persuasive comm ch 5

induced complinace

- COUNTER-ATTITUDINAL BEHAVIOR. Individuals behaving in a manner that goes against their attitudes. - Dissonance occurs as a result of counter-attitudinal behavior - studies show that the smaller the incentive for the behavior, the greater the dissonance and the greater the attitude change

response to fear appeals

- Fear control response. An emotional response to a fear appeal that focuses on how to eliminate the fear - danger control response. A cognitive response to a fear appeal that focuses on eliminating the threat

dissonance reduction

- a cognitive process that explains how people justify their actions - people may change attitudes, beliefs, intentions, and actual behavior

self-perception theory postulates point 1

individuals come to 'know' their own attitudes, emotions, and other internal states partially by inferring them from observation of their own overt behavior and/or the circumstances in which this behavior occurs

hypocrisy

involves situations in which individuals are reminded of their current attitudes toward an issue and them reminded that their behavior is not consistent with the attitude they hold

attribution theory - why do people make either an internal or external attribution?

key factors: - consensus - consistency - distinctiveness

non-refutational two-sided message

mentions the opposing arguments but does not refute them

one-sided message

only presents arguments in favor of a particular issue

two-sided message

presents arguments in favor of an issue but considers opposing arguments

refutational two-sided message

presents opposing arguments and then refutes them - the most effective - sources of this are perceived as more credible because they display more knowledge of the topic which increases perceptions of expertise

Latitude of noncommitment (LNC)

range of positions about which you have no real opinion on or feel neutral towards

Latitude of acceptance (LOA)

range of positions you find acceptable

Latitude of Rejection (LOR)

range of positions you find unacceptable

boomerang effect

receivers may actually move their anchor away from the intended direction of the message. Could end up with receivers more opposed to our position than they were in the first place

powerless speech

reduces persuasiveness and should be avoided. There are few differences between men and women

statistical evidence

summary of many cases that is expressed in numbers and is used to support a claim

forewarning

telling the audience they are about to be persuaded can make them resistant to the persuasive message

severity

the grimness of the threat presented in the message - effective fear appeal must depict a threat the audience perceives as severe

attitudinal anchor

the position on a particular issue that a person finds most acceptable

cognitive theory

theory that examines how persuasive messages are processed - Sherif and Hovland - applied principles of psychophysical judgment to the domain of attitudes in persuasion

discrepancy and attitude change

three factors that influence the relationship - ego-involvement - source of credibility - language intensity

consonant relationship

two cognition's that are consistent with one another

dissonant relationship

two cognition's that are inconsistent with one another

irrelevant relationship

two cognition's that are perceived as unrelated

the intention-behavior relationship

3 influential factors - volition - correspondence - time

an alternative explanation

Bem proposed the self-perception theory as a better explanation of the induced compliance research results in Festinger's study

self-perception theory postulates point 2

to the extent internal cues are weak, ambiguous, or uninterruptible, the individual is functionally in the same position as an outside observer, an observer who must necessarily rely upon those same external cues to infer the individual's internal states

assimilation and contrasting

- these are perceptual effects - our preexisting attitudes and beliefs influence the way we perceive and interpret information - we selectively attend to and organize information on the basis of our attitudes and beliefs (as well other factors) - limited in outcome prediction when messages fall into the Latitude of Non-Commitment (LNC)

why measure intentions and behavior

- to study persuasion, we have to measure variables of interest - in applied situations, we frequently have to demonstrate the effectiveness of our messages and campaigns

consensus

- what most people do in a particular situation - when a person's behavior reflects the consensus of behavior for others, we are more likely to make an external attribution

fear appeals

- a fear appeal is "a persuasive message that attempts to arouse the emotion of fear by depicting a personally relevant and significant threat and then follows this description of the threat by outlining recommendations presented as feasible and effective in deterring the threat

contrasting

- a person perceives the message as being in opposition to his or her views - Perceive the message as being more different from their views than it really is - inhibits persuasion

ego-involvement

- a person's commitment to an issue - related to a person's self-concept and self-esteem - influences how a message is evaluated and thus whether the message is assimilated or contrasted - only a few of our attitudes will be ego-involving

magnitude of dissonance and persuasion

- a persuader can raise the magnitude of dissonance by: - trying to raise the importance of the issue for the receiver - developing many arguments in the hope of adding dissonant cognitions - once the magnitude or level of dissonance is large enough, the receiver feels pressured to resolve the dissonance in some way

guilt and persuasion

- advertisements with a high level of guilt resulted in anger and feelings of being manipulated - moderate levels of guilt might be most effective at both gaining audience's attention and eliciting an acceptable level of guilt - guilt appeals that are implicit rather than explicit are more effective

prediction 1 of ego-involvement

- affects the size of the LOR anfd LNC - as ego-involvement increases, the width of the LOR increases (includes more positions) and the LNC decreses (includes fewer positions) or disappears. - LOA is not affect by ego-involvement

ration of dissonant to consonant cognition's

- also determines the magnitude of dissonance - the greater the number of dissonant elements in comparison to consonant elements, the more pressure there is to change of the higher the magnitude of dissonance will be. - the ratio of dissonant to consonant elements also determines the magnitude of dissoance

magnitude of dissonance

- amount of dissonance varies - magnitude of dissonance affects the pressure for change

important roles in behavior

- attitudes - social pressure (subjective norm) - behavioral control

cognitive dissonance

- aversive motivational state: unpleasant and people are motivated to eliminate it. - pressure to change one's cognitions and to regain consistency

the role of intentions

- behavioral intention - psychological concept best described as an expectation or a plan. - best predictor of whether a person will actually perform the behavior

cognitions

- bits of knowledge that individuals have - attitudes beliefs or values

ways to resolve dissonance

- change the importance of certain cognitions - change the ration of consonant to dissonant cognitions

use of evidence

- definition is that factual statements originate from a source other than the speaker - objects not created by the speaker and opinions of persons other than the speaker that are offered in support of the speaker's claims

message discrepancy

- difference between the position being advocated by a message and the preferred position of the receiver - as message discrepancy increases attitude change will also increase to the point where the message is discrepant enough to fall within the LOR - at this point, continuing to increase levels of discrepancy will result in reduced attitude change

cognitions and relationships

- dissonant relationship - consonant relationship - irrelevant relationship decisions about relationships are up to the receiver

when is humor is not as effective

- does not necessarily increase perceptions of credibility and may even decrease them - difficult to generalize about the use of humor because it varies so greatly - can be offensive if it puts down people we like or groups we associate with

language intensity and how it affect relationships

- emotionally intense and specific - for audience with low ego-involvement, increasing language intensity enhances attitude change, especially if delivered by a credible source. Low involved person is less likely to reject the message, so greater discrepancy means the message has the potential to result in greater change. - for audience with high ego-involvement, increasing language intensity will probably reduce attitude change

impression formation

- explains how we form impressions of people - how we relate to other people depends in part on what we think about them and why we believe they engaged in any given behavior - to make sense of other people's behavior, we create explanations for why they do things

fear appeals and persuasion

- fear alone is not enough for an effective message - fear-inducing components of the message (severity and susceptibility) must be accompanied by self efficacy and response efficacy information

attitudes in the theory of reasoned action

- focus is an attitude toward the behavior you are trying to influence - very specific

Theory of reasoned action (TRA)

- focuses on behavior as the ultimate outcome rather than attitude change - underlying assumption is that human beings follow a fairly consistent and reasoned approach in their behavior. Much behavior is under volitional control (an individual has control over the behavior)

when is humor effective

- gaining audience approval. Most effective when relevant to the topic - generates positive emotions and tends to reduce negative reactions to being persuaded - leads to enhancing liking for the source. Liked sources are perceived as more credible. - getting audience's attention important first step i persuasive process

Innoculation Theory

- general theory of immunizing against disease could also be applied to persuasion - to make an audience resistant to counter-persuasion, give them a small, weakened dose of arguments supporting the opposition - gives the audience the opportunity to develop counter arguments and make them more resistant to the oppositions persuasive message - exposing to opposing arguments is not enough to create resistance. Source must also refute the opposing arguments. - supportive-plus-refutational message and refutational two-sided messages are essentially the same. Inoculation warns the audience of an impending attack

distinctiveness

- how different the behavior is across situations. If behavior is not distinctive, you would likely make an internal attribution. If behavior is distinctive, you would likely make an external attribution

susceptibility

- how probable it is that the threat will affect the audience - audience must perceive the threat as severe and that they are susceptible

applying cognitive dissonance theory

- human motivation for consistency is a key factor - Persuaders can: Create situations where receivers are made aware of inconsistencies. Take advantage of the dissonance reduction process by providing information that is consistent with the desired attitude or belief. Use a foot-in-the-door technique to draw on the induced compliance and effort justification. Example: Car salesman having test drive, answer questions making you devote an hour of time leading you to justify that you are interested in that car so that you did not waste your time

volition

- if a behavior is not under volition, intention will not be a good predictor of behaviors - a continuum. One extreme is complete control. Other extreme is no control. Between is a range of behaviors influenced by both you and circumstances beyond your control

key factors of cognitive dissonance

- importance of the cognitions - ration of dissonant consonant cognitions - degree of cognitive overlap

prediction 2 of ego-involvement

- increases contrasting assimilation effects - a highly ego-involved person is more likely to distort a message - committed to a position and has a personal stake in the issue - dichotomieses the issue into two extremes which little/no middle ground

Cognitive Dissonance Contexts

- induced compliance - hypocrisy - decision making - effort justification

resistance to persuasion

- inoculation theory - forewarning

constructing a persuasive message

- it is best to construct a persuasive message so that it falls within the receiver's LOA or LNC - if the message is judged to fall within the LOR it will most likely be rejected - an incremental approach to persuasion - target messages at the outer edges of the receiver's LOA or LNC in order to gradually drag the anchor toward the desired point - repeated over time

language intensity

- language characteristics that indicate the extent the source deviates from neutrality 1. emotional intensity: amount of affect expresses in the language choices of the source. Incredible v. good; catastrophic v. terrible 2. linguistic specificity: degree to which a source makes precise reference to attitude objects in a message. 6 feet wide and 8 feet tall v. quite large - easier to remember a message that we have associated a picture with in our mind. - high credibility sources can successfully employ more intense language - intense language is not always appropriate. (issue is too emotional and may be perceived as manipulative)

assimilation

- message is perceived as being similar to the attitudinal anchor and possibly closer than it really is from objective point of view. - may distort the message, perceiving it as being in agreement with their views when the message really be quite discrepant - may move the anchor in the direction of the message - facilitates persuasion

cognitive dissonance theory

- most accepted consistent theory - leon festinger 1957 - built on knowledge generated by balance theory and congruity theory

extended parallel process model

- outlines the message components necessary for an effective appeal - explains how the audience's perceptions of the message differ with a danger control response and a fear control response - provides guidance on how to construct a message that elicits the danger control response

issues in language

- powerful v. powerful speech - language intensity

effective fear appeal

- susceptibility - severity - self-efficacy - response-efficacy

self efficacy

- the extent the audience believes they are capable of performing the recommended response - fear appeal is likely to be effective if self-efficacy is high

degree of cognitive overlap

- the greater the similarity the greater the cognitive overlap - the similarity of the choices available - the less cognitive overlap between the alternatives, the greater the dissonance experienced

correspondence

- the measures of intention and behavior must correspond with one another (have the same dimensions) - need to match in terms of (Action, Target, Context, Time) - elements are useful in developing good measures and in helping clarify what specific behavior we want to influence - intentions are a good predictor of behavior as long as the measures of each correspond with eachother

source credibility and how it affects relationships

- the more credible the source is perceived to be, the more accepting the audience is of message discrepancy. The audience will give more consideration to messages from highly credible sources

importance of the cognitions

- the more important the cognitive elements involved the more dissonance that will likely be elicited - receiver determines the relationships. Perception of importance is in the receiver's mind

attributions

- the process of creating casual explanations for why things happen - the attributions we make determine the impression we have of others - Humans believe that behavior is casual (caused by something) - internal attribution (you infer the cause of the behavior as being within the person) - external attribution (you infer the cause of the behavior as being outside the person) - the attribution you make affects how you view the person

ego involvement as it influences a relationship

- when ego-involvement is high the audience will tolerate relatively little message discrepancy before attitude change decreases - people with high ego-involvement have a larger LOR so it takes relatively little discrepancy before message will fall into the LOR and be rejected - People who are highly ego-involved are very difficult to influence because they have essentially made up their minds and are therefore generally unwilling to accept a position that varies from their LOA

effort justification

- when we expend great effort or endure some desirable outcome dissonance is aroused - It is dissonant or inconsistent to perform an unpleasant behavior - the more unpleasant the behavior, the more dissonance - dissonance is unpleasant and we are motivated to reduce it - easiest way to reduce dissonance is to increase the desirability of the outcome - greater effort to belong to a group results in more positive evaluations of that group. - the process of reducing the dissonance generated by the initiation creates the positive evaluation of the group

guilt

- when you believe your behavior does not meet your own standards and so you experience feelings of guilt - occurs along a continuum - a negative emotion. Risky because people may get mad at the source

consistency

- whether the observed behavior occurs over time - low consistency likely leads to an external attribution (only varies from norm sometimes) - high consistency likely leads to an internal attribution (varies from norm most of the time)

Four stages of decision-making context

1. CONFLICT: alternatives are evaluated and information is gathered 2. DECISION: alternative is chosen 3. Cognitive dissonance 4. Dissonance reduction

Abelson & Dissonance Reduction

1. DENIAL: Choosing to disbelieve or reject information that would otherwise create dissonance 2. BOLSTERING: adding consonant elements to reduce the ration of dissonant to consonant elements 3. TRANSCENDENCE: Values that are more important than the issues causing the dissonance. The superior value transcends the lesser inconsistent value. Example of altering the importance of cognitions 4. DIFFERENTIATION: Splitting the attitude object into acceptable or consistent parts and unacceptable or inconsistent parts

two key elements to using hypocrisy successfully

1. Make the attitude or interest salient in an active way. Works best when prosocial courses of action are involved 2. Make past failures to behave in accordance with the attitude salient. Associated with failures with a recent context. Failures should be private rather than public

strengths of cognitive dissonance theory

1. applies in many situations and has very broad explanatory powers as a result 2. has strong support from decades of research 3. is used in persuasion applications as various as advertising, politics, and social issues 4. endures because of its ability to explain at a theoretical level

strengths of social judgment theory

1. explains how an attitudinal anchor can change over time. Slightly discrepant messages are assimilated gradually changing the different position than he or she did originally 2. explains how and why some messages can backfire and result in a boomerang effect 3. Implication it has for applied persuasion. Source must know the audiences existing attitudinal anchors as well as their latitudes in order to construct a message that will not be contrasted 4. helps us understand, how people process a persuasive message. Why two persons holding similar initial attitudes (or attitudinal anchors) can respond to the same message in different ways

using good evidence

1. has little if any impact an attitude change or source credibility if the source has initial high credibility - evidence may enhance persuasiveness if audience is focused on message and not speaker - evidence helps increase credibility and thus persuasiveness if speaker has low to moderate credibility 2. Has little impact on attitude change if evidence is delivered poorly. - speakers must deliver message effectively or audience may disregard good evidence - writers must avoid grammatical errors, misspelled words, poor organization 3. has little impact on attitude change or source credibility in the audience is familiar with the evidence - influence of the evidence occurs the first time the audience hears it 4. may increase sustained audience attitude change regardless of source's credibility - audience's attitude change will more likely last than if you did not use evidence. For long-term attitude change, use evidence 5. mode of transmission (audiotape, video, live etc) has no impact on effectiveness of evidence. - persuaders who cite evidence are more effective

4 features of powerless speech

1. hedges or qualifiers: sort of, kinda, I guess 2. hesitation forms: uh, well, you know 3. tag questions: ... don't you think? 4. disclaimers: this may sound odd but powerful speech is the absence of these features

applying social judgment theory

1. identify the range of positions for different groups 2. determine wet-dry? 3. if attitudes change seems slow, take a long-term view. Tailor messages that can seek small, gradual changes toward the ultimate goal. Create messages targeted at the edges of the LOA and/or LNC for opponents of the message. Find highly credible sources to deliver messages. 4. Remember, movement toward social change is slow (because of opposition)

limitations of cognitive dissonance theory

1. it is difficult to disprove (because of many ways to resolve dissonance) 2. Gives lesser predictive ability and control to those using the theory in crafting persuasive messages 3. is not useful for creating messages intended to form new attitudes or beliefs 4. does not explain why attitude is changed rather than behavior or vice versa 5. challenged by proponents of self-perception theory

using humor

1. know your audience so you can avoid offending them. Don't assume you and your audience will find humor in the same things 2. make the use of humor relevant to your persuasive goal. Should help your audience process the message, not distract from it 3. Combine it with other message and source factors. Humor alone is not persuasive

limitations of social judgment theory

1. not useful for controlling. Cannot predict how individuals will likely respond to a message unless we know how they evaluate the full continuum of positions 2. Does not provide a theoretical prediction for what happens when a message falls in the LNC 3. problems associated with the ordered alternatives questionnaire 4. does not address how a message should be constructed

postulates and persuasion

1. receivers of messages look at themselves and make attributions in the same way 2. you perceive your attitudes as being in line with your behavior - if you are the target of persuasive messages and are unaware of situational influences on your behavior, you are likely to make an internal attribution about your behavior

types of forewarning

1. topic and position forewarning. Forewarns the audience of the topic of persuasion and the position (for or against) of the impending message 2. persuasive intent forewarning. Forewarns the audience that they will be receiving a message that probably will attack their attitudes and beliefs. Topics and position are not given

narrative v. statistical evidence

a combination of both are probably best approach for providing evidence.

emotional appeal

a persuasive message that relies on emotion to be persuasive. - humor - guilt - fear

logistical appeal

a persuasive message that relies on logic and reasoning to be persuasive. Consider context, situation, receiver characteristics

another cognitive theory

a theory that examines how receivers process persuasive messages

latitudes of acceptance and rejection

an attitude toward an issue or object can be thought of as a range of attitudes rather than as a single point along a continuum

narrative evidence

case stories or examples used to support a claim. More vivid and personal

response efficacy

how effective the recommended response is in eliminating a particular threat - what you want your audience to do - audience must perceive recommended response as effective

core assumption

your attitudinal anchor influences how you evaluate a persuasive message