Persuasion Audit

Persuasion Audit

Walk the user through analyzing any piece of communication — an email, pitch, speech, headline, tweet, ad, or political message — using Scott Adams' persuasion framework from Coffee with Scott Adams.

When to Use

The user has a specific piece of communication they want evaluated for persuasion effectiveness, OR they want to understand what persuasion techniques are being used in something they've seen.

How to Run This

Ask the user to share the message, pitch, or communication they want analyzed. Get the full text if possible, plus context: who is the audience, what is the goal, what action should the recipient take? Then run through each filter in order. Score each dimension. Deliver a final assessment with specific improvement suggestions.

The Persuasion Filter Stack

Filter 1: Visual Persuasion

Adams rates visual persuasion as the strongest form. From his analysis of Trump's "Build the Wall" — it worked not as policy but as a mental movie. Everyone who heard it saw the same image.

Audit questions:

• Does this message create a mental image?
• Can the audience "see" the outcome in their mind?
• Is the core idea a picture or an abstraction?
• Adams's test: "If you can't see it, it's not persuasive."

Score 1-10: A concrete visual image scores high. Abstract policy language, jargon, or conceptual arguments score low. "Build the wall" is a 10. "Comprehensive immigration reform" is a 2.

Filter 2: Identity Alignment

Adams argues humans make decisions based on identity first and rationalize with facts second. The strongest persuasion attaches to who you ARE, not what you think.

Audit questions:

• Does this message tell the audience who they are (or who they could be)?
• Does it create an in-group identity?
• Does rejecting the message require the audience to reject their own identity?
• Adams's principle: "People don't change their minds. They change their identities, and then their minds follow."

Score 1-10: "Make America Great Again" (identity adoption) scores 9. "I'm With Her" (proximity to a candidate) scores 5. A list of policy positions scores 1.

Filter 3: Emotional Resonance

Adams distinguishes between emotional persuasion (powerful) and rational argument (weak). The persuasion filter says most decisions are emotional with rational post-hoc justification.

Audit questions:

• What emotion does this trigger? (Fear, pride, belonging, outrage, hope, humor)
• Does the emotion align with the desired action?
• Is the emotional trigger at the beginning (where it grabs attention) or buried?
• Adams's insight: "If you're explaining, you're losing. The best persuasion doesn't feel like persuasion."

Score 1-10: Raw emotional resonance that drives the desired behavior. A story that makes you feel something scores high. A logical argument with citations scores low — not because it's wrong, but because it's weak persuasion.

Filter 4: Simplicity and Memorability

Adams's "Clown Genius" thesis: the best persuasion looks simple, even dumb, but is strategically precise. Kill shots work because they are short, visual, and sticky.

Audit questions:

• Can you repeat the core message from memory after hearing it once?
• Is it short enough to fit in a tweet (pre-expansion era)?
• Does it use simple words or jargon?
• The kill shot test: Does it have a "visual anchor" — a single word or phrase that sticks?

Score 1-10: "Low Energy Jeb" scores 10 (three words, visual, sticky, contains a seed of truth). A 500-word email explaining your value proposition scores 2.

Filter 5: Pacing and Leading

From Adams's hypnosis training. Effective persuasion first matches the audience's current reality (pacing), then redirects toward the desired conclusion (leading). Skip the pacing and you trigger resistance.

Audit questions:

• Does the message acknowledge the audience's current beliefs or feelings before trying to change them?
• Is there a "yes ladder" — a series of statements the audience agrees with before the ask?
• Or does it jump straight to the conclusion (leading without pacing)?
• Adams's diagnostic: "If your message starts with why the audience is wrong, you've already lost."

Score 1-10: A message that starts with "I understand you're concerned about X, and here's what I've learned..." scores high. A message that starts with "You're wrong about X because..." scores low.

Filter 6: Anchoring

Adams identified anchoring as Trump's core negotiation technique. Start with an extreme position so the "compromise" lands where you wanted.

Audit questions:

• Does this message set an anchor (high or low) that frames subsequent discussion?
• If making a request, is the opening position strategically extreme?
• Or is the message starting at the "reasonable" position (which gives away all negotiating room)?
• Adams's principle: "If your opening offer is your real offer, you've already negotiated against yourself."

Score 1-10: A pitch that opens with an ambitious ask and frames the moderate position as a concession scores high. A pitch that starts with the minimum acceptable outcome scores low.

Filter 7: High-Ground Maneuver

Adams's term for reframing any debate to an unassailable moral position. Instead of arguing the details, you claim the principle that nobody can oppose.

Audit questions:

• Does this message claim moral high ground that the opponent cannot attack without looking bad?
• Does it reframe from specifics (debatable) to principles (un-opposable)?
• Example: Instead of arguing about a specific policy, reframe to "I just want what's best for the children."

Score 1-10: A message that makes opposing it feel morally untenable scores high. A message that stays in the factual weeds where every point is debatable scores low.

Scoring Summary

After running all 7 filters, present the scorecard:

Rewrite Recommendation

After scoring, offer 3 specific rewrites that would improve the weakest dimensions. Use Adams's frameworks to explain WHY each change would be more persuasive. Focus on the dimensions scoring below 5.

What This Is NOT

This is a persuasion analysis tool, not an ethics assessment. A message can score high on persuasion and be used for good or ill. Adams makes no moral distinction between persuasion used by politicians, advertisers, therapists, or con artists — the techniques are identical. The user decides the ethics; this skill evaluates the technique.

Related Skills

• persuasion-masterclass — Want to learn the persuasion filters deeply before applying them? Start with the masterclass to build understanding, then come back here to audit a specific message.
• media-decoder — Analyzing a news story or public narrative instead of a specific message? Use the decoder for the full two-movies treatment.
• reframe-engine — Stuck on how to reframe a message that scored low? The reframe engine's 7 lenses include the persuasion filter plus 6 other angles.

Related Frameworks

• persuasion-filter.md — The master lens this audit is built on
• visual-persuasion.md — Filter 1 deep dive
• pacing-and-leading.md — Filter 5 deep dive
• anchoring.md — Filter 6 deep dive
• high-ground-maneuver.md — Filter 7 deep dive
• kill-shot.md — The simplicity and memorability filter taken to its extreme