What is Monroe’s Motivated Sequence?

Alan Monroe was a psychology professor at the University of Purdue from 1924 – 1966 (Ristic 2012). He developed a means of persuasion named “Monroe’s Motivated Sequence,” by understanding a person’s thought process when faced with a conflict and their need to satisfy that conflict. This method of persuasion is effective because the speaker can predict the audience’s questions and concerns, answer these in the speech, and ultimately lead the audience to a solution.

The 5 steps in the motivated sequence are:

ATTENTION

The first step is to grab the audience’s attention and get them interested in your topic as soon as your speech begins. The way you intrigue the audience is called your “hook,” which gets the audience excited and attentive for the content of your speech. You can nail a solid hook in a variety of ways, including:

• Relating to the audience,
• Making a startling statement,
• Arousing curiosity or suspense,
• Telling a story,
• Posing a question (maybe rhetorical) or citing a relevant quote, and/or
• Using visual aids for illustration.

A good hook grabs the audiences attention while a poorly executed hook can cause the audience to tune out. An example of an effective hook was the use of singing as an introduction to a speech where the audience was asked to try listening to a different style of music. This hook was linked in to the body of the speech with lyrical transitions between the points. This hook intrigued the audience and had them wondering where the speech was going to go next. This hook worked beautifully with the speech and helped to build a solid footing for the speaker while drawing the audience in.

NEED

The second step in the motivational sequence is to outline the problem, or exigence, that your action for the audience aims to remedy. The need should specifically impact your audience in some way (their health, happiness, or well-being), so they can easily be persuaded to change their actions (or mindset). In order to show the audience the severity or urgency of the exigence, you should prepare supporting materials such as:

• A clear description of the need,
• Detailed examples visualizing the need,
• Research and statistics, and/or
• Testimonies or personal experiences.

SOLUTION

The solution step is important in following the need because the audience wants to know how the proposed problem can be remedied.  The proposed plan of action should be clear and understood by the audience. You can accomplish this by:

• stating the action you want your audience to perform and clarifying any details,
• discussing how this action is a solution to the need presented,
• giving examples of how this solution has worked, and
• using research (facts, figures, testimonies) to solidify your case.

VISUALIZATION

Visualization is important is showing the audience how they will directly benefit from implementing the solution, and how much better this solution will make their lives. You will want to compare the current situation with the recommended solution by outlining:

• The positive impacts of the recommended solution on the audience,
• The negative future impacts of the current situation if the audience does not take action, and
• The contrasts of the benefits of the recommended solution to the disadvantages of the current state.

Help the audience to see the problem or to visualize how they can help remedy the problem. Instead of using raw statistics like 3 in 4 people are prone to procrastination tie it to the audience with a statement like 10 of the people in this room are procrastinators. By creating a connection to the audience like this it helps them to see what they have to gain or lose and helps to strengthen the logos appeal of your speech.

ACTION

At this point, your audience should be motivated to take action! Your job now is to provide the audience with a specific action that is easy to accomplish, as they will be more likely to implement the action in their lives. Make sure you use enabling devices and specific examples of how to do the action, where and when the audience should do the action, and other details that enable easier implementation for the audience. Be sure to address the reasons that your audience may be reluctant to take the proposed action. For example in a speech where the audience was asked to take some molasses  every day as a multi vitamin the audience may be concerned about the taste of molasses. You could try to address this by bring a sample for them to taste or by offering out some recipes that contain molasses or offer up alternative ways to add molasses to your diet.

Video Example

The video shown here is an excellent example of how following Monroe’s Motivated Sequence can help to build a successful persuasive speech. The speech outline is as follows:

1. The speaker catches the audience’s attention at the beginning by making reference to Alice in Wonderland, a famous story, in reference to her experience being asked to teach Communication to engineers and scientist.
2. Going on to talk about the need of how important is for scientists and engineers to share their science as it is the scientists and engineers who are solving problems that change the world.
3. The speaker’s solution to improving communication is to “talk nerdy.” The speaker develops a number of enabling strategies to help produce this solution. In order to help make ideas more accessible, it helps to show the relevance of the science to day to day life.
4. The speaker shows the difference of how explaining an idea by its relevance helps to make the idea more accessible when she shows the two different slides on trabeculae and how the one with only bullet points is overwhelming. This is the how the speaker employs visualization to contrast the benefits of the solution with the current situation.
5. She then calls engineers and scientist to action by working on explaining ideas through the relevance they have and for non-scientist to go out and talk to scientists and engineers.