C1: Theories Of Persuasion Flashcards
What is the Hovland-Yale theory of persuasion?
Whether a message persuades people to change their behaviour depends on not just the message itself (communication) but who gives it (communicator) and who receives it (recipients).
The communicator (source)
A communicator is more persuasive when they are perceived as credible (i.e. believable). Greater credibility when thought to be experts.
What are the two key factors of the communication (message)?
Emotional appeal
Whether argument presented is two sided or not
What is meant by emotional appeal in the communication (message)?
Health messages that include a fear related threat can change behaviour. But the recipient has the believe negative outcomes can be avoided.
What is meant by whether the argument presented is two sided or not in the communication (message)?
An anti-smoking message could just contain the information that smoking is dangerous to health. Or it could point out that smoking brings pleasure and other benefits as well.
The recipients (audience)
Highly intelligent people: less easy to persuade - have the cognitive resources to process complex messages
Lower intelligence: persuadable as they don’t fully understand the message or pay full attention to it
Hovland-Yale: Strength: Research support
Sturges and Rogers researched persuasion in relation to the dangers of smoking and found that the most persuasive message was the one that combined high threat with the suggestion that it is possible to quit smoking.
Hovland-Yale: Weakenss: Role of self-esteem
Baumeister and Covington found that people with high self esteem were actually more easy to persuade than those with poor self esteem and McGuire argued that the relationship between persuasion and self esteem is a curve rather than a straight line I.e. people with moderate levels of self esteem are less easy to persuade than people with high/low levels.
