Layer 3: Psychological Description: On Attitudes, Beliefs, and Values
Psychological Description: On Attitudes, Beliefs, and Values
Unless your selected speech topic is a complete mystery to your audience, your listeners will already hold “attitudes, beliefs, and values” toward the ideas you will inevitably present. As a result, it is always important to know where your audience stands on the issues you plan to address ahead of time. The best way to accomplish this is to sample your audience with a quick questionnaire or survey prior to the event. This is known as the third layer of audience analysis, or psychological description. There are three things you seek to identify when performing a description: the audience’s (1) attitudes, (2) beliefs, and (3) values. They are your calculated allies in understanding how your audience thinks.
