interest. Humans are wired to understand life through metaphor, and a well-crafted story employed at just the right time can do wonders for motivating a deeper level of interest. As the saying suggests: "You can't help anybody if you can’t tell the right story.” What stories will you share with others?
3. Desire
When genuine interest is activated, it can become fuel to drive your audience to get involved, motivating your audience to respond with social curiosity—the tendency for people to value what they help create. This final engagement motivator is where you invite your audience to follow your lead and become co-creators of the experience.
Musicians do this effectively with the chorus of their songs. How often have you found yourself suddenly singing along while listening to music, without even realizing right away that you had join? Such can be the magnetic pull to get involved when an empowered communicator activates all three engagement motivators.
Musicians also do this with “call-and-response” sections. Educators use the “repeat-after-me” method. Trainers use the “do-as-I-do” method. And role models use their own behaviors and results as fuel to lead the way and motivate desire in others to get involved.
Another valuable way to activate desire is your ability to demonstrate authenticity, likeability, and trust—the dance between who you are, what you do as an expression of who you are, and the attitude you express towards your relationship with the people you serve. Simply put, if people like you then they will want to engage with you, and if they don’t then they won’t.
The Five C's of Empowerment
As a Facilitator of Fascination, I use The Five C's of Empowerment to demonstrate the relevance of the knowledge and skills I share with my audience: Context, Conflict, Choice, Consequence, and Connection.
1. Context: Context identifies the characters and puts them in a specific time and place, preparing the audience to understand the emerging conflict that sets the story in motion.
2. Conflict: Avner the Eccentric teaches that “everything can be seen as a problem to be solved, a knot to be unraveled.” Conflict is interesting because, when you “pull the string tight,” it creates tension between obstacles and desires, motivating the audience to lean further into the story.
3. Choice: The choices a character makes is an opportunity for the audience to see their own reflection and glimpses of their potential.
4. Consequence: The law of cause and effect reveals that everything happens for a reason—the consequences for how characters choose to respond to conflict.
5. Connection: Making clear connections within your story ensures it is equally memorable and meaningful, which is defined as relevant: relevant for your audience, for your message, and for you. In our search for meaning, rhetoric theory aligns relevance with pathos, logos, and ethos:
As a Facilitator of Fascination, I use The Five C's of Empowerment to demonstrate the relevance of the knowledge and skills I share with my audience: Context, Conflict, Choice, Consequence, and Connection.
1. Context: Context identifies the characters and puts them in a specific time and place, preparing the audience to understand the emerging conflict that sets the story in motion.
- Essential Question: How can you introduce the context of your story in a way that paints vivid mental images for your audience?
2. Conflict: Avner the Eccentric teaches that “everything can be seen as a problem to be solved, a knot to be unraveled.” Conflict is interesting because, when you “pull the string tight,” it creates tension between obstacles and desires, motivating the audience to lean further into the story.
- Essential Question: What is the conflict in your story?
3. Choice: The choices a character makes is an opportunity for the audience to see their own reflection and glimpses of their potential.
- Essential Question: What critical choice is made to help resolve the conflict?
4. Consequence: The law of cause and effect reveals that everything happens for a reason—the consequences for how characters choose to respond to conflict.
- Essential Question: How do the characters change throughout your story?
5. Connection: Making clear connections within your story ensures it is equally memorable and meaningful, which is defined as relevant: relevant for your audience, for your message, and for you. In our search for meaning, rhetoric theory aligns relevance with pathos, logos, and ethos:
- Pathos (emotion): Why should the audience care about your message?
- Logos (logic): How does what you say support this message?
- Ethos (credibility): How are you a credible messenger?
Encouraging Learning Experience Design
As a Facilitator of Fascination, I use the Encouraging Learning Design model to structure presentation that equally perform, inform, and transform my audiences:
1. What’s the desired result?
In his “At the Table” lecture, Kostya Kimlat suggests starting with the desired effect you want your audience to perceive, and then working backwards to find a solution to create that desired effect. We can use this same idea by identifying the desired change we wish for our audience—become crystal clear about this desired result—then identify the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they will need to behave in this new way.
Norberto Jansenson does this well in his Tedx Talk, where he shared how he realized he needed to make connections with his audience to help them experience real magic:[1]
“My magic lacked magic. I had tasted magic in my daily life—in a kiss, in a sunset, in an embrace—but I couldn’t create that magical tingly feeling in my audiences.”
This feeling of lack helped Norberto identify the result he wanted for his audience and he used this clarity to make changes to his presentation to cultivate that feeling. When you watch his Tedx Talk, you’ll see that just 12 minutes into the presentation his audience has been moved to tears—experiencing that “magical tingly feeling.”
2. Pose questions
Posing questions is an effective way to influence your audience to begin thinking about where they are, where they’re headed, and where they could be if they make a change. These questions can be either explicit or implicit.
Explicit question may include:
Implicit questions are the result of making statements that inspire self-reflection, inviting the audience to discover their own insights. Magical Bones does this well in a segment on Britain’s Got Talent:[2]
“When I create a magic trick, I want to challenge myself. I have a genuine fear of small spaces, so I wanted to create a routine that would challenge that fear using magic to overcome it…The world can seem like a scary place, but if you free your mind, the rest will follow.”
The implicit questions the audience is invited to reflect on are “What am I afraid of? And how might I free my mind to overcome it?”
3. Know your audience
To create a unique experience tailored for your audience, it’s important to know who they are and what their challenges, goals, and obstacles are. A good way to do this is to interview the person who booked you to gain some insights, and an even better way is to send everyone a survey with a few key questions to answer. The insights gained will help you to create a unique experience for the people you serve.
Derek Delgaudio does this elegantly in his show In & of Itself,[3] where he poses a one-question survey to everyone before they enter the theater: “Who are you?” And then he uses this information throughout the remainder of the show to tailor a unique and meaningful experience for that specific audience.
4. Tell stories
The author Nick Usborne suggests that “if you want people to remember something, tell them a story.” This is useful advice, because people are wired to interpret the world through story, so using at least one story to illustrate your main point is a crucial addition to your presentation.
David Copperfield does this beautifully with his “Snow” illusion, sharing how after he experienced snow for the first time, he would throw confetti to create the illusion of snow—even long after winter was over:[4]
“It was my way of keeping that magic alive all year long. Even today I realize how important it is to keep that sense of wonder, that childlike hope—knowing if you believe and you want it enough, nothing's impossible.”
By weaving his message within a poignant story, David invited his audience to see themselves within the story, creating a lasting feeling of wonder and “childlike hope” they could carry with them even long after the “meeting of two personalities” was over.
5. Use relevant visuals
Visuals create perceptual interest for your audience—novelties in the environment that call attention to what is happening while also activating a natural sense of curiosity. If these novelties are relevant and meaningful, then they can also generate sustained interest and desire to learn more.
Dustin Tavella does this well in a segment on America’s Got Talent All-Stars:[5]
“There is a magic that is far more powerful than anything these hands could ever do. Our words can literally change the course of someone's entire future.”
Dustin then guides Terry Crews to think of encouraging words to share with Simon Cowell, and when the words magically materialize on a piece of paper Simon is holding, the experience not only activates a sense of wonder, it also encourages the audience to consider how they can likewise use their words to build others up.
As a Facilitator of Fascination, I use the Encouraging Learning Design model to structure presentation that equally perform, inform, and transform my audiences:
1. What’s the desired result?
In his “At the Table” lecture, Kostya Kimlat suggests starting with the desired effect you want your audience to perceive, and then working backwards to find a solution to create that desired effect. We can use this same idea by identifying the desired change we wish for our audience—become crystal clear about this desired result—then identify the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they will need to behave in this new way.
Norberto Jansenson does this well in his Tedx Talk, where he shared how he realized he needed to make connections with his audience to help them experience real magic:[1]
“My magic lacked magic. I had tasted magic in my daily life—in a kiss, in a sunset, in an embrace—but I couldn’t create that magical tingly feeling in my audiences.”
This feeling of lack helped Norberto identify the result he wanted for his audience and he used this clarity to make changes to his presentation to cultivate that feeling. When you watch his Tedx Talk, you’ll see that just 12 minutes into the presentation his audience has been moved to tears—experiencing that “magical tingly feeling.”
2. Pose questions
Posing questions is an effective way to influence your audience to begin thinking about where they are, where they’re headed, and where they could be if they make a change. These questions can be either explicit or implicit.
Explicit question may include:
- “What can you do?” (This encourages them to reflect on their current abilities and strengths.)
- “What might you do?” (This encourages them to reflect on new possibilities.)
- “What will you do?” (This encourages them to reflect on what they are willing to commit to and how they will stay accountable.)
Implicit questions are the result of making statements that inspire self-reflection, inviting the audience to discover their own insights. Magical Bones does this well in a segment on Britain’s Got Talent:[2]
“When I create a magic trick, I want to challenge myself. I have a genuine fear of small spaces, so I wanted to create a routine that would challenge that fear using magic to overcome it…The world can seem like a scary place, but if you free your mind, the rest will follow.”
The implicit questions the audience is invited to reflect on are “What am I afraid of? And how might I free my mind to overcome it?”
3. Know your audience
To create a unique experience tailored for your audience, it’s important to know who they are and what their challenges, goals, and obstacles are. A good way to do this is to interview the person who booked you to gain some insights, and an even better way is to send everyone a survey with a few key questions to answer. The insights gained will help you to create a unique experience for the people you serve.
Derek Delgaudio does this elegantly in his show In & of Itself,[3] where he poses a one-question survey to everyone before they enter the theater: “Who are you?” And then he uses this information throughout the remainder of the show to tailor a unique and meaningful experience for that specific audience.
4. Tell stories
The author Nick Usborne suggests that “if you want people to remember something, tell them a story.” This is useful advice, because people are wired to interpret the world through story, so using at least one story to illustrate your main point is a crucial addition to your presentation.
David Copperfield does this beautifully with his “Snow” illusion, sharing how after he experienced snow for the first time, he would throw confetti to create the illusion of snow—even long after winter was over:[4]
“It was my way of keeping that magic alive all year long. Even today I realize how important it is to keep that sense of wonder, that childlike hope—knowing if you believe and you want it enough, nothing's impossible.”
By weaving his message within a poignant story, David invited his audience to see themselves within the story, creating a lasting feeling of wonder and “childlike hope” they could carry with them even long after the “meeting of two personalities” was over.
5. Use relevant visuals
Visuals create perceptual interest for your audience—novelties in the environment that call attention to what is happening while also activating a natural sense of curiosity. If these novelties are relevant and meaningful, then they can also generate sustained interest and desire to learn more.
Dustin Tavella does this well in a segment on America’s Got Talent All-Stars:[5]
“There is a magic that is far more powerful than anything these hands could ever do. Our words can literally change the course of someone's entire future.”
Dustin then guides Terry Crews to think of encouraging words to share with Simon Cowell, and when the words magically materialize on a piece of paper Simon is holding, the experience not only activates a sense of wonder, it also encourages the audience to consider how they can likewise use their words to build others up.
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Principles of Influence
These Principles of Influence create the foundation and structure that provides the people you serve with the opportunity to take the principles and practices they gained from the interactive workshop or keynote presentation and transfer their new knowledge and skills to their work, their home, or wherever life takes them.
To arrange a customized workshop or keynote presentation for your group using these principles of influence, connect with Jonas to discuss your challenges, goals, and obstacles. 
JONAS CAIN, M.Ed. | Facilitator of Fascination
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