Week 7 Flashcards
Dual process model of persuasion
Peripheral process: unconscious, fast (using heuristics for eval for example)
Central process : conscious, slower (use of systematic processing of info for eval)
Elaboration-Likelihood model (ELM)
- regarding a message recipient’s cognitive responses to persuasion
Central idea of ELM
Sometimes people process persuasive messages mindlessly and effortlessly, but other times they process messages deeply and attentively.
Peripheral route
- not motivated or not able to think carefully about the message
Central route
Motivates and able to think carefully about the message.
Describe in detail what central processing involves
- thinking carefully and deliberately about the content of the message
- high ability and motivation
- not distracted and if you care, you will pay attention
Describe what peripheral processing involves
- low ability and motivation
- if you are distracted, or dont care enough, will use superficial clues, will not pay attention lot of attention.
Petty et al study testing ELM method
- gave undergrads a list of arguments for comprehensive exit exams
- 3 things manipulated:
- strong vs weak arguments (central)
- source expertise (peripheral)
- personal relavance (motivation)
Petty et al strong vs weak
- strong arguments lead to more attitude changes for pps to whom the issue is personally relavant.
Petty et al expert vs non expert source
- expertise of the source of the communication matters more for pps to whom the issue is not personally relavant
- suggests that they mainly attend to peripheral aspects of the message.
Factors that determine persuasion
Message source (who)
Message content (what)
Message audience (whom)
Halo effect
People you like are assumed to have other good qualities as well.
Credibility
- wether the sources are reliable or not
- eg using white coats, experts in advertisements to increase trust in a certain idea or product
Certainty
- people who are certain and confident tend to be judged as more credible.
The sleeper effect
- messages from unreliable sources tend to be rejected initially but over time become accepted.
When are messages more persuasive
- high quality
- clear, logical
- appeal to core values of the audience
- argue against self-interest
- conclusions are explicit in the message
Identifiable victim effect
- messages that focus on a single, vivid individual are more persuasive than fact-based messages
Effect of extreme fear
- causes people to tune out the message, resulting in lack of persuasion
Effect of culture on persuasion
- eastern ads emphasize the group
- western ads emphasize the individual
- east Asians respond more favorably to prevention focus advertising vs westerners
How can age affect persuasion
- younger age = easier persuasion (Sears study with presidential election malleability)
How can audience characteristics (emotion wise) affect persuasion
- mood can affect - emotion acts as a cue that something is important
- mood+strong message = more persuasion
How can cognition affect persuasion
- the depth in which a person may think about things (need for cognition)
- High NFC people persuaded by central cues
- low NFC people persuaded by peripheral cues
Metacgntion
- thinking about our own thinking
Self validation hypothesis
- idea that feeling confidence about our thoughts validates them, making it more likely that we’ll be swayed in their direction. (The direction of the thoughts)
Agenda control
- media contributes to shaping the information that we think is true and important
Shared attention
- when people believe that they are attending to a message in a group, they process it more centrally.
What attention biases and resistance can affect persuasion?
Schemas
Selective attention
Surgeon general stats on smoking
- when released that smoking leads to lung cancer, 40% of smokers found doc to be flawed, but only 10% of non-smokers found it to be flawed.
Edwards et al
- listened to messages advocating légalisation of marijuana
- message had 7 real and 7 silly arguments
- people who were FOR, stopped the buzz during real arguments and vice versa
How can publicly committing to an attitude affect persuasion
- more resistant to change of that behavior/attitude
- more blinded to that attitude/behavior now, because you have publicly committed to it.
Thought polarisation
Thinking about an issue tends to produce more extreme, resistant attitudes
How can knowledge affect resistance
- more knowledge in a certain domain = more resistance to persuasion
Attitude inoculation
- resisting a ‘small’ attack on our attitude makes us better able to resist larger attacks later (like a vaccination)
