Attitude Change and Persuasion (VL 5) Flashcards
Important variables of the Persuasion process
- The communicator
- The source of the message
- The message itself
- The context in which the persuasion occurs
What determines a good Persuasion?
- Credibility (Expertise, Trustworthiness) and Liking determine whether a person is evaluated favorably
- We are persuaded by the opinions of our reference group –> messages from in-groups are processed using central routes
- Source derogation (Abwertung der Quelle/Botschaft) can make all current and future arguments from that source less powerful
- Repetition and familiarity tend to increase liking up to a point –> expose flaws in weak arguments and may be annoying at some point
Fear-arousing communications
- Most effective when inducing a moderate amount of fear and people believe listening to the message will reduce fear
- Too much or little scariness will fail
- Inverted U-curve relationship between an increase in fear and the amount of attitude change
Yale approach to communication and persuasion
Factors:
Message, Source, and Audience
Process:
Attention, Comprehension, and Acceptance
Outcome:
Opinion Change, Perception Change, Affect Change, Action Change
Dual process models of persuasion
Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty and Cacioppo): people use the central route to process a message when they attend/listen to a message carefully. Otherwise they use the peripheral route
Heuristic- Systematic Model (Chaiken):
people use systematic processing when they attend/listen to a message carefully. Otherwise they use heuristic processing
Central and Peripheral route to persuasion
- Central route to persuasion: under certain conditions, people are motivated to pay attention to and think about the facts of a message
- Peripheral route to persuasion: when people are not motivated to pay attention to a message, only attend to superficial characteristics such as who delivers the message and how long it is
How to get people´s attention?
- Playing their emotions
- People in a good mood are less likely to pay attention to persuasive communication, because they think it will lower their good mood
Techniques to deal with ways of inducing another person
- Ingratiation
- Reciprocity
- Guilt arousal
- Foot- in-the-door
- Door-in-the-face
- Low-balling
Multiple-request techniques - Explanation of the techniques
Foot-in-the-door: Ask A for a small favor –> A agrees –> Ask A for a large favor
Door-in-the-face: Ask A for a large favor –> A declines –> Ask A for a smaller favor – the first Goal
Low-ball: Get A committed to choice 1 –> Tell A that choice 1 is not possible –> Ask A for more – choice 2 (ex. Autohändler)
The theory of cognitive dissonance – Festinger
- Addresses discrepancy between a person´s behavior, underlying attitudes and self conception
- Ex. Smokers that smoke although they know smoking is bad for their health
The theory of cognitive dissonance – Three ways how dissonance is brought up
- Effort justification
- Induced compliance
- Free choice
Resistance to persuasion
- When communicator´s efforts are too obvious
- Techniques to build up resistance: forewarning, the inoculation defence
Attitude Inoculation (McGuire)
- To strengthen people against persuasion, they have to consider the arguments before and against their attitude beforehand
- People are exposed to a small dose of arguments against their position, they develop an vaccination (Impfung) that helps them to fight of stronger arguments later
- Help people resist peer pressure
Reactance Theory (Brehm)
- If persuasion is tried too hard and prohibition is too strong, the boomerang effect can lead to an increase in the prohibited activity
- Strong prohibition threatens a person´s feelings of freedom –> freedom is restored by engaging in forbidden activity
