Chapter 5 Flashcards
Persuasion
Any change in beliefs and attitudes that results form exposure to a
communication.
The Yale Reinforcement Approach
Hovland founded the Yale Communication and Attitude Change Program after WWII
Yale Reinforcement Approach: Exposure to a persuasive communication that
successfully induces the individual to accept a new opinion constitutes a learning
experience in which a new verbal habit is acquired.
o Recipients of a persuasive message would silently rehearse the arguments
together with the recommended response and their own initial attitude
o They will only accept the recommended attitudinal response if the incentives
associated with this response are greater than those associated with their own
original position
Communication and Persuasion
o In order to understand persuasion, one must know “who says what to whom
with what effect”
o Innovative experimental research on the impact of communicator credibility,
on features of the communication such as fear-arousing appeals or the
organization of persuasive arguments, on individual differences in
susceptibility to persuasion and on the extent to which attitude change was
maintained over time
o The impact of any of these factors on attitudes could be mediated by three
different processes:
1. Attention to the content of the communication
2. Comprehension of the message
3. Acceptance of the conclusion advocated by the communication
Source effects: The impact of the source of a communication on persuasion.
o Attribution of a communication to either a prestigious or a non-prestigious
source influenced the target’s evaluation of the communication
Fear-arousing communication
o The weakest appeal was most effective in changing attitudes and behavior
o Defensive avoidance: The strong fear appeal was so threatening that it was
more effective for recipients to reduce fear by rejecting the appeal as alarmist
rather than accepting the recommendation.
o Findings have rarely been replicated in later research; actually, reverse effect
has been found
Hovland
founded the Yale Communication and Attitude Change Program after WWII
Yale Reinforcement Approach
Exposure to a persuasive communication that
successfully induces the individual to accept a new opinion constitutes a learning
experience in which a new verbal habit is acquired.
Source effects:
The impact of the source of a communication on persuasion.
o Attribution of a communication to either a prestigious or a non-prestigious
source influenced the target’s evaluation of the communication
Defensive avoidance:
The strong fear appeal was so threatening that it was
more effective for recipients to reduce fear by rejecting the appeal as alarmist
rather than accepting the recommendation
The information processing model of McGuire
Information processing model: (1) There are different stages involved in the processing
of persuasive communications and (2) determinants of persuasion could have different
impacts at different stages
Five stages of persuasion:
1. Attention
2. Comprehension
3. Acceptance
4. Retention
5. Behavior
The receiver must go through each of these steps if the communication is to have an
ultimate persuasive impact, and each depends on the occurrence of the preceding
step
One has to question whether recipients really have to go through these steps for the
advertisement to be effective
o There are a variety of ways by which messages can influence, even without
having been carefully processed
o Processing motivation is likely to be higher for more complex and expensive
products
The probability of a communication influencing attitudes [P(I)] is the joint product of
the probability of reception [P(R)] and acceptance [P(A)]
o P(I) = P(R) × P(A)
McGuire stated that most personality characteristics have opposing effects on
reception and acceptance
o People are more likely to understand a message the more intelligent they are
o More intelligent people are also likely to be more critical and therefore less
likely to accept everything they hear or read
Curvilinear relationship of reception and acceptance, with the maximum level of
influenceability found at some intermediate level for the personality characteristic
A meta-analysis of studies of individual differences in influenceability provided limited
support for the McGuire model
Information processing model:
1) There are different stages involved in the processing
of persuasive communications and (2) determinants of persuasion could have different
impacts at different stages.
McGuire’s Five stages of persuasion
- Attention
- Comprehension
- Acceptance
- Retention
- Behavior
McGuire stated that..
most personality characteristics have opposing effects on
reception and acceptance
o People are more likely to understand a message the more intelligent they are
o More intelligent people are also likely to be more critical and therefore less
likely to accept everything they hear or read
The cognitive response model
The cognitive response model was developed by Greenwald, Petty, and their
colleagues partly to explain the frequent failure to find a correlation between
argument recall and attitude change, despite evidence that recipients had
systematically processed the message arguments
The model stresses the importance of the thoughts individuals generate – and thus
rehearse and learn – in response to a persuasive communication
Listeners are active participants who relate the communication to their own
knowledge
o Generating thoughts for and against the arguments presented
o The cognitive response to the message arguments produced by the recipient,
rather than the message arguments themselves, determine the impact of the
persuasive communication on attitudes
Thought-listing technique: Subjects are asked to list all the thoughts or ideas they had
while listening to the communication. After elimination of thoughts that are irrelevant
to the communication, the relevant thoughts are then categorized by participants or
external raters into those that are favorable to the position advocated by the message
and those that are generally unfavorable. An index based on these thoughts can then
be used to assess the extent to which cognitive responses mediated the impact of a
communication on attitudes.
With strong and well-reasoned arguments, thinking about them might in fact reduce
our reluctance to change our minds
Although cognitive responses to weak arguments would reduce persuasion, thinking
about strong and well-reasoned arguments would produce favorable thoughts that
would enhance persuasion
Since recipients process messages more or less intensively, persuasion should depend
on both:
o The extent to which recipients engage in message-relevant thoughts
o The favorability of these thoughts
Distraction
o Until it begins to interfere with reception, distraction should enhance
persuasion by impairing a recipient’s ability to counterargue
o The persuasion-reducing effect of distraction was not necessarily due to
impairment of comprehension but due to impairment of the ability of
recipients of a well-argued communication to produce positive thoughts that
might have persuaded them to change their attitudes
o Increased distraction increased attitude-change for weakly argued messages,
but decreased change for strongly argued message
Thought-listing technique
Subjects are asked to list all the thoughts or ideas they had
while listening to the communication. After elimination of thoughts that are irrelevant
to the communication, the relevant thoughts are then categorized by participants or
external raters into those that are favorable to the position advocated by the message
and those that are generally unfavorable. An index based on these thoughts can then
be used to assess the extent to which cognitive responses mediated the impact of a
communication on attitudes.
Since recipients process messages more or less intensively, persuasion should depend
on both:
o The extent to which recipients engage in message-relevant thoughts
o The favorability of these thoughts
Dual process theories of persuasion
Dual process theories of persuasion
o They acknowledge that recipients may sometimes take shortcuts and accept or
reject the position recommended by the communicator without thinking about
message arguments
o They specify the factors that determine the intensity of message processing,
and thus the conditions under which attitude change will be mediated by
message-relevant thinking
Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
Heuristic-Systematic Model (HSM)
Two routes to persuasion:
1. Systematic processing: Recipients carefully and thoughtfully consider the
arguments presented in support of a position.
2. Heuristic processing: The use of simple decision rules in deciding on whether to
accept or reject a persuasive communication.
Two types of qualitatively different information that message recipients use when
trying to decide whether to accept or reject the position advocated by a
communicator:
1. Arguments contained in the information
2. Heuristic cues
Message arguments offer better and more reliable evidence for the validity of a
position advocated by a communicator than heuristic cues, but heuristic cues are
easier to process
Processing motivation is important because unless an issue is relevant to participants,
they will not expend much effort in thinking about arguments for or against the issue
Processing ability is important because in order to judge the validity of the arguments
contained in a communication, a person needs knowledge, time, and peace of mind
It was originally assumed that the two processing modes are compensatory; more
recently, it has been suggested that the two modes of processing can co-occur, if
systematic processing of arguments does not allow one to arrive at a clear-cut
conclusion
Variables can affect persuasion in multiple ways, depending on the extent to which a
message is processed systematically
Multiple-role assumption: Depending on the level of processing motivation, the
attributes of an endorser of a product can be used as a heuristic cue to influence
attitude towards a product, but they can also serve as an argument.
The extended dual process framework incorporates two further processing motives or
goals:
1. Defense motive
-Need for positive self-regard
- Vested interests
- Attitudinal commitment
- Need for consistency
- Impression motive
- Desire to express attitudes that are socially acceptable
-Assessing the social acceptability of alternative positions in order to
accept attitudinal positions that will please or appease potential
evaluators
Defense-motivated as well as impression-motivated processing can be heuristic as
well as systematic
Assessing the intensity of processing
Two strategies for assessing processing intensity:
1. Thought-listing
2. Manipulation of argument quality
If attitude change is due to systematic processing, then (thought-listing):
o Recipients should have generated some thoughts favorable to the position
advocated by the communicator
o The relative favorability or unfavourability of these thoughts should be
correlated with the amount of attitude change
o A favorability index (the ratio of favorable thoughts to total number of relevant
thoughts) should act as a mediator of the impact of the manipulated variables
on attitude change with systematic but not under heuristic processing
Manipulation of argument quality
o Persuasive appeals containing strong arguments should stimulate mainly
favorable thoughts in recipients who engage in systematic processing, and
result in substantial attitude change
o Weak arguments should trigger mainly negative thoughts and fail to result in
attitude change or even result in negative change (i.e. boomerang effect)
Boomerang effects have never been observed empirically
Two strategies for assessing processing intensity:
- Thought-listing
- Manipulation of argument quality
If attitude change is due to systematic processing, then (thought-listing):
o Recipients should have generated some thoughts favorable to the position
advocated by the communicator
o The relative favorability or unfavourability of these thoughts should be
correlated with the amount of attitude change
o A favorability index (the ratio of favorable thoughts to total number of relevant
thoughts) should act as a mediator of the impact of the manipulated variables
on attitude change with systematic but not under heuristic processing
A favorability index
the ratio of favorable thoughts to total number of relevant
thoughts
Processing ability is important for
the comprehension of the arguments presented by
salespersons
o Intelligence and education are of limited use in such situations
The impact of working knowledge on processing ability
The amount of working knowledge the individual possesses in a given area is the most
important personal factor influencing processing ability
Your knowledge about a certain area, at least if it is cognitively accessible, provides a
standard that allows you to detect the strengths and weaknesses of the information
provided
Overall, more knowledgeable participants were less influenced by the
communications than participants with little knowledge
o Argument strength influenced only the most knowledgeable individuals
o Message length affected only the least knowledgeable
Longer message = seen as more valid
o The more knowledgeable participants listed significantly more content-
oriented thoughts than the least knowledgeable individuals
Study with stereo system produced in Germany vs. Thailand
o Experts were only influenced by argument strength
o Novices were only influenced by country of origin
If arguments do not allow one to draw clear-cut conclusions, individuals will rely on
heuristic cues even under high processing intensity
The impact of distraction of processing ability
Distraction will reduce attitude change when arguments are strong, but increase it
with weak arguments
The impact of message repetition on processing ability
Whereas argument recall increased monotonically with frequency of exposure,
attitude change showed a curvilinear relationship with frequency of exposure
o Change increased between zero and three exposures, but decreased
afterwards
o Up to three exposures, message repetition increased the number of favorable
thoughts and decreased the number of counterarguments; however, further
repetition reversed this effect
Initially, repetition of arguments provided recipients with opportunity to think about
and elaborate the message
However, when message repetition was further increased, boredom motivated people
to attack the now tedious argumentation
Whereas exposure to strong arguments resulted in an increase in change from one to
three repetitions, repeated exposure to weak arguments led to immediate decrease in
change
o Lowering of processing motivation
Marketers try to avoid or at least delay tedium by varying their advertisements
o Cosmetic – changing substantive features of an advertisement that are not
essential in evaluating the product
o Substantive – change in message content
Once processing intensity increases, cosmetic variation will be ineffective and only
substantive variation will reduce tedium
Cosmetic variation reduced the impact of tedium slightly under low, but not high
product relevance
People often look at ads without really processing any of the text message
o With deep processing, attitude change followed the familiar curvilinear
pattern, even thought the downturn only occurred at ten exposures
o No downturn with shallow processing
o Whereas the attitude change pattern is correlated with the net number of
favorable thoughts produced by participants under deep processing, no
systematic relationship between thoughts and attitudes emerged under
shallow processing
o Frequency of exposure is likely to have increased perceptual fluency that, in
turn, resulted in greater liking for these advertisements
Personal relevance as motivator
Personal relevance: The importance of an outcome for the individual.
Major variable affecting processing motivation
Need to make a purchase decision
Consumers make many purchase decisions every day and these decisions vary on a
continuum of effort and time investment:
o Low effort – repetitive, routine, or habitual choices
- Low personal relevance
- Low risk
o High effort – infrequently bought and expensive goods
- High personal relevance
- Great deal of risk
The need to choose a particular brand of such a high involvement product from the
multitude of brands on offer will act as a powerful motivator to critically read
advertisements and test reports
For unimportant decisions people are likely to rely on heuristic cues
In line with predictions, personal relevance interacted with both celebrity status of the
endorser and argument quality, with celebrity status influencing attitudes mainly
under low involvement conditioning and argument quality being mainly effective
under high involvement conditions
Physical attractiveness, while serving as a heuristic cue under low involvement, might
have functioned as a visual evidence for the effectiveness of the product (i.e. an
argument) under high involvement
o Source congruity: The match between cognitively accessible endorser attributes
and attributes associated with the brand.
o Source congruity does not only apply to physical attractiveness, but also to
other attributes of a source
Source congruity
The match between cognitively accessible endorser attributes
and attributes associated with the brand.