Persuasion= science of influencing through communication

= you’re the receiver and persuaded by the other

vb. Politics: hard to make someone behave a particular wayvb. Negotiation: organised, strategyvb. Conversation with parents: first time asking to go out not organized but effective: “everyone is going” a lot of back and forth of persuasion tricks

IntroductionExamen = book + additional texts + classes

1. Persuasive communication

Persuasion: advertising, brand repeating itself rhetoric: ‘yes we can’

2. Attitude and behavior change?Legal restrictions hard campaign soft campaign

design(rhetorics) (persuasion)

Vb. hard campaign: disgusting pictures on cigarette packagesVb. soft campaign: suggesting to smoke somewhere elseVb. design: hide ashtrayvb. system 2: “ these are the consequences of smoking so don’t smokevb. elephant: ‘if you train it to walk from A-B everyday, after a few times it can find the way by itself if there are obstacles, it can find a solution = system 1

System 1 effects = unconscious

Persuasion argumentation (rhetoric)

Focusing on the effects on the receiver Human behavior = personality x

situation Focus on situational

determinants We assume that determinants

have a universal effect

Listening to arguments of the sender

vb. if you eat cereals for breakfast, you are not conscious of how much you eat

3. Take home messages2 major persuasive strategies:

1. arguments (cues to dress up the message)2. narratives (embedded in stories)

3.1. Arguments based persuasion (cues to dress up the message)vb. person with a white lab coat gives credibility, expertise we don’t see it very criticalvb. list trick: we do all of this, others only… (oral B) BUT we don’t remember the content, only that it’s better list = a cue itselfvb. big time company: you can write 4 towers with 1 pen open ad: you have to think about it + you’re triggered to find out what’s going on

Point-of-purchase communication: arguments + cues a lot of cues in the supermarket, labels, prices, coloursvb. if you go to a supermarket in a country far away, you can still navigate: green packages suggest ecological, black suggest luxury

3.2 Narrative persuasion: sometimes disguised as a storyvb. fairytale Red Riding Hood: “be careful, don’t go off the tracks”vb. biblical stories actual content is narrative with persuasive effects vb. news paper is story

Research Feldman 2011: exposed people to messages about climate change broadcast channels give different opinions, most of them don’t talk about scientic arguments

vb. Fox focuses on the people who don’t believe in climate change (rejecting)

Mixed example: road advert: you feel like you’re in the story feeling of “that’s a good point” but you take that feeling to your own reality also cues: the boy in the back

biased journalism stories seem to be an argument

CHAPTER 1: Domains of communication + Basics of psychology1. What types of communication to include?

- verbal only? --> no, just an image can be enough- only successful persuasion? --> no, a lot of ads are intended to but aren’t

successful

- AND success = cognitive effect or behavioral effect on receiver?

What is behavioral effect?

Influence vb. Less smoking shift vb. Stop smoking

- persuasive intention necessary? Vb. Voedingsdriehoek

!! you cannot shift behaviour with a low budget because you should repeat the message daily

This course:- broad view on persuasion

o message effectso receiver effectso sender effectso non-intentional persuasion

- focus on big theories and small empirics (examples)

2. Massive daily exposure to persuasion- estimations are usually wild guesses but there are some studies- also a lot of non-commercial messages- implicit: you don’t directly recognise it as an ad explicit

3. Experimental (social) psychology3.1 Automatic Deliberate- system 1 and system 2 --> human behavior (psychical + cognitive)

vb. Talking in your own language is really easy, unconscious but when you talk in an other language, you have to concentrate really hard

vb. changing gears: becoming a habit

4 domaines: health politics prejudice advertising

same for thought processes: Bargh: 4 horsemen of automaticity

automatic thoughts are much more efficient often the two processes work together

3.2 research about latent processesHow to study something unobservable? --> experimental: looking at potential latent causes / observable effects

Persuasion studies: latent observable?- communication = observable- effect sometimes observable- processes explaining the effect are latent

vb. booking.com: a lot of persuasive tricks to surf longer, buy more --> ‘other people are looking for the same room’--> popularity: someone just booked this

Social norm perceptions?- social norm cues are observable but effects even happen in absence of

these cues automatic effects more than deliberate sender can use these social norm cues deliberately / automatically

An important part of our behavior is invisible to ourselves human behavior deliberate + random noise

= deliberate + automatic + random noise

even if we think we know why we did something, there might be other reasons

priming = situation where behavior, thoughts, communication can predict the thoughts, behavior, … that followvb. the money stimulates desires

!!! automatic, unconscious subconscious (Freud)

Deliberate processes have limited capacity(Miller: the magical number 7 +/- 2)

vb. If you get a list of words you remember +- 7vb. hard to change gears because you have to think at so many things conscious at the same time

- when we think about own behavior: post-hoc rationalizations introspection suitable technique to reveal why a certain effect follows in a certain situation

- we often trick ourselves to believe we understand because automatic go in disguise

o We only have a few behavioral options in each situationo We can often find deliberate reasons to explain the chosen option

The timeline of message processing

EXAMPLE: UNTRUE INFORMATION1) believing + storing info = automatic vb. problem with fake news2) doubting the source/message = deliberative3) if in doubt: annotation of previous info that it is untrue = deliberative

such a model = dual process model

Why do automatic processes exist?o Evolutionary advantageso Evolutionary first kind of thoughto Reduce complexity of our environment: Shortcuts to make decisions

4. Bargh: The unconscious mind (Tekst op Toledo)- different perspectives on conscious thoughts

- unconscious information processing has been equated with subliminal information processing, which raises the question, ‘‘How good is the mind at extracting meaning from stimuli of which one is not consciously aware?’ subliminal = short exposure to stimuli

vb. You see a flash with a word, you don’t notice the word but unconsciously, your brains have noticed it and they start to make connections

- subliminal strength stimuli are relatively weak + low intensity --> mental processes minimal and unsophisticated, low complexity studies conclude that powers unconscious mind are limited

- Social psychology: focus on mental processes of which individual is unware, not on stimuli view that unconscious mind is persuasive, powerful influence over higher mental processes

vb. booking.com: automatic process begins directly, deliberate only when motivation, capacity, time

- Freudian model: some hidden truth: cognitive and social psychological evidence does support Freud as to the existence of unconscious mentation and it’s potential to impact judgments and behavior

- In history of science & psychology: mental life considered entirely or mainly conscious in nature now: seeing people as mental being, thinking makes us special as a species, reasoning

- Nisbett & Wilson: to what extent are people aware of and able to report on true causes of behavior? --> motivated research into priming and automatically effects

Vb. Contextual priming: mere presence of person or event will bring associations to mind + shape reactions to a person, event activates representations

this tight connection between immediate, unconscious evaluation and appropriate actional tendencies (approach avoidance)

not only in your mind but also in your body (muscles)

vb. Picture of a cake: before you can think about something, you can already measure in your muscles if your tendency is approach or avoidance muscles prepare for conscious actions that could follow, your mind prepares for conscious thoughts that could follow

Schematic representation

5. Learning, a striking parallel with persuasion

persuasion can be inspired by learning mechanism and research:- persuasion targets behavioral change- learning = durable behavior change, not caused by biological

determinants

5.1 fundamental learning processes habituation: exposure leads to less extreme response

contact conditioning: beginning you’re neutral --> more exposed, you like it more (more positive evaluation)

vb. advertising: exposure after exposure, it will become a brand after a lot of commercials, you like the brand a bit

T0 = a certain time

First immediate response, then if there’s time and motivation deliberate response

classic conditioning: relation between situations

vb. dog produces saliva when it sees food, if you ring a bell everytime the dog gets food, it will make a connection --> if you ring the bell without food, the dog will still produce saliva because of the connection

vb. george clooney makes an ad for expresso --> you make a connection between George Clooney (positive feeling) and expresso --> if you see an ad without expresso, you keep the positive feeling

instrumental conditioning / operant: relation situation and behavior linking behavior with reward/punishment

vb. you buy something in a stire and you get a free sample, you tend to go back because you get rewarded

observational learning: relation through observation

vb. ad where people use a product and are happy about and have a better life --> maybe you want to buy it too

propositional learning: remembering propositions

vb. learning a definition in a bookvb. some ads are built of logical scheme of arguments --> ‘you have this problem?’: the only solution is our brand

5.2 Experimental method

manipulation control & randomization measurement

IV = independent variable o what you manipulate, to investigate causal relationo manipulation = at least 2 treatments: 1 control and 1 experimental

or 2 experimental

DV = dependent variable behavior / attitude you measure Participants

o Distribute randomly across conditiono Enough participants that effects can reach statistical significance +

reliable estimate your effects sizeo Significant effect can be due to effect/luck increase odds: more

participants + replications

Two methods manipulation1) between subjects: one group other

+: participants do not know what you manipulate-: you need more participants

2) within subjects: participants exposed to different treatments+: stronger effects, less participants needed-: easier to understand hypothesis for participants

when combining independent variables, we look for interactions Double blind research: both researches and participants blind to

hypothesis --> participants cannot follow expectations, researches cannot influence participants

Goal = causality representativity

Experiments in realm of persuasion: often disguised as a questionnaire

CHAPTER 2: AttitudesAttitude = general evaluation of an attitude object

evaluation = value on a negative – to – positive continuum attitude object = every social stimulus to which you can ascribe such an

evaluation

Deliberate = automatic- not 1 attitude object that you can only have conscious thoughts about or

only unconscious always both

Why do we need effective measures of attitudes?1. predict behavior2. know whether they change in response to persuasion

1. Attitude measures (persuasion: effect of messages)- most times, attitudes will be dependent variables- change in behavior difficult to measure- Assumption that we often change behavior via an attitudinal change, so

we first need to know whether the attitude change is real- question: Do attitudes influence behavior?

1.1 How to measure?- open measure: asking people- single item questions- ranking questions- multiple items- psychiological measures

2. Sources for attitude measures- What people tell about their attitudes- Observation of one’s reaction towards the attitude object - Observation of one’s interaction with the attitude object - Information through others (friends, relatives, …) - Judgments about the attitude object measure adapted - Physiological reactions towards the attitude object to audience

2.1 Complex and multi-faceted- Evaluative tendency (positive/negative)- Attitude strength = how stable attitude is --> more extreme = more

stable- Attitude ambivalence = how much confronted with attitude- Basis: cognitive versus affective (affective = feelings, cognitive = beliefs)- Function:

o utilitarian: ‘sneakers are so comfortable’

o value expressive: ‘sneakers are so pretty’– social: ‘like sneakers to be part of the ingroup’ → to simplify social relationships and belong to a group

Vb. you love your job (+2) but you hate the deadlines (-1) = +1

Explicit attitudes Implicit attitudes

Conscious report / construct Unscious: automatic tendencies --> should be derived from other

measures

2 kinds of direct measures:1. structured (closed): limit on answer possibilities → easy for data

processing2. unstructured (open): describe attitudes in own words → more rich data

2.2 single item measure (direct) 2 basic options:

o extreme evaluative statement + question to what extent you agreeo direct question: how much do you like X + response scale

perfect for certain situations: target group = children, long questionnaires

best solution for double concrete measures = people really understand what you want to measure (vb. attitude against brand)

BUT: problem if your measure is biased

Single item biases:- acquiescence: people tend to answer more positive questions (generally

agreeing) solution: opposite question to counterbalance- double barrelled questions : ‘do you like it in these situations?’- missing scale points- missing informations

- response order effect: other order can lead to different answers → 2 effects:

o primacy effects: respondents biased towards choosing one of the two first options they hear

2 dimensions:- attitudes themselves

(explicit/implicit)- measurement used (direct/indirect)

o recency effects: respondents biased towards choosing one of the two last options they hear → caused by memory

- nonattitudes = responses people express that really do not reflect any preexisting attitude towards the issue → random choices→ solution = no opinion option or measuring attitude strenght

less problems with multi-measures

2.3 Multiple item scales (direct)- more difficult to construct and collect data- noise from individual items averaged out- a broad an divers picture of the attitudes (cognitive and affective attitude

basis)- some standard practices, a whole range of published scales, a lot of ad

hoc measures

Method: Thurston and Cave: equal appearing intervals1) construct about 100 items (statements) from very negative to very

positive

2) let list judge by raters: judge how positive or negative items are by themselvesvb. KuL is the best university in Belgium

3) pick 2 items for each of your scale points vb. 2 that best represent -5--> attitude measures has 22 items repressing a range in evaluations

4) respondents answer agree/disagree

5) agreed upon items corresponding scale values summed + averaged to compute attitude score

Likert sum scales (1932)1) smaller sample of statements --> very extreme statements2) without preteste, each respondent has to rate item in which degree they

agree with it3) each answer get corresponding score --> all scores per respondent are

averaged4) statistic control whether all items were contributed (otherwise deleted) --

> after that composite score is recalculated

Semantic differtentials:- in between solution- easier than EAT/likert- not object specific, rather general- less reliable- limited to basic information on attitudes, no info on attitude function or

basisMethod:

1) Think of a set opposite adjectives that describe some property of your attitude object

2) Present these bipolar adjectives to participants and they should assess for each pair of adjectives where on that continuum they evaluate the object.

3) Attitude = sum of all marked scale points (where scores of reversed items should first be corrected)

VB. ppt:1. type = equal appearing intervals, 2. type = likert, 3. type = semantic

differentials

2.4 Additional semi-direct attitude measures less direct evaluative response on attitude object but still explicit thinking about

Different options:- comparative rating, choice between different object- ranking attitude object- multiple item questionnaires

+: more info about 1 topic or more attitude object evaluated-: more difficult scales to construct or fill in

vb. different colours sort --> tells also something about attitude to pink

relative rating easier to answer much easier to rate one brand over anothervb. how much do you like KUL versus comparison between Ugent and Kul

2.5. indirect attitude measures semi-direct measures can be problematic:

1) sometimes people are dishonest = deliberate biases2) people are not aware of part of their attitude = implicit attitude

--> measures based on behavior judgments / psychological reactions

2.5.1 based on behavior- we need behavior that is measurable, attitude relevant in a straight

forward way, expressive for the attitude

vb. Lost letter technique = dropping stamped letters addressed to various organizations in public areas and then recording how many of the letters are returned via the mail assumed that people will be more likely to return a letter if it is addressed to an organization that they support than if it is addressed to an organization they do not support

vb. sentiment analysis for E-WOM (word of mouth) vb. how do people feel online about? Average tone of messages on open social media only on population level2.5.2 Based on judgments

Error choice technique: respondents have to guess factual questions --> probably don’t know correct answer BUT respondents are biased by attitude because they are not sure vb. Attitude against overweight

Evaluative priming: perception attitude object activates mental associations activation affect responses towards subsequent answer: faster responses to an object that shares the same evaluative respons (reaction time measured for evaluation)

Implicit Association Testo measures relative attitudinal evaluation between 2 conceptso pair of 2 attitude concept: black versus whiteo pair of 2 sets evaluative opposite: good versus bad reaction times = attitude towards object

Additional: Affect Misattribution Paradigm (AMP)- Different pictures on a very short time: task = judge neutral pictures after

prime - Prime + target gives neutral feeling directly asked about attitude

evaluation

we expect that prime will give target also evaluation transfer feelings to neutral picture, not conscious controlled

2.5.3 Physiological measures facial electromyography: facial muscles express basic emotions

o based on basic emotions researcho intrusive measurement setting but uncontrollable behavior

Event-related brain potentials (ERP’s)o Cortex activity in certain regions for inconsistent behavioro Universal set of positive and negative concepts + targets in

between a series of positive words or a series of negative words reacts to differences

Additional:- in market research: measure what you know about a brand + how you

feel about it- if your research is neuro, there is a hype because it looks complicated

enough to be scientific + expensive apparatuses

looks like they put a lot of effort in it, so they will invest in itvb. fMRI, EMG, ERP, GSR, eye tracking

BUT in fact only 1 real neuro measure = fMRI --> but they call the rest also neuro to sell the research what is actually missing = more easier implicit attitude measure

CHAPTER 3: Attitudes and behaviour

Questions:- Is there a link?- Under what circumstances?- How?

1. Is there a link between attitude and behavior?

1.1 LaPiereWanted to find out about prejudice about the ethnic Chinese community in America 1930s basis: he and a Chinese student had entered a hotel in a small Californian town with some concern, but obtained rooms with ease. Some months later he telephoned the hotel to ask if they would accommodate ‘an important Chinese gentleman’ and were told a definite ‘No'. This event stimulated the study

field study: next two years LaPiere took several trips with the student and his wife, both of whom were ‘charming and personable’ and were also of Chinese origin. Both spoke unaccented American English received at 66 hotels and ‘tourist homes’ and rejected only once; they were served in 184 restaurants and cafes, receiving good service in 72 of them

Then: questionnaire to all the hotels & restos: most of them say that they don’t want accept Chinese people This attitude totally contradicts the behavior

1.2 CoreyStudent attitudes towards deception and measure of actual deception (self-scored test): DV = actual score – self score

attitude was not predictive, best predictor was objective/absolute score (low scores increases the cheating behavior)

1.3 Wicker: attitudes do not relate to behavior: average correlation < Cohen suggested effect size 0.30

STILL: some find correlation- Kelley & Miller: attitude 85% predictive in politic rating- Goodmonson & Glaudin: attitude-behavior correlation of 0.65 for organ

donation

CONCLUSION: sometimes there is an attitude-behavior relation 2 explanations for sometimes:

- Random process- Explain variations by referring to circumstances that predict relation

2. When does a relation hold? Moderator = affects the direction and/of strenght relation between an

independent variable (= prediction) and a dependent (=criteria) --> when event occurs

behavior = f(Att, Mod)

= effect of attitude x Mod

Mediator: explains why an event occurs

2.1 Characteristics of the behaviorBehavior can vary from very general to very specific --> mostly measure specific behavior while we have the tendency to measure general attitude but: specific attitude will better predict specific behavior explains differences in studies begin chapter:: degree of match between att and behavior we wish to predict affects strength of attitude-behavior relation that will be observed

2.2 Characteristics of the person psychological traits long term, how you are as a person: guided by

internal feeling / rely heavily on cues when deciding to behave in situation psychological states triggered by persuasion

vb. When you had 10 beers, your state will be very bad to do an intelligence test

level of moral reasoning = determining what’s right or wrong more attitude consistent behavior with higher levels of moral reasoning

self monitoring = monitor their audience in order to ensure appropriate or desired public appearances more attitude consistent in behavior if low self monitor

2.3 Characteristics of the situation norms: how people think they should behave

o the more norms in situation, the weaker link attitude behavior will be

o perceived norms should not be the actual norm perception could be good enough implies that manipulating perceived norm can result in persuasion

Time pressure: pressure blocks deliberate processes --> facilitates the use of heuristic

o The more time pressure --> the more implicit attitudes will predict behavior

BUT attitude consistency is not always goodAdditional: Manipulating Norms?

- Cialdini: injunctive norm (what you know you should do) and descriptive norm (what you see other people do, what you believe most people do) often they collide

both have an influence but descriptive norm easier to manipulate

Vb. Injunctive: be friendlyVb. Descriptive: when it’s red but people cross the street, you do it too although you know it’s wrong

Field exp Cialdini: on a parking lot with an actor- clean environment: actor litters it strange because conflict- littered environment: hardly noticed

none: 40% throws flyer on ground no distinction clean / littered environment

descriptive: actor litters- clean: triggered: only 10% litters- not clean: 30% litters

injunctive: actor cleans up- clean: actor cleans up: less than 10 %- not clean: even less than clean

Advert: descriptive norm for something they shouldn’t do (walking along trains) gives message to do this because of the example they give by doing it

message ‘don’t do it’ with showing people that are doing it can have negative effects

vb. Bridge of life: bridge where people commit suicide --> ads to make bridge anti-suicide have the opposite effect: even more stressed that it’s a suicide bridge

2.4 Characteristics of the attitude: differences in attitude strength stronger attitudes better predict behavior than equally extreme but less

strong attitudes stable attitude is much easier to measure because behavior will be the

same over time / in difficult situations

Manner of attitude formation direct behavioral experience with attitude object indirect nonbehavioral experience with attitude object

→ direct = more predictive of later behaviorRegan & Fazio: housing problem (people have to sleep in beds in the hallway) some directly affected and others indirectly

Attitudes accessibility: How easy it is to access from memory --> direct suggests attitudes are more readily available potential reason for difference between indirect and direct experience attitudes: easier to guide behavior if very easily accessible

But: How to measure?

- speed of attitude judgment: the quicker, the more accessible the attitude should be

- the more accessible, the stronger attitude predicts behavior

Dark side of accessible attitudes- extremely difficult to change- difficult to detect changes in objecs toward which they have accessible

attitudes

3. How does the link occur?--> 2 mechanisms

Theory of reasoned action spontaneous action: model of the attitude-to-behavior process

1) Theory of planned behavior (reasoned action): Azjen and Fishbein- behavioral intention as a predictor of actual behavior- intention is predicted by 3 things

o attitude = combination behavior beliefs + attitude toward behavior

o norm: person’s beliefs about what important other think he or she should do and the person’s motivation to comply with the wishes of these others

later changed TRA to TPB and added control: beliefs + perceived behavior control relevant from practical point of view: easier to do research on behavioral

intentions than on actual behaviors

vb. people deciding to have a baby: they would consider the outcomes that are likely (having to nurture the

baby, less time, …) and their evaluations of these outcomes also consider how people who are important to them (friends and family)

feel about them having a baby

2) Attitude – to – behavior process model (Fazio)

Combination of the two theories: mode model integrated theory

Assumption: attitudes also guide behavior in situations where people cannot think thoroughly about their actions--> perception of situation will shape the (re)action: we rapidly define + categorize situation in which the attitude-object presents itself and we will use heuristics to react to that

vb. when you see a spider

Situation will be processed based on:- pre-existing attitudes (strength

association determines accessibility)- norms

will define event and guide behavior

Required: attitude should be activated activated attitude acts as filter through which object is viewed at time,

immediate perceptions of attitude object will be consistent with the attitude

not activated attitude: perceptions based on momentarily noticeable features of attitude object that might not be consistent with attitude

Additional: Fazio, Powell and Williams 1) implicit attitude measures: quick like versus dislike reactions2) explicit attitude measure: one-item 1-73) behavior: picking 5 out of 10 objects as rewards (snacks, soft drinks)

result:- accessibility better predicted behavior than explicit attitude extremity

did (gut feeling)- low accessibility resulted in more influence by situational factors vb.

Presentation of the object

3) mode model: integrated theory

Deliberate processes when:- motivation = high- capacity is present: time and resources

--> if not: only automatic process will be followed

Sanbonmutsa & Fazio: - vignettes about 2 shops --> 1 clearly superior in general, other for

specific subsection- task: express preference for buying something with regard to subserve- manipulation: motivation and time pressure

result: reasoned (subsection) when no time pressure or motivation

Results in heuristic evaluation of attitudes + appropiate norms

Accessibility mostly influential for non-deliberate behavior choices deliberate: attitude extremity more important BUT attitude accessibility

might increase motivation to pay attention to something --> therefore engage in reasoned action

Chapter 4: behavior-to-attitude relationSometimes you have an attitude that leads to a certain relation but sometimes you only have the attitude after the behavior or the attitude changes after the behavior.

Vb. Patient follows treatment (vb. Diet) but has 1 deviation from training (vb. Dietary sin) goal = still achieved but lack in feedback might cause changes after the behavior

Vb. Politics: 2 individuals might have similar preference --> but if one of them expressed preference to others (= behavior) --> will increase attitude strength and maybe attitude extremity

1. Cognitive Dissonance Theory Festinger people have concurrent cognitions (thoughts)

if they contradict it leads to negative arousal (tension)

but people want balance so are motivated to reduce arousal strategies:

o change 1 of the cognitionso add cognition to restore dominance of 1 view over the othero change importance (higher/lower) of one cognition

vb. Doubt: find more reasons to do or not do something

vb. World cup in exam period: watching on big screen or not?- change: shall I learn in September instead of June?- Add: It’s also a birthday of a friend so we can celebrate both- Change importance: football isn’t that important to me

Behavior: you cannot neglect attitude anymore so attitude changes

vb. You have a healthy food attitude but you eat fastfood (behavior)--> change attitude: ‘for once it isn’t that unhealthy’= making an attitude less stable

Effect on next behaviors: I can eat fastfood again because I already sinned

!!Methodological site note: examples / anecdotal evidence are not hard to imagine might match with theory but no proof / evidence (post hoc interpretation rather than predictive)+ probalistic theory: true on average --> possible that your example doesn’t match theory

2. Cognitive dissonance: behavior – to – behavior attitude?- behavior = cognition: you know about your behavior

- could be inconsistent with your previous attitude- solution = change one of the cognitions to resolve tension

you cannot change or undo past behavior cannot be changed so change cognition that is least resistant to change (attitude)

Festinger: dissonance between 2 cognitions --> most research on specific dissonance between behavioral cognition and another one:

participant forced to behave in a way that probably contradicts prior attitudes = induce compliance studies

results in feelings of dissonance: easiest solution = change other cognition

Study Carlsmith & Festinger - boring task for 20 minutes- IV: inform new participant about exciting task vs inform nobody (control

condition)- DV: attitude measure about task- Result: experimental group likes task better than the control group

participants do- 1 dollar vs 20 dollar: 20 dollar have extra consonant cognition and

therefore they do not rate the task interesting afterwards- change attitude (internal reason) reduce dissonance with extra

cognition

attitude change because they feel bad about lying

3. Consequences 1) Behavioral choices often multi-faced

approach – avoidance for 1 behavior option: you can imagine pro’s and contra’s

vb. Going on an expensive trip

choosing ends up in believing more the reasons why you chose it

multiple approach – avoidance conflict: sometimes you have to choose one option out of a set thinking too long will create pro’s and contra’s for each option

vb. Choosing between 2 educational programmes, job offers

Cognitive dissonance after choosing behavior because you have opposite cognitions (pro and contra’s). Adaptive cognitive dissonance results in rationalising the chosen option (neglecting contra’s): person thinks choice is better and rejected options are worse than he thought before --> maladaptive: regretStudy Brehm:

- participants rate number of objects (as if market research setting)

- after participation: rewarding with one of them they choose (equally likeable)

- choosing one of two changes attitude about both objects

2) rationalising increased effects the more time invested to achieve a goal, the more difficult to neglect that

vb. Years of training in a sport

the invested effort is much stronger than other cognitions, implying that it’s difficult to give up on it

suppose that the situation still is a dead-end street. Dissonance could then result in maladaptive reactions: forcing oneself to find reasons to like the task, imagining reasons to even feel more positive about potential alternative behaviors (~mid-life crisis…)

How to capitalize on invested-effort dissonance as a persuasive communication? can decide to willingly have a number of problems with your product percieved effort results in attitude strength

4. Causes of cognitive dissonanceFestinger: dissonance = state of non-pleasant arousal

1) Does dissonance cause arousal?o Pallak and Pitmann: dissonance causes learning issues much like

emotional arousalo Cooper, Zanna & Taves: sedation (verdoving) that blocks arousal

will also block dissonance reducing behavior; vice-versa for amphetamines

o Zanna & Cooper: when people think arousal is due to external stimulus rather than own dissonance, it will reduce attitude change

o Croyle & Cooper: dissonance triggers arousal as measured with GSR (galvanic skin response)

2) Is arousal unpleasant Elliot & Devine: strong change of feelings of unpleasantness right over giving into counter-attitudinal request

3) Does unpleasant feeling results in motivation for attitude change? o Elliot & Devine: After the attitude change, the arousal should be

over. This corresponds with reduction in reported unpleasantness feelings.

5. Inconsistency / aversion:Cognitive dissonance theory proposes that inconsistency = driver in this process. However, all examples deal with aversive inconsistency (= outcome that participants wish had not occurred = unpleasant stimuli that induce changes in behavior through punishment)

Cooper & Worchel : also attitude change without feeling bad? (inconsistency / aversion necessary?)

replicate Festinger & Carlsmith but participants have to convince a confederate about the “exciting task” while that confederate gives feedback on the supposed success of that behavior

If the confederate said to believe the participant, then there was attitude change

If the confederate doubted the participant, then no attitude change occurred (because there was inconsistency without aversion)

Aversion seems to be crucial, while inconsistency is not sufficient for cognitive dissonance to occur

vb. If you lied but it didn’t work then you don’t feel that bad so your attitude doesn’t change

BUT: Sher & Cooper: even inconsistency is not always necessary

6. The role of the self:6.1 Theoretical views:

1) self-consistency model: people believe they are competent and moral = personality trait people with low feelings of self-esteem are less conflicted by cognitive dissonance --> showless attitude change in induced compliance tasks

2) self-confirmation theory: people have central motivation to see themselves as positive, competent en moral cognitive dissonance triggers that motivation --> as a result: people will also reflect on other self-relevant behaviors if they are induced compliance situation. If you allow them to “self-present” positively about other behaviors, they will feel less dissonance and therefore show less attitude change

6.2 Theories integrated in self standards model (Stone & Cooper)Human motivation to self-evaluate but we need standard of comparison

2 types of comparison standardo personal: what you think about yourself --> high self esteem will feel

more dissonance due to experienced conflict with feelings about oneself

o normative: What you believe others think you should do counter-attitudinal behavior always induces dissonance, irrespective of self-esteem

Hypothesis: normative standard is the default, but situational circumstances can increase the accessibility of the personal standard

suggest that people will always be motivated to reduce cognitive dissonance but sometimes trait get further activated/stressed such that the predictions from the self-consistency model dominate

7. Interindividual diferencesthe more people feel responsible for counter attitudinal behavior, the more they feel dissonance

= also a personal trait: internal versus external locus of control: more internal locus of control = more susceptible (vatbaar) to feelings of cognitive dissonance

differs in extent to which people prefer consistency (internal consistency Cialdini et al.)

8. Cultural differences

Heine & Lehman: Canada vs Japan Independent vs Interdependent cultures: Self (Canada) vs Other/Context (Japan)

Method: Rating of 10 CDs with at the end of the experiment a choice offered between two equally rated CDs (cf. earlier).

Results: Larger post-choice discrepancies between the attitudes for the two CDs in the Canadian sample compared to the Japanese sample.

Norton et al. (2003): Dissonance at the group level Inconsistent behavior of a group member induces (veroorzaakt) dissonance among the other group members. Seeing someone comply to a counter-attitudinal request

IV: membership of the same group Strong identification with that group results in third person dissonance

Other behavior → attitude effects Operant conditioning: the reward or punishment following your

behavior will be transferred as an evaluation/attitude towards that behavior

Posture can be more of an approach or avoidance type. Enacting such a posture can already change your predisposition (aanleg, gesteldheid) towards an attitude object.

Chapter 5: two routes to persuasion (ELM) IMPORTANT CHAPTER ALONG WITH 6

1. Introduction

different reasons why people get persuaded + different ways

--> overt sign of someone being persuaded can have different potential covert reasons--> understanding these covert reasons:

- gives insight to use + understand persuasion - insight in status and charasteristics of persuasion

differences in mode and extent of processing

: people are not capable and have no motivation to always process information attentively (with a lot of thinking)

cognitive thinking processes and time for tasks who need it, other situations trusting on intuition with the help of cues

variation in how deliberate one processes a message / a continuum of thought processes

place on continuum relates to:- source characteristics: (vb. Expert/not)- message characteristics: (vb. Motivation

cues)- receiver characteristics: (vb. Trait

differences)- situational characteristics: (vb. Distracted)

vb. You hear radio commercial in traffic when you’re stuck in traffic

2. ELM LIKELIHOOD MODEL (PETTY AND CACIOPPO):

1) Are people motivated?- Situational factors: some

messages could be more relevant to you

Basic Idea:

Basic assumption

persuasion only message effect

- Personality factors: some like info more than others

2) Do you have the capacity to do so?- situational reasons- personality reasons

IF YOU HAVE BOTH central cognition: you think about the message (positive, negative, neutral) the more thoughts you have, the more it shows that you are in the central route

Central positive attitude change Central negative attitude change

--> Not the message that is persuading you but your own thoughts about the message are persuading you

The Central Route The Peripheral Route= paying careful attention to relevant info, relating that info to previous knowledge and generating new implications of info goal = find out if message has any merit

= self-persuasion--> does not imply allegiance of the message

Degree of attitude change will depend on:- valence of one’s thoughts: ratio

between + and – thoughts- number of thoughts (cognitions)- degree of trust in one’s own

thoughts (metacognition)

Likelihood of central route processing depends on motivation & capacity influenced by situational + personal factors

Central attitude change tends to be accesible, resistant for competing messages, predictive

--> how you say it: design of the message (based on cues)--> more likely when no motivation and/or capacity--> peripheral attitude change tends to be less accesible, less resistant, less predictive

vb. Staf coppens: “mijn gsm modus tijdens autorijden is niet storen” will affect people on personal level because you have to do it for your loved ones (personal relevance but also cues: celeb)

3. Empirical Evidence- variables in central route persuasion

o situational: related to message itself / circumstances

Metacognition = trust in one’s own thoughts

o dispositional: personality treats together they influence extent (how much thinking --> unbiased) and/or

direction (what kinds of thoughts --> biased) of central processing they do so by influence or motivation/capacity

3.1 Types of evaluation- Online evaluation = when people are evaluating and forming an

overall attitude at the time of the message receipt

- Memory based evaluation = when people form an attitude only some time after receipt of message

3.2 Schema:

4. Situational impact on motivation

4.1 Personal relevance = interest in topic might differ from situation to situation more relevance leads to more attention to info in message + argument strenght matters

Petty & Cacioppo: University wide exams (= overal ranking of disciplines)

Manipulation 1: IV1: strong weak arguments for those exams- 1 version: very good reasons for these exams- other version: very bad reasons (vb. Parents are in favor)

weak arguments should result in counter-cognitions (negative cognitions) but only if participants think about them (=tested in a pre-test)

Manipulation 2: IV2: text they heard in own university other university (personal relevance)

- bogus task: ‘study is about rating quality headphones’ --> not instructed to listen to message

Hypothesis: When no relevance --> less attention which will limit attitude differences due to argument strength. When high relevance, argument strength affects attitudes

Graphic: Typical ELM effects

Motivational: affect person’s conscious intentions in processing a goal

Ability: has person necessary skills, knowledge and opportunity to evaluate message?

- weak argument --> drop in attitude (less persuasion) if deeper thinking- strong argument --> attitude elevation (more persuasion) If deeper thinking

Results:- high relevance increases difference between weak and strong

arguments- self persuasion- relevance also results in more cognition- more positive cognitions for high relevance with strong arguments,

negative for weak arguments

1.2 Forewarning of intent: we don’t like the thought of being persuaded --> try to resist is, negative thoughts

For example: explicit saying that this is a commercial break

1.3 Other situational effects on processing motivation:- personal responsibility for judgment: thinking you’re the only to

evaluate message- using multiple message sources (norm): people put more effort because

more sources seem more legit- open questions rather than statements- directly adressing receiver using ‘you’ or name

5. Individual differences in motivation (personality treats) need to evaluate: some people like to evaluate even thought they don’t

have too high: more attitude + opinions and more accessibleo tendency to form online attitude: during the experience rather than

generalized based on memory of experiments

need for cognition (NFC): need to thinko need to use central route: do more thinking about messageo strong vs weak arguments should produce more of a cognition and

attitude difference among high NFC people.Cacioppo, Petty & Morris: rise in tuition fees

- IV1: strong versus weak arguments arguments are more strong IF people think about them, they result in more positive cognitions

- again bogus instruction

Relevance more affective the more central thinking

- NFC measured: Test group then subdivided in three subgroups (high, middle, low), and the middle group is then deleted from the analyses.

Results: typical ELM results where high elaboration now is higher NFC group- people high in need for cognition more affected by quality of the

message arguments than people in low need for cognition and base attitudes on this thoughtful assessment of arguments

people low in need for cognition only persuaded by central route if motivated- make message position suprising- give impression that message is simple and easy to understand

6. Capacity effects (Ability factors)

6.1 Situational

1) Being distracted not high in elaboration model

vb. Traffic, you have to look out so no time to listen to radio commercial

traditional view: distraction = always bad

ELM: diminish likelihood of elaboration --> peripheral route = bad for strong arguments but good for weak arguments (increase attitude)

Vb. Brands: weak arguments, just trying to make name

Study Petty, Wells & Brock: reducing tuition fee- IV1: strong weak arguments- IV2: distraction high low (visual tracking of crosses on screen while

listening to persuasive message)

Results as hypothised: not totally inattentive, still able to listen to it but not think about what you hear block self-persuasion but not encoding of message

Distraction can thus be used to hide weak arguments for ex: when person is evaluated (oral exam, job interview) --> central

processing on evaluator’s side: distraction will reduce effect of both positive and negative elements so weak arguments will be less noticeable

vb. Distraction with ppt, stories

So if central processing of evaluator is default (vb. You buy a car --> evaluate sales person) + you have superior position: DO NOT distract receiver

Useful if you don’t have superior position

2) Message Repetition small variations: capacity increasing effect increase likelihood of extra

cognitions (same basic message) abundance repetition could also result in negative affect because it’s get

bored not good for weak arguments

6.2 Dispositional capacity factors - intelligence, working memory capacity or prior topic knowledge- new campaign too much info at once

7. (Relatively) biased Unbiased processesConfirmation Bias: What you already believe about something = biggest bias because you try to find info that is consistent with your believe

Vb. Positive biased towards pol party you like and negative biased towards pol party you don’t like

--> again motivational and capacity factors--> again situational and dispositional reasons

Experiment: Petty and Cacioppo about forewarning: new university policy (only strong arguments)

IV1: forewarning or not about persuasive intent speaker in radio editorial IV2: personal relevance high low Results: relevance induces central route thinking (more thoughts) in

central thinking (high relevance), forewarning blocks persuasion

8. Joint effect of variablesThere are a lot of moderation effects in ELM research + most interesting findings involve an interaction (joint effect is significantly greater/lessthan the sum of the parts) rather than just a main effect

Vb. effect of argument strength is particularly interesting when combined with high vs low processing conditions

Vb. Effects forewarning only conditions of high relevance they influence eachother and only specific combinations lead to real persuasion

Other example: study Petty, Cacioppo, Helsacker

open questions trigger (situational-motivation) central thinking, only when peripheral route would be default only good to move from peripheral to centralvb. Ad: Change the world?

if already central route attitude, open questions do not lead to more persuasion: if already motivated, they are open for cognitions (questions distract)

For example: beloofd campaign: ‘mama heeft me beloofd altijd vast te klikken’ billboard perspective: when you go 120 km/h: they try to make cues that

get you to central processing (child: looking at you)

not a lot of other visual cues = good because otherwise too much distraction

BUT: text is too easy when you’re driving past billboardo After 3,4,5 times (repetition) they will understand what’s on the

billboardo Website = very easy: good

Often: messages said with other drivers --> now message in family context relevance because your own child is talking to you (significant other)

9. Influencing trust in one’s own cognitions = metacognition Self- persuasion = assumed in central thinking own thoughts rather

than message itself will persuadeo Extent to which you will trust these thoughts is also influential:

metacognition

Self-validation hypothesis: series of variables influences extent which people will trust message-based thoughts they will have

these variables are situational and dispositional mostly effect on attitude strength but also somewhat relates to attitude extremity

Study Brinol & Petty (2003): influence of head movement on metacognition

- IV1: nodding (acceptance) shaking head (rejecting) while listening to persuasive message

- bogus instruction: quality headphones- IV2: strong weak arguments

only central route: instructions for attentive listening

Hypothesis: - strong arguments --> positive cognitions- weak arguments --> negative cognitions

pretest

- nodding leads to more self-validation (more confidence in own thoughts) shaking leads to less self-validation (less confidence in own thoughts)

less persuasion (both + as -) expected for shaking condition hypothesis confirmed

!!Note: does not affect perceived credibility of message but credibility of own thoughts

10. Peripheral cue effectsStrategic communication professionals are biased in focus on central route effects

- first thing they think about when designing messages- we think our communication will stand out

BUT:- neglects the fact that we are predominantly “System 1” thinkers

(Kahneman)- Neglects the persuasive power of peripheral cues; certainly when these

cues are often repeated

Peripheral cues not much studied --> relation between cues take a lot of time to study because they have a long-term impact (study repeated effect)Vb. George Clooney and nespresso

a lot of current advertising and marketing communication: peripheral

Study: Petty and Cacioppo: university wide exams- low relevance – strong arguments- high relevance – strong arguments- low relevance – weak arguments- high relevance – weak arguments

IV1: personal relevanceIV2: strong weak arguments IV3: source expertise high low

Results: source expertise will increase likelihood to think about message(tip: graphs: redraw with 4 lines)

Study: Petty and Cacioppo: similar design but with number of arguments- repackage message to make it seem like you have more arguments

increases credibility perceptions higher attitude even if arguments are weak

vb. Oral B --> more bullet points than other brands, celeb = expert no further critical thinking

11. Consequences of 2 routes persuasion partly determined by central and partly by peripheral route

11.1 Extent of Elaboration and Attitude strength Mostly differential effect on attitude strength: more resistant and predictive in central route

Study Haugtvedt and Petty: resistance of attitude change & NFC- Participants watch an ad & their NFC is assessed (need for cognition)- Immediate attitude measure (t0 ) + attitude measure two days later

(t1 )- No real difference at t0 .

Explanation: the peripheral and central attitude change due to the ad have a similar effect size, though different underlying mechanism

Difference at t1 : high in need for cognition who formed attitude based on careful consideration of issue-relevant arguments (central route) showed greater persistence of their new attitudes than did those in low need whose attitudes were based primarily on simple cues (peripheral)

11.2 Metacognition and Attitude strenghtWhen thinking is high: not just amount of thought is critical for producing strong attitudes but also reflect on validity of attitudes that formed / changed can contribute to strenght

Study Tormale and Petty: what happens to strength attitudes that did not change as result of a receipt of a persuasive message

Mix of strong and weak arguments Instruction: try to not be persuaded (quite easy to do so) IV: Bogus info where some are said these were strong arguments, others

were said these were weak arguments. This should trigger differences in selfvalidation (easy to withstand “strong” arguments, then I must have a strong prior attitude on this)

Everybody successful in withstanding the persuasion

Conclusion: believing to withstand strong arguments, more convinced of prior attitudes (self-validation) --> trick to reinforce attitudes

What happens with old attitude if attitude changes? Probably remains with some extent but with annotationVb. Convincing someone of a wrong diet seem convinced but implicit not 100%

very hard to change implicit and explicit attitude

12. Multiple roles of 1 variable within ELM

One persuasion variable can assume more than 1 role in influencing attitudes

For example: ‘source attractiveness’- attractive salesperson might be an argument if selling beauty product- but salesperson attractiveness is also a peripheral cue- but salesperson attractiveness could be motivator to think centrally

about message

these multiple roles make ELM very general framework to hypothesize about a lot of effects but also biggest problem since it decreases predictive power

Important cues peripheral cue: used too generic, just presence cue does not imply it will

be processed peripherally ELM predicts extent and direction of attitude change but also predictions

for attitude strength Central en peripheral route are assumptions no real measure for them

Manners in which variable can impact persuasion1) be an argument2) be a peripheral cue3) decide how much someone thinks about message4) decide which thoughts come to mind + bias in thinking process5) impact on what someone thinks about thoughts

Additional Text: Brinol Term ‘attitude’ originally referred to physical posture today: referring

to evaluation object or issue Attitudes are embodied and closely linked to postures

Most previous research only deals with first-order cognition effects = a direct relationbetween posture and cognitions

this article will also focus posture effects of a second order = effects on central-route meta-cognition

According to the self-validation perspective (Petty, Briñol, & Tormala, 2002), postures can also affect what people think about their thoughts, especially the extent to which they are confident in these thoughts.

First test: Brinol & Petty (2003)IV1: Write down your best vs worst personality traitsIV2: Write these with your dominant vs non-dominant hand

Hypothesis: writing with your non-dominant hand is shaky and doesn’t give you confidence (even not in the thoughts that precede the writing)

Results: Participants indeed less confident in those traits written down with a non-dominant hand (irrespective of positive vs negative traits)

Now similar design but focusing on posture rather than movement- Hypothesis: confident posture will boost self-confidence in thoughts

compared to those having a slouched, unconfident sitting/standing posture

- IV1: Think about your best vs worst characteristics - IV2: Confident vs unconfident posture

Participants and Design Seventy-one undergraduate students at Ohio State University were randomly assigned to the cells comprising a 2 (thought direction: positive vs. negative) x 2 (body posture: confidence vs. doubt) between-subjects factorial design.

Procedure • Participants were seated at individual computer stations and told that all experimental procedures would be carried out electronically. cf. Double-blind research • Participants were then told that they were taking part in two separate research projects (cover-up to hide the real research question) (the other part of ‘double-blind’)

asked to enact a particular body posture while simultaneously listing positive or negative self-attributes related to their potential professional success. Finally, participants relaxed their posture, completed all dependent measures, and were debriefed, thanked, and dismissed.

So, participants get a simultaneous exposure to both manipulations This is a study on self-persuasion, where people persuade themselves that they have certain characteristics, but one’s posture influences the actual persuasion process

Dependent variables: Self-attitudes (‘you as a future professional’): 4 items on a 9 points-scale

with high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha= .86) Remember, ELM is about self-persuasion and we want to show that the

same type of traits (‘messages’) still can result in different persuasion. No differences between conditions emerged.

Trust in one’s own thoughts while listing their traits (9 points scale) Mood and task difficulty

Results: - first order cognition, priming type of effect- as predicted: body posture had a significant effect on thought confidence.

specifically, upright postures were associated with greater confidence

Note: not prove the presumed process to be true. We still need to demonstrate that the effect of posture on attitude is at least partially explained by the effect of posture on thought confidence.

Partial mediation actually fits the process hypotheses of the authors: - We need mediation to demonstrate that posture affects attitudes via

metacognitions (thought confidence) - But we also expect that there will be some direct, first-order cognition

effects from posture on attitudes

Chapter 6: Narrative persuasionTransportation theory: Stories take you away from here and now into the reality of the story you become part of the story and therefore your attitude changes crucially different from central route in ELM

Vb. Night after seeing horror movie --> you hear creepy sounds, you are a lot more scared than normal

Introduction- this chapter: (non) based persuasion from public narratives

o we ‘learn’ from these storieso some narratives can also have arguments (rhetorical)o messages can be persuasive via storytelling / ELM processeso in advertising: increase in use of narrative persuasion

vb. Fairytale, biblical stories: used to talk to children and adults about dangers--> packages underlying message

vb. WOII: propoganda machine, trying 3D (not succesful)

vb. Political persuasion: yes we can (persuasion also to do with fluency)

Expected: lot of research because mind naturally wired for stories, narratives preferred mental structure for storing and retreiving info

BUT: impact narratives largely neglected

1. Persuasive Power of Narrative story has to be unique, balance between new and familiar strong determinant of persuasiveness, extent to which receiver gets away

by the story

transportation has lasting effect on receiver’s beliefs when he returns to present

Transportation – persuasion = thought-convergent process: mental systems and capacities become focused on events occuring in narratives no mechanism for logical reasoning

Elaboration ELM = divergent process

when you have opposing thoughts against story it means that you’re not transportated ini story because opposing thoughts mean central thinkingConsequence of transportation due to submerging, strong emotions and motivations exist for the receiver, even if receiver knows the story is fictious

During transportation: access to present world and cognitions are temporarily blocked (to a large extent): less conscious of real world facts and previous experiences aspects of the present world that remain accessible, often get linked cognitively to the story

Shank & Abelson: individuals who were more engaged in movie showed greater generalization of beliefs implied by story

Remark: 2 main models for argument-based persuasion- ELM and HSM (Heuristic-Systematic Model) but ELM = winner- Narrative persuasion: many more models

Narrative persuasion confined to scripts that are- narrative- evoke (mental) images- deal with opinions and attitudes

2. Narrative persuasion directly related to extend of transportation extent depends on:

1) receiver charasteristics (personality) vb. High versus low transportability

2) script charasteristics vb. Bad writing3) context charasteristics (medium) vb. Reading at home versus at a

party

Moderated mediation model

3. Personality Transportability Measurement 11 general items, 3 subscales cognitive and emotional component no gender differences, no correlation with need for cognition correlation with immersion and absorption (transportation and cognition)

Difference state (situational transportation) and trait need for cognition scale transportation scale

4. Empirical evidence- Research based on narratives that meet the requirements- The narratives should also be manipulable such that you can

study the presumed effects of the extent of transportation and the moderating role of personality and situation

4.1 Murder at the Mall-story (Green et al.)Murder at mall story:

can be framed in different ways: journalism, future drama

receiver can process it in different roles: as reader, as an actor trying to to imagine the role, as a language editor, …

adapting style and content: more silly story less transportation

after reading: asked about attitude objects, but the attitude claims are not made in the text

graph: standardized attitudes to compare between different attitude objects

Results: high transportation --> higher perception of violence, more opposition to freedom for psychiatric patients and greater general sense of injustice

4.2 Psychological processes based on thought-lists: transportation results in consistent thoughts (no

counterarguments), although they pay a lot of attention to the story --> convergent

transportation results in fewer doubts about a story being true (task)

Framing: no effect of framing of the story: fact, fiction, dream high transportability can override effects of framing as fact or fiction

One’s position as receiver: has effect: reading as a language editor decreases transportation

Role of imagery: belief changes between high and low transportation reduced when imagery subscale was predictor of changes transportation effect on persuasion mostly via imagery subscale

4.3 variations influencing imagery: Quality of the story

Livingstone: Murder at the mall (craftsmanship)- High quality results in more transportation, mostly mediated by imagery- High quality therefore also results in more persuasion

--> also means use of stylistic technique (=foregrounding): stronger disconnection with real world vb. Poem that rhymes

4.4. Role of suspense- Anxious to know what’s next

- Excitation transfer theory: suspense enjoyable because arousal is created by excitement or stress of reading about protagonist struggles, arousal turns into positive feeling when character wins out over adversy

o the cliffhanger gets us more involvedo Not in balance: solution = watch next episodeo Can re-occur for exposures to the same story: when they already

know outcomes

Suspense increases transportation

4.5. Low-brow narratives (vb. Novella)If transportation theory is correct: heavy consumers of a narrative genre should display attitude consistent with the genre

vb. Study Diekman et al. regular readers – unsafe sex attitudes confirmed in experiment: high frequency romance readers were less positive towards condoms and less likely to report past condom use of intent to use them in future, than less frequency romance readers

5. Fact or fiction- intuitively: better for facts to be narratived, because we process them as

facts- transportation theory: doesn’t matter, as long there is transportation- evidence against nonfiction’s superior increases- empirics

o Initially respons is to believe everything, only question it when motivation and capacity

o A priori false rhetoric is not persuasiveo Fictious narrative can be equally persuasive as a factual one

6. Personal relevance and argument strength- in ELM, there’s a clear explanation for role of these variables

6.1 Personal relevanceStudy Prentice: a familiar narrative setting with false arguments reduces narrative persuasion: Familiar is relevant, thus induces elaboration on false arguments

Alternative hypothesis: weak arguments pose no threat to narrative persuasion Wheeler et al.: weak arguments persuade regardless of personal relevance

6.2 Argumenth strength & order:- sometimes messages will have many arguments- horizontal order doesn’t matter (so not chronologically aligned)- vertical structured: order = important vb. Don’t you think that

Mcdonalds is unhealthy?BUT: Images borrow strength from narrative charasteristics not from persuasive organisation So order important in narratives if you change storyline it doesn’t make sense --> chronology extremely importance

7. Individual differences- no relation between transportation and need for cognition (NFC not predictive for persuasion due to narrative)

7.1 Social learning (Bandura): Modeling= teaching through observation of others can be explained with narrative persuasion

persuasion via positive valued person demonstrating an attitude-relevant behavior vb. Starbucks: expensive but popular people buy it so I will buy It too

can directly influence behavior, with only later attitude change narrative can be suitable to demonstrate such behavior --> often better

than argument based demonstration

example: student verteld over leven als alcoholieker

7.2 Persistence of attitude change

Narratives could result in more persistent change than rhetorical arguments prone to counter-arguments But imagery hard to refuse -->

opposing images = other story one story is not better than other, exist next to eachother

image is more easy to re-activate when thinking about attitudes human mind wired in to think in scripts and images rather than

arguments emotions are stronger for images and this relates to the affective

dimension of attitudes

7.3 need for (leisurely) entertainment people have need for entertainment occurs most of the time in script-

based narratives quite important: can increase transportability thus strenghten

persuasion effects

7.4 Interactive narratives (modern technology) more possibilities to engage you in the story vb. 4D movie the better they are in taken away the barriers --> the more the

consumer forgets the medium and are sucked in the story (transportability)

vb. Cardboard: not comfortable, hard to control versus daydream view: soft, stuck on your head, control with remote

7.5 Text hegemony hypothesis: ‘some narratives are so powerful, that you cannot resist them’

already so persuasive that is difficult to further increase persuasion but number of narratives are better in persuading you there are variables that decrease persuasiveness vb. Simplifying

language

censorship: fear that narratives are so strong that they will result in attitude change for a lot of readers

Epilogue: Vonnegut: 3 popular storylines- vb. Sprookje- boy gets girl

- man in hole

vb. Trump to black voters: ‘if you think what Hilary Clinton did you’ --> if you are going to vote for Clinton, you cannot sink lower so why not choose for me? nothing to lose

Chapter 7: Interpersonal persuasionCialdini (author of this chapter): famous social psychologist

- a lot of research on group influence much as norms and intergroup behavior

- now famous for interpersonal persuasion

undercover training and jobs to study tricks + categorize them

IntroductionEffects in this chapter based on automatic reactions to cues that can be applied consciously / automatically

persuasion professionals (sales, doctors) might use these but people do so too when trying to persuade others = compliance professionals

focus chapter on compliance requests = action that is taken only because it is requested

ex: Ellen Langer et al: people waiting at copier --> actor with 5 or 20 pages to copy asks to get in front of the line 3 situations:

1) excuse me, I have 5 pages may I use machine?2) Excuse me, … because I have to make copies3) Excuse me, … I’m in a hurry

--> doesn’t mater if it’s nonsense or real info--> 20 pages: only matters if real info

Just adding information (“because”) results in people being more inclined (automatic process)

Video: summary chapter

6 principles:1) reciprocity2) social proof3) commitment and consistency4) friendship and liking5) scarcity6) authority and expertise

1. Reciprocity= those receiving something are more likely to give something back--> return favors: we are socialized in the way we feel obliged to return favor--> even occurs on meta level: if we receive from group, we feel inclined to give back to a third person that we have not interacted with previously

vb. Waiter gives 1 mint: tip increases with 3 percent --> also on meta levelvb. Parents look after us when we are a kid --> care for them when they are old

Cialdini et al. : participants believing they persuaded someone else want to reciprocate by allowing others persuading them attitude change only if arguments were strong

James & Bolstein: Giving participants money prior to study participation will increase their motivation to participate motivational effect of prior 5 dollar bigger than promise of 50 dollar afterwards

Door in the face technique: persuader has extreme request, this gets denied --> persuader gives in gift (telling that he understands) then substitutes with smaller request that increases likelihood of compliance

Vb. Blood donation: do you want to donate the whole year long? No? Okay I understand but do you want to donate once then? --> more likely to say yes

Vb. Can i have 10 cookies? No? Okay, can I have 1 then?

BUT: if persuadee is aware of the use of such techniques, it will most likely backfire

the persuadee pays attention consciously to message but isn’t consciously aware of the techniques used

2. Social Proof= perception that others will do / think similary will increase likelyhood of compliance

the more one perceives than others similar to yourself, the stronger the effect effect stronger with people who define themselves in terms of their group memberships

vb. Tipjar: fill it half so people think that other people already gave something

VRAAG: What happens if we receive conflicting social info, when what we see people doing in a situation conlicts with what we know they ought to do in that situation? zie onderzoek Cialdini on descriptive norms parking lot chapter 3

Research Reingen: list technique = asking for a request only after target person has been shown a list of similar others who have already complied showing list of similar others who donated procent of donations increase + even more when list is longerTheoretical basis: Social comparison theory Festinger

- people feel need to evaluate their acts (right / wrong)- often look at norms injunctive / descriptive

o injunctive: ‘you should be friendly’o descriptive: showing what others do

both can have persuasive effect one of the strongest techniques used online (amount of likes)

3. Commitment and Consistencypeople want to be consistent in their behavior, act consistent with previous commitment (cognitive dissonance theory Festinger)--> in level with moral reasoning

You can refer to a general commitment like an influence norm‘dont you think that all people should have …’

Previous personal and public commitment can even have stronger effect the less you can deny previous commitment, the more you adjust your behavior

vb. you posted online that you went jogging --> stronger commitment than private version

Four walls technique: door-to-door sell of encyclopedia- claims:

wall 1: Do you feel that education is important? Wall 2: Do you think that a child who does his homework will get

better education? Wall 3: Don’t you think that books will help with homework? Wall 4: it sounds like you’ll want to hear about this encyclopedia I

have to offer at a good price?- eventually they said yes + have to be consistent to buy one

Foot in the door technique: you ask small favor and then more and more bigger favor--> more likely to help something they already helped before

Bait and Switch: you first make the persuadee take the bait (promotion / deal)- bait involves some kind of commitment- then try to make persuadee switch to something else: first thing out of

stock make them switch to something more expensive

vb. customers buy furniture in sale at store --> made commitment to store so more likely to buy alternative merchandise here

Low-ball: first step is commitment with bargain (=koopje)- after commitment you gradually increase costs- vb. low cost airlines: looks very cheap but when you want to book it

adds a lot of additional costs

Cialdini: after agreeing to participate in study, participate learned it was at 7 AM increased compliance in comparison with directly told it was at 7 AM

Stronger effects if commitments are: active, public- you can also refer to previous commitments- you can even refer to non-existing commitment or socially valued

personality treat

Even-a-penny-would-help-technique: we feel commited to responding positively to a small request increasing percentage of charity contributors + give more than a penny

4. Friendship and liking= More likely to comply to a request from a liked/valued person

vb. Homeparty such as tupperware- invitation by host = Intermediary between guests and actuel

salesperson- also other principles work here: reciprocity: return favor for providing

drink + attenting party = commitment

not limited to commercial settings

vb. older generation: white labcoat, pharmacist, doctor, psychician now regular clothing: tries to be liked

Praise: praising someone will stimulate reciprocity and likelyness higher likelyhood of complying even if salesperson does this, we tend to believe it

Physical Attractiveness: positive reaction to good physical appearance that generalizes favorable trait perceptions such as talent, kindness, honesty and

intelligence consequence: more persuasive in changing attitudes and getting what they request

Similarity: we like people who are similar to us vb. accept request more if someone dresses similary

Cooperation: if you think we are cooperating to a common goal --> like persuadee more + higher likelyhood of complying

Vb. technique: common enemyVb. in sales: manager = enemy --> buying car: almost a deal, ‘i think my boss is gonna kill me but you are nice people, wait I’m going to ask him’ --> It’s okay, we made a deal (you like salesman)

Prior interaction + communication mode- women: prior interaction increases compliance + face-to-face

communication increase compliance more than impersonal communication through e-mail

- men: no effect of communication medium but prior hostile (=vijandig) interaction limits compliance

5. Scarcity= scarse good more liked and wanted by people

- implicit belief that scarse things are better: things that are difficult to possess are better than things that are easy to possess

- triggers idea of limited freedom + people are reactant towards that idea --> engage in behaviors to restore freedom (not necessarly conscious mechanism)

vb. the value of first editionvb. coca cola: new recipe better than previous one --> when on the market, people begin to buy a stock of the old coke because they fear it will dissapear

Mazi: limited detergents (schoonmaakmiddel) with phosphates (forbidden regionally)

Knishinsky: scarcity in information about limited availability of goods Merchants receiving information about the limited availability of goods reacted stronger (more orders) if they believed there were only a few people knowing about this

Persuasive principle: persuading someone about scarse availability of something, more compliance to want it

possible to combine with other principles

Deadline technique: offer only 1 day

Vb. Lego: warning that Star Wars product will be very popular before it was even on the market --> articles written about it

6. Authority and Expertise= perception authority / expertise more likely to trigger compliance

can be general / specific can be real / symbolic expertise

vb. Going to a restaurant because your friend went there before

vb. white lab coat, diploma’s on the wall

vb. general: having the titel professor: gives expertise over topics that are not in your field study: 95% of nurses who calls with person that claims to be a doctor willing to give drug because caller requested it

vb. specific: stressing years of experience (‘since 1922) study: more compliance if requester wears security guards uniform

Ethics: if tricks consciously used as a lie it’s unethicalBut these tricks are fundamental human mechanism in persuading each other

- They make our species survive = evolutionary adaptive biased- Reciprocity = part of human nature vb. Care for parents when they

are old- Only unethical if used as a lie comes at cost of persuader and

persuadee well being

Resisting persuasion

Sagarin et al. research: training to resist illegitimate authority- First studies limited effect third person effect: people’s illusion of

comparative invulnerability: people think they are better than others in variety of issues (also resisting persuasion)

- Manipulation that did work: making people understand own bad judgmento Everybody receives ado Half of participants asked to reflect about ito All participants receive list of used tricks in ado Second fase with illegitimate authority: participants in experimental

group better able to resist second persuasion attempt

CHAPTER 8: Small Group Presentation1. Introduction

Central thesis = people in group tend to some kind of consensus Group = collection of people with interaction (might be subtle and implicit)

with a central goal (might be implicit) up to 15 members (beyond that typical group effects)

A lot of day-to-day situations involve such minimal groups Vb. Group who wants to cross the street (implicit goal) versus cars

If you stress group membership (you are group A): compete with other group B (want to be better) dynamics also when they merge

2. Informational versus normative social influenceVb. War of the worlds: informational social influence: didn’t know what to do but followed what others were doing also peer pressure

You can have normative social influence on it’s own but informational always goes with peer pressure

Vb. You can know something is false but still follow others (no informational)

2.1 Informational social influence= people get influenced by what others do (implicit) or say (explicit) occurs in situations in which they don’t know what is the proper action lack information so therefore look at others

Typically occurs in situation perceived as expert-like:- in an ambiguous situation- involving crisis

--> stronger effect the more the action seems to be important

First research: Auto-kinetic effect (Sherif, 1936)

Reaction triggers private acceptance; non-compliance is difficult (and selfpersuasive)

Vb. Girl collapses on train nobody takes action until someone takes the lead (looks expert-like) and then everyone wants to help

Vb. War of the worlds: some people took it for real instead of fiction and start panicking--> if you see other people in panic, you try to get away2.2 Normative social influence= even if we know proper action, we can feel group influence (peer pressure)

Peer pressure effect stronger:- group is more important (highly cohesive)- no allies: you are only one who is against group- culture rather collective- action / subject less important- difficulty task, ambiguity of stimulus and uncertainty participant

effect more public than private

Asch studies- intention: demonstrate human rationality- easy task: in individual condition 99 procent correct- experimental condition:

o 7 unknown confederates, participant second to lasto 6 correct group trials, 12 error trialso only 76% correct, 37 % errors

believe that group is correct

Variations:1) how does the group react?- 1 confederate, 6 participant- Participants believe that confederate suffers from mental illness

2) Help from another non-conformist? = dissent- 2 participants, one of which is seated in early position- Decreases errors

3) Help from an erroneous non-conformist?

- one confederate makes non-conformist mistakes- mere presence of some other person escaping from group norms

decreases he normative influence on actual participants

dissenter big influence, therefore groups and organizations make sure dissent is silenced

BUT not because it’s called peer pressure that it is a bad thing could be good for the group, bonding and group productivity

Vb. Group resolutions: ‘we are going to go to the gym 2 times a week’ --> group pressure could be the group contacting you when you are not in the gymMajorities also influence the thinking of groups:

- majority of 3 has maximum influence: larger not more influence than 3- not only shape judgments and behavior but also shape ways in which

individuals think- when people are faced with a majority views that differs from their own,

not only adopt majority position but convince themselves of the truth of the position by considering the issue only from the majority perspective

- problem solving: tend to adopt majority strategy for solving problems to the exclusion of other strategies

Nemeth & Kwan (1987): word recognition task- Training: bogus feedback about how other group members solve the task- Test: recognize as much- Result: individuals conform to the perceived group strategy, to the cost of

not using alternative strategies

3. Effects on opinions and strategies in a group

3.1 Minority effects- example: Asch variations

Moscovici et al.: perception of colours- Four participants and two confederates in group- IV: confederate behavior.

o Consistent: confederates label a green card as blueo inconsistent: confederates mislabel the green card only on 2/3 of

trials (so, they are more correct than the consistent condition)o control: correct answer

- Results: Majority participants are not so much influenced by the minority. However, in a subsequent, private task, the consistent condition participants clearly are influenced in their personal judgment on the boundary between blue and green.

- So, consistent minorities are even capable of changing private perceptions

but or a minority to be persuasive, it must be consistent over time and in it’s position

Nemeth & Wachtler (1974): insurance claim- Discussion and decision within a group; then a private evaluation of each

member’s opinion; finally, a private decision on a new claim- Confederate takes an extreme position (low insurance refund) in the

group decision- Little influence of confederate on group decision- Again effect on private acceptance of that one-person-minority in

subsequent tasks- Effect of minority even stronger when confederate sits at the head of the

table (authority) and chose to sit there (confidence)

Interesting consistent minority effect. Often replicated. Many real-life anecdotes: vb. Consistent health claims, warnings etc.; Also consistent within larger context (do not warn against liquor and still promote beer…)

Moscovici: “majority leads to compliance; minority to conversion”

- Majorities induce compliance = early and direct adoption of majority position without private change

- Minorities induce conversion: private acceptance- But conversion by the minority is not always to the minority’s point of

view leads to a deflection (afwijking), much like the divergent thinking processes in ELM

Variation on Nemeth & Kwan (1987) word recognition study- When group is informed that 1person consistently uses different word recognition strategies: results in more strategies used by the individuals in the subsequent test phase

More effects:- Consistent minority viewpoints stimulate divergent thinking about issue- More creativity when people are exposed to minority viewpoint

consensus = good for group dynamic but conversion = good for creativity

3.2 Majority effects

1) groupthink Example: Bay of Pigs invasion: stupid decision by group Hindsight bias but all characterized by a string of decisions that seem

vulnerable and without a plan B Typical for decision made by homogenous and cohesive group with strong

leader

framework: Janis: set of antecedents, symptoms and consequencesa) Antecedents (factors):- highly cohesive: people want to be members because group is attractive- directive leader: leader controls discussion- group isolation: protected from alternative views- high stress: perceive stress to group- poor decision making procedures: no standard method to consider

alternative views

b) symptoms- illusion invulnerability: ‘better, stronger than enemy’- belief in moral correctness of group: ‘God is on our side’- stereotypical views of out-group- self-censorship: not express contrary opinions- direct pressure on dissenters to conform- illusion of unanimity: illusion that everyone agrees- mindguards: group members protect leader from contrary views

c) defective decision making- incomplete survey of alternatives- failure to examine risks of the favoured alternative- poor info search

- failure to develop contingency plans

2) Research about groupthink--> research is dated--> research on specific group

Esser: summarized research sorted by1. historical cases2. empirical labcases

lot of post-hoc interpreted anecdotal cases that support groupthink theory

Problem:- hard to to find out of group think = reality - not a proven theory- hard to trigger in lab because of interactions (goldilocks conditions:

something will only happen when specific conditions are here)

Overall: mixed results but in benefit of the doubt in favor of groupthink

3) Possible solutions to avoid groupthink leader as chair rather than director, subgroup, external experts active minorities seem to be essential in avoiding a majority in groupthink

4) minorities in group decisions:- first research within realm of legal jury deliberations- presence persistence minority results in more alternatives taken into

account

group makes better decisions and come up with better solutions when there is a minority viewpoint present and expressed

So, is there an mere advantage of institutionalized devil’s advocate- = Someone assigned to always have a dissenting opinion for the majority

view- Organizational psychology: technique results in better group decisions

and more diverse thinking - But still different from a true conflict, because it is a role rather than a

genuine opinion

Nemeth et al.: insurance claimGroup discussion

- Experimental condition with confederate as dissenter- Experimental condition with confederate as institutional devil’s advocate- Control condition

Results- Both experimental conditions result in more thinking- Only the condition with the ‘true’ dissenter results in more divergent

thinking

- So, the devil’s advocate results in more group effort to have convergent tasks (confirming the original position or hypothesis)

Variation research: know real opinion devils advocate (Manipulated as consistent to “dissenter role”, inconsistent to that role, or a control condition)

Results: little influence need concensus balanced to someone’s individual effort to state opinion

5) Evolutions of decisions in a group Polarization = groups produced more extreme judgments in direction

that was initially preferred

2 types:o More risks in group decision: a lot of studies point out that groups

take more risks than their individual members would doo Less risks in group decision: after group discussion, decision

became more cautious + remained after discussion ended

Moscovici: Groups tend to have consensus in the direction of their initial position and, thus, one could say that group discussion results in POLARIZATION

Vb. Autokinetic effect: evolution towards initial majority position anecdotes to confirm this: terrorist attacks in Paris --> people think that we

were overacting by canceling big events but changed view when attacks in Brussel

2 theories to explain polarization1) social comparison theory: - need to self-evaluate --> look at opinion of other group members- to excel we try to do better than the norms set by others, which

strengthen direction of initial group position

2) Persuasive arguments theory = people’s initial judgments based on their memory of arguments (both pro and contra) on the issue. When people enter group discussion they are exposed to other arguments, some of which they had not considered yet and these arguments may be persuasive

both theories tested, receive support (most support for second)

so not all arguments are equally likely to be shared among the group member

Stasser & Titus (1985): - Task: select a candidate; group decision among 4 members- IV: shared versus unique info (unequally distributed) about the candidates- The best candidate: 8 positive and 4 negative features

- Group with the distributed information not likely to reach correct conclusion. Mostly discusses shared rather than unique information

Epilogue: also non-strategic persuasion in many group setting open feedback in jury of people reduces variation

Each decision is made individually, but the jury members receive some type of feedback (e.g., all scores, or an average) and this will calibrate their future decisions

vb. Doctors in joint diagnosis

Chapter 9: Health communication1. Introduction: Additional different models and approaches

Goal health communication = develop and test messages that influence behavior that yield benefits and minimize losses

Mostly campaigns focused on prevention because diagnosis messages not for the mass audience

vb. But: campaigns to check on breast cancer

Most research on health comm is topical (actual) research as well:- smoking, teen pregnancy, drug abuse- often relate to what is fashionable as a research topic vb. Earlier

focused on HIV but now not that growing anymore so less focus problem: with each new hype the work has to be done all over again (new situation, new cognitions)

Issues:- not so many theories that can be applied each case, difficult domain- most interventions only have moderate effects = work for a large number

of person but most desirable benefits reach vast majority of users- most benefits only visible after years (abscence of observable benefits)- competition from an array of media messages- each topic obeys to general comm principles, but also specific

determinants- communication begins where psychology ends in health communication

vb. Smoking: a lot less smoking than in the 80’s but nowadays: the younger generation start to smoke more than the previous generation --> new problem, new questions

What do these models have to do?- understand how people are motivated (or not) for a certain behavior- understand how communication can affect behavior

1.1 Basic sender-receiver modelsStudies in health: 1 course about communicating with patiens only the most basic sender- receiver model (Shannon)

doesn’t deal with attitudes and behavior (necessary in health comm)

1.2 Psychology and decision making

1) TRA/TBP (Ajzen & Fishbein): conscious behavior applied quite often in health domain

Two major consequences:- only about explicit behavior- no communication in model

2)

2)

2)

2)

2)Health belief model (Rosenstock)- take away barriers and increase good stuff work on balance if you want

preventive action- work on perceived threat (increase): more frigthened increases

likelyhood of preventive action

3) protection motivation theory (Rogers)- increase threat en give them tools to do it vb. Give free nicotin patches would be true coping phrasal intervention

4) stages of change (almost marketing model)- segmenting people: people can be categorized in different

segmentsvb. Contemplation: I am going to the gym from now on

- preparation: looking for a gym (preparing for action)- action: currently engaged in behavior- mainenance: who keep engaging- relapse: stop with behavior- precontemptation: whatever

1.3 Marketing models

1) Censydiam (Callebaut)- healthy eating --> power: more energy versus belonging: also healthy just

like family- people have different motivations and are persuaded with other beliefs- categorize and focus on different needs and adapt communication to

needs

1.4 Communication models

1) Extended parallel process model (Witte)- include some type of threat - first threat appraisal: people first process threat --> trigger attention

Lot of persuasive messages in one day health campaigns hard time to break through, one way to do that is threat (should trigger attention: evolutionary) --> should make you go from system 1 to system 2

But even if it is system 2: it’s not always rational- if you believe it’s not a severe thing, persuasion is not happening

(disregard)- then when there is enough fear but not enough efficacy appraisal: fear

control

vb. People believe that they aren’t as likely to have an accident than others --> believe that others drive more dangerous

then only danger control works: constructive response (high self and response efficacy)

2) Elaboration likelihood model (ELM) already discusses

OVERALL:Most health comm is too directive (do this, don’t to that) and focusing on the system 2 (conscious) type of information processing Vb. voedingsdriehoek

key for effective health comm = balance between enough threat and information to solve threat (EPPM & Common sense model)

2. Common sense model

Common sense-model: A COM SCI model Goal = to construct a health message that leads to adaptive behavioral change

adaptive change? Real prevention, succesful treatment? Leads to? not always possible to measure, so sometimes speak of

clinically significant rather than statically significant findings Don’t forget that health message = just 1 part of persuasive context in

which behavior is situated --> other messages still occur (vb. Unhealthy food)

Common-sense model: different names (illness perceptions model, self-regulartory)

MODEL:- effective is going to be quicker than deliberate one- model includes both automatic and deliberate processes for emotional

control- cognitively: what is my situation? Labelling what is the problem

(symptoms)- then you think: how can I cope with it + make specific action plan

Key features:- based on distinction of ‘cold’ (cognitive) versus ‘hot’ (affective) processing- action plans as the more concrete version of behavioral intentions- balance between enough threat and cognitive triggers to resolve threat --

> using threat-related drive to make action plans- starts from set of stimuli: previous knowledge, symptoms and messages

more communication model than health behavior

Two problems:- some campaigns only affective cues- other only have cognitive cues balance is needed

vb. Gone to soon road safety campaign: strong threat --> attitudinal change against speeded driving but problem = not going to give you precise type of efficacy cues that you need --> driving too fast not always conscious thing

Cold not always rational: many heuristiscs plays a role Threat cues: identity, time, causes, consequences, controllability

3. Prevention messages - just receiving information is not sufficient to motivate people for

prevention--> even receiving and understanding is not sufficient--> but of course receiving info = necessary

- lay perspective: people not motivated for prevention because they do not feel threat --> increase threat level

vb. Every 15 cigarettes you smoke cause a mutation that can become cancer- high fear does not directly increase behavioral change

o Jamis and Feshback, 1954: tooth decay: high risk less effect because refused to recognize that threat could apply to them (denial hypothesis)

o Not necessarily due to denial of the message: fear resulted in more compliance with the message (attitude change)

SO: Why no behavioral change? - According to common-sense model this is due to a need to first regulate

the emotions (threat appraisal) TRA/TPB

- Kornzweig: fear results in att change but only day later also affected behavioral change

high fear can result in maladaptive coping = reducing fear without reducing actual threat --> denial behavior vb. Pregnant women still drinking alcohol

3.1 Action plansLeventhal et al.: tetanus

High versus low fear messages: differences in language cues & images used

½ participants triggered to make an action plan: reschedule to go to medical center for vaccine

Results: o high fear --> more fear, higher prevention att + prevention behavior

but didn’t really change behavioro only high fear + action plan results in more prevention behavioro action plan without prevention message: no effect, so action plans

necessary but not sufficient

3.2 Cognitive and affective components- representation of the threat both affective and cognitive

o in many models assumed in too rational mannero common sense model: actions plans are shaped by contents of

health threat representations reflect implicit belief system that structures information according to 5 attributes: identity, time, causes, timeline, control/cure

influence how we interpret messages from our bodies and surroundings

Messages that use such heuristic illness representations have a higher likelihood of being self relevant (and thus motivated processing; cf. ELM)

4. Compliance to therapy (treatment):= listening to communication that your body gives you

vb. Taking antibiotics: stop taking them because you feel bettervb. When you have the flu you go to the doctor (flu) info doctor + yourself to determine to stop with drugsvb. Gradual illness: doesn’t seem that bad so don’t make doctor appointment

4.1 Symptoms as signals (cues)- patient experiences of changes and interpretation of changes play major role

in determening behaviors they adopt to maintain health and to prevent disease most not interpreted as symptoms

- Cameron et 1993: symptoms: o Patients surveyed before their appointment with the GP: all report

new symptoms as a reason for their doctor’s visito Matched control group without a GP visit: less “new” symptoms

reportedo But those reporting symptoms actually report just as many (but not

perceived to be reasons for a doctor’s visit)o The difference: interpretations of symptoms as an illness signal:

labels/diseases; consequences presumed, time frame of symptom development; potential causes

Once diagnosed and treatment started, much depends on patient somatic changes interpreted as informative and relative to the ultimate treatment goal

o In part, independent of those signal’s true informational valueo Some symptoms/signals have nothing to do with the illness and are still

interpreted as sucho Some illnesses are asymptomatic and still we interpret changes as

pertaining to our treatment

Meyer: chromic blood pressure 70 % therapy compliance among those perceiving improvement in their condition versus 30 % not perceiving improvement

4.2 Heuristics in interpreting symptoms= mental shortcuts to processing

Symmetry heuristic: if we perceive somatic signal to be symptom we look for label to match it and vice verca:

- if we believe to have an condition, we perceive more ‘symptoms’- thinking you have illness makes you look for symptoms

Baumann et al: false feedback about blood pressure- High” versus “normal”- Influences self-perceived symptomsStress-Illness heuristic: deciding symtoms is just stress or illness

- stress = important driver for vague and ambigious symptoms- those having self-perceptions of stress and symptoms more likely to

attribute these to stress- enduring stress symptioms: maybe stress causes condition that triggers

symptom

- stress combined with obvious symptoms: easier to discern illness as a cause

Time span and severity of symptoms- time span: more importance diagnostic symtom but lacks clear call to

action why should I go tomorrow to doctor if I didn’t go yesterday?- Severity: difficult to study + most common disease have lower severity

Age versus illness: older people might attribute a lot of their symptoms to age- vague symptoms: only notice if acitively compare to younger self- even acute vague symptoms we can find a contextuel reason for

understood with social comparison theory: when objective criteria for interpretation are missing, we often seek to compare ourselves with comparable others – are we coping better or not?

ex: mass psychogenic illness vb. Someone starts vomiting, rest does It too

Contextual comparison: even context of social comparison plays a role- Schachter’s hypothesis: individuals confronting threatening situations

prefer to affiliate with people facing similar conditions because allows them to better understand + give meaning to emotional states

- Kulik et al: Someone with same operation than you --> idea of how it’s going to be (this is my future self) support for hypothesis

- Mazen & Leventhal: contextual influence on how we perceive other communicator breast feeding setting: more accepted by same racial communicator

Prevalence (counter part of severity): perceived severity of illness depends on perceived prevalence

Jemmott et al.: - Bogus feedback: a positive test for pancreas condition- IV: how other participants score on this test: Participant is only one

scoring positive, or a majority member- Who thinks it’s common disease worry less even thought they get the

same diagnosis

5. Application / settings

5.1 Doctor - Patient - most attention to presentation and superficial communication skills but

little attention to cognitive and persuasive skills- while persuasion = very important in this communication

Ley: order of presentation is important: cab enchance memory, acceptance and adherence to treatmentVb. Tendency to first warn patient can limit further processing of information

Other methods- patient education: trying to bring perspective of patient to doctor- diabetes prevention program: feedback in communication

2 shortcomings:- little to no theory involved- scalability of the optimal interventions to an affordable medical care for

all? requires a lot of training

5.2 Campaigns- assumption: all intented recipients from segment should have a lot in

common --> use commonality to adress them vb. People who smoke, drive too fast

- not personalized but still relevant because they have a few things in common

- some campaigns seem to work (vb. Smoking), at least at long term- we can question return on investment = to what extent succeeds

campaign in goal, to what extent are the results due to campaign

Multilevel studies= longitudinal study on evolution of markers (attitudes, behavior, …)

messages targeted at different groups (schools, regions) because when you conduct your study in 1 school in a particular region there can be clusters: students in the school will have a lot of charasteristics similar because of the same context

you need a good sample (representative) people from different schools, regions, … so that sample has different charasteristics

expensive and time consuming methodology

Rogers: natural experiment in Tanzania with radio-based narrative

6. Additional factors and examples one size fits all approach might not work because patient’s experience vary

1) mass media versus personalized campaign when doctor talks personally to you --> more effect than when on TV petric: scale personalized message to mass media train people to perceive their symptoms --> easy for diseases with

symptoms one can easily perceive 2 stage approach with first collecting data and then targeting info

vb. Moeite om de trap op te gaan? Snel buiten adem?--> triggering symptoms that everyone has--> ‘could be pulmanory hypertension’

2) Duggar & Bates: extent of information desired = how much medical information a person wants

training professionals on this idea: find out who person is and what communication he wants

relates to need for cognition

3) Prescription of anti-depressive medicine to youth oct 2003: warning to not prescribe SSRI drugs to youth because it

increases suicide attempts message strong effect on doctors --> fewer prescription = aimed for effect BUT: fewer depression diagnosis (solution = gone so less diagnosing) + No increase in alternative therapy + increase in suicide attempts

they should have persuaded doctors to do something else, the right thing --> had a lot of system 1 barriers

vb. Kurk: research line about food marketing targeting children- food marketing mainly unhealthy food- contrast with often scary messages we receive concerning health eating- use persuasive tricks to do the opposite

4) contextuele factoren vb. Tanzania

Chapter 11: Prejudice1. Introduction

- historical reason: many famous political persuasion = build on stereotypesvb. Hitler, Martin Luther King, Trump

- definition: prejudice = negative attitude, used as a stereotype for a whole group, affecting one’s overt & covert behavior towards group

vb. Covert: on the bus not sitting next to the person you have an prejudice about

- Focus in this chapter = racial prejudiceo Complex: even more complex tha status / gendero Difficult to changeo Insights transferable to other stereotype behavior

Jane Elliot: starts discrimination exercice with distinction in blue eyes / brown eyes

- first blue eyes nicer, smarter, … + got privileges- effects: blue eyes more active, better performance + boy sad because

someone called him ‘brown eyes’- following day the roles were reversed: did not promote intergroup

harmony

intergroup prejudices can be formed easily meaning = you are racist wants to show underlying mechanism of stereotyping

2. Cognitive basisReason: to navigate through sea of info + extract most important features + block out stimuli that are not relevant for task

- human tendency to categorize: black-white, boy-girl, …o mostly in dichotomies, makes life easiero expertise leads to nuances and reproduce knowledgeo these categories act as templated according to which info is quickly

compared and organized

- stereotypes might be especially influential when little info perceived about specific individual + responses made very quickly with no conscious deliberation (automatic)

- result: automatic activation means that effect of stereotypes on behavior occurs without awareness and may affect people’s responses unintentionally

- schemata not necessarily a bad thing

o adaptive tools to summarize, store, reproduce knowledgeo often bear correctnesso only maladaptive in specific situations such as dealing with a

situation / person that does not fit the schema

Prejudice occurs when group applies stereotyped view to a category

Also: people tend to categorize others in terms of us versus them, with the in-group being favored outgroup --> biased in negative way towards out group

3. Motivations for prejudice: mechanisms of in-group favorism

Minimal group paradigm = method for examining intergroup biases results:

- although group distinction not very meaningful it led to intergroup biases: giving rewards to people with similar preferences (vb. Prefer author)

- group assignments cause people to view members of their group to be more similar and outgroup more different from themselves = polarizing effect

Stereotyping to bolster self-esteem:Fein and Spencer found that people with threatened self-esteem use stereotypes to feel better

4. Additional: conditioning and stereotypesDevelopment and existence of stereotypes

1) Classic view paternalistic: imprinting stereotype by family / environnement -->

stereotype to narratives vb. Zwarte piet

erroneous info processing: o 4 fields of information with a lot of information of the negative and

positive behavior of the majority group (white) because in daily life surrounded with this group

o minority group (non white) not much information abouto therefore interpreting info in cell way (reduce to 2 cells) focus on

positive behavior of majority group and negative behavior of other group

exaggerate info: better in storing, better in perceiving

POSITIVE NEGATIVEWHITE Much info Much info

NON WHITE Less info Less info

2) CELA (Fiedler & Wacher): info = result of (reality x person)

POSITIVE NEGATIVE

Entity A = majority X1 X2

Entity B = minority x3 x4

Don’t make absolute inferences about a and b but compare them in comparing them we make a small mistake as a human (not calculant Chi2) you have a conclusion about a and b, then you compare strength of both conclusions: for each row you make good conclusion bus small mistake in comparing

Not sure about entity b so think that entity a = more positive

Vb. you give your dog always treats in the weekend for good behavior, mom does this in the weekend mom = majority so dog is happier to see mom than to see u= basic conditioning

Contact hypothesis: the more you get in contact with the minority group, the less biased (more info) but still minority group is not able to catch up in amount of info

only thing you could do: trying to have people exposed to biased information more positive info minority group shifts hypothesis but not it’s strenght

POSITIVE NEGATIVEEntity A = majority 6000 4000

Entity B = minority 600 + 1000 400

vb. when you are always give treats in the weekend to the dog and mom doesn’t always give treat your behavior is consistently positive so dog has higher expectations of you

5. Psychodynamic Theory: Agression

1) Displaced agression- non – expressed agression = motivation according to theory- we seek for symbolic ways to express such agression, we have these

needs because reduction of agression brings us closer to the goal of homeostatis (balance)

o stereotypying minorities might be such behavioro such behavior can be illegal

2) Authoritarian personality (personality disorder) = exaggerated submission to authority, extreme levels of conformity to conventional standards of behavior, harsh treatment of deviants and minority group members, … linked to political conservatism because tend to support right-wing policies

3) realistic group conflict theory: when 2 groups compete for same resources, they inevitably come into conflict that results in prejudice and intergroup hostility

relative deprivation theory: prejudice arises when people perceive that they are being deprived of some resource relative to other people or another group

6. CampaignsBut: Are people conscious / unconscious of prejudice?

- if LEGAL: ‘you can’t do’ --> constant reminder of system 2 --> in long run effect on system 1 behavior

- If MORAL: not as forceful

Vb. Nee tegen racisme UEFA look at ad from perspectives of different chapters for ex: celebs (relevance + more attention) --> try central attitude change whole campaign (other ads) are bit of narrative

- Campaign have impact on perceptions of what is allowed / desirable (agenda setting, norm effects in TRA / TPB), effect threath in health communication

BUT: - Do they impact individual level?- Change in perceptions?- Generational change (= just 1 generation changes but next generation

not anymore)?- Or mere change in behaviors but not in underlying attitudes?

1) Moral aspect Focusing on conflicting values:

o Christian values discriminationo Land of the free discriminationo The playfulness of sports (= multicultural) discrimination

Value self confrontation (Rockeach): attitude change via manifest value conflict between egalitarian view and prejudice

o cognitive dissonance should bring solutiono works but very intensive procedure + explicit behaviors

Empathy: showing how it feels to be prejudiced (Elliot)

o Griffin: : became a black man for several weeks and reported what he experienced in a book

o Batson: experiment where people listen to interview of homeless man who described why he became homeless, participants asked to empathize with man or hold objective perspective empathized reported later more positives attitudes towards homeless people in general if clear that homeless man was not responsible for condition

Vb. Moral: movies about horrors of slavery

2) Legal aspect idea = changing law can cause attitude change --> making people behave

correctly can even change attitude (vizieuce cirkel, can be explained with cognitive dissonance)

Induced Compliance: cognitive dissonance: man might hold prejudiced beliefs but give equal treatment to black person --> provokes dissonance + change attitude to be consistent with behavior

Contact hypothesis: more contact --> better mutual understanding + leads to less prejudice

o Sherrif: Robbers cave exp: Two groups first bond and then compete in a summer camp setting. In a third phase they have to cooperate, which reduces the ingroup bias shows that it works

o Deutsch & Collins: similar test in community

basic card to play = common enemy or common goal

3) Measurements difficult to measure attitude unbiasedly, difficult to measure exposure to campaigns2 general strategies

1) Intergenerational shift in attitude and opinions about policy- Positive results in Schurar et al.: more positive att, Davido: less

frequent use of stereotype- Less positive in Devine and Elliot: some stereotypes disappear, but

replaced by others

2) Consistency between self-reported attitude and actual behavior• Crosby et al (1980): campaigns have positive effect on attitudes, not on behavior

contradict findings: improvement or shift?

Jones and Sigale: social desirability- control group: report to researcher (presumed soc desirability)- experimental group: report to researcher + truth machine- results: more stereotypes reported in experimental condition

shift seems best to find findings = changed norms, level of race bias that is acceptable according to society’s standards has changed therefore prejudices expressed in subtle, covert ways

only explicit measure --> but what are implicit thoughts

vb. Leave seat between you and other / someone from minority group

7. Modern prejudiceWe need to explain shift in racial attitudes

4 possible explanations (ways to measure implicit attitude)

1) Symbolic racism

System 2 explicit attitude and behavior have changed but still implicit feeling --> resulting in people favoring things that are positive for majority and negative for minority (vb. Policies)

Modern racism scales assesses inclination towards policy and values that harm racial out-group

Vb. Migrants can come here but they should have a job, learn the language, …

2) Aversive racismWe experience conflict between egalitarian values & racial attitudes (you know you shouldn’t do it but you still have a little prejudice) --> motivating to avoid conflict situations

vb. Not going to country where you have prejudice about

3) Ambivalent racism

One can have both positive and negative attitude concurrently, like a bipolar attitude: depending on situational specifics, one / other will prevail

Vb. You love your girlfriend but you still dislike some things about her

4) Dissociation of prejudice

Dissociation between explicit and implicit attitude

mostly unaware of implicit attitude but they leak through behaviors Counteracting such implicit attitudes requires motivation, time and energy

- new measure techniques required

8. Measuring implicit prejudice8.1 Lexical decision task:

o sequential trials where you judge If combination of letters is word / non-word

o prior to letter strings, prime word is shown so shortly that we know it is not processed consciously

o prime relates to racial categorieso target words are traits that can pertain to one’s prejudice about

these categories

Fazio: adapted task to evaluative priming Prime = picture of a person pertaining to Caucasian or Afro-American

group Target word: decide whether or not it implies something good vs bad The valence of the stereotype = the extent to which the Afro-American

prime accelerates the decision on the “bad” vs “good” target words Usually, such a measure does not correlate well with self-report racial

attitudes

8.2 Changing implicit attitude very challenging thing to do what strategies exist to decrease it (CELA)? Bias: to much positive thoughts for majority

1) Frequent exposure to de-biased cognitions: filling the CELA table in counter biased way (= positive thinking) Pasgupta & Greenwald: expose to pictures of positive outgroup +

negative ingroup lowered at IAT but effect doesn’t last long

2) Conscious overriding of implicit changes Kawakansi et al.:

o Initial measure of implicit attitudeo Training: agree with stereotype vs disagree with stereotype (yes/no)o Post-measure: disagreement training reduces stereotypes at implicit

level

Both methods without actual persuasive communication --> manipulation was behavioral task

Can persuasive communication do the trick? Probably not- we need focus on new set of persuasion skills- we should not dismiss explicit persuasion campaigns

- not only focus on prevention of prejudiced behavior but also on positive behaviors

Chapter 10: Political PersuasionVb. Trump and Bart de Wever doing signs, ‘yes we can’ = brand asset

Agenda setting?- migration pact- yellow vest movement: protest in Paris

1. IntroductionChapter = focused on US: part of dynamics due to differences in pol system but parts still apply elsewhere

Historical overview- media interfere in political area- political persuasion used to be rhetoric, directed to subset of population --

> now mediatized + politicians manage own (social) media- media much more visual + give impetus to political careers (impersonal

comm)- political elites are more able to manipulate and more dependent on media

vb. Refreshing posts on Twitter Non-substantial elements therefore become increasingly important (quotes, branding)

2. PART 1: Media effects Only discusses the direct persuasive effect on political behavior/attitude

Initial belief: only small effects (or no effects). Mass media seemed to only strengthen initial predispositions

Political preferences were thus seen as predispositions (traits) Law of minimal effects

However, initial research was limited (conceptually and methodologically) Studied only dispositions, but not other relevant political

attitudes/behaviors Only self-report survey research

Current point of view: multiple effects are real and substantial McGuire (1986) and others: Media control (consciously or not) the

political agenda: this is an effect of the media on citizens and, as such, on politics = Agenda control / Agenda setting (1st & 2nd order)

McGuire (1985) and others: Direct political persuasion on ideas and political preference: this is a direct effect from politicians on both the media and the citizens = Direct political persuasion

1) Agenda setting: media often only source of info and therefore they set agenda (1st order agenda setting) + influence how people think about these topics (2nd order agenda setting)

Media report on rather technical issues and the continuation of such topics can also result in disinterest; This can have an effect (e.g., polarization) but a continued attention will not result in further effects

2 types of research1. Experimental:

- Iyengar & Kinder: clear causal implications: news broadcasts o US dependency of foreign energyo IV: no news coverage – three – six news stories (manipulation)o DV: perception of whether foreign energy is important

problem for country: 24% vs 50% vs 65%o Actually, this is a very small type of manipulation (max 6 news

items), still with strong effects

2. Correlational: a. easier to get data, more real-lifeb. Mere correlational vs time series researchc. Behr & Iyengar

o DVs: economy, news about the economy, and opinions about economy

o News influences opinions, indepently from objective realityo No reverse feedback effect: news does not change due to

changed opiniono Nonetheless, this is what media often claim: “people make the

news

Moderators of agenda setting: Personal relevance of the news item: media attention will then further

support one’s idea that it is an important topic The perceived importance attached to the news item (prominence): first

item, use of strong images

Psychological explanation: Automatic process via accessibility of the topic: topics heavily or

recently covered in news more likely to be ‘top of the head’ + therefore more likely to be given as an answer when asking which issues are most important

Deliberate process based on one’s memory or perceptions of news item history: people make inferences about which issues should be considered important based on the level of news coverages they receive

--> 2nd order effects not so much researched, but they do exist. E.g., framing2) Priming = influence of the media (and agenda setting) on political decisions= impact of news coverage on weights that individuals assign to their opinions on particular issues when they make political evaluations

Much like how a cognitive prime subtly nudges our thinking and behavior

If, e.g. for reasons of agenda setting, you believe that topic X is important, you will more likely adjust your voting behavior to that

stronger when news reports explicitly link politicians’ actions or statements with state of national problems

Consequence: much of the political debate is not targeted on a shared topic. Politicians try to focus on their own topics

Vb. NVA and its focus on migration

In a specific version, priming leads to momentum (in primary elections) News coverage during early primaries tend to focus exclusively on state

of the ‘horse race’ which candidate is leading in the polls, which are losing ground, … primary voters heavily primed with info about candidates’ electoral viability

In a chronological/iterative voting system such as the primaries in the US or the regional elections in Germany

Polls as a prime for momentum (with a non-scientific interpretation of differences between polls); or social media (descriptive norms)

Individual differences in priming effect: Stronger for those who think politicians are accountable Stronger for those trusting media and being interested in politics

3) Framing= effects of presentation on judgment and choice

- strong psychological effect (Kahneman & Tversky)- gain vs loss framing- Also in political news, frames are used. Cf. how we talk about a variety of

socially relevant topics

Examples of political news framing effects: Equivalence: Same content but different feeling to the message Emphasis: Emphasizing a different part of the message

Frames occur on different levels:- what media chooses to cover and what not- coverage of politicians positions on issues = framing political competition- within story

Media: episodic (narrative, cases, specific events) vs thematic (background, general context)

Pressure on media to please their audience – results in more episodic framing

Iyengar (1991) Effects on the consumer: on malnourishment among the poor and decrease of employment among the unschooled

IV: episodic vs thematic Episodic news results in more personal attributions to the individuals

Thematic news results in societal/structural attributions So… shocking images might not be the best way to persuade people structural action is necessary

Mediators: - political preference: accept frames more that are consistent with

political predispositions,- source credibility: believing source = neccessary condition for framing

effects- degree of cognitive processing: less framing effects when chance to

deliberate on issue- need to evaluate

“the crooked media” (Trump) --> political frame- using terminology has effect on people- change crooked to fake because it works better

even use of words can be framing

Case Foxnews: report on politics in a completely different way (differents word, style, people) --> audience has other opinion and agenda setting: believe that other topics are important

3. PART 2: DIRECT POLITICAL PERSUASION majors determinants of attitude change are source, message and receiver characteristics

1) Receiver effects Converse: no direct effect on both most and least attentive consumers of

political news, effects pertain to middle group --> level of attention relates to political reference

o More attention – strong preference – little changeo Less attention – weak preference – no change

middle group most influenced because most attention group already strongly preferenced so influence doesn’t seem that big + less interested no real opinion

flawed message: more aware voters less supportive because will recognize message as flawed

Zaller: other factorso Volume and intensity of the message increase persuasiono Discrepancy between original position and the persuasive message:

messages that are counterattitudinal will be actively resisted, those are consonant will be accepted

Filter bubble --> you’re in echo chamber on social media: only see opinions that look like yours (circle of people with same opinion) so polarize yourself

2) Source effects: it matters who is saying something

- people are convinced about which families have issue ownership over topics and segments of society vb. Global warming: the green party

- experiment Iyengar: A message was deemed more informative if the source corresponds with the issue ownership hypothesis

- Also pertains to other features: gender, background, professions, …

Strategic opinion: attract a “specialist” to the party

(De)Mobilization- persuasion to go voting or to not go voting- campaigns to mobilizations + demobilizations opposing voters (people

who are in doubt)

More focus on convinced voter Obama: strong mobilization --> strategies: door-to-door, mail, telephone

Iyengar: 4 procent campaigns effects mostly on indecisive voter + low motivation to vote

Media expansion- not longer nationwide media but segmented media- flooded with different opinions to consume (to earn advertising money)- adapt messages to what they think you find entertainment

3 theories about selective exposure1) media selection based by dissonance: if you don’t like topics, you don’t

consume media on this topics want to be consistent with attitudes

2) De facto selectivity = other factors than political predispositions (but related) motivate people to self-select into audience for particular communication

3) Ulitarian: use media to get something extrao need info to belong to groupo consume blogs for work

Chapter 12: Advertising1. Introduction Ad = paid-for, identiafable communication

- above-the-line media (TV, radio, print, billboard, Internet)- other ads pertain to broader domain of marketing communication

why do these work? Why are they persuasive? ELM offers general understanding to broader domain of marketing communication: eyeballs + relevance (2 basic tricks)

Advertising has impact for 2 reasons1) advertiser beliefs effect is true2) average positive effect of advertising (1/2 money spend is wasted but

don’t know which half)

many ads work but not so much as they could keep in mind that third person effect for ads: ‘I am better than this’, this ad doesn’t influence me but influence others --> the more you think this, the more ad will influence you

2. Category of ads- four types of attitude functions- 2 types of focus: approach-avoidance or gain-vs-loss framing

2 types of focus:1) Promotion: achieving desirable end status most effective for

consumers who typically think about their ideal goals

2) Prevention: avoiding undesirable end status most effective for consumers who typically think about their ought goals

1 claim: key-benefit-claim: key proposition why the brand / product believes too be relevant to consumers (this will make your life better because…)

implicit explicit = USP (unique selling point) or ESP (emotional selling point)

2.1 Knowledge

1) Promotion- persuasion with hard facts and rational arguments- strongest effects if receiver has to make conclusion himself- often involve syllogistic reasoning = attempts to link evidence to

conclusions (if…) certainly high need for cognition people search for conclusionvb. Open ads (questions, images)

Kardes: 44 product messages- task: judge correctness

- IV1: message includes conclusion or not- IV2: syllogic relation or not- IV3: brand known or not- Unexpected recall task

participants implicitly made syllogistic conclusion and recalled them as if presented in the message --> known brands best when conclusion given: consumers miss point of message (ineffective ad) follow up study: : manipulated fear of invalidity = concern about making a mistake or drawing an incorrect conclusion --> conclusion latencies + less favorable evaluations slower in low fear

Stayman & Kardes (1992): personality?: Need for cognition and self-monitoring

- Slower conclusion for those low in need for cognition- High need for cognition together with high self-monitoring: strongest and

most accessible attitudes

Distributed knowledge in ads: multiple pieces of information- when several beliefs in system of beliefs are logically related, persuasive

message that produces change in one belief can later produce change in other beliefs

- Horizontal (different and unrelated reasons for believing target conclusion) Vertical structure (multiple sets of syllogisms linked in chain)

- Kardes et al (2001)o Horizontal and vertical equally persuasiveo Vertical structure is vulnerable because you need all arguments for

the conclusiono Horizontal: one belief is challenged then target conclusion still

supported by other beliefs

Additional

Comparative ads: multiple arguments, distributed over advertised and other

o Alignable difference: 2 products/brands compared on same attributeo Non-alignable difference, missing attribute: one product has a

feature that is lacking in the othero Non-alignable difference, different attributes: one product has

feature A, other product has feature B

Vb. Alignable: Smartphone versus Apple: better battery powerVb. Alignable: Colruyt: cheaper than

Zhang: counterintuitive effect: the alignable difference produces the best comparative effects (most persuasive)

2) Prevention

--> Prevent bad outcomes (situation/ignorance/ambiguity to reduce resistance to persuasion + encourage consumers to think deeply about implications of ad messages)

examples:- mystery ad: problem in ad --> how to solve this? --> next give solution

(triggers attention + thinking leads to association + recall) leads to strong category-brand association

vb. 1 billboard with problem, other with solutionvb. Ads where the brand is not immediately revealed

- surprise: give info to make receiver think about his own behavior

- confusion: can distract conscious mind, reduce resistance to persuasion vb. 300 pennies, that’s 3 dollars

Recent research: spontaneous attitude formation = occurs even when consumers are not asked to complete an attitude survey that forces them to think about their attitudes

Cronley: spontaneous attitude formation occurs routinely for attitudes formed by way of central route to persuasion but not for attitudes formed by way of peripheral route peripheral only for individuals high need to evaluate

1.2 Value expression1) promotion- product brands who that show your lifestyle and personality --> how you position yourself in longer environment + makes you bond with others

examples: - image appeals: stressing uniqueness of most consuming brand (‘If you use

this, you are part of our unique world’) vb. Apple- celebrity advertising: celebrity as famous spokesperson to influence fans vb. George Clooney and nespresso

mostly effect on those scoring high on self-monitoring: highly concerned about others from impressions that other form of them mostly for loudly branded products

Study: Snyder & De Bono: image versus adaption (good taste)- Products: whiskey, cigarettes, (flavored) coffee- IV: self-monitoring high vs low- High self-monitoring predicts persuasion by image ads

Study Cronley: Celebrity advertising even works when people really understand the business model behind it; even then people think that celebs actually like products and therefore buy it too

2) prevention

- use of non-attractive actors, clumsy or negative rolmodels: you don’t want to be like them

- comparison between people who don’t use product and who use product (successful)

1.3 Ego defense= referring to subjective opinions (education, politics, belief), no real arguments to change these Appeals like: wishful thinking, denial, repression projection should be targeted at insecure consumers

Ads can then refer to such opinions such that the brand positions itself as a brand for your type of consumerism

reference to general societal tendencies or issues, to position as a brand Reference to personal opinions such as on ecological issues, diets and

other consumption beliefs, alternative medicine and therapy (only for ‘believers’), non-obligatory insurance

1) promotion: using authority experts or actors for changing appeals--> irony: using experts (often not really an expert) creates belief as if belief is not rational thing but what they say is basically opinion

2) prevention: often using fear, which will trigger ego defense reaction (buy products that makes them feel safe) vb. Alarm protection for house

1.4 Adaption= idea you want to be rewarded and not punished focus on hedonism easy messages and easy arguments other attitude functions can partly address these as well: somebody with status will feel pleasure, fear appeal ads relate to avoidance

1) promotion: stressing pleasure, or joy of cost reductionvb. Coca Cola = happinessvb. Unhealthy food (guilty pleasures), entertainment products no one wants to admit

2) prevention: prevention of pain, costs, ‘a dreadful life’ Often used for pharmaceuticals vb. Painkiller to stop headache Subtle versions: prevent nagging of children by giving them cookies,

chocolate or prevent wasting time on household chores (dash)

3. Subliminal adsBiggest advertising hoax – James Vicary

Subliminal messages: ‘eat popcorn, drink coke’ flashed on screen at movie really fast --> nobody could read them but Vicary said big boost in salses

Supposed to have big impact on sales Later he confessed this was a lie to boost his career

Principle = priming through non-deliberately processed messages= flashing a stimulus on a computer screen at such a fast rate that people report seeing only a flash even though word or picture was actually flashed

- works in lab setting, but depends a lot on the context (eye fixation etc)- other problem Vicary: technology was not ready- Strahan et al.

o No eating or drinking 3h prior to experiment; eating or drinking at start vs not

o Subliminal prime vs control conditiono Taste test’: priming+thirsty condition drank more (cf. Karremans et

al. IRL)

In general: effects of subliminal priming hard to isolate because expectations often interfere automatic processes Greenwald et al.: Self help audio tapes (during sleep)

- No effect of message content- Effect via expectations for the tape: higher self-esteem for those who

believed to have been exposed to such tapes that improve self-esteem

Often confusion between supraliminal priming and subliminal priming Supraliminal primes are much easier to use and have a more persuasive effect (cf. the eyeballs approach to advertising)

4. Additional and wrap up: NUDGING= behavioral economics changing behavior is possible in 4 ways

1) legal restrictions2) hard …3) soft4) designing situations

vb. Men’s toilet: fly to show where to pee so that toilets stay cleanhunter instinct of men that wants to kill flynudging: design change in situation reducing bad behavior

vb. Stairs: make them more fun by adding colors so that people will take stairs

Hyped concept: Basic knowledge from psychology and persuasion … made popular due to

the interest and involvement of economists and legal/policy

Nudging has rapidly gained an interest also from the applied field, whereas much of the field of persuasion is…

o either linked to a commercial and rather superficial applicationo or a theoretical, academic field of research that has little applied

value

In fact, truly understanding persuasion will lead to a much deeper insight in the behavioral and attitude change that is aimed for with nudging