Seeking and Resisting Compliance explores how people `produce' influence messages, that is, how they decide what to say during everyday influence interactions. Wilson does not present a single theory of persuasive message production, rather, he reviews theory and research from communication, psychology, linguistics, and other fields that shed light on questions of interest.

Seeking and Resisting Compliance:
- is the first text to focus solely on how people produce, rather than respond to, persuasive messages
- includes student-friendly pedagogy, such as definitions, examples, and sections describing "common assumptions" about various theories
- provides a solid foundation for the theory and research surveys