Persuasion, 4th Edition

Attention please

Keeping attention where you want it

• Attention breakdowns
• The attention curve
• Ways to win more attention

We want people to listen to our message, so we have to keep our audience – whether it be one or two people or 200– interested enough to listen. Furthermore, we want to keep their attention. Most of us have short concentration spans, for various reasons. It’s very difficult to keep interest level constant. Attention is held only when interest is rising. In the previous chapter, we spoke about the problem of the mind allowing itself to engage in competing thoughts (because we can think at a faster rate than the rate at which ...