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Persuasion tactics

Persuasion tactics are techniques used to convince audiences of claims or positions. In the context of misinformation research, these include manipulation strategies employed in false or misleading claims, such as appeals to emotion, authority, conspiracy theories, and information manipulation.

Frameworks for understanding persuasion

Cialdini principles (social influence, commitment & consistency, liking, scarcity, social proof, unity) account for many legitimate and manipulative persuasion attempts.

Emotional appeals — vivid imagery, fear-mongering, outrage designed to bypass critical reasoning.

Information manipulation — selective omission, distortion, or fabrication of facts to support a false narrative.

Conspiracy framing — positioning claims within broader narratives of hidden coordination and threat.

Empirical taxonomies

A misinformation playbook sharpens judgement without breeding cynicism identifies 48 specific persuasion strategies across 214,646 multilingual fact-checked claims, organized under three frameworks (Cialdini, information-manipulation, affective). The paper shows these strategies recur across topics, languages, and time, and that teaching them improves human and AI judgment.

Defense through strategy recognition

Recognizing common persuasion tactics (inoculation/prebunking) helps evaluators distinguish between the how (rhetorical strategy) and the what (factual accuracy) of claims. A claim using conspiracy framing is not false merely because it uses conspiracy framing, but recognizing the tactic enables more critical evaluation.