Persuasion Midterm 1

Question 1

What is persuasion: Intentionality

Answer 1

Persuasion involves a deliberate attempt to influence another person
For some, intentionality is the litmus test distinguishing persuasion from social influence
Social modeling and the process of socialization that parents go through with their children is subconscious persuasion, impacted by their environment and cultural norms
The operation of the unintended receiver effect has been studied
“Notice that a reliance on an intent standard for defining persuasion tends to make senders less accountable for the consequences of their unintended communication.”
If someone’s message had harmful effects, than they can escape culpability by saying ‘that was not my intention’ etc
There can be a difference between someone’s stated intent versus their actual intent

Question 2

Relationship among persuasion and other concepts (mapping concepts activity)

Answer 2

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Question 3

Benefits (functions) of studying persuasion

Answer 3

There are ‘persuaders’ all around us.. It is an art and a science
Nobody can fully know the full scope of persuasion because of how complicated human nature is
One cannot be certain which attempts to influence someone will succeed and which will fail
Advertising execs, bloggers, campaign managers, celebrity endorses, clergy, congresspeople, lawyers, diplomats, columnists, hosts, recruiters, salespeople, politicians, social activists etc

Question 4

Third-person effect

Answer 4

You are less likely to be ‘taken in’, people underestimate the effect of advertising on themselves and overestimate its effectiveness on others

Question 5

Persuasion vs. Propaganda

Answer 5

Effects

Has persuasion taken place if no one is actually persuaded?
“The notion of success is embedded in the concept of persuasion. Notice, for instance, that it doesn’t make sense to say, “I persuaded him, but failed.” One can say, “I tried to persuade him, but failed,” but to say simply, “I persuaded him” is to imply a successful attempt to influence.”
A person can be engaged in persuasion even if it is ineffective persuasion
An effects criterion promotes persuasion as a product, however this contradictions current conceptualizations of persuasion as a process instead
There has to be a source and a receiver, however, persuasion is not that linear and both parties in an interaction can be simultaneously persuading each other
Persuasion is rarely an all or nothing venture

Free will and Conscious Awareness
The difference between persuasion and coercion is how aware the receiver is that they are being persuaded and how much freedom the person has to accept or reject the message
In the example of someone holding a gun to someone else’s head, this is primarily coercive but rarely is anything completely coercive (what if the victim doesn’t believe that they’ll actually shoot or what if the victim thinks that the gun is not actually loaded)

Symbolic Action
Authors who limit persuasion to symbolic action fear that without this limitation, all human behavior could be construed as persuasion
While advertisements (photos and words) are a form of persuasion, limiting persuasion to only codified symbols leaves out too much

Interpersonal versus Intrapersonal
Does persuasion have to involve two or more people? Or can one person do or think something that constitutes persuasion?
One can convince oneself of an idea or to take an action and therefore persuasion can exist within one person
Someone could convince themselves to spend rent money on concert tickets for example

Question 6

Pure and borderline cases of persuasion.

Answer 6

Pure persuasion is clear-cut cases of persuasion (presidential debate, tv commercial, attorney’s closing remarks are paradigm examples)
Vs. A degenerate’s appearance persuades passerby to keep their distance = borderline

Question 7

Dual process models of persuasion (ELM, HSM).

Answer 7

Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) includes two routes to persuasion, the central route and the peripheral route
The central route involves thinking or cognitive elaboration
The peripheral route relies on shortcuts or heuristic cues
HSM: Systematic processing is more thoughtful and deliberate
This form of processing is commonplace
Heuristic processing is roughly equivalent to peripheral processing

Question 8

The Unimodel of Persuasion

Answer 8

The alternative to dual process models of persuasion is the unimodel
According to this central processing is not qualitatively different from peripheral processing, there is just more or less of it
Longer messages or more complex ones require more thought, whereas shorter or simpler messages require less thought

Question 9

Information processing theory Third, Hamilton and Stewart (1993)

Answer 9

The theory argues that to be persuaded, you must
first attend to and comprehend a persuasive message. If you attend to and
comprehend the message, you then compare your own position on the
message to the position that’s being argued by the source. Ultimately, you
may either accept or reject the source’s position

Question 10

Measuring the attitudes and problems/bias in measures

Answer 10

Self-Report Scales
These measure people’s attitudes by directly asking them
Self-reports are considered explicit measures because people know that their attitudes are being recorded
Likert Scales
“A Likert scale consists of a series of statements about some attitude object, followed by a continuum of choices ranging from “strongly agree” to ‘strongly disagree’”
A respondent’s attitude is represented by the average of all of their responses in the scale
Semantic Differential Scale
This scale is based on the connotative meanings that words have for people
It consists of a series of bipolar adjective pairs, or opposites (such as light - dark, fast- slow, happy - sad)
In completing the scale, the respondent checks the semantic space between each adjective pair that reflects their attitude towards the concept in question

Visually Oriented Scales
Visual scales make it easier for respondents to conceptualize their attitudes
The visual analog scale simply asks respondents to place a mark along a continuum
Other visual scales include facial expressions to demonstrate favor or disfavor towards a topic

Question 11

Theory of Reasoned Action

Answer 11

Assumes people are rational decision makers
Intentions are the best guide to behavior and result from
Attitude toward the behavior
Belief about the outcome
Evaluation of the outcome
TRA effectiveness
Meta-analysis by Sheppard

Question 12

Theory of Planned Behavior

Answer 12

Perceived behavioral control
Behavior is not always under our control
Internal factors (lack of knowledge or skills
External factors (limited resources, circumstances)

Question 13

ABC (Attitude-Behavior consistency)

Answer 13

General As are not confused with specific As (corresponding to B)
Multiple act criteria
As are based on personal experience
As are central to the belief system
Self-monitoring behavior: high and low self monitors
Low self monitors behavior will be more indicative of their thoughts

Question 14

Persistence of attitudes

Answer 14

Attitudes are malleable and change over time. They aren’t as fleeting as moods or emotions, but neither are they etched in stone.
Attitudes formed via central processing—for example, those involving thought and deliberation—are more persistent and resistant to change than attitudes formed via peripheral processing, which rely on mental shortcuts
The reason is because actively thinking about an issue seems to “plant” the attitude more firmly. Because peripheral processing requires little mental effort, attitudes formed as a result of peripheral processing tend to be more short-lived.
Explaining why a topic or issue is relevant to receivers and how it affects them personally will increase their motivation to use central processing
Adapting your message to the receivers’ levels of understanding will increase their ability to engage in central processing.
It is easier to persuade someone if you can get them to actively think about what it is you are promoting

Question 15

Branding (brand personality)

Answer 15

A clear case of manufacturing these favorable associations is called branding
Modern branding includes cultivating brand relationships. Some consumers may regard a brand as they would a best friend (Fournier, 1998), while others may view brands as extensions of themselves

Aspirational brands are those that consumers admire and aspire to own one day. They represent the ideal. (Rolex watches, Viking stoves, and Gucci handbags etc)
Another approach is brand authenticity, which emphasizes genuineness, integrity, and down-to-earth values.
Another means of fostering favorable associations is through sloganeering.

Question 16

Methods of maintaining consistency

Answer 16

Denial: denying or ignoring inconsistency
Bolstering: rationalizing or making excuses
Bargaining: Striving to reach a compromise between the conflicting attitudes in conflict
Transcendence: Focusing on a larger or higher level
Modifying one or both attitudes: Altering the attitudes themselves to become more consistent.

Question 17

Commitment and consistency

Answer 17

When people become committed to ideas, groups, causes or decisions they find it difficult to change their minds
Whenever we make public statements or engage in public actions, we tend to become bound by our words or deeds. Yes, we can renege on what we’ve said or done, but we will pay a psychological price for doing so. The greater the public commitment, the greater the toll paid.
By this he means that once we become committed to a given course of action, we tend to remain steadfast in our determination, even if the reason for selecting that course of action is diminished, altered, or eliminated.

Question 18

Balance theory

Answer 18

Balance theory states that when tensions arise between or inside people, they attempt to reduce these tensions through self-persuasion or trying to persuade others.

Question 19

Cognitive dissonance

Answer 19

When your words don’t match your actions/choices
Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory (CDT) does a nice job of explaining how people rationalize contradictory decisions and behaviors in their own minds and to other people
The basic idea is that after making a decision or performing a behavior, a person worries about whether she or he made the right decision or did the right thing
The person is therefore motivated to the reduce the resulting dissonance
CDT is often referred to as post-decision theory
Cognitive dissonance, it turns out, involves some of the same neural pathways associated with physical pain.
The theory of cognitive dissonance is closely connected to the idea of buyer’s remorse
One method, known as selective exposure, involves seeking out consonant information and avoiding dissonant information.
The amount of dissonance one experiences is known as the magnitude of dissonance
Once Lola makes her choice, she will tend to disparage the unchosen brand and value the chosen brand even more. What was formerly a tough choice becomes a “no brainer.” The tendency to spread the alternatives is a form of self-justification (people like to validate their own choices)

Question 20

Counterattitudinal advocacy (CAA)

Answer 20

A better approach to changing people’s minds is to attempt to get them to persuade themselves
Counterattitudinal advocacy involves having people create and present (orally or in writing) a message that is at odds with their existing attitudes—for example, claiming they favor capital punishment when, in fact, they oppose it

Question 21

Psychological reactance

Answer 21

Attempts to muzzle information on the internet tend to backfire, known as the Streisand effect
The tendency to react defensively to perceived encroachments on our freedom is called psychological reactance

Question 22

What is credibility

Answer 22

Credibility (O’Keefe 2002) defines as “judgments made by a perceiver (e.g., a message recipient) concerning the believability of a communicator”
This definition should be extended to institutions such as private companies and government agencies
Your credibility is also subject to change depending on the situation and the audience receiving your message (ex. NRA president and hunters/gun enthusiasts versus animal rights activists)

Question 23

Credibility and its dimensions

Answer 23

Expertise: a persuader must know their stuff or at least appear to know their stuff
Titles such as PhD, MD, or CPA can confer credibility on a source
Endorsements by famous persons enjoy a halo effect that allows them to carry their credibility to new, unrelated fields.
Ex. man demonstrates strong calculating skills at a raffle and establishes credibility even though that was an unrelated skill
It mattered not that the purpose of the raffle was unrelated to the confederate’s amazing talent.
Expertise, even unrelated expertise, then, can be an asset in persuasion.
Trustworthiness:
If your car needs a brake job, you not only want a qualified mechanic, you want an honest, qualified mechanic.
To be successful, persuaders must, therefore, convey an impression of honesty and integrity.
Ex. ‘As Seen On Tv’ logos, and Christian symbols on Yellow Pages ads
However, since anyone can use these signs/symbols their trustworthiness is still up in the air
Bernie Madoff seemed trustworthy and scammed people
Goodwill:
Goodwill is the third primary dimension of credibility
McCroskey and Teven (1999) suggested that goodwill is synonymous with perceived caring
That is, a source who seems to care about and take a genuine interest in the receiver is displaying goodwill.
Goodwill can be demonstrated by displaying understanding for another person’s ideas, feelings, or needs.
Goodwill can also be demonstrated by showing empathy
Or demonstrated by responsiveness as well, by being open and receptive to another’s communication attempts

Question 24

Primary and Secondary dimensions of credibility

Answer 24

P: Expertise, Trustworthiness, Goodwill
S: Extroversion, Sociability, Composure

Question 25

The Sleeper effect

Answer 25

The sleeper effect suggests that under the right circumstances, the delayed impact of a message may be more effective than its initial impact (Kumkale & Albarracín, 2004)
The message might grow on receivers.
Specifically, the sleeper effect posits that a message from a low credibility source may increase in persuasiveness as time passes
It sounds unlikely, but has been documented by researchers for more than 50 years
Ex. one audience is exposed to a persuasive message from a credible source and another audience is exposed to the same persuasive message but from a less credible source, by means of a discounting cue
A discounting cue consists of a disclaimer containing negative information about the source, the message, or both
The second group’s attitudes, however, might undergo a process known as disassociation, whereby the message is separated from its source in the minds of receivers.
The second group might remember the message, but forget the discounting cue
Absolute sleeper effect versus relative sleeper effect

Question 26

Absolute and Relative Sleeper Effect

Answer 26

Absolute: High credibility source and low credibility source with discounting cue have same decline of attitude change
Relative: The high credibility source loses credibility over time but less so than the low credibility source with a discounting cue

Question 27

Ways to enhance your credibility

Answer 27

1. Heed the Boy Scout motto: “Be prepared.”
2. Cite evidence for your position and identify the sources of your evidence.
3. Cite your own or your sources’ qualifications and expertise on the topic or issue up front.
4. Attempt to build trust by demonstrating to your listener that you are honest and sincere.
5. Display goodwill toward your audience
6. Improve your likability, or L-factor.
7. Adopt a language and delivery style appropriate to the listener(s), topic, and setting.
8. Avoid a powerless style of communication.
9. Emphasize your similarity to another to indirectly enhance your credibility.
10. If you think you are perceived as having low credibility, try to increase receiver involvement and emphasize the central route to persuasion.