Chapter 6 Flashcards
What is attitude change?
Any significant modification of an individual’s attitude. In the persuasion process this involves the communicator, the communication, the medium used and the characteristics of the audience. Attitude change can also occur by inducing someone to perform an act that runs counter to an existing attitude
What is cognitive dissonance?
State of psychological tension produced by simultaneously having two opposing cognitions. People are motivated to reduce the tension, often by changing or rejecting one of the cognitions. Festinger proposed that we seek harmony in our attitudes, beliefs and behaviours and try to reduce tension from inconsistency among these elements. Similarly, affect, behaviour and cognitions are not always congruent so there is a change in attitude or behaviour
What is persuasive communication?
Message intended to change an attitude and related behaviours of an audience.
What is the third-person effect?
Most people think that they are less influenced than others by advertisements
What is a source?
The point of origin of a persuasive communication.
What is a message?
Communication from a source directed to an audience.
What is an audience?
Intended target of a persuasive communication.
What is disconfirmation bias?
The tendency to notice, refute and regard as weak, arguments that contradict our prior beliefs.
What is the elaboration-likelihood model (ELM)?
Petty and Cacioppo’s model of attitude change: when people attend to a message carefully, they use a central route to process it; otherwise they use a peripheral route. This model competes with the heuristic–systematic model and is a part of dual process theory
What is the heuristic-systematic model (HSM)?
Chaiken’s model of attitude change: when people attend to a message carefully, they use systematic processing; otherwise they process information by using heuristics, or ‘mental short-cuts’. This model competes with the elaboration–likelihood model and is a part of dual process theory. It focuses more on the perciever’s motives and goals than ELM.
What is compliance?
Superficial, public and transitory change in behaviour and expressed attitudes in response to requests, coercion or group pressure.
What is ingratiation?
Strategic attempt to get someone to like you in order to obtain compliance with a request.
What is the reciprocity principle?
This is sometimes called the reciprocity norm, or ‘the law of doing unto others what they do to you’. It can refer to an attempt to gain compliance by first doing someone a favour, or to mutual aggression, or to mutual attraction.
What are multiple requests?
Tactics for gaining compliance using a two-step procedure: the first request functions as a set-up for the second, real request.
What is the foot-in-the-door tactic?
Multiple-request technique to gain compliance, in which the focal request is preceded by a smaller request that is bound to be accepted.
What is the door-in-the-face tactic?
Multiple-request technique to gain compliance, in which the focal request is preceded by a larger request that is bound to be refused.
What is the low-ball tactic?
Technique for inducing compliance in which a person who agrees to a request still feels committed after finding that there are hidden costs.
What is mindlessness?
The act of agreeing to a request without giving it a thought. A small request is likely to be agreed to, even if a spurious reason is provided.
What is action research?
The simultaneous activities of undertaking social science research, involving participants in the process and addressing a social problem.
What is the selective exposure hypothesis?
People tend to avoid potentially dissonant information.
What is effort justification?
A special case of cognitive dissonance: inconsistency is experienced when a person makes a considerable effort to achieve a modest goal.
What is induced compliance?
A special case of cognitive dissonance: inconsistency is experienced when a person is persuaded to behave in a way that is contrary to an attitude.
What is post-decisional conflict?
The dissonance associated with behaving in a counter-attitudinal way. Dissonance can be reduced by bringing the attitude into line with the behaviour.
What is self-affirmation theory?
The theory that people reduce the impact of threat to their self-concept by focusing on and affirming their competence in some other area.
What is reactance?
Brehm’s theory that people try to protect their freedom to act. When they perceive that this freedom has been curtailed, they will act to regain it.
What is forewarning?
Advance knowledge that one is to be the target of a persuasion attempt. Forewarning often produces resistance to persuasion.
What is inoculation?
A way of making people resistant to persuasion. By providing them with a diluted counter-argument, they can build up effective refutations to a later, stronger argument.
What is the Hovland-Yale Model?
Model where persuasion is based on who is saying, what is being said and to what audience it is addressing. It affects attention, comprehension and acceptance of the information and can lead to a change
What are the facets of the source (who) in the Hovland-Yale Model?
Expertise, likeability, trust worthiness and similarity to self
What are the facets of the message (what) in the Hovland-Yale Model?
Both sides of the argument or one side, repetition of message and affective quality of the message
What are the facets of the audience (whom) in the Hovland-Yale Model?
Their persuasibility, attention to the message, prior beliefs, self esteem and need for cognition/closure
What is the need for cognition?
Personality variable indicating a person’s chronic level of thoughtfulness in response to an external stimulus. High need for cognition corresponds to an individual who thinks a lot about new information
What is the need for closure?
Personality variable describing an individual’s desire for reducing ambiguity and arrive at clear conclusions. People with high need for closure would interpret ambiguous situation more in line with existing stereotypes/own ideas.
When does dissonance lead to attitude change?
When people believe their behaviour is voluntary and can not ascribe the discrepancy between behaviour and attitude to external factors. Maybe due to self-perception of inferring own attitude to behaviour.
What are techniques to increase resistance?
Forewarning and inoculation
