Rhetoric and Sports Psychology

I just finished reading an article for my Sports Psychology class about the development of coach-training programs. The following sentence was found under the section heading credibility and persuasiveness: "The perceived similarity between a communicator and the target of the message affects the power of persuasion" (Smoll and Smith, p. 468). I found this interesting because of our class discussion involving a long conversation about rhetoric and persuasion. We were trying to decipher the difference between these two words. Smoll and Smith's article, even though they are psychologists, suggests that the most important aspect of rhetoric and communication is the relationship between the communicator and his/her audience. If rhetoric is meant to persuade then the environment the communicator creates affects his/her ability to persuade. Since Smoll and Smith's article is about creating workshops to improve coaching behaviors, the person who will be speaking at these workshops must know how to approach the art of persuasion without purposefully letting the audience, which would be the coaches, know that this is his/her intentions. The following sentence even suggests something else: "With respect to trusting a communicator's intentions, credibility increases when the communicator does not appear to be purposefully trying to persuade the target" (Smoll and Smith, p. 468). This suggests that rhetoric is meant to trick the audience into being persuaded and that this is what makes a good communicator and someone the audience trusts.

Aristotle's Path to Knowledge

I finally figured out how to become a contribut0r!

I just read Gage’s Why Write and it is interesting how philosophers viewed writing and communication. Here is one quote that really struck me:

“Aristotle did not think that there could be anything like a “systematic” set of “rules” that could lead to knowledge” (pg 12).

This reminds me of the different outlooks that professors have on how classes should be taught. Some classes are very structured with a powerpoint for every chapter of a textbook, whereas, some classes are more laid-back discussion classes. I prefer structured or “systematic” classes because I know exactly what is going to be on the final exam. Aristotle might question my preference by asking how much knowledge or material did I retain from each class. The information is more clear-cut in a structured class, but does that mean I’m getting more out of it? Probably not. Gaining knowledge and achieving a certain GPA can be two very different processes.