We derived a comprehensive, empirically-grounded taxonomy of 47 distinct influence tactics, systematically organized into four primary themes of relational, emotional, cognitive, and a combination of such strategies. This foundational work bridges the disciplinary gap between cognitive science and organizational behavior concerning influencing, negotiating, and decision making within emotionally-tense online settings; thereby offering a novel and dynamic framework for understanding adaptive influence. Critically, our research moves beyond traditional, static models like Cialdini’s principles or Feser’s typologies, which often present decontextualized and context-neutral inventories. Instead, our study uniquely captures the real-time, adaptive, and often hybridized nature of strategic communication under significant pressure. Through a rich, role-based simulation of a time-pressured corporate crisis, we meticulously observed how practitioners dynamically sequence and blend multiple influence tactics to convince each other. Consequently, our research paves the way for a richer, multimodal understanding of digital persuasion, highlighting the future necessity to integrate verbal analysis with nonverbal cues and physiological measures in order to more fully enrich our understanding.
