attitude change and persuasion Flashcards
What is cognitive dissonance theory?
Theory that we seek to have coherence between our self, attitudes, thoughts beliefs and behaviours.
When these are inconsistent we have a desire to reduce this inconsistency through dissonance reduction
How do we reduce dissonance
By adding another cognition or changing an existing one.
3 ways dissonance can be initiated and explain
1) Forced compliance: festinger and carlsmith 1959 experiment where participants were made to complete a boring task. Then paid 1 or 20 dollars to convince other participants it was interesting. Those paid 1 dollar showed stronger dissonance as though their attitude was that they found it uninteresting, their behaviour showed they thought it was.
2) Decision making: Participants asked to rate 8 household participants. Then allowed to take one home there were 3 different conditions: High dissonance- choosing between 2 high rated so they adapted their attitude to reinforce that the item they chose was better. Low dissonance: high and low rated. And just given one highly desirable product.
3) effort justification: Theory that if effort is put into something then we will like it. As we are doing it voluntarily.
How may we avoid dissonance
Selective exposure: avoiding situations and information which may arouse dissonance.
Frey and Rosch 1984: participants told to choose to either continue or terminate employment. One group allowed to change their decision other not. Then allowed to look at information about the employee. Those not allowed, looked at information which would support their decision as they didn’t want any new information to arouse dissonance, those allowed looked at all information as they were able to change their decision.
What is self- perception
Opposing view to cognitive dissonance that we look at our behaviour and then infer what our attitudes should be taking into account how we felt and what we thought when carrying out the behaviour
Explain latitude of acceptance and rejection
LoR: behaviour which is very different from our attitudes which is likely to arouse cognitive dissonance.
LoA: Behaviour which differs slightly but not at a level which arouses dissonance but instead self- perception and reflecting on attitudes and behaviour in more detail
What are the 3 forms of compliance and explain
foot in the door: graded requests (Goldman et al 1981) are more effective if graded correctly as we think we agreed to the second one so in order to keep self- consistency we will agree to the second one
Door in the face: ask for large then small (Cialdini et al 1975) Asked would you like to be a voluntary counsellor for 2 years, then 2 hours. More likely to say yes when given 2 options
Low ball: (Cialdini et at 1978) Would you take part in an experiment. Then change the conditions. Participant is likely to say yes as they are already involved.
What are the 3 factors which can be used to change attitudes under The Yale Attitude Change Approach?
1) Source - who said it
2) Message - how it was communicated
3) audience
Explain the components of how source can persuade
1- credibility: more likely to accept a message if coming from a person with a high level of expertise
2- Appearance: want attitudes to align with those we find attractive. We are also more likely to listen to those we find similar to ourselves.
3- Trustworthiness- trust of the judgement and the intentions (news outlets or people we may know personally)
Explain the components of how the Message can persuade
1- one or two sided message: which one is more effective depends on the motivation and intelligence of the audience
2- Facts or feelings: which one is more effective can depend on which components make up the persons attitude (1, 2 or 3 components)
3- Repetition: repeated exposure increases familiarly. And creates ‘ring of truth’- repeating it makes it become a given fact.
4- Fear: (Janis and Feshbalch 1953) 3 conditions with different levels of fear about hygiene showed opposite results. However (Leventhal et al 1967) about smoking had expected results.
Maybe because they have different interpretations of what constitutes as a high level of fear.
May become desensitised to high level of fear.
Or overwhelmed by fear they do not change attitudes.
Revers U shape .
What is the Protection motivation theory (Rogers 1975)
Protection motivation is driven by 2 factors.
1) threat appraisal: looking at severity and susceptibility of the threat.
2) Coping appraisal: Response cost ( bad outcome of the behaviour) Response efficacy (how effective will the behaviour be) Self-efficacy (will I be able to carry out the behaviour)
Explain how the components of audience can persuade
1- Self esteem: Those with moderate levels are likely to change. Too high: confident in their selves and attitudes. Too low: anxiety and avoid change.
2- Individual diffences: whether they have a need for closure (low need are more flexible). Need for cognition.
3- Age: More malleable at beginning of adult hood and later life.
Explain the Elaboration likelihood model (Petty and Cacioppo 1986)
Elaboration (motivation. ability and opportunity) influence where the central (high) or peripheral (low) routes of information processing are taken.
If central they are very critical and careful when processing information and the attitude change is dependent on the quality of the arguments.
Whereas if they take the peripheral route they are not careful and change depends on persuasive cues such as credibility and attractiveness.
What are the 2 ways of resistance to persuasion explained
1) Inoculation (McGuire 1964)
Make people resistant by providing weak arguments at first for them to argue against, then building to more difficult ones as they are more experienced and equipped.
2) Attitude strength (Bassili 1996)
More resistant to persuasion when more certain in their attitudes or when they are important to them
