Question

Assignment: Watch The Danger of a Single Story in which Chimamanda NgoziAdichie demonstrates several examples of persuasion. What is she trying topersuade her audience of? (Hint: She offers multiple examples. Select oneexample of persuasion or several.) Evaluate her performance by applying the sixprinciples of this chapter. Did she use each of the principles? If not, which didshe omit? Which did she use effectively? What did you learn about persuasionfrom The Danger of a Single Story?

Answer 1

"The Danger of a Single Story - Chimamanda NgoziAdichie"

It is a TED Talk given by Chimamanda NgoziAdichie where she right describes the danger of stereotyping. According to her, every individual is a heterogenous mixture of multiple stories and is hence different from each other. What stereotyping does is - It creates a perception that many different individuals are same, which is wrong but is often put to use.

We will tray to evaluate Chimamanda's speec on Robert CIaldini's six principles of persuausion:-

1. Reciprocity ~ (Giving a small gift to ensure bigger gifts in return)

2. Commitment and Consistency ~ (Clear promise to drive home your point with efficient follow-up)

3. Social Proof ~ (Giving examples from society to make an impact)

4. Liking ~ (Using like-minded approach to develop a better relation to get an upper hand inpersuausion)

5. Authority ~ (Using experience to make an impact)

6. Scarcity ~ (To create demand by saying limited numbers are available)

Chamamanda makes effective use of Cialdini's six principles to put acorss her pront againt stereotyping by putting examples of Africans at the forefront.

Pointers from the speech:

a) Hearing the same story over and over again, makes it the only story we believe (Commitment and Consistency)

b) We must not only seek diverse perspectives, but share stories of our own too (Social Proof & Reciprocity)

c) Quote by American writer Alvin Toffler: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.” (Authority)

d) Stories matter. Many stories matter (Reciprocity)

In the entire speech, we were not able to find the proper use of Sixth principle - Scarcity

The Danger of a Single Story is a strong narrative where we learn about a social cause using persuauion skills to bring an impact in the world.