4 - Attitude Change and Persuasion

Question 1

Cognitive Dissonance

Answer 1

• psychological discomfort due to holding two inconsistent beliefs
• we then act in ways to reduce this discrepancy and remove the discomfort (dissonance)

Question 2

Dissonance reduction strategies (3)

Answer 2

• addition of consonant cognitions
  > add a reasonable explanation
• remove a dissonant cognition
  > ignore one of the conflicting cognitions
• reduce the importance of one of the cognitions

Question 3

Initiation ceremonies

Answer 3

The more extreme the initiation ceremony, the more likely the person to replace a dissonant cognition with a positive one

Question 4

Cognitive dissonance in the real world

Answer 4

Post-purchase behaviours

• people are more likely to pay attention to information consistent to the decision they have already made
• confirmation bias

Fear Appeals
- adding dissonant cognitions to change attitudes and behaviours

Question 5

Challenging Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Answer 5

• Bem found that the results from the boring task could be explained by self-perception theory
  > people infer their attitudes from their actions
• Harmon-Jones et al. tested whether the task induced psychological discomfort (as cognitive dissonance theory suggests)
  > they found that conflicting cognitions caused physiological arousal, agreeing with cognitive dissonance theory and not self-perception theory
• Cooper & Fabio suggested that cognitive dissonance occurs when producing an aversive state (not by conflicting cognitions)
  > i.e. by lying to someone that the task was fun
• Harmon-Jones et al. tested whether aversive consequences are required for cognitive dissonance to occur
  > had someone do a boring task, write a positive statement about it, then throw it in the bin (no consequences)
  > still found dissonance even though no aversive consequences

Question 6

Action Model of Dissonance (Harmon-Jones & Harmon-Jones, 2007)

Answer 6

• cognitions serve as action tendencies
• dissonance occurs when action tendencies conflict, so the potential for effective action is compromised
• Dissonance reduction acts by changing cognitions in favour of the action we have taken
  > it’s easier to change cognitions about attitude than cognitions about out normal behaviours

Question 7

Elaboration Likelihood Model

Answer 7

• we are motivated to hold the correct attitudes about a particular object
• communication has the potential to change out attitudes
• the likelihood that we will ‘Elaborate’ on that information (process it) depends on 2 key variables:
  > do we have the motivation to process that message?
  > do we have the ability to process it?
• if both of these are fulfilled, we will elaborate, if we don’t, we will not
• any resulting attitude change is likely to be long-lasting
• this depends on the persuasive strength of the information
  > strong = change
  > weak = no change
• if one of both of these are not fulfilled
  > we do not pay attention to the persuasive strength of the argument
  > instead we use peripheral cues
  + these can cause temporary attitude change
  > if there are no peripheral cues there will be no change

Therefore two routes:
- central and peripheral routes of persuasion
- dependent on the presence of the 2 key variables:
> do i have the motivation to process
> do i have the ability to process

Issues:
- there is no way to predict the strength of arguments or cues
> explanatory framework
> the only way you know if an argument was strong was if it persuaded you, same with cues

Question 8

Petty et al. study on Elaboration Likelihood

Answer 8

• participants either highly personally involved or weakly
• received either a strongly or weakly persuasive argument for a razor
• with either a celebrity or stranger endorsement

Findings:
- strong arguments are better than weak
- greater sensitivity to argument in the high-involvement condition (central route)
- in those that are highly personally involved, the endorsement condition did not make a difference
- those weakly personally involved were significantly more persuaded by the celebrity endorsement (peripheral cue)
> peripheral route

Question 9

Distractions and elaboration likelihood

Answer 9

• reduced sensitivity to argument quality when distracted

Question 10

Adverts and Elaboration Likelihood

Answer 10

• very cue heavy these days because people aren’t paying full attention