Persuasion

You are feeling very sleeepy…

Bumper Stickers - “I’ll give up my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.”

Billboards - “Get U.S. out of the U.N.”

Magazine Ads - “Think different”

Television Ads - “Got Milk?”

Radio Ads - “This program is brought to you by Exxon, working for a better environment”

T- shirts - “No Nukes”

Lawn Placards - “Vote for Kaine”

Mailings, etc.

300 to 400 appeals/day from marketers alone

Martin Luther King, Jr.Martin Luther King, Jr.

National Rifle AssociationNational Rifle Association

What are attitudes?

• ABCs of attitudes– Affective: evaluations are based on positive

and negative emotions associated with a target

– Behavioral: a behavioral tendency to act in a certain manner towards the attitude object

– Cognitive: evaluations based on beliefs & facts

Homer Simpson’s Attitudes Toward Beer

Homer’s Attitude

Toward BeerBehavior

Regarding Beer

Cognitions Regarding

Beer

AffectiveEvaluation

Beer

“To alcohol, the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."

"The other day, I was so desperate for a beer, I snuck into the football stadium and ate the dirt under the bleachers."

"Mmmmm... Gummi Beer."

"Homer no function beer well without."

Consistency in persuasion

1. Balance theory (Heider)

- we are motivated to have harmony in our views and behaviors

- we want to agree with people we like a disagree with those we don’t

Think of someone you respect / like. What if they expressed an opinion you opposed?

1. Could change your feelings for the person

2. Could change your opinion on the issue

If you like Tiger, shouldn’t you like the car?

Balance TheoryBalanced Situations

Michelle Teacher

Legalized abortion

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+ +

Michelle Teacher

Legalized abortion

-

- +

Michelle Teacher

Legalized abortion

+

- -

Michelle Teacher

Legalized abortion

-

+ -

Michelle Teacher

Legalized abortion

-

+ +

Michelle Teacher

Legalized abortion

+

- +

Michelle Teacher

Legalized abortion

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+ -

Michelle Teacher

Legalized abortion

-

- -

Balance TheoryImbalanced Situations

Consistency in persuasion

2. Cognitive dissonance theory

- we will work to resolve inconsistencies in our beliefs and actions when they matter to us

- changing a behavior can change an attitude (and vice versa)

Changes in attitudes occur primarily when we perceive justification – e.g., free will in determining our (inconsistent) actions

Ready to turn some pegs??

• Students spent hour turning pegs in holes (really boring)

• Paid either $1 or $20• Who enjoyed the task

more (when asked later)?• Why $1 people $20

was justification enough, $1 wasn’t – I must have really liked turning pegs!

(Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959)

0

5

10

15

20

25

No lie $20 lie $1 lie

Ratings of task enjoyment

Insufficient justificationAttitude change happens when one freely performs an attitude-discrepant

act for an inadequate reward.

actionor

decision that

conflicts w/ impt. aspect of

self.

Initiation Amplification Motivation Reduction

is seen as freely chosen.

produces negative consequences that were foreseeable

Can’t be justified as due to strong reward or threat

cannot be withdrawn

unpleasant arousal.

change designed to remove the unpleasant

arousal.

Dissonance begins with:

More dissonance arises when the action or decision:

Dissonance is experienced as:

Dissonance is reduced through:

What affects how consistent we are?

• Arousal– Tranquilizers cause people to not change

their opinions

• Preference for consistency

• Consequences– More impact of your behavior = more likely

you will be to change your attitudes

• Salience of inconsistency

Consistent with what?

Individualist Individualist “me” focused“me” focused

Collectivist Collectivist group focusedgroup focused

Persuasion change in private attitude or belief as a result of receiving a message

Dual Process Model- takes into account two ways attitude change takes place- e.g., central vs. peripheral processing, systematic vs. heuristic processing, etc.

Certain information is processed more deeply than other info

Message

High High motivation motivation

and ability to and ability to think about think about the messagethe message

Low motivationor ability to think about the message

Superficial processing, focused on surface features,

e.g.: communicator’s attractiveness or

number of arguments

Deep processing, focused on the quality

of the message arguments.

Lasting change that

resists fading and

counterattack

Temporary change that

that is susceptible to

fading and counterattack

Persuasion Attempt

Audience Factors

Processing Approach

Persuasion Outcome

“Retirement planning can be a way to stay ahead of the game.”Cris CarterSchwab Investor

Central or Central or Peripheral?Peripheral?

Who says...

What... By what means...

To whom?

Communicator

• Credibility

• expertise

• trustworthiness

• Attractiveness

Channel

• spoken

• written

• audio

•Video

Audience

•Need for Cognition

Message content

• Reason vs. emotion

• Discrepancy

• One vs. two-sided

Who says?

•Credibility: believability

• expertise: the amount of knowledge the source is assumed to have

• trustworthiness: the perceived intention of the communicator to deceive.

•Perceived expertise

• Begin by saying things the audience agrees with

• Be introduced as someone knowledgeable on the topic

• Speak confidently (no stuttering), and quickly

Communicator

• Credibility

• expertise

• trustworthiness

• Attractiveness

Class Demonstration

• Message on Phosphate containing detergents– Source

• Government Agency• Soap Company

• Attractiveness: •having qualities that appeal to an audience

• physical appeal • likeability• perceived similarity

• surface characteristics (Dembroski and others, 1978)

• attitudes & values • Persuasive on matters of subjective preference (e.g., aspirin, soft drinks)

•Communicator characteristics less relevant when the subject matter is important to participants

Who says?

-0.8

-0.6

-0.4

-0.20

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Low High Low Highprestige of speaker

Strong argument Weak argument

Low personal relevance

High personal relevance

Agreement with the message

(Petty et al., 1981)

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5

10

15

20

25

Immediate Four weeks

Time interval

% attitude change

The Sleeper Effect

Expert source

Nonexpert source

(Hovland & Weiss, 1951)

Message content

• Reason vs. emotion

• Discrepancy

• One vs. two-sided

What is said?

1. Is a carefully reasoned message more persuasive, or one that arouses emotion?

2. Will you be more persuasive by advocating an extreme point of view, or by advocating a moderate position?

3. Should your message be one-sided, or should it acknowledge two points of view?

1. Is a carefully reasoned message more persuasive, or one that arouses emotion?

0

15

30

45

60

75

90

CancerCure

ArmedForces

Moon Trip 3-DMovies

Reading with no food

Eating while reading

(Dabbs & Janis, 1965)

Fear and Persuasion

• http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/stephen_colbert/index.jhtml?playVideo=12615

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1

2

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5

Small Medium Large

Agnes Stearns

T.S. Eliot

Discrepancy

Opinion change

2. Extreme or moderate point of view?

Discrepancy interacts with communicator credibility

(Aronson et al., 1963)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

One-sided Two-sided

Initially opposed

Initially agreed

The message

Opinion change

3. One-sided or Two-sided? The interaction of initial opinion with one- versus two-sidedness

(Hovland et al., 1949)

2

3

4

5

Written Audio Tape Video Tape

Easy message

Difficult message

Channel type

Opinion change

By What Means…

Channel

• spoken

• written

• audio

•Video

(Chaiken & Eagly, 1978)

Positivity of message evaluation

01234567

Low NC High NC

Need for cognition

Strongarguments

Weakarguments

(Cacioppo et al., 1973)

To Whom?Audience

•Need for Cognition