L5 - Personal Persuasion

Question 1

What is the yale method?

Answer 1

- Used in marketing
- Conditions where people are most likely to change attitudes
- Source of communication e.g attractive/charismatic
- Quality of communication: quality of argument
- Target audience: hostile/friendly to expressed POV

Question 2

Describe source attractiveness in persuasion?

Answer 2

- Celebrity advocates for cause
- Halo effect
- Most effective when not personally important e.g hair treatment vs cancer
- System 1 processing

Question 3

Describe source certainty in persuasion?

Answer 3

- No faint praise e.g best thing you’ve experienced
- Spoken with max. confidence
- Study found that witness testimony expressed with max confidence had a greater impact on juries even if not more accurate
- Financial advisers who are more confident in forecasts are more effective in influencing clients e.g refuse to admit they were wrong in 2008

Question 4

What are French&Raven's sources of power? (CRIER L)

Answer 4

- Reward: authority gives
- Coercive
- Expert
- Information: if they know a lot about x, maybe they know a lot about y
- Legitimate: institutions and their symbols e.g professors = knowledgable
- Referent: higher status but like you, e.g influencers who humanise themselves

Question 5

What is personal persuasion determined by?
(MACE)

Answer 5

- Motivation
- Attention
- Cognition
- Emotion

Question 6

Describe argument quality in persuasion?

Answer 6

- Appealing to core values/motivations
- Clear and logical with clarity of consequences for actions
- Explicit conclusion that addresses counter arguments
- Argue against self-interest

Question 7

Describe argument vividness in persuasion?

Answer 7

- Interesting
- Emotionally salient
- Via narrative = e.g engaging story over facts regarding deservingness of welfare recipients
- Identifiable victim effect: people downplay stats

Question 8

What is the Elaboration Likelihood Model?

Answer 8

- Peripheral: system 1 - relies on surface characteristics of arguments, runs on biases, automatic and reinforces expectations
- Quality of Comm: number & length of arguments
- Source: credibility/attractiveness/expertise
- Target: appearance of consensus

- Central: system 2 - motivation and ability to exert effortful attention and cognition to arguments
- Controlled processing
- Quality: Focus on logic/strength of argument , deliberation needed, bringing existing world view to evaluate message.
- Central means more likely to behave consistently with attitudes

Question 9

What determines central route?

Answer 9

- Motivation: importance is self relevance bears on personal well being
- When personally relevant, they are more influenced by sound arguments
- When not relevant, they pass less attention to argument strength and rely more on heuristics

Question 10

What was an experiment to see motivation for persuasion?

Answer 10

- Uni students were told unis will have an exam for graduations in either 1 year or 10 years
- Given either strong/weak arguments
- Made by eminent prof or student
- High relevance condition = greater agreement if strong argument regardless of source
- Low relevance condition = greater agreement if expert, with more agreement if strong argument

Question 11

What is selective attention?

Answer 11

- Actively attend to info that confirms attitudes and filter out info that defies them.

Question 12

Study of selective attention:

Answer 12

- Pro/Anti marijuana
- 7 strong arguments & 7 weak arguments
- Told to wear headphones with static and to move wire to clear static
- Pro arguers wanted to hear strong argument more, Anti arguers wanted to hear weak buttons more
- Both wanted positions reinforced = shows motivation and deliberate attention

Question 13

How is selective attention in the modern world?

Answer 13

- Consume media that validates existing attitudes via algorithms
- Selective evaluation: evaluate soundness that support worldview

Question 14

What is the role of cognition in persuasion?

Answer 14

- Ability to pay attention & evaluate
- Insufficient cog resources and knowledge
- Info presented too fast/difficult to comprehend

Question 15

What is an example of the cognition in persuasion?

Answer 15

- Jurors in a case where toxic thing might caused illness
- Expert either has prestigious degree and lots of articles or has a few articles and obscure degree
- Testimony is either easy to understand/complex
- Easy evidence = focus on argument instead of credentials = system 2
- Hard evidence = focus on credentials = system 1

Question 16

What is the role of emotion in persuasion?

Answer 16

- The heuristic-systematic model of persuasion: systematically processing the merits of the argument or using mental shortcuts to cause attitude change
- Mood as heuristic cue to system 1/2
- Affect as Info

Question 17

Describe how moods cause system 1/2:

Answer 17

- Good mood = safe & use heuristics = no need for central processing = efficient
- Persuaded by weak messages by attractive sources, but strong when sad
- Persuasion works when object is also emotional e.g cant persuade people to buy a coffee machine
- Bad mood = threat, can not rely on heuristics = need central processing
- Negative mood used to alter health attitudes
- Fear alone does not work
- Extreme fear incites defensive reactions & selective attention blocks it out

Question 18

Study that shows emotion in persuasion:

Answer 18

- Moderate fear & clear that info that message will counter fear consequences leads to central processing
- Graphic film of cancer AND OR pamphlet on quitting smoking
- Smoking reduces most with film and pamphlets, pamphlet alone is least effective as film gives strategies given for help. Pamphlet induces defensiveness