Persuasion Flashcards
what is cognitive dissonance theory?
an unpleasant psychological state which occurs when people notice that their attitudes and behaviours are inconsistent with each other
how do people deal with cognitive dissonance?
they change the way they think (their attitude)
women who rated two household products similarly and asked to choose one, devalued the one they did not choose
what did Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) find out about cognitive dissonance?
they got participants to engage in a boring task, the participants were then asked to describe the experiment as enjoyable to the next participant
they were given $1, $20 or $0 to do this
participants in the $1 condition described the experiment as more enjoyable, and to do this they changed their attitude of the experiment to align with their behaviour 9telling others)
participants in the $20 condition attributed their behaviour to the reward
How does hypocrisy change behaviour?
participants were split into 4 groups. one group was asked to make a video advocating using condoms as well as being reminded of their past failures, another group were inly asked to make a video, another were reminded or their failing and another only got information
the participants in the hypocrisy condition were more likely to buy condoms at the end of the study
when does persuasion work?
yale approach
1) the source (who) - must be attractive, likeable, similar to you and perceived as credible
2) The message - mindful of the length, the consistency and repetition
3) The target audience - gender, age, mood
Is fear arousal effective for persuading?
controversial, if something is highly fear arousaling it could cause people to discount the message, especially if it threatens someones self worth
(e.g. saying something is dangerous implies that the person is immoral and irresponsible)
people says that fear arousing can lead to defensiveness
How to exploit fear arousal and make it effective …
- use a moderate amount of fear (inverted U curve)
- present the message with a concrete solution (if no solution then people become denial)
- and self-affirmation
What is self-affirmation theory?
the theory state that people are motivated to protect their self-worth and integrity
how can self-affirmation reduce defensiveness?
Harris et al 2007
Harris et al manipulated self-affirmation
got a sample of their smokers to reflect on their values and desirable characteristic
showed graphic anti-smoking images and the participants were asked to rate how self-relevant and threatening they were
smokes who didn’t reflect found them as threatening and self-relevant as non-smokers
those who did reflect were keener to cut down after viewing the images
How can priming affect persuasion
goal relevance
the effect of subliminal priming varies as a function of your current state
participants were given salty sweet to induce thirst
half of the participants were primes for lipton ice tea and the other for a control non-word.
Priming was effective for those in the thirsty condition as they chose to drink lipton ice teas
how subliminal priming may work
…
1) automatic positive evaluation of prime - the goal is associated with evaluation of the object
2) source familiarity - priming may increase temporary feelings of familiarity and people may misattribute this feeling with thinking that it is the ‘right’ choice
what is the elaboration likelihood model?
HOW PEOPLE ARE PERSUADED
people process messages via one of two rotes. which route they take depends on how they engage with the argument
1) when people think carefully about an argument they attend to its central cues (scientific arguement) and have been persauded by the central route
2) when people are persuaded by the more superficial aspects they are attending to the peripheral cues and have been persuaded but the peripheral route
what factors determine what processing route is used?
either peripheral or central
1) motivation - the persons involvement with the topic and also their need for cognition (wanting a challenge)
2) ability - expertise in an area, the difficulty of the message
- Distraction, if you are more distracted then more likely to be persuaded by the peripheral cues
