Persuasion and Attitude Change

Question 1

Attitude Change definition

Answer 1

• any significant modification of an individuals attitude

- persuasion process involves the communicator, communication, the medium used and the characteristics of the audience.

Question 2

the two parts of attitude change

Answer 2

• people use arguments to convince others a change of mind or behavior is needed
• getting people in a way in order to change their underlying attitudes

Question 3

cognitive dissonance

Answer 3

• state of psychological tension produced by two different cognitions that stand in contrast to one another
• people are motivated to reduce the tension by changing or rejecting one of the cognitions

-> we seek for harmony in our attitudes

Question 4

Persuasive (überzeugende) communication

Answer 4

message that intends to change an attitude and relates behavior of an audience

Question 5

Third person effect

Answer 5

most people think that they are less likely to be influenced than others by advertisement

Question 6

Sleeper effect

Answer 6

phenomenon were some messages gain impact after the passage of time

Question 7

Elaboration Likelihood model

Answer 7

Petty and Cacioppo’s model of attitude change; when people attend to a message carefully, they use a central route to process it; otherwise they use a peripheral route.

Question 8

Heuristic- system model

Answer 8

Chaiken’s model of attitude change, when people attend to a message carefully, they use systematic processing; otherwise they process information by using heuristics or mental shortcuts
-> method competes with Elaboration Likelihood model

Question 9

Compliance

Answer 9

superficial, public and transitory change in behavior and expressed attitudes in response to requests, coercion or group pressure

Question 10

ways to induce another person to comply with our requests

Answer 10

1 Ingratitation : strategic attempt (Versuch) to get someone to like you in order to obtain compliance with a request
2 reciprocity : ‘’ law of doing unto others what they do to you’’
3 guilt arousal

Question 11

multiple request technique

Answer 11

tactics for gaining compliance using a two-step procedure: the first request functions as a set-up for the second, real request

Question 12

Cognitive Consistency Theory

Answer 12

a group of attitude theories stressing that people try to maintain internal consistency, order, and agreement among their various cognitions

Question 13

Effort Justification

Answer 13

A special case of cognitive dissonance : inconsistency is experienced when a person makes a considerable effort to achieve a modest (bescheiden) goal

Question 14

Induced Compliance

Answer 14

inconsistency is experienced when a person is persuaded to behave in a way that is contrary to an attitude

Question 15

Post-decisional conflict

Answer 15

the dissonance associated with behaving in a counter-attitudinal way. Dissonance can be reduced by bringing the attitude into line with behavior

Question 16

Self-affirmation theory

Answer 16

theory that people reduce the impact of threat to their self-concept by focusing on and affirming their competence in some other area

Question 17

Reactance ( Abwehrreaktion)

Answer 17

Brahms theory that people try to protect their freedom to act. When they perceive (empfinden) that this freedom has been curtailed (eingeschränkt) , they will act to regain it

Question 18

Foot-in-the-door tactic

Answer 18

builds on the assumption that if someone agrees to a small request they will be more willing to comply with a later large request

Question 19

Door in the face tactic

Answer 19

P asks O for large favor -> O declines -> P asks O for smaller favour - Ps first goal

Question 20

Low-ball

Answer 20

P gets O committed to choice 1 -> P tells O that choice 1 is not possible -> P asks O for more- choice 2

Question 21

Forewarning

Answer 21

advance knowledge that one is to be the target of a persuasion attempt. Forewarning often produces resistance to persuasion