Lecture 5 - Personal Persuasion

Question 1

(lecture):

The Yale Method (Hovland & Weiss, 1951).

Describe the source attractiveness conditions under which people are most likely to change attitudes in response to persuasive message.

Answer 1

(lecture):

Source of communication:

Attractiveness

• Celebrity advocates for products or causes
• ‘halo effect’ transference (Chaiken, 1980)
• Most effective when not personally important (hair vitamins vs. cancer treatment)
• Likely to be fast (System I) processing

Question 2

(lecture):

The Yale Method (Hovland & Weiss, 1951).

Describe the source certainty conditions under which people are most likely to change attitudes in response to persuasive message.

Answer 2

(lecture):

Source of communication:

Certainty

• greater persuasion if “Best Italian meal I’ve ever had” – don’t damn with faint praise
• Expressed with maximum
  confidence – Akhtar & Wheeler, 2016)
• Witness testimony expressed with maximum confidence impact on juries (Wells, Feguson and Lindsay, 1981), even though no more
  accurate (Kassin 1985)
• Financial advisers who express confidence in forecasts more effective in influencing clients (Price & Stone, 2004)

Question 3

(lecture):

The Yale Method (Hovland & Weiss, 1951).

Describe the source power conditions under which people are most likely to change attitudes in response to persuasive message.

Answer 3

(lecture):

Source of communication:

Power of source

French & Raven’s 1959 Sources of Power:

• Reward / Coercive: having the power to give you what you want or take it away.
• Expert: If you have no knowledge in what someone is talking about, you are likely to just go along with it and believe them.
• Information: Educate with an argument.
• Legitimate: Doctor, professor, etc.?
• Referent: Is it something that you can relate to that you want.

Question 4

(lecture):

The Yale Method (Hovland & Weiss, 1951).

Describe the argument quality conditions under which people are most likely to change attitudes in response to persuasive message.

Answer 4

(lecture):

Quality of communication:

Quality

• Appeal to core values/motivations (Cacioppo, Petty & Sider, 1982)
• Clear and logical, with clarity of consequences for desired actions (Chaiken & Eagly, 1976)
• Explicit conclusion “here’s the takeaway message” (Hovland et al., 1949) that addresses counter arguments (Cacioppo, Petty & Sidera, 1987)
• Argue against own self interest (Walster, Arronson & Abrahams, 1966), e.g., prisoners arguing in favor of longer prison sentences.

Question 5

(lecture):

The Yale Method (Hovland & Weiss, 1951).

Describe the vividness of argument conditions under which people are most likely to change attitudes in response to persuasive message.

Answer 5

(lecture):

Quality of communication:

Vividness of argument

• Vividness: colorful, interesting, memorable - emotionally salient.
• Narrative: “Welfare queens” study (Hamill, Wilson & Nisbett, 1980) engaging story over facts regarding deservingness of welfare recipients.
• Identifiable victim effect: people downplay statistics (Collins et all, 1988) especially for donation.

“The death of a single Russian soldier is a tragedy. The death of a million soldiers is a statistic.”

Question 6

(lecture):

The Yale Method (Hovland & Weiss, 1951).

Describe the target audience conditions under which people are most likely to change attitudes in response to persuasive message.

Answer 6

(lecture):

Target Audience:

Hostile/friendly to the expressed point of view

Question 7

(lecture):

What is peripheral personal persuasion?

Answer 7

(lecture):

Peripheral (System I – Fast and Focused): reliance on surface characteristics of arguments

– heuristics, biases e.g., expertise, attractiveness, consensus
• automatic processing
– reinforces existing expectations

Question 8

(lecture):

What is central personal persuasion?

Answer 8

(lecture):

• Central (System II – Slow and Broad): motivation and ability to exert effortful attention and cognition to the arguments

• ‘elaborate’ information with careful and deliberate thought.
• – controlled processing

What determines central route (System II)?

• Interest/motivation: ‘importance’ is self relevance bears on personal goals, interests, well-being
• When personally relevant, more influenced by sound arguments (e.g., logical and valid).
• When not relevant, pay less attention to argument strength, and rely more on heuristics (e.g., expertise/power).

Question 9

(lecture):

What is selective attention?

Answer 9

(lecture):

Selective Attention

(Eagly & Chaiken, 1998),
Hart et al., 2009,
Sweeney and Gruber,
1984):

“Actively attend to information that confirms attitudes and filter out information that defies them.”
(System I)

Question 10

(lecture):

What is selective evaluation?

Answer 10

(lecture):

Selective Evaluation:

we evaluate the soundness of arguments and credibility of sources in ways that support existing beliefs and values
(Kahan, 2012)

-someone who thinks climate change is exaggerated will be more likely to see flaws in individuals and arguments that advocates urgent steps to reduce warmings than those who believe climate change is defining issue of our times.

Question 11

Read all of the relevant powerpoint, a few slides missed but they’re not hard to understand.

Answer 11

Make notes if you feel like it