Chapter 8 Studies And Terms

Question 1

Elaboration Likelihood Model

Answer 1

-people in certain contexts process persuasive messages rather mindlessly and effortlessly, and on other occasions deeply and attentively (analogous with automatic and controlled processing)
-some persuasive appeals are more effective when target audience is largely on autopilot, others are more effective when target audience is alert and attentive

Question 2

Central route of Persuasion

Answer 2

-occurs when people think carefully and deliberately about content of persuasive message - attend to logic and strength of arguments and evidence presented in message - rely on relevant info of their own to evaluate message

Question 3

Dual-Process Approach to Persuasion

Answer 3

-two routes: central and peripheral
-routes are engaged by different levels of motivation and ability to attend to message, and different types of persuasive appeals are more effective through one route than another

Question 4

Peripheral Route of Persuasion

Answer 4

—attend primarily to peripheral aspects of a message - superficial, easy to process features of a communication that are tangential to persuasive info itself
-peripheral cue examples: apparent expertise, credibility, or attractiveness of person communicating persuasive message
-can be forms of evidence when processed in a deliberate, thoughtful fashion - when persuasion occurs through peripheral route, person is swayed by cues without engaging in much thought
-this cue can also change person’s emotional reaction to attitude object (focus of the persuasive appeal) leading to change in attitude on the basis alone

Question 5

Motivation for processing route chosen

Answer 5

-motivation to devote time and energy to a message: when message has personal consequences, we’re more likely to go the central route and carefully work through arguments and relevant info

Question 6

Ability for processing route chosen

Answer 6

Ability to process the message in depth: when we have sufficient cognitive resources and time, we’re able to process persuasive messages more deeply - the more we know, the more thoughtfully we’re able to scrutinize a persuasive message
-when ability is low (argument is presented too quick or is hard to comprehend) more apt to rely on easy-to-process peripheral cues associated with message (such as credentials or message source0
-being tired or distracted also makes peripheral processing more likely

Question 7

Sarah an, Spencer and Zanna study: thirst study

Answer 7

-participants arrived at study, half allowed to drink water, other half left thirsty
-all were subliminally primed - some with words related to thirst, others with neutral words
-were then allowed to drink as much as they wanted of each of 2 beverages
-those primed with thirst related words drank significantly more than thirst participants primed with neutral words
-primes had no influence on non-thirsty individuals
-subliminal studies are low on external validity as outside world makes subliminal effects weaker in daily life
-stimuli are presented right before assessment of target attitude or behaviour in lab experiments and participants also encounter no competing messages in the interim - is almost never the case in the real world
-subliminal messages don’t make people do things they are opposed to doing

Question 8

Petty, Cacioppo and Goldman study: comprehensive exam

Answer 8

-P’s read either 8 weak or 8 strong arguments in support of implementing policy requiring comprehensive exam for graduating seniors at a university
-personal relevance manipulated by varying time policy would be initiated (either the following year or in 10 years)
-source of expertise was also varied: half of P’s told arguments were generated by local high school class and half told arguments were generated by Carnegie commission on higher education
-when message is personally relevant to students (implemented next year) - students more likely to pay attention to strength of arguments - no personal relevance, strength of arguments didn’t matter much
-participants were predominantly influenced by expertise of course
-students taking test following year were far less influenced by expertise of course
-therefore: high personal relevance led participants to be persuaded by strength of arguments (central route of persuasion) lack of relevance to person led participants to be persuaded by expertise of source (peripheral route persuasion)

Question 9

Elements of Persuasion

Answer 9

Created by Carl Hovland - Yale University
Persuasion has 3 elements: source of message, content of message, intended audience of message

Question 10

Source characteristics

Answer 10

Attractiveness of person delivering message
Credibility of person delivering message
Certainty (confidence) of person delivering message

Question 11

Attractiveness

Answer 11

-attractive communicators can promote attitude change through peripheral route
-attractive sources are particularly persuasive when message isn’t personally important to those hearing it and when those people don’t have much knowledge in the domain
-attractive sources can lead to persuasion through central route by increasing favourability of people’s effortful thinking about position being endorsed for example

Question 12

Credibility

Answer 12

-credible sources: are expert and trustworthy -advertisers take advantage of those
-credibility alone can sway opinions under circumstances that promote peripheral route of persuasion
-when using central route and are highly motivated and able to think carefully, sourced credibility can be taken as a strong argument in favour of moving toward position credible source is endorsing
-highly credible source linked to weak message? - weakness of message hurts persuasion initially but message can get dissociated from credible source over times so that persuasion is ultimately effective in long run solely because of sources credibility - the sleeper effect (get delayed persuasion by credible sourced who is initially linked to weak message, but down the road is dissociated from it)

Question 13

Hovland and Weiss study: nuclear submarine study

Answer 13

-rated likelihood that nuclear submarine would be built in near future, 5 days later participants read essay about imminence of nuclear submarines and were told essay was written by highly credible physicist or non-credible journalist even thought content of essay was the same
-4 weeks later participants who read essay by non-credible writer shifted attitudes toward position he advocated (sleeper effect - messages from unreliable sources have very little influence initially, but over time have potential to shift attitudes)

Question 14

Certainty

Answer 14

-expresses views with certainty and confidence - these sources tend to be more persuasive because people generally judge certain and confident sources to be more credible and source credibility is persuasive
-research in real-world contexts supports this idea
-study of jurors shows that people judge how credible eyewitnesses are based on confidence they express when given testimony - true despite fact that actual association between eyewitness confidence and accuracy is rather weak

Question 15

Message Characteristics

Answer 15

What are message characteristics that make persuasive appeal most effective - depends on audiences motivation and ability to process message
-characteristics: message quality, vividness, fear, culture

Question 16

Message quality

Answer 16

-high quality messages more persuasive in genera, especially for those with strong motivation and ability
-are of higher quality when they appeal to core values of audience, when they’re straightforward, clear, and logical and when they articulate desirable consequences of taking actions suggested by message
-more attitude change if conclusions are explicit in message
-also more persuasive when sources argue against their own interest (message and source are seen as more sincere)

Question 17

Vividness

Answer 17

-when message is colourful, interesting, and memorable, its more effective
-vivid but misleading info can trump more valid and relevant info that isn’t flashy
-vivid images abound in media is evident in identifiable victim effect (tendency to be more moved by vivid plight of a single individual than by a more abstract number of people)
-vivid flesh and blood victims more powerful sources of persuasion than abstract stats
-recognizable victims more apt to elicit feelings of empathy, thereby leading to willingness to donate to worthy cause
- limitations of identifiable victim effect: in cases where its possible to blame victim for their plight, making person identifiable can breed negative perceptions of victim and decrease rather than increase aid

Question 18

Hamill, Wilson, and Nisbett study: welfare

Answer 18

-attitudes toward welfare
-one condition - p’s read vivid story about woman who was a lifetime welfare recipient, story based on one that former US president Ronald Reagan told about a welfare queen: lifetime recipient of welfare who exploited system to enjoy life of comfort and leisure
-another condition: P’s read facts about welfare
3rd condition: participants read both: in this condition it should have been clear that case was not typical to welfare recipients in general
-which message led more to attitude change - participants changed attitudes more with vivid story even when they had the cold statistics - facts do little to alter attitudes

Question 19

Fear

Answer 19

ELM on fear: 2 competing notions on fear and persuasion
-intense fear could script careful thought processing of message, thus reducing changes of long-lasting attitudinal change
-could also have the right kind of fear that will heighten people’s motivation to attend to message, thus increasing likelihood of enduring attitude change
-should make ad campaigns frightening but have clear concrete info about steps to take to address source of fear

Question 20

Leventhal study: Smoking

Answer 20

-tried to change smoking habits of people
-showed participants a graphic film of effects of lung cancer
-gave other participants a pamphlet with instructions about how to quit smoking
-third group saw film and read pamphlet
-those who saw film reduced smoking more than those who just read instructions (fear was persuasive)
-participants exposed to both film and pamphlet decreased smoking the most
-fear-eliciting persuasive messages that provide info that can be acted on can be highly effective

Question 21

Culture

Answer 21

-important to tailor messages that fit norms, values, and outlook of cultural group of your audience
-message content in media of independent and interdependent cultures differs substantially

Question 22

Han and Shayvitt study: magazine ads

Answer 22

-analyze ads in American and Korean magazines
-American ads emphasized benefits to individual whereas Korean ads focus on benefits to collectives
-individual oriented ads more effective with American participants and collective oriented ads more effective with Korean Participants
-persuasive messages that appeal to independence may be more effective for higher-class individuals - messages of interdependence for lower-class individuals

Question 23

Uskul, Sherman, and Fitzgibbon study: Flossing

Answer 23

-had P’s from Britain and East Asia
-were shown persuasive appeal about importance of flossing one’s teeth
-appeal was framed in terms of benefits of flossing or causes of not flossing
-British participants were more persuaded by gain-framed message, east-asians by loss-framed message

Question 24

Audience Characteristics

Answer 24

-important to match characteristics of persuasive message to intended audience - range of audience characteristics can influence whether persuasive message is likely to be effective
-characteristics: need for cognition, mood, age

Question 25

Need for Cognition

Answer 25

-degree to which individuals like to think deeply about things
-strong need for cognition - individuals who like to consider multiple perspectives on issues
-weaker need for cognition - don’t find thought and contemplation fun
-people with high need for cognition are more persuaded by high quality arguments and are relatively unmoved by peripheral cues of persuasion
-people with lower need for cognition are persuaded more by easier-to-process, peripheral cues

Question 26

Mood

Answer 26

-people exposed to persuasive messages while eating or listening to beautiful music are more apt to change their attitudes
-persuasive efforts tend to be successful when mood of message matches mood of audience (more pessimistic counterattitudinal messages tend to prompt greater message processing in sad or depressed people) - uplifting, optimistic, pro-attitudinal messages prompt greater message processing in happy people
-inducing people to feel guilt can increase compliance to persuasive appeal - does so as long as the communication offers people a way to alleviate some of their guilt

Question 27

Age

Answer 27

-younger people - more apt to be persuaded by messages - are quite malleable when it comes to political allegiances
-age example in real world - children in legal cases - child abuse cases - how seriously courts should consider testimony of young children is a major issue in light of fact that their attitudes can be readily altered by clever attorneys interested in winning case, not at getting truth
-advertising directed at children is an issue

Question 28

Self-validation hypothesis

Answer 28

Feeling confident about our thoughts validates those thoughts, making it more likely that we’ll be swayed in their direction
-if we doubt thoughts - may disregard them or even endorse an opposing attitude
-have greater confidence and are more apt to be persuaded when we perceive our thoughts to be easily brought to mind, accurate, and clear

Question 29

Petty study: comprehensive exam study )persuasive message)

Answer 29

-P’s read persuasive message in favour of new campus policy requiring seniors to take comprehensive exam before graduation - recorded whether thoughts in response to message were favourable or unfavourable
-participant were led to feel confidence or doubt by recalling a situation in the past when they had experienced either confidence or doubt
-confidence and favourable thoughts about comprehensive exam reported more favourable attitudes toward the issue (were more persuaded) than those with unfavourable thoughts about the exam
-when doubt was recalled - attitudes toward comprehensive exam were not predicted by favourability or unfavourability off their thoughts about exam - didn’t rely on their thoughts to come up with their attitudes toward exam (those thoughts were shrouded by doubt)
-favourability or unfavourability of one’s thoughts influenced persuasion only when associated with feelings of confidence

Question 30

Embodiment and Confidence

Answer 30

Confidence level about thoughts we have in response to persuasive appeal can also come from nonverbal sources (posture we have or our tone) - attitudes can be partly embodied
-nodding and speaking head study - idea behind research is that nodding and shaking head can affect attitudes because they are peripheral cues of agreement and disagreement
-self-validation theory suggests bodily movements can signal varying degrees of thought confidence and its this confidence that determines whether persuasion occurs

Question 31

Brinol and Petty study: headphone study

Answer 31

-listen to strong or weak arguments in favour of headphones while nodding or shaking heads
-nodding while listening to strong arguments led to greater confidence in most favourable thoughts participants generated, leading to more favourable attitudes toward headphones
-weak argument condition, students who nodded heads were less persuaded than those who shook their heads side to side - self-validation hypothesis accounts for counterintuitive finding: nodding led students to feel greater confidence in unfavourable thoughts they had in response to weak arguments they listened to, leading them to feel less favourable toward headphones

Question 32

Agenda control - media

Answer 32

Media of all types substantially contributing to shaping the information we think is broadly true and important - eg. Prominence given to certain issues in news media is correlated with public’s perception that these issues are important

Question 33

Iyengar and Kinder study

Answer 33

In 3 conditions individuals saw 0, 3, and 6 stories about US dependence on foreign energy sources
-when exposed to no news, 24% of viewers cited energy as one of 3 most important problems facing country, percentage rose to 50% for those who saw 3 stories, and 65% for those who saw 6

Question 34

Hostile Media Phenomenon

Answer 34

Media are ideologically biased regularly leading to the publication of best-selling books that appeal to liberals and conservatives alike

Question 35

Gerbner and colleagues study: agenda control through tv programs

Answer 35

-explored agenda control thesis by coding content of TV programs and looking at attitudes of heavy TV viewers
-world depicted on most TV shows scarcely resembles social reality
-ethnic minorities, young children, and older adults are also underrepresented
-crime is wildly more relevant per unit of time on tv than in the average American’s real life
-heavy tv-viewers - those who watch 5 hours or more per day - construe social reality much like the reality they see on screen - tend to endorse more racially prejudiced attitudes, assume women have more limited abilities than men, and overestimate prevalence of violent crime
-findings could be result of self-selection: perhaps more prejudiced, cynical, and uninformed people watch more TV in the first place

Question 36

Resistance to Persuasion

Answer 36

Happens partially because of many important principles in social psychology: the influence of our perceptual biases, previous commitments, and prior knowledge
-serves as source of independent thought and significant forces of resistance in the face of persuasive attempts

Question 37

Selective attention

Answer 37

Selectively paying attention to info that conforms to original attitudes - tune into info that reinforces our attitudes and tune out info that contradicts them

Question 38

Kleinhesselink and Edwards study: marijuana

Answer 38

-had P’s who supported or opposed legalization of week listen to message that advocated legalization
-heard 7 strong and 7 weak arguments
-7 were strong and difficult to refute (appealed to pro-legalization students)
-7 were weak and silly arguments - easy to refute (appealed to anti-legalization students)
-heard message through headphones with constant static buzz - could press a button to eliminate buzz for 5 seconds whenever
-pro-legalization - pressed button to hear clearly during strong arguments
-anti-legalization - pressed button to hear clearly during weak arguments (wanted to be able to hear weakness in pro-argument)
-this is selective attention

Question 39

Selective framing (alike selective evaluation)

Answer 39

Frames issues in a selective manner - eg. If in favour of gun control will say guns are the main reason for gun-related deaths, people opposed to gun control frame problem in terms of those who shoot guns
-selective evaluation extends to evidence that violates cherished beliefs about one’s personal health - patients who receive unhealthy diagnoses are more likely to downplay seriousness of diagnoses and validity of test that produced it

Question 40

Ditto and Lopez study: fictitious medical condition

Answer 40

-administered test for ficticious medical condition
-put saliva on yellow paper and observe whether their is colour change in next 20 seconds
-deficiency condition: told if paper remained yellow they had the medical condition
-non-deficiency condition: if paper turned dark green, no medical condition (paper stayed yellow through entire study)
-P’s in deficiency condition were motivated to see paper change colour and should be disturbed by evidence in front of them (paper staying yellow) - these participants stared at paper for 30 seconds longer than those who got more favourable evidence and decided test was finished

Question 41

Teaser (genetic basis of attitudes)

Answer 41

-found that opinions and beliefs are partly inherited
-looked at identical and fraternal twins (100% and 50% of same genes respectively) - identical twins attitudes more similar than fraternal twins
-true for opinions on things like death penalty, jazz, censorship, divorce, and socialism
-found more heritable attitudes were also more accessible, less susceptible to persuasion, and more predictive of feelings of attraction to stranger with similar attitudes
-hereditary transmission must occur through some element of temperament such as impulsivity, a pressure for risk taking, or a distaste for novelty
-more recent research: genes account for politically relevant attitudes and also for political participation

Question 42

Public commitments to attitudes

Answer 42

Public commitments to attitudes make people resist subsequent counterattitudinal messages than control participants
-hard to back down from endorsements without losing face even if evidence is presented against the position
-public commitments also engage us in more extensive thoughts about a particular issue which tends to produce more extreme entrenched attitudes
-the thought polarization hypothesis: more extended thought about particular issue tends to produce a more extreme entrenched attitude
-caveat: increased thought about an attitude object can lead to more moderate attitudes of people who previously had little motivation to think about issue or little preexisting knowledge about it

Question 43

knowledge and persuasion

Answer 43

-those with more knowledge are more resistant to persuasion: their beliefs and habits are tied up with attitudes and their point of view tends to be fixed

Question 44

Wood’s study: environmental preservation

Answer 44

Had students in 2 groups: those who were pro-preservation and knew a lot about subject and those who knew less about subject but were also for it
-exposed both groups to message opposing environmental preservation
-those with a lot of knowledge changed stance only a little
-less knowledgeable students shifted attitudes considerably toward anti-preservation message
-lack of knowledge makes some sway their attitudes and change them

Question 45

Attitude inoculation

Answer 45

Small attacks on our beliefs that would engage our preexisting attitudes, prior commitments, and background knowledge and thereby counteract larger attack