PSY 2510 Chapter 7

To Whom - The Audience:

Consider two audience characteristics: - age - thoughtfulness.

To Whom - The Audience: Age

- A life cycle explanation - A generational explanation

The spread of false beliefs

- About 1 in 4 Americans and 1 in 3 Europeans thinks the sun revolves around the earth (Grossman, 2014). - About 1 in 5 Americans believed President Obama is a Muslim and 1 in 3 believed Obama was born outside the United States (Blanton, 2011; Pew, 2010d; Jagel, 2014). - Others deny that the moon landing or the Holocaust occurred.

To Whom - The Audience: Adolescent and early adult age

- Adolescent and early adult experiences are formative partly because they make deep and lasting impressions. - We may therefore expect that today's young adults will include events such as the 2007-2009 economic recession or the capture of Osama Bin Laden as memorable turning points.

Persuasion

- Define as: The process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors. - persuasion's power enables us to promote health or to sell addiction, to advance peace or stir up hate, to enlighten or deceive.

A trillion-dollar war:

- False believes: The United States' invasion of Iraq was enabled by persuasive messages that led half of Americans to believe that Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks and 4 in 5 to believe that weapons of mass destruction would be found - Depending on where they lived, people received, discussed, and believed differing information. Persuasion matters.

What - The Message Content: Reason vs. Emotion

- It depends on the audience. * Well-educated or analytical people are responsive to rational appeals * Thoughtful, involved audiences often travel the central route to persuasion; they are more responsive to reasoned arguments. * Uninterested audiences more often travel the peripheral route; they are more affected by their liking of the communicator

Resisting influence

- On the social influence battlefield, researchers have focused more on persuasive attack than on defense. - Being persuaded comes naturally. - It is easier to accept persuasive messages than to doubt them. To understand an assertion is to believe it, until one actively undoes the initial, automatic acceptance. - If a distracting event prevents the undoing, the acceptance lingers. - Still, blessed with logic, information, and motivation, we do resist falsehoods.

Persuasion is everywhere

- politics, marketing, dating, parenting, negotiation, religion, and courtroom decision making.

Bad and good persuade

- The bad we call "propaganda." - The good we call "education." * Education is more factually based and less coercive than propaganda. - Yet generally we call it "education" when we believe it, "propaganda" when we don't

To Whom - The Audience: Thoughtfulness

- The crucial aspect of central route persuasion is not the message but the responses it evokes in a person's mind. - If a message summons favorable thoughts, it persuades us. If it provokes us to think of contrary arguments, we remain unpersuaded.

What - The Message Content: Primacy Vs. Recency effect

1. *Forgetting* creates the *Recency* effect (1) when enough time separates the two messages (2) when the audience commits itself soon after the second message. 2. When the two messages are *back-to-back*, followed by a *time gap*, the *primacy* effect usually occurs. - This is especially so when the first message stimulates thinking

Who - The Communicator: Form of attractiveness

1. *Physical attractiveness*. Attractiveness matters most when people are making superficial judgments. * eg. Arguments, especially emotional ones, are often more influential when they come from people we consider beautiful * eg. People exploit opportunities to use attractive communicators with audiences less inclined to think analytically (Vogel et al., 2010). 2. *Similarity*. We tend to like people who are like us. We also are influenced by them. People who act as we do, subtly mimicking our postures, are likewise more influential. * eg. A successful antismoking campaign that featured youth appealing to other youth through ads that challenged the tobacco industry about its destructiveness and its marketing practices * eg. Act like: salespeople are sometimes taught to "mimic and mirror": If the customer's arms or legs are crossed, cross yours; if she smiles, smile back.

What - The Message Content: One sided Vs. Two sided appeals

1. Acknowledging the opposing arguments: - Negative effect: the message might confuse the audience and weaken the case. - Possitive effect: the message might seem fairer and be more disarming if it recognizes the opposition's arguments. * eg. Disarming power of a simple two-sided message in an experiment on aluminum-can recycling. Signs added to wastebaskets:"No Aluminum Cans Please!!!!! Use the Recycler Located on the First Floor. + A counterargument: "It May Be Inconvenient. But It Is Important! 2. Different people travel different avenues to persuasion. - Optimists, positive persuasion works best - Pessimists, negative persuasion is more effective We might wish that persuasion variables had simple effects. (It would make this an easier chapter to study.) Alas, most variables, note Richard Petty and 3. "Have complex effects—increasing persuasion in some situations and decreasing it in others." 4. "Occam's razor" (seeking the simplest possible principles) is good, but principles will need to have some complexity, such as to acknowledge interaction effects.

Who - The Communicator: Credibility

1. Define as : Believability. A credible communicator is perceived as both expert and trustworthy. 2. The effects of source credibility (perceived expertise and trustworthiness) diminish after a month or so. 3. If a credible person's message is persuasive, its impact may fade as its source is forgotten or dissociated from the message.

Who - The Communicator: Sleeper effect

1. Define as: A delayed impact of a message that occurs when an initially discounted message becomes effective, such as we remember the message but forget the reason for discounting it. 2. the impact of a noncredible person may correspondingly increase over time if people remember the message better than the reason for discounting it 3. This delayed persuasion, after people forget the source or its connection with the message, is called the sleeper effect.

Who - The Communicator: Attractiveness

1. Define as: Having qualities that appeal to an audience. An appealing communicator (often someone similar to the audience) is most persuasive on matters of subjective preference. 2. We're more likely to respond to those we like. * eg. a phenomenon well known to those organizing charitable solicitations and candy sales. 3. Even a mere fleeting conversation with someone is enough to increase our liking for that person and our responsiveness to his or her influence 4. Our liking may open us up to the communicator's arguments (central route persuasion), or it may trigger positive associations when we see the product later (peripheral route persuasion).

Two paths leading to persuasion: Central route to persuasion

1. Define as: Occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts. 2. Richard Petty and John Cacioppo and Alice Eagly and Shelly Chaiken: Persuasion is likely to occur via one of two routes. a. When people are motivated and able to think about an issue, they are likely to take the central route to persuasion—focusing on the arguments. (arguments are strong and compelling → persuasion is likely. If not → thoughtful people will argue.

Two paths leading to persuasion: Peripheral route to persuasion

1. Define as: Occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker's attractiveness. 2. When we're not motivated or able to think carefully; or we're distracted, uninvolved, or just plain busy → we may not take the time to reflect on the message's content. 3. Rather than analyzing whether the arguments are compelling, we might follow the peripheral route to persuasion—focusing on cues that trigger automatic acceptance without much thinking. 4. So: easily understood familiar statements are more persuasive than novel statements with the same meaning.

To Whom - The Audience: Need for cognition

1. Define as: The motivation to think and analyze. Assessed by agreement with items such as "The notion of thinking abstractly is appealing to me" and disagreement with items such as "I only think as hard as I have to." 2. Analytical people (with a high need for cognition): - enjoy thinking carefully and prefer central routes. (Cacioppo et al., 1996). 3. People who like to conserve their mental resources (with a low need for cognition): - are quicker to respond to such peripheral cues as the communicator's attractiveness and the pleasantness of the surroundings. eg. Students planning a spring break trip: - Students who were more interested in a particular destination were more persuaded by the focus on the information provided on the website (the central route), - Students who were less interested focused more on the website's design (the peripheral route)

How - The Channel of Communication: two-step flow of communication

1. Define as: The process by which media influence often occurs through *opinion leaders*, who in turn influence others. 2. Elihu Katz: many of the media's effects operate in a two-step flow of communication - From media to opinion leaders to everyone else. In any large group, it is these opinion leaders and trendsetters—"the influentials"—that marketers and politicians seek to woo.

What - The Message Content: Foot-in-the-door phenomenon

1. Define as: The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request. 2. Persuasion techniques rely on the size of the request being made. Small requests can lead to bigger choices. * eg. if you want people to do a big favor for you, you should get them to do a small favor first. * Before ask Californians to permit the installation of huge, poorly lettered "Drive Carefully" signs in their front yards, ask them to display three-inch "Be a safe driver" window signs first.

Developing counterarguments: Attitude inoculation

1. Exposing people to weak attacks upon their attitudes so that when stronger attacks come, they will have refutations available. 2. Mild attack might build resistance. When participants were "immunized" by writing an essay refuting a mild attack on a belief, they were better able to resist a more powerful attack later.

Who - The Communicator: Perceived trustworthiness

1. Key: We are more willing to listen to a communicator we trust. * eg. Online reviews of products are seen as more trustworthy if they are negative. we're more willing to believe that negative comments are honest than positive comments. 2. Trustworthiness is also higher if the audience believes the communicator is not trying to persuade them. - If you want to persuade someone, start with information, not arguments. * eg. If scientists just want to inform the public about climate change, people more likely to belive. If scientists aim to persuade the public and governments to take action to stop climate change,not likely to believe.

Who - The Communicator: Perceived expertise

1. Means: How do you become an authoritative "expert"? a. to begin by saying things the audience agrees with, which makes you seem smart. * eg. "scientific consensus" about climate change fails to persuade people because "expert" only support their own preexisting values and views. * "Congenial views seems more expert" phenomenon on topics ranging from climate change to nuclear waste to gun laws. It also helps to be seen as knowledgeable on the topic. * Celebrity communicators are more persuasive when they are perceived as expert users of the product—when they are not, these appeals are very ineffective

What - The Message Content: The effect of arousing fear

1. Messages can be effective by evoking negative emotions. * eg. Persuading people to cut down on smoking, a fear-arousing message can be potent. This is why requiring cigarette makers to include graphic representations of the hazards of smoking on each pack of cigarettes. 2. How much fear should you arouse? - The more frightened and vulnerable people feel, the more they respond - However, there are exceptions. * People who read apocalyptic warnings about global warming reacted defensively by denying the existence of global warming. The researchers concluded that the apocalyptic message went too far in challenging participants' beliefs that the world is stable, orderly, and just.

How - The Channel of Communication: Active experience or passive reception

1. Passively received: appeals are sometimes effective and sometimes not - The more familiar people are with an issue, the less persuadable they are. - On minor issues, it's easy to demonstrate the media's power. - On more familiar and important issues, harder to persude. 2. Active experience strengthens attitudes. - Attitudes more often endure and influence our behavior when rooted in our own experience. - When attitudes formed passively, experience-based attitudes are more confident, more stable, and less vulnerable to attack. * eg. Why use more consumer-generated ads (eg. viral videos, Facebook pages).Because someone who shares a viral video with others will remember the experience much longer than someone who saw the same video as a TV commercial.

How - The Channel of Communication: Comparing media

1. The more lifelike the medium, the more persuasive its message. - the order of persuasiveness seems to be: live (face-to-face), videotaped, audiotaped, and written. 2. Messages are best comprehended and recalled when written. - *Comprehension* is one of the first steps in the persuasion process (recall). * if a message is difficult to comprehend, persuasion should be greatest when the message is written, because readers will be able to work through the message at their own pace. 3. Difficult messages were indeed most persuasive when written; easy messages, when videotaped.

How - The Channel of Communication:

1. The way the message is delivered—whether face-to-face, in writing, on film, or in some other way. 2. For persuasion, there must be communication. And for communication, there must be a channel: - a face-to-face appeal, - a written sign or document, - a media advertisement.

Climate change skepticism:

1. Virtual consensus about three facts: (1) Atmospheric greenhouse gases are accumulating; (2) diminishing sea ice and rising temperatures confirm the world's warming; and (3) this climate change will almost certainly produce rising sea levels and more extreme weather, including record floods, tornadoes, droughts, and high temperatures. 2. Question: Why is the scientific consensus failing to persuade and to motivate action? And what might be done?

Different Paths for Different Purposes

1. When we do not have the time to thoughtfully analyze all issues → we take the peripheral route, by using simple rule-of-thumb heuristics (eg. "trust the experts" or "long messages are credible") 2. Make snap judgments using such heuristics: - If a speaker is articulate and appealing, has apparently good motives, and has several arguments (or better, if the different arguments come from different sources), we usually take the easy peripheral route and accept the message without much thought.

Two -step flow of communicaton

A well-liked talk show host mentioned that she no longer ate beef, an the beef industry saw a large drop in sales as a result. What is this an example of ?

Doubt

According to Daniel Gilbert and colleagues, it is easier to accept a persuasive message than to ____ it.

Four ingredients of persuasion

Among the ingredients of persuasion explored by social psychologists are these four: (1) the communicator, (2) the message, (3) how the message is communicated, and (4) the audience. (In other words, who says what, by what method, to whom?)

Antismoking and drug education programs

Apply other persuasion principles. 1. Use attractive peers to communicate information. 2. They trigger the students' own cognitive processing ("Here's something you might want to think about"). 3. They get the students to make a public commitment (by making a rational decision about smoking and then announcing it, along with their reasoning, to their classmates).

social psychologists usually study persuasion

As the way some geologists study erosion—by observing the effects of various factors in brief, controlled experiments.

To Whom - The Audience: A life cycle explanation

Attitudes change (for example, become more conservative) as people grow older. - The teens and early twenties are important formative years. Attitudes are changeable then, and the attitudes formed tend to stabilize through middle adulthood

To Whom - The Audience: A generational explanation

Attitudes do not change; older people largely hold onto the attitudes they adopted when they were young. Because these attitudes are different from those being adopted by young people today, a generation gap develops. - attitudes of older people usually show less change than do those of young people.

Who - The Communicator: Credibility, expert and trustworthy

Communicators gain credibility if they appear to be expert and trustworth - If source is credible, we think more favorable thoughts in response to the message. - If we learn the source after a message generates favorable thoughts, high credibility strengthens our confidence in our thinking, which also strengthens the persuasive impact of the message

Strengthening Personal Commitment

Conformity - another way to resist: - Before encountering others' judgments, make a public commitment to your position. - Having stood up for your convictions, you will become less susceptible (or, should we say, less "open") to what others have to say. * eg. In mock civil trials, straw polls of jurors can foster a hardening of expressed positions, leading to more deadlocks

Promoting healthier living:

Due partly to health-promotion campaigns, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that only 18 percent of Americans smoke cigarettes, half the rate of 40 years ago. Statistics Canada reports a similar smoking decline. And the rate of entering college students reporting they never drink beer has increased—from 26 percent in 1982 to 66 percent in 2014

What - The Message Content: The effect of good feelings

Good feelings often enhance persuasion because it enhancing positive thinking and linking good feelings with the message. - People with good mood: * make faster, more impulsive decisions, * they rely more on peripheral cues - Unhappy people: * ruminate more before reacting, * so they are less easily swayed by weak arguments. * They also produce more cogent persuasive messages - Thus, if you can't make a strong case, you might want to put your audience in a good mood and hope they'll feel good about your message without thinking too much about it.

Inoculate Children Against Peer Pressure to smoke

High school students "inoculate" seventh-graders against peer pressures to smoke. The seventh-graders were taught to respond to advertisements with counterarguments. They also acted in role plays in which, after being called "chicken" for not taking a cigarette, they answered with statements such as "I'd be a real chicken if I smoked just to impress you." After several of these sessions during the seventh and eighth grades, the inoculated students were half as likely to begin smoking as were uninoculated students at another middle school—one that had an identical parental smoking rate.

Inoculate Children Against the influence of advertising

Hoping to restrain advertising's influence, immunize young children against the effects of television commercials. Children, especially those under age 8 years, (1) have trouble distinguishing commercials from programs and fail to grasp their persuasive intent, (2) trust television advertising rather indiscriminately, and (3) desire and badger their parents for advertised products (4) So, Children are an advertiser's dream: gullible, vulnerable, and an easy sell.

Peripheral

Individuals with a low need for cognition respond better to _____ route persuasion.

What - The Message Content: Recency effect

Information presented last sometimes has the most influence. Recency effects are less common than primacy effects.

How - The Channel of Communication: Personal vs Media influence

KEY!!! The major influence on us is not the media but our contact with people. - Modern selling strategies seek to harness the power of word-of-mouth personal influence through "viral marketing," "creating a buzz," and "seeding" sales * eg. 2010 midterm elections, people who saw photos of their friends voting on Facebook were more likely to vote

What - The Message Content: Primacy effect

Other things being equal, information presented first usually has the most influence.

Increase

Persuasion decrease as the significance and familiarity of the issue ____.

To Whom - The Audience: Distraction disarms counterarguing

Persuasion is also enhanced by a distraction that inhibits counterarguing. Distraction is especially effective when the message is simple - Participants who read a message while also watching a video (the common modern experience known as "multitasking") were less likely to counterargue * eg. Political ads often use this technique. The words promote the candidate, and the visual images keep us occupied so we don't analyze the words. - Distraction precludes our processing an ad. * eg. Explain why ads viewed during violent or sexual TV programs are so often forgotten and ineffective

Ask him to give her his entire collection

Raquel wants her brother to give her one of his prized comic books. If she uses the door-in-the-face technique to persuade him, what should she do first, before asking for the comic book she wants?

Generational

Research primarily supports the _____ explanation of attitude change.

Likely

Sabrina is presenting a vegetarian message to cattle ranchers. The audience is ____ to have counterarguments for the message.

Strong; more

Stimulated thinking makes ___ messages ___ persuasive.

Suppresses

Successful distraction ____ counterarguments.

To Whom - The Audience: Uninvolved audiences use peripheral cues

The consistent finding with each of these techniques: Stimulating thinking makes strong messages more persuasive and (because of counterarguing) weak messages less persuasive.

To Whom - The Audience: Forewarned is forearmed-If you care enough to counterargue

What circumstances breed counterargument? - One is knowing that someone is going to try to persuade you. * So might develop a list of arguments to counter every conceivable argument they might make—and you'd then be less likely to be persuaded by them * In courtrooms, defense attorneys sometimes forewarn juries about prosecution evidence to come. With mock juries, such "stealing thunder" neutralizes its impact.

Anticipating audience disagreement

Which of the following conditions might encourage counterargument?

- First give $220 dollars, then later give their life saving. - First visit the compound, then later move there

Which of the following scenarios represent the foot-in-door technique in relation to cult behaviors?

efforts to persuade

are sometimes diabolical, sometimes controversial, and sometimes beneficial.

Epstein & Botvin, 2008)

researchers have found that inner-city seventh-graders who are able to think critically about ads—who have "media resistance skills"—also better resist peer pressure as eighth-graders and are less likely to drink alcohol as ninth-graders