Persuasion

What is persuasion?

Persuasion: the process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors.

I. Where does persuasion live? Everywhere!

A. The Media

B. Science

C. The Arts

D. Interpersonal Encounters (where persuasion attemptsare most prevalent and have their greatest impact)

II. The Pathways of Persuasion

A. The Central Route to Persuasion: the case wherebypeople “systematically process” a persuasive communication,listening carefully to and thinking about the arguments. Thisoccurs when people have both the ability and the motivationto listen carefully to a communication.

B. The Peripheral Route to Persuasion: the case wherebypeople “heuristically process” a persuasive communication andare swayed by peripheral cues (such as a speaker’sappearance or the amount of evidence rather than the qualityof evidence). This occurs when people do not have the abilityand/or the motivation to listen carefully to a communication.

C. If it’s a complex message, written communication ismore effective in changing attitudes.

D. If it’s a simple message, audio-visual is more effective inchanging attitudes.

III. The Communicator: Who is theMessenger?

I. Credibility: judgments made by a perceiverconcerning the believability of a communicator.

A.Credibility is dynamic. It can change over time, andeven during a single persuasive message.

B. The Sleeper Effect: refers to a situation in which a messageattributed to a lower credibility source becomes morepersuasive over time compared to a message attributed to ahigh credibility source.

1) The sleeper effect operates through a process ofdisassociation, whereby a message becomesseparated from its source in the minds of receivers.

2) Although the sleeper effect has been empiricallydocumented in laboratory settings, it is difficult toproduce in real-world settings.

C. The underlying dimensions of credibility.

1) Expertise (competence, qualification)…

Expertise can be established by possessing advanced degrees(Ph.D.) or through experience like a recovered alcoholic servingas a coordinator at AA meetings. Both of these help to give theimpression that you are knowledgeable.

Mature angular faced people appear more like experts thanbaby faced people.

Taller people appear more like experts than shorter people andpeople with a full head of hair appear more like experts thanbald people.

2) Trustworthiness…

Looking someone straight in the eye…

Although eye contact may make a person more persuasive byincreasing perceptions of trustworthiness, its effectiveness may depend on a number of factors (e.g., the legitimacy of the request that’s made).

Baby faced people appear more trustworthy than mature angularfaced people.

Arguing against your own self-interest.

Fast talkers appear more credible and trustworthy thanslow-talkers.

3) Goodwill: perceived caring.

4) Composure: speaking confidently and beingstraightforward.

II. Liking: favorable judgments made by a perceiverconcerning the believability of a communicator.

A. Charisma: someone who possesses a certain indefinablecharm or allure.

B. Celebrities…

1) Advertisers frequently rely on celebrity endorsers toboost their company’s image because consumers like,or may even idolize, those celebrities.

2) If a celebrity endorser becomes embroiled in ascandal, the sponsor’s image may suffer as well.

C. Attractiveness…

1) We perceive attractive people to be healthier, happier,more sensitive, more successful, more intelligent, andmore socially skilled.

2) Attractive well-dressed people are more likely to makea favorable impression on potential employers and getout of legal trouble.

3) People are more likely to vote for attractive candidates.

D. Similarity…

1) We are more likely to help and like others who aredressed similarly to us.

2) We are more likely to help and like others who havesimilar backgrounds and interests.

3) People are more likely to buy products, sign petitions,and agree to other activities when the seller is perceivedas similar in age, religion, politics, etc.

4) Similar Names!

5) Kidney Donors!

E. Mimicry Fosters Liking

F. Compliments…

1) Compliments can significantly increase someone’sliking of you EVEN when they know you have ulteriormotives.

2) Ingratiation: the act of gaining acceptance or affectionfor yourself by persuasive and oftentimes subtle compliments.

3) However, transparent attempts at ingratiation are lesseffective than well-disguised, or genuine efforts atingratiation.

IV. The Communication: What is themessage and how is it being delivered?

Fixed-Action Patterns: mechanical like behavior sequences.

Trigger Feature: a specific cue that activates the fixed-actionpattern.

I. Visual Persuasion

A. Iconicity: images can represent, or sum up, ideas andconcepts. They serve as symbolic representations of things.

1) Iconic images evoke emotional responses in receivers.

2) Iconic images can distort or violate reality.

3) Iconic images are selective; they can exaggerate orminimize certain features over others.

Fast Food! It looks delicious, right???

B. The Persuasiveness of Architecture

1) Architectural design can facilitate certain forms ofbehavior and inhibit others.

2) Visual and spatial cues affect people’s perceptionsof, and attitudes toward, their environment.

C. The Persuasiveness of Color

1) Historically, art has been used to further political,religious, and social ends.

D. The Persuasiveness of Art

2) The arts have been used as tools for political andsocietal propaganda, most notably by totalitarianregimes.

3) Artists use their art to make political and socialstatements.

E. The Persuasiveness of Movies

1) Storytelling in movies as persuasion.

2) Viewers do not expect to be persuaded by movies, sothey let down their guard.

3) Movies promote popular culture (fashions, trends,lifestyles).

4) Movies promote viewer identification with thecharacters.

F. The Persuasiveness of Television

1) The Selection of Issues

Sensationalism: when more exciting (often visuallyexciting) stories are chosen over less exciting storieseven if the less exciting stories are more newsworthy.

2) The Selection of Guest and Panel Members

3) What is Included on a Set

4) Camera Angles and Cuts

II. Music and Persuasion

A.Song lyrics can persuade via the central route, but maybe more effective than words alone because the musichelps to relax the listener and be more open to the message.

B. Typically, however, music persuades via the peripheralroute because it puts people in a better mood and relaxesthem while there exposed to advertisements.

C. Background music is used by retailers to influenceconsumer behavior.

1) Background music has been shown to affect shopping pace.

2) Background music has been shown to affect moods.

D. The Right Ear!

III. Aromas and Persuasion

A.Fragrance manufacturing is a multi-billion dollarindustry. However, much of what sells a fragrance, like aperfume, is the promise that you will be sexy like themodel in the ad supposedly using the perfume.

B. Some evidence suggests that fragrances may increaseattraction.

C. As with positively received music, ambient aromas (likevanilla, chocolate, and floral scents) can affect consumers’shopping pace, and make them linger longer in stores andrestaurants.

D. Repeated exposure to a given fragrance may result indesensitization, or create an aversion to the smell.

IV. Haptics: the study of touch. Touching other people,if done appropriately, tends to facilitate persuasion.

V. Proxemics: the study of how we use space tocommunicate.

A. Invading another person’s space facilitates persuasionif the invader is perceived as rewarding but hinderspersuasion if the invader is not perceived as rewarding.

B. The degree of personal space distance between twopeople varies across cultures.

VI. The Scarcity Principle: opportunities seem morevaluable to us when they are less available.

A. Limited Numbers: when we learn that there are only a fewleft in stock or that it’s the last one in stock, we have a tendencyto assume that it is of remarkable value. It is kind of like thesocial proof of material goods. If everyone is buying it, it mustbe the thing to have.

B. Time Limits: when we believe that we must act now inorder to get the deal or the product or the deal or the productwill be gone, we are enticed to do so.

1) Chronemics: the study of how time is used tocommunicate.

C. Psychological Reactance: whenever free choice is limitedor threatened, the need to retain our freedoms makes us wantfree choice significantly more than before. Therefore, whenincreasing scarcity interferes with our prior access to someitem, we will react against the interference by wanting andtrying to possess the item more than we did before.

D. Censorship: when information becomes censored, itbecomes scarce. This increases the appeal of acquiring suchinformation.

E. Optimal Conditions

1) New Scarcity is More Powerful than Constant Scarcity

2) Competition for Scarce Resources: social demandincreases liking of products.

VII. Subtle Persuasion

A. Subliminal Messages: are processed without consciousawareness.

1) Claims that subliminal stimuli in advertisementscan make people buy things are unsupported.

B. Supraliminal Messages: are subtle, or faint, but are stillprocessed consciously.

C. Logos

D. Slogans or Catch Phrases

E. Cute Animals

VIII. Sex Appeals

A. Sex appeals function as peripheral cues to persuasion,and operate through the process of association.

B. The implicit associations advertisers want receivers tomake are:

1) If I buy/use product X, I will look or feel more sexyto others.

2) If I buy/use product X, other sexy people will beattracted to me.

Fast Cars and Sexy Women!!!

C. Strong sex appeals can backfire, in one of several ways:

1) They may offend receivers and trigger a consumerbacklash.

2) They may distract receivers from attending to orprocessing message content.

IN SUM… Too strong = disgust/distraction.Too mild = overlooked.

IX. Persuasion through Association

A.Blaming the weather reporter for the bad weather.

B. Credit Cards: Buy Now! Oh by the way, you’ll have to pay us later… and with interest.

C. Basking In Reflected Glory (BIRGing): a self-servingcognition whereby an individual associates themselves withsuccessful others such that another’s success becomes theirown.

D. Cutting Off Reflected Failure (CORFing): a self-servingcognition whereby an individual disassociates themselves asmuch as possible from the losing team.

Your home team won!Yes, we won!

Your home team lost.Yes, they lost.

X. The Persuasive Effects of Emotion

A. The persuasiveness of feeling good…Eating and Laughing

1) Food and Persuasion

2) Humor and Persuasion

Humor can facilitate persuasion by capturingreceivers’ attention.

Humor can assist persuasion by serving as adistraction.

Humor can facilitate persuasion by increasing likingfor the source.

Related humor tends to be more effective thanunrelated humor at securing compliance.

0% 0%

100% 100%

Level ofArousal

ILA OLA ELA

High FM

High PR

Low PR

Low FM

Personal Resources (PR)

Fear Manipulation (FM)

Excessive Level of Arousal (ELA)

Insufficient Level of Arousal (ILA)

Optimal Level of Arousal (OLA)

B. The persuasiveness of fear… The Resources RelativeTo Magnitude of the Threat Model of Stress and Activity

XI. Message Discrepancy

Mes

sage

Your Beliefs

Too Different

Too Similar

Optimal Discrepancy

XII. One-Sided vs. Two-Sided Appeals

XIII. Primacy vs. Recency

A. Primacy Effect: information presented first usually has themost influence.

B. Recency Effect: information presented last sometimes hasthe most influence. Recency effects are less common thanprimacy effects.

XIV. Personal vs. Media Influence

A. The Two-Step Flow of Communication: process by whichmedia influence often occurs through opinion leaders, who inturn influence others.

XV. Sequential Persuasion: in order for persuasionto be effective, oftentimes a series of steps must beperformed in a prescribed sequence.

A. Norm of Reciprocity tactic (Pregiving): giving thepersuadee something in advance before asking for compliance.

B. The Foot in the Door tactic: making a small request first,and, once it is agreed to, following it with a second largerrequest.

C. The Door in the Face tactic: making a request so largethat it is turned down, and then following it up with a secondsmaller request.

1) The Contrast Principle: the differences between two things are perceived as being greater when presented one right after another than if presented separately.

D. The That's Not All tactic: adding additional incentives to theoriginal offer (sweetening the deal).

E. The Lowball tactic: making a deal that is too good to refuse,and then, after the initial deal is agreed to, changing it to onethat is not as attractive.

F. The Bait and Switch tactic: luring customers with anattractive product and then trying to get them to comply witha similar but different product.

G. The Framing tactic: framing the request in a way thatmakes it seem more attractive.

V. The Recipient of The Communication:Who is the audience and how are theyaffected?

I. How old are they?

A. Life Cycle explanation: attitudes change as people growolder.

B. Generational explanation: attitudes do not change; olderpeople largely hold onto the attitudes they adopted when theywere young.

C. Young children are more vulnerable to persuasion thanare older people.

II. What kind of people are they?

A. People with moderately high self-esteem are morepersuadable than are people with high or low self-esteem.

B. High self-monitors, compared to low self-monitors, payclose attention to their own and others’ behavior in orderto behave appropriately in a given context.

C. Dogmatic and authoritarian people are close-mindedand tend to follow authorities blindly.

D. Need for Cognition: a personality variable reflecting theextent to which people engage in and enjoy effortful cognitiveactivities.

1) People high in the need for cognition are moremotivated to think about persuasive messages than arepeople low in the need for cognition.

2) When dealing with complex messages, people high inthe need for cognition are persuaded via the centralroute, while people low in the need for cognition arepersuaded via the peripheral route.

III. Other factors that make the audience morevulnerable to persuasion.

A. Distraction: people’s attitudes are more easily changedwhen they are distracted enough from developingcounterarguments, but not so distracted that they don’treceive / understand the message.

B. Rumination: if you get people to simply think about thereasons why they feel the way they do about something, thatin and of itself leads to attitude strengthening.

C. Peer Pressure

IV. Factors that help the audience resist persuasion.

A. Forewarning: people know ahead of time what the topicand method of persuasion will be and can be mentallyprepared to avoid being taken advantage of.

B. Inoculation: you give people counter-arguments to preparethem for people trying to change their attitudes.

C. Plant a Poison Parasite!