Rhetorical question
Putting a claim in the form of a question whose answer is meant to be obvious, so that the audience supplies the conclusion itself and feels it has reasoned rather than been told.
A statement can be disputed; a question invites you in. "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" asserts nothing, and yet everyone who hears it knows what answer is wanted. The device works because the audience does the last step: having supplied the answer, it owns the conclusion, and a conclusion you reached yourself is harder to give up than one you were handed.
Research on persuasion found that rhetorical questions increase the audience's attention to the argument that follows, which helps a strong case and hurts a weak one; propaganda uses them where there is no argument at all, so that the question is the whole case. Exploits Confirmation Bias and the Ikea Effect of self-generated conclusions.
Historical examples
Ronald Reagan closed the single debate of the 1980 campaign by asking viewers, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" and following it with a run of similar questions. The passage made no claim about policy; it invited each viewer to reach a verdict on Carter and to feel it was their own. It is the standard textbook example.
Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. Packaging the Presidency: A History and Criticism of Presidential Campaign Advertising. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996; Commission on Presidential Debates, transcript of the 28 October 1980 debate.
Petty, Cacioppo, and Heesacker found that rhetorical questions made listeners think harder about a message, so that strong arguments became more persuasive and weak ones less. The finding explains why the device pairs so naturally with an audience that already agrees: the question invites scrutiny that the audience is disposed to resolve in the speaker's favor.
Petty, Richard E., John T. Cacioppo, and Martin Heesacker. "Effects of Rhetorical Questions on Persuasion: A Cognitive Response Analysis." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 40, no. 3 (1981): 432–440.
In advertising and commerce
"Isn't it time you treated yourself?" "Why pay more?" "Tired of...?" Advertising has run on rhetorical questions for a century because they let the copy imply a claim the advertiser cannot make. Marchand's study of interwar advertising traces the form from the "parables" of the 1920s, where the question was the hook, to its standard use since.
Marchand, Roland. Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920–1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
Find an advertisement or a speech that asks questions instead of making claims. Write the claim each question is standing in for. Would you accept the claim if it were stated?
In the wild
Short examples of the technique at work, each with what to notice. The same examples are questions in the quiz, where the answer is not given away.
"Why does the board keep hiding the real numbers from you?"
What to notice. The question presupposes hiding and invites the listener to supply the conclusion; nothing is shown.
"Isn't it time you had a car that respects you?"
What to notice. A claim the advertiser could not state is posed as a question the reader is meant to answer yes.
"Who wouldn't want cleaner streets? Who wouldn't want safer parks? Then why wouldn't you vote yes?"
What to notice. A run of questions with obvious answers carries the listener to a vote without a single argument.
Sources
- Petty, Richard E., John T. Cacioppo, and Martin Heesacker. "Effects of Rhetorical Questions on Persuasion." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 40, no. 3 (1981): 432–440. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.40.3.432
- Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. Packaging the Presidency. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0195089424
- Marchand, Roland. Advertising the American Dream. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. ISBN 978-0520058217