Persuasian

Question 1

The elaboration likelihood model

Answer 1

Dual-process model
Analytical (bothered to think) & involved (relevant matter)
Audience->processing strategy-> analytical/non analytical

Question 2

Central route

Answer 2

1) analytical
2) interested
3) the way to persuade them is tackling real issue

Question 3

Peripheral route

Answer 3

1) analytic is not analytical
2) disinterested
3) communicator characteristics, emotions & other non issues will persuade you

Question 4

assumption 1; 2 routes of thinking that a person may employ

Answer 4

Route 1; think hard, elaboration
Route 2; not much thinking, no elaboration
Persuasive communication attempt; audience factors (ability & motivation to pay attention?)-> processing approach (If yes, central route)
Central route; think about arguments-> persuasion occurs if compelling arguments-> long lasting & resistant attitude change
Peripheral route; don’t think about argument, respond to superficial cues-> persuasion occurs if compelling cues-> temporary & susceptible attitude change

Question 5

Superficial cues

Answer 5

Credibility; expertise, status, trustworthiness
Attractiveness; not just physically
Similarity; more persuaded by similar people/scenarios
Emotions; sexual attraction, fear
Adverts; arguments vs superficial cues, usually a mixture

Question 6

Assumption 2; situational & personality variables affect which route a person will employ

Answer 6

So people can move between the 2 routes
Central process peripheral processes
Time & space to think properly?
Need for cognition (NFC); personality variable reflecting extent to which people engage in & enjoy effortful cognitive activities
WATT; willingness or ability to think, high WATT processes to low WATT processes
Habit if mind where you enjoy thinking about stuff (high WATT)

Question 7

Need for cognition scale (Cacioppo et al, 1984)

Answer 7

Mock jury research found that those with low NFC are especially prone to getting distracted by peripheral info so fail to assess quality of expert witness arguments (central messages)

Question 8

NFC scale; Salerno et al (2017) method

Answer 8

Mock jury case
Plaintiff claiming workplace chemical exposure
2 competing expert witnesses (plaintiff vs defence)
2 levels of argument quality (weak vs strong science, counterbalanced)
2 types of witness cross-examination (peripheral cues vs peripheral & central cues)
Initial judgement & judged after group meeting

Question 9

NFC scale; Salerno et al (2017) results

Answer 9

Peripheral cues; group discussions made low NFC pp less accurate (peripheral cues obscured argument weaknesses) but made high NFC pp more accurate (bothered to look at argument weaknesses anyway)
Central & peripheral cues; group discussions increased accuracy regardless of NFC

Question 10

Assumption 3; persuasion tools will have different effects depending upon the route of thinking employed

Answer 10

Same variable can affect persuasion via different processes at different levels of EL
low EL->peripheral->cue becomes simple rules/heuristics & emotions
High EL->central->cue becomes part of argument itself, biases processing
Neither low nor high->influence on amount of processing (C or P)->encourages or discourages composer scrutiny

Question 11

Attractiveness cue variability; Shavitt et al (1994)

Answer 11

Manipulated; attractiveness of advert endorser, involvement (will vs won’t get restaurant voucher), central features of product (taste vs aroma vs attractiveness)
When attractiveness=peripheral cue; attractiveness affected evaluation for low involvement via less elaborated processing
Attractiveness=argument; attractiveness affected evaluations for high involvement via more elaborated processing

Question 12

Assumption 4; Change achieved through the central route is more persistent over time, more resistant to change & more predictive of behaviour

Answer 12

Central route; high WATT, influenced by arguments

Peripheral route; low WATT, influenced by cues

Question 13

Horcajo et al (2016) method

Answer 13

Pp national & regional Spanish soccer players
Randomly assigned to a persuasive message either against or in favour of legalisation of several doping behaviours
Read with relatively high or low degrees of deliberate thinking
attitudes & intentions regarding legislation assessed
Pp received 2nd message opposed to 1st one, serving as attack against attitude formed
Attitudes assessed again

Question 14

Horcajo et al (2016) results

Answer 14

Pp showed greater attitude-consistent intentions when they firmed their initial attitudes through thoughtful (high elaboration) rather than non-thoughtful (low elaboration)
2nd message resulted in greater resistant to attitude change when pp formed their initial attitudes through thoughtful processes

Question 15

Heuristic-systematic model (HSM)

Answer 15

Chaiken (1980)
Dual-process model
Developed separately at a similar time to ELM
Systematic processing; thoughtful, deliberate, analytical, effortful etc
Heuristic processing; reliance on simple rules e.g. expert knows best, safety in numbers etc

Question 16

Stroebe (2016); 4 main differences in ELM vs HSM

Answer 16

1) ELM has lots of things at peripheral end whilst HSM has just one thing at end each
2) ELM is a continuum of how much elaboration whilst HSM sees both types of processing happening at same time
Additivity; reinforcement, H & S processing may lead to same conclusion & confidence will be higher than with either technique alone
Bias; HP may generate initial conclusions that bias nature & scope of SP
Attenuation; SP may produce conclusions that limit or overturn those of HP

Question 17

Differences in ELM vs HSM continued; HSM’s sufficiency principle

Answer 17

unique to HSM,
HP may be enough to allow confidence in judgement on trivial issue to surpass sufficiency threshold
in an important issue a person will seek more info to surpass sufficiency threshold, usually via SP

Question 18

Differences in ELM vs HSM continued; motives

Answer 18

In ELM people motivated by just one motive (accuracy motivation)
In HSM, 3 potential motives (accuracy, defence & impression motivation)
Accuracy motivation; being correct->objective & unbiased info processing
Defence motivation->wish to confirm preferred & disconfirm dis-preferred attitudes->biased info processing
Impression motivation; assess social acceptability->select pleasing/appeasing attitudes->biased info processing

Question 19

Critique of the dual-process models

Answer 19

1) Dual-process models of persuasion are hugely popular
2) Unfalsifiable, describes as useless for designing persuasive messages, too vague to study systematically
3) many highly interactive neural systems engaged in info processing, as opposed to only 2 qualitvly distinct processes at work in the human brain (van Bavel et al, 2012)