Hovland-Yale Theory - Theory of persuasion

Question 1

When was Hovland-Yale theory introduced?

Answer 1

1951

Question 2

What does hoveland-Yale theory focus on?

Answer 2

The ability of change people’s behaviour and how it depends on 3 things.

Question 3

What 3 things does changing someone’s behaviour depend on?

Answer 3

1. The quality of the communicator (source)
2. The message (communication)
3. The audience (recipients)

Question 4

What are the qualities of a good communicator (source) ?

Answer 4

Someone that speaks well and knows their target audience (e.g Sir David Attenborough)
One with high credibility

Question 5

What are the qualities of a good message ?

Answer 5

The most persuasive message is one with a high threat with promise of it being easy to give up.

Question 6

Who are the best audience?

Answer 6

• those with moderate self esteem are the easiest to persuade than those with high or low self esteem
• Highly intelligent people are less easy to persuade than those of lower intelligence as they might not understand the argument and ignore it whereas those with high intelligence have the cognitive resources to process even highly complex arguments

Question 7

What was the aim of hovland & Weiss (1951) study?

Answer 7

To investigate the credibility of a source and it’s effect on opinion change.

Question 8

What was the procedure of hovland & Weiss (1951) study.

Answer 8

Two groups of Yale students were given the same information but either in newspaper tabloid or scientific journal form.

Question 9

What was the findings of hovland & Weiss (1951) study.

Answer 9

Participants charged their minds overtime and the tabloid increased in credibility and the scientific journal decreased. Thus is because they forget where they get it from and care about the information not the source.

Question 10

What was the conclusion of hovland & Weiss (1951) study.

Answer 10

1) People are more likely to change their opinion when the source is credible.
2) The sleeper effect occurs - People overtime forget their source and change their opinion even from poor sources. Both articles had the same positive and negative effects.

Question 11

What was the evaluation of hovland & Weiss (1951) study.

Answer 11

• if you need a short term change in behaviour use a credible source. This has been used well in health campaign (application)
• the sample were all students from Yale - they are not very representative of the population in general ( you would think they’re more intelligent for starters)