Persuasion Flashcards

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1
Q

What is persuasion?

A

The process of changing a person’s or groups attitudes, beliefs or behaviours

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2
Q

Who and influences

A

Who is the source of the message?

Characteristics of the source:
- Expertise,
- Physical attractiveness
- Verbal skills (inspirational communication)
- Familiarity
- Percieved status - power
- Trust
- Likability/ popularity

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3
Q

What

and influencing factors

A

What argument/ message is being made?

Influencing factors:
- Type of appeal - emotional or rational
- Order of arguments (primacy and recency)
- One or two-sided argument
- Speech rate
- Percieved manipulation
- Fear factor

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4
Q

Linguistic markers of powerlessness

A
  • Hedges - words and phrases that express uncertainty and ambiguity (e.g. ‘I think’)
  • Tag questions - questions the statement (e.g. ‘Don’t you?’)
  • Hesitations - prolonged speech, taking breaks (gives speaker poor credibility - don’t know what they’re talking about)
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5
Q

To whom

A

Who are we sending the message to?

Tailor the message and medium to different audiences

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6
Q

Influences for how a message is recieved

A
  • Self-esteem - low self-esteem = more easily influenced (doubt themselves)
    (Self monitor- awareness of own behaviour and its impact)
  • High self monitor - persuaded by more attractive people
  • Low self monitor - more influenced by experts
  • Age - younger people more easily persuaded
  • Attention - are people paying attention to the message (simpler messages are easier)
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7
Q

How

A

How are we saying the message?

Medium conveying the message: Soeech, advert, social media, etc..

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8
Q

Four steps of persuasion

A
  1. Attention - people need to pay attention to understand the message
  2. Comprehension - do people understand the message (think of different beliefs, cultures and IQ)
  3. Acceptance - do they accept the message (does it dit with their own beliefs
  4. Retention - Is the message retained
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9
Q

Lukin et al. (2017)

Audience effects of persuasion

A
  • People who are more Open are typically more receptive to new ideas
  • Agreeable people are more motivated to change beliefs by emotional arguments
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10
Q

Conway and Dubé (2002)

Audeince effects of persuasion

A

Humour appeals were more effective for high-masculinity individuals

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11
Q

The fear factor

A

Fear appeal = threat appraisal + coping appraisal
- Are they challenged by the threat?
- Do they have the resources and ability to cope with the threat?

Appeals combine info that is fear-arousing with information that provokes a sense of personal vulnerability to the illness threat
- e.g. a health risk must not only have serious consequences but the individual must also feel personally at risk

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12
Q

Fear (Hoog et al., 2007)

A

Argument quality and severity of health threat are most important factors for threat appraisal
- not personal vulnerability

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13
Q

Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)

Petty & Cacciopo (1986)

A

Persuasion as a cognitive process - use mental processes of motivation and reasoning
Persuasion depends on the way the receiver makes sense of the message

Two possible routes of influence: Central and peripheral

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14
Q

The central route to persuasion

A

Focus is on the message and argument
- Strong and compelling
- Rational argument
- Evidence to support message
- Lots of information

However, audience must by highly motivated nd have the ability to process the information given

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15
Q

The peripheral route to persuasion

A

Incidental cues are the main influence
Peripheral messages rely on receiver’s emotional involvement to achieve persuasion
- Peripheral characteristics (e.g. attractiveness)
- When people are distracted or not paying more attention they lean towards peripheral cues - requires less thinking

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16
Q

6 factors of persuasion (Cialdini, 1984)

Peripheral cues

A
  1. Authority - position of authority to influence
  2. Commitment - to group (e.g. political party)
  3. Liking - Do we like the person? → Adverts use celebrities to sell products
  4. Reciprocation - What do we get for believing in your message
  5. Scarcity - The smaller the amount of something the more valuable
  6. Social Proof - Peer influence, social pressure
17
Q

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

(Festinger, 1957)

A

A state of psychological tension that is produced by having two opposing cognitions at the same time
- People are motivated to reduce tension by rejecting one of the cognitions
- People either change their behaviours and beliefs or justify and rationalise them

18
Q

Cognitive dissonance and persuasion

A

Create dissonance while offering a solution to minimise the disparity
- Solution is more likely to be adopted as it provides an easy solution to reduces tension

19
Q

Cognitive dissonance and culture

A

Collectivist cultures: More sensitive to social role requirememts, so attribute cognitive disturbances to a situation or external factors - less cognitive dissonance
Individualist cultures: More influenced by internal attributes

20
Q

Research Paradigms in Dissonance

What dissonance is created and how people deal with it

A
  1. The Free-Choice Paradigm
  2. The Belief-Disconfirmation Paradigm
  3. The Effort-Justification Paradigm
21
Q

The Effort-Justification Paradigm

A

Effort justification is people’s tendency to attribute a greater value to an outcome they had to put effort into acquiring or achieving.
- The dissonance for amount of effort is reduced if the desirable outcome is exaggerated

22
Q

The Belief-Disconfirmation Paradigm

A

When people are exposed to information that is inconsistent with their beliefs, it can arouse dissonance

If dissonance is not reduced by changing ones belief → the dissonance can lead to misperception, misinterpretation and rejection of the information