How I was persuaded with humor

    Persuasion is something that people are all too aware of. It is something that can be used everywhere including on television, social media, and even when spending time with family and friends. What makes it all the more interesting though is that it can even be used with humor. This can be done in several ways. Some people for instance might use humor to persuade others into doing or saying something. However, there is also something else that is involved when persuading others with humor. Namely, the Model of Individual Humor (Meyer, 2015). The reason for this is that people can use humor to persuade others by encouraging them to take the comic path over the tragic path of this model.

    I for one have been persuaded with humor several times. One time I specifically recall is the day of my aunt's 50th birthday celebration. My family enjoys parties a lot and so my aunt had rented an event hall to celebrate her birthday. On this day the family members who are closer to my aunt arrived at the party early including me and my parents. When we stepped into the event hall my mother and I approached one of my older cousins. In her hands she held a notebook and a pen. When she saw us, she asked if we would like our names to be written down so that we could get called up by the microphone to go out onto the dance floor and dance with my aunt. I personally do not like to dance a lot but before I could even respond my mother responded for both of us by saying yes. As soon as she said yes, I took the tragic path because I started to internally panic since I really did not want to dance in front of everyone. Then I tried to object but it did not work, so I instead found myself a seat and waited for what I thought would be a dreadful moment. Eventually people started to get called up to the dance floor. When it was my turn, I got up and while dancing with my aunt she asked me if I had actually wanted to get up to dance. I responded by saying no and she looked at me and laughed while saying "Well, you're already up here." It was in this moment that my aunt's use of humor persuaded me to take the comic path since she helped me see that dancing was not so bad and that I was just being dramatic about the whole situation, which lastly helped me feel better and caused me to laugh along with her.

    As can be seen in my own example humor and persuasion can often be used together. However, something to keep in mind is that humor might not always allow people the ability to persuade others. Especially since other things must be considered like whether a person will take the comic path or the tragic path.

References

Meyer, J. C. (2015). Understanding Humor Through Communication: Why Be Funny, Anyway?. Lexington Books.