Chapter 5 - Persuasion Flashcards
the process of persuasion
To elicit action, a persuasive message must clear several hurdles. What is crucial is not so much remembering
the message itself as remembering one’s own thoughts in response.
persuasion
The process by which a message induces change in beliefs,
attitudes, or behaviours.
central route to persuasion
Occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with
favourable thoughts.
peripheral route to persuasion
Occurs when people are influenced
by incidental cues, such as a
speaker’s attractiveness.
credibility
Believability. A credible communicator is perceived as both
expert and trustworthy.
sleeper effect
A delayed impact of a message; occurs when we remember the message but forget a reason for discounting it.
Interestingly, the sleeper effect is particularly effective when
attitudes are based on beliefs rather than on emotional information
Percieved trustworthiness
Speech style also affects a speaker’s apparent trustworthiness. - eye contact
Trustworthiness is also higher if the audience believes the communicator is not trying to persuade them.
We also perceive as sincere those who argue against their own self-interest.
Norman Miller and his colleagues (1976) found that trustworthiness and credibility increase when people talk fast. People who listened to tape-recorded messages rated fast speakers (about 190 words per minute) as more objective, intelligent, and knowledgeable than slow speakers (about 110 words per minute). They also found the more rapid speakers more persuasive.
attractiveness
Having qualities that appeal to an audience. An appealing communicator (often someone
similar to the audience) is
most persuasive on matters of
subjective preference.
Is a logical message one that is more persuasive—or one that arouses emotion?
Both
- Well-educated or analytical people are responsive to rational appeals
- 1949). Thoughtful, involved audiences travel the central route; they are most responsive to reasoned arguments.
- Disinterested audiences travel the peripheral route
- It also depends on how people’s attitudes were formed. When people’s initial attitudes are formed primarily through emotion, they are more persuaded by later emotional appeals
- when their initial attitudes are formed primarily through reason, they are more persuaded through intellectual arguments
How good feelings effect messages
Messages can also become more persuasive through association with good feelings
Irving Janis and his colleagues (Janis,
Kaye, & Kirschner, 1965; Dabbs & Janis, 1965) found that students were more convinced by persuasive messages if they were allowed to enjoy peanuts and Pepsi while reading them
Good feelings often enhance persuasion, partly by enhancing positive thinking and partly by linking good feelings with the message
- People in a good mood make faster, impulsive decisions, as they rely more on peripheral cues, while unhappy people ruminate more
The effect of arousing fear
Arousing fear can help people listen to your message
Experiments by Howard Leventhal (1970) and his collaborators, by Ronald Rogers and his collaborators (Robberson & Rogers, 1988), and by Natascha de Hoog and her colleagues (2007) show that, often, the more frightened people are, the more
they respond.
Playing on fear works best if a message leads people not only to fear the severity and likelihood of a threatened event but also to perceive a solution and feel capable of implementing it
discrepancy
Sure enough, when credible poet
T. S. Eliot was said to have highly praised a disliked poem, people changed their opinion more than when he gave it faint praise. But when the less credible “Agnes Stearns,” a teacher’s college student, evaluated a disliked poem, high praise was no more persuasive than faint praise. Thus, as Figure 5–5 shows, discrepancy and credibility interact: The effect of a large versus small discrepancy depends on whether the communicator is credible.
People are more open to conclusions within their range of acceptability
it depends on how extreme of a position you should argue on the credibility you have
Deeply involved people tend to accept only a narrow range of views, and people who don’t care as much and are not as involved, you can advocate a discrepant view
How to deal with opposing arguments:
One-sided versus two-sided appeals
Carol Werner and her colleagues (2002) showed the disarming power of a simple two-sided message in experimental messages that promoted aluminum can recycling. Signs added to wastebaskets in a university classroom said, for example, “No Aluminum Cans
Please!!!!! Use the Recycler Located on the First Floor, Near the Entrance.” When a final persuasive message acknowledged and responded to the main counter-argument—“It May
Be Inconvenient. But It Is Important!!!!!!!!!!!”—recycling reached 80 percent (double the rate before any message and more than in other message conditions).
- A one-sided appeal was most effective with those who already agreed.
- An appeal that acknowledged opposing arguments worked better with those who disagreed. Experiments also revealed that a two-sided presentation is more persua-
sive and enduring if people are (or will be) aware of opposing arguments
primacy effect
Other things being equal, information presented first usually has the most influence.
eg.
- Lisette is intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, and envious.
- Lisette is envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive, industrious, and intelligent.
the sentence that begins with the good adjectives paints a better picture of Lisette
recency effect
Information presented last sometimes has the most influence. Recency effects are less common than primacy effects.
To test for a possible recency effect, Miller and Campbell (1959) gave
another group of students one block of testimony to read. A week later, the researchers had them read the second block and then immediately state their opinions. Now the results were just the reverse—a recency effect. Apparently, the first block of arguments, being a week old, had largely faded from memory.
Forgetting creates the recency effect (1) when enough time separates
the two messages, and (2) when the audience commits itself soon after
the second message. When the two messages are back to back, followed by a time gap, a primacy effect usually occurs
channel of communication
The way the message is delivered—
whether face to face, in writing, on
film, or in some other way.
two-step flow of communication
The process by which media
influence often occurs through
opinion leaders, who in turn
influence others.
Which type of medium is the most persuasive
Studies comparing different media find that the more lifelike the medium, the more persuasive its message. Thus, the order of persuasiveness seems to be this: live (face to face), video, audio, and written.
Messages are best comprehended and recalled when written.
Comprehension is one of the first steps in the persuasion process. So Shelly Chaiken and Alice Eagly (1976) reasoned that if a message is difficult to comprehend, persuasion should
be greatest when the message is written because readers will be able to work through the message at their own pace. The researchers gave students easy or difficult messages in writing, on audio, or on video. Figure 5–9 displays their results: Difficult messages were, indeed, most persuasive when written; easy messages, when videotaped. The video medium takes control of the pacing of the message away from the recipients. By drawing attention to the communicator and away from the message itself, the video is also able to focus on peripheral cues, such as the communicator’s attractiveness (Chaiken & Eagly, 1983).
other characteristics in receiving a persuasive message
(1) their age
(2) their thoughtfulness
Why do different ages have different beliefs
A life cycle explanation: Attitudes change (for example, become more conservative) as people grow older.
A generational explanation: Attitudes do not change; older people largely hold onto the attitudes they adopted when they were young. Because these attitudes are different from those now being adopted by young people today, a generation gap
develops.
evidence mostly supports the generational explanation
Adolescent and early-adulthood experiences are formative partly because they make deep and
lasting impressions.
What circumstances breed counter-arguing?
- a warning that someone is going to try to persuade you.
- Jonathan Freedman and David Sears (1965)
- gave a group of teenagers a talk on why teenagers shouldn’t drive
- half were forewarned what the topic would be - they did not budge in opinions
- other half were not forewarned - and they budged more
Distraction disarms counter-arguing
Persuasion is also enhanced by a distraction that inhibits counter-arguing
Uninvolved audiences use peripheral cues
the central route of systematic thinking and the peripheral route of heuristic cues.
need for cognition
The motivation to think and analyze; assessed by agreement with items such as “the notion of thinking abstractly is appealing to me” and disagreement with items such as “I only think as hard as I have to.”
- Analytical people—those with a high need for cognition—enjoy thinking carefully and prefer central routes
- resources—those with a low need for cognition—are quicker to respond to such peripheral cues as the communicator’s attractiveness and the pleasantness of the surroundings.
cults
Groups typically characterized
by (1) the distinctive ritual of their
devotion to a god or a person, (2)
isolation from the surrounding “evil”
culture, and (3) a charismatic leader;
also called new religious movements.
(A sect, by contrast, is a spinoff from
a major religion.)
Compliance breeds acceptance
Behavioural rituals, public recruitment, and fundraising strengthen the initiates’ identities as members. Just as those in social–psychological experiments come to believe in what they bear witness to
The greater the personal commitment, the more the need to justify it.
certainty
Refers to the level of
subjective confidence or validity that
people attach to their attitudes.
Strong attitudes are more likely to lead to behaviour
selective exposure
The extent to which people’s attitudes bias the attitude-relevant information they expose themselves to.
selective attention
The extent to which people’s attitudes bias the attitude-relevant information they attend to, once exposed.
selective memory
The extent to which people’s attitudes bias recall and recognition of attitude-relevant information.
reactance
A motive to protect or restore our sense of freedom. Reactance arises when someone threatens our freedom of action.
Strengthening personal commitment
Before encountering others’ judgments, you can resist persuasion by making a public commitment to your position.
Challenging beliefs
Kiesler found that when committed people were attacked strongly enough to cause them to react, but not so strongly as to overwhelm them, they became even more committed.
attitude inoculation
Exposing people to weak attacks on their attitudes so that when stronger
attacks come, they will have
refutations available.
Inoculating children against peer pressure to smoke
One research team had high school students “inoculate” students in Grade 7 against peer pressures to smoke - they were taught what to say in the face that someone was peer pressuring them to smoke
After several of these sessions during Grades 7 and 8, the inoculated
students were half as likely to begin smoking as uninoculated students at another junior high school that had an identical parental smoking rate
