Lecture 4 - Persuasive Communication Flashcards
What is the main goal of persuasive communication in psychology?
- Influencing attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours through various psychological processes, such as motivation, attention, cognition, and emotion
- These factors contribute to a unified system of “autopilot attitude maintenance”, which helps individuals resist attitude-conflicting information unless forced to pay attention to it
What is meant by “autopilot attitude maintenance”?
- The psychological system’s tendency to automatically maintain existing attitudes and avoid cognitive conflict
- This is because people generally want their experiences to match with their expectations and resist information that contradicts their beliefs
- When forced to engage with conflicting information, more thoughtful cognitive systems are activated
How do motivation, attention, cognition, and emotion contribute to the persuasive system?
These four elements create a unified system that governs how we respond to persuasive messages:
- Motivation: Dries individuals to engage with persuasive communication
- Attention: Determines whether conflicting information is noticed or ignored
- Cognitive: Involves the mental processes used interpret and integrate information
- Emotion: Can activate automatic responses (System 1) or provoke deeper processing (System 2), influencing whether persuasion is successful
What are the mental models and how do they evolve from infancy to adulthood?
- Mental models are internal representations or expectations of how the world works, which are shaped by experiences and influence how we process information
- Mental models as infants: Simple expectations like “objects still exist even when I cant see them” (Piaget) or “I can securely attach to my caregivers” (Bowlby)
- Mental models as adults: More complex models like ideological expectations (e.g., political ideologies), moral expectations (e.g., beliefs about right and wrong), and self-expectations (e.g., self-worth, identity). These models guide behaviour and influence persuasion efforts
How does expectancy fulfilment impact persuasion?
- The persuasion system is driven by the monitoring of the expectancy fulfilment
- People expect their experiences to align with their beliefs about knowledge, values, and the self
- When information conflicts with these expectations, it leads to cognitive conflict, which can trigger System 2 thinking
- This cognitive arousal may motivate individuals to engage in deeper processing to restore consistency in their beliefs
What are the neurological and cognitive responses to information that violates expectations?
- Neurological response: The brain reacts to expectancy violations with surprise-related activity, like N1 and N2 waves, which indicate that the individual is processing the inconsistency
- Cognitive response: Individuals tend to re-interpret or downplay conflicting information to make it more it more consistent with their pre-existing beliefs. This is known as selective exposure, selective processing, and selective memory (or mnemic neglect)
What are selective exposure, selective processing, and selective memory in the context of persuasion?
These mechanisms help people avoid cognitive dissonance by minimising the impact of conflicting information:
- Selective exposure: Choosing to avoid information that contradicts existing beliefs
- Selective processing: Minimising cognitive engagement with conflicting information
- Selective memory (Mnemic neglect): Forgetting or downplaying the importance of contradictory information
What is the difference between System 1 and System 2 thinking?
System 1: Fast, automatic, intuitive, and emotional thinking that relies on heuristics, stereotypes, and associations. It is top-down, goal-driven, and works quickly. It is activated when people are in a positive mood and focus on gaining rewards. It operates the peripheral route of persuasion
- System 2: Slow, deliberate, effortful, and logical thinking that uses bottom-up procedural reasoning. It is activated when people need to avoid losses or are in a negative mood. This system involves deep cognitive processing, critical thinking, and bias correction, and is part of the central route of persuasion
How does persuasive communication trigger System 1 and System 2 thinking?
- System 1 thinking is reinforced through persuasive techniques that match existing beliefs, are emotionally appealing, and require little cognitive effort
- System 2 thinking is activated when the message challenges existing beliefs, evokes negative emotions. or presents relevant and complex information that requires deeper processing
- Persuasive messages often aim to either reinforce (keep System 1 engaged) or challenge (trigger System 2) a person’s worldview
What factors can engage System 2 thinking and increase the likelihood of persuasion?
- Negative emotions (which trigger deeper cognitive processing)
- Adequate motivation and the opportunity to think critically about the information
- Personal relevance: The more personally relevant an issue, the more likely System 2 will be engaged
- Need for cognition: Individuals who enjoy thinking analytically are more likely to engage System 2
- A confident source: A credible, authoritative voice can encourage individuals to engage in System 2 processing
How do persuasive strategies use System 1 and System 2 for different outcomes?
- System 1 persuasion: Persuasive strategies challenge existing beliefs by presenting complex, counter-attitudinal arguments, evoking negative emotions, or making the message personally relevant, requiring deeper cognitive engagement
What role do reinforcement and challenge play in persuasion?
- Reinforce (System 1): Persuasion that supports existing beliefs and attitudes, making them stronger and more resistant to change
- Challenge (System 2): Persuasion that disrupts existing beliefs, provoking deeper cognitive engagement to accommodate new, conflicting information
How do expectancy violations and cognitive conflict relate to persuasion?
- When information contradicts expectations (an expectancy violation), it creates cognitive conflict, which triggers System 2 thinking
- This conflict drives individuals to engage with the information more deeply to either resolve the inconsistency (by changing their beliefs) or dismiss the information
Summarise the key concepts: mental models, system 1 and 2, expectancy fulfilment, selective mechanisms, cognitive conflict
- Mental models: Internal representations of the world based on past experiences
- System 1: Fast, automatic, emotional, and associative thinking used in the peripheral route of persuasion
- System 2: Slow, deliberate, analytical thinking used in the central route of persuasion
- Expectancy fulfilment: The process of checking if new information aligns with existing expectations, which drives persuasion
- Selective mechanisms: Strategies to minimise cognitive dissonance by avoiding, downplaying, or avoiding contradictory information
- Cognitive conflict/dissonance: The discomfort caused by conflicting information, triggering deeper processing (System 2)
