Persuasion

Question 1

What is persuasion?

Answer 1

The process of changing a person’s or groups attitudes, beliefs or behaviours

Question 2

Who and influences

Answer 2

Who is the source of the message?

Characteristics of the source:
- Expertise,
- Physical attractiveness
- Verbal skills (inspirational communication)
- Familiarity
- Percieved status - power
- Trust
- Likability/ popularity

Question 3

What

and influencing factors

Answer 3

What argument/ message is being made?

Influencing factors:
- Type of appeal - emotional or rational
- Order of arguments (primacy and recency)
- One or two-sided argument
- Speech rate
- Percieved manipulation
- Fear factor

Question 4

Linguistic markers of powerlessness

Answer 4

• Hedges - words and phrases that express uncertainty and ambiguity (e.g. ‘I think’)
• Tag questions - questions the statement (e.g. ‘Don’t you?’)
• Hesitations - prolonged speech, taking breaks (gives speaker poor credibility - don’t know what they’re talking about)

Question 5

To whom

Answer 5

Who are we sending the message to?

Tailor the message and medium to different audiences

Question 6

Influences for how a message is recieved

Answer 6

• Self-esteem - low self-esteem = more easily influenced (doubt themselves)
  (Self monitor- awareness of own behaviour and its impact)
• High self monitor - persuaded by more attractive people
• Low self monitor - more influenced by experts
• Age - younger people more easily persuaded
• Attention - are people paying attention to the message (simpler messages are easier)

Question 7

How

Answer 7

How are we saying the message?

Medium conveying the message: Soeech, advert, social media, etc..

Question 8

Four steps of persuasion

Answer 8

1. Attention - people need to pay attention to understand the message
2. Comprehension - do people understand the message (think of different beliefs, cultures and IQ)
3. Acceptance - do they accept the message (does it dit with their own beliefs
4. Retention - Is the message retained

Question 9

Lukin et al. (2017)

Audience effects of persuasion

Answer 9

• People who are more Open are typically more receptive to new ideas
• Agreeable people are more motivated to change beliefs by emotional arguments

Question 10

Conway and Dubé (2002)

Audeince effects of persuasion

Answer 10

Humour appeals were more effective for high-masculinity individuals

Question 11

The fear factor

Answer 11

Fear appeal = threat appraisal + coping appraisal
- Are they challenged by the threat?
- Do they have the resources and ability to cope with the threat?

Appeals combine info that is fear-arousing with information that provokes a sense of personal vulnerability to the illness threat
- e.g. a health risk must not only have serious consequences but the individual must also feel personally at risk

Question 12

Fear (Hoog et al., 2007)

Answer 12

Argument quality and severity of health threat are most important factors for threat appraisal
- not personal vulnerability

Question 13

Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)

Petty & Cacciopo (1986)

Answer 13

Persuasion as a cognitive process - use mental processes of motivation and reasoning
Persuasion depends on the way the receiver makes sense of the message

Two possible routes of influence: Central and peripheral

Question 14

The central route to persuasion

Answer 14

Focus is on the message and argument
- Strong and compelling
- Rational argument
- Evidence to support message
- Lots of information

However, audience must by highly motivated nd have the ability to process the information given

Question 15

The peripheral route to persuasion

Answer 15

Incidental cues are the main influence
Peripheral messages rely on receiver’s emotional involvement to achieve persuasion
- Peripheral characteristics (e.g. attractiveness)
- When people are distracted or not paying more attention they lean towards peripheral cues - requires less thinking

Question 16

6 factors of persuasion (Cialdini, 1984)

Peripheral cues

Answer 16

1. Authority - position of authority to influence
2. Commitment - to group (e.g. political party)
3. Liking - Do we like the person? → Adverts use celebrities to sell products
4. Reciprocation - What do we get for believing in your message
5. Scarcity - The smaller the amount of something the more valuable
6. Social Proof - Peer influence, social pressure

Question 17

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

(Festinger, 1957)

Answer 17

A state of psychological tension that is produced by having two opposing cognitions at the same time
- People are motivated to reduce tension by rejecting one of the cognitions
- People either change their behaviours and beliefs or justify and rationalise them

Question 18

Cognitive dissonance and persuasion

Answer 18

Create dissonance while offering a solution to minimise the disparity
- Solution is more likely to be adopted as it provides an easy solution to reduces tension

Question 19

Cognitive dissonance and culture

Answer 19

Collectivist cultures: More sensitive to social role requirememts, so attribute cognitive disturbances to a situation or external factors - less cognitive dissonance
Individualist cultures: More influenced by internal attributes

Question 20

Research Paradigms in Dissonance

What dissonance is created and how people deal with it

Answer 20

1. The Free-Choice Paradigm
2. The Belief-Disconfirmation Paradigm
3. The Effort-Justification Paradigm

Question 21

The Effort-Justification Paradigm

Answer 21

Effort justification is people’s tendency to attribute a greater value to an outcome they had to put effort into acquiring or achieving.
- The dissonance for amount of effort is reduced if the desirable outcome is exaggerated

Question 22

The Belief-Disconfirmation Paradigm

Answer 22

When people are exposed to information that is inconsistent with their beliefs, it can arouse dissonance

If dissonance is not reduced by changing ones belief → the dissonance can lead to misperception, misinterpretation and rejection of the information