The Status of Persuasion and Attitude Change in The Infallible Imams\' Communicative Behavior with an Emphasis on Imam Reza\'s Debates.

The basic objective of communication process has often been considered to be the audience's persuasion, and the key to this is attitude change. One basic communication tool among humans is dialog, hence discourse is a means of persuasion. The purpose here is defining current theories in the field of human communication as they concern the issue of persuasion based on Imam Reza's (pbuh) debate method. An authoritarian and biased view about humans seeks an advantageous and persuasive form of communication only to deceive and subdue one's audience. Conversely, observing human's essential interests and feeling concerned about his progression and exaltation transform this kind of communication into a means of leading to those interests. In other words, this kind of communication may not necessarily aim to persuade or change attitudes, but to obliterate ignorance and understand other people's opinions and interpretations of shared issues. On this basis, a definition of concepts related to a persuasive form of communication comes to our notice. This article is the result of a fundamental and interdisciplinary research that intends to examine the issue of persuasion and attitude change in human communication with a special regard to the Infallible Imam's communicative behavior and by adopting an extra-religious approach.