Chapter 5 Flashcards

1
Q

T/F: Fear arousing messages are generally ineffective.

A

False.

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2
Q

T/F: Speakers who talk fast are viewed as less credible than those who talk with occasional hesitation.

A

False.

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3
Q

T/F: In research to date, messages that acknowledge opposing arguments are always more effective than messages which are one sided.

A

False.

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4
Q

T/F: In a debate, it is usually advantageous to be the last to present your side of the issue.

A

False.

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5
Q

T/F: Political advertising has little effect on voters in the general presidential election.

A

True.

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6
Q

T/F: In actual fact, television commercials for toothpaste and aspirin have little effect on the buying habits of the general public.

A

False.

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7
Q

T/F: People’s attitudes change considerably during adulthood.

A

False.

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8
Q

T/F: One way to strengthen existing attitudes is to challenge them.

A

True.

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9
Q

T/F: Associating a message with the good feelings one has while eating or drinking makes it more convincing.

A

True.

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10
Q

Describe the central route to persuasion.

A

AUDIENCE:
• Analytical and motivated

PROCESSING:
• High effort
• Elaborate
• Agree or counter-agree

PERSUASION
• Cogent arguments evoke enduring agreement

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11
Q

Describe the peripheral route to persuasion.

A

AUDIENCE:
• Not analytical or involved

PROCESSING:
• Low effort
• Use peripheral cues
• Rule of thumb heuristics

PERSUASION:
• Cues trigger liking and acceptance but often only temporary

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12
Q

How does supermarket marketing work?

A
  • Merchandise at eye level sells best
  • Merchandise at the end of a supermarket aisle or near the checkouts sells better
  • Bundle pricing (2 for $1 vs. 50 cents for 1) increases the sense of value
  • Every few months they change the layout of items on the store shelves
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13
Q

What is credibility?

A
  • perceived expertise

* perceived trustworthiness

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14
Q

How does classical conditioning persuade people?

A
  • One repetition is not enough
  • Conditioned responses are resistant to change
  • Associations between higher order and conditioned stimuli must fit properly
  • Celebrities must match the product
  • Discrimination occurs when the CS is paired with the UCS and another is not
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15
Q

What are the six persuasion principles?

A
  • Authority
  • Liking
  • Social proof
  • Reciprocity
  • Consistency
  • Scarcity
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16
Q

How does authority persuade?

A

• People defer to credible experts.

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17
Q

How does liking persuade?

A

• People respond more affirmatively to those they like.

→ Familiarity
→ Celebrity
→ Attractiveness
→ Shared Beliefs
→ Shared Group Membership
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18
Q

How does social proof persuade?

A

• People allow the example of others to validate how to think, feel, and act.

→ put others in a good mood and thus more likely to say yes

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19
Q

How does reciprocity persuade?

A

• People feel obliged to repay in kind what they have received.

→ door in the face
→ foot in the mouth
→ “and that’s not all”

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20
Q

How does consistency persuade?

A

• People tend to honour their public commitments.

→ foot-in-the-door
→ lowball procedure

21
Q

How does scarcity persuade?

A

• People prize what’s scarce.

→ playing hard to get
→ deadline technique

22
Q

How and when do people join cults?

A
  • People first join groups that reflect society’s “default values”.
  • People in transitional periods are most vulnerable.
23
Q

How do cults indoctrinate?

A

• Attitudes follow behaviour
→ Compliance breeds acceptance
→ The foot-in-the-door phenomenon

  • Persuasive elements
  • Group effects
24
Q

What are the qualities of cult leaders?

A
  • Create a social reality
  • Create a granfalloon (“proud and meaningless association of human beings”)
  • Generate commitment through dissonance reduction (foot in the door techniques)
  • Establish credibility and attractiveness
  • Send members out to proselytize the unredeemed
  • Distract members from thinking undesirable thoughts
  • Fixate members vision on a phantom
25
Q

What are some questions to assess whether an organization is a cult?

A
  • Are alternatives being provided or taken away?
  • Is your access to new and different information being broadened or denied?
  • Do you assume personal responsibility and control or is it usurped by the group and its’ leader?
26
Q

How can persuasion be resisted?

A

• Strengthening personal commitment
→ Challenging beliefs
→ Developing counterarguments

• Attitude inoculation: Exposing people to weak attacks on their attitudes so that when stronger attacks come, they will have refutations available

• Real-life applications
e.g., Inoculating children against peer pressure to smoke

27
Q

What affected the American opinion on military action in Iraq compared to the rest of the world?

A

• culture-shaping occurring top-down
→ cultural elites control the dissemination of information and ideas

• people in the U.S. and people elsewhere learned about and watched two different wars

28
Q

When is appealing to central route processing more effective?

A
  • ideas where people have to think carefully and mentally elborate
  • rely on their own thoughts in response as well as on the persuasive appeals
  • causes lasting and persistent change in attitude
29
Q

When is appealing to peripheral route processing more effective?

A

• when needing superficial and temporary attitude change

30
Q

What are the primary ingredients of persuasion?

A
  • messenger
  • message
  • medium
  • audience
31
Q

What is the sleeper effect?

A
  • delayed impact of a message

* occurs when we remember the message but forget the reason for discounting it

32
Q

What makes a messenger perceived as an expert?

A
  • say things the audience agrees with
  • introduced as someone knowledgeable
  • speak confidently
33
Q

What makes a messenger perceived as trustworthy?

A
  • looking straight in the eye
  • audience believes communicator is not trying to persuade them
  • argue against their own interests
  • talking fast
34
Q

How do good feelings enhance persuasion?

A
  • enhancing positive thinking
  • linking good feelings with the message
  • faster, impule decisions; cuts down on rumination
35
Q

What are some examples of the effectiveness of fear-arousing persuasion?

A
  • smoking goes down when viewing super edgy and graphic anti-promotion commercials
  • breast/testicular self-exams go up
36
Q

What happens when fear-arousing communication is used to discourage pleasurable behaviour?

A

• no behavioural change, goes into denial

37
Q

What is the most effective way to implement fear-arousing messages?

A

• fear severity and likelihood + offer a viable solution

38
Q

What are some experiments that explored one-sided v. two-sided arguments and what were the results?

A
  • acknowledging the inconvenience but adding it was important increased likelihood that people would recycle
  • in wwii radio broadcast study, one-sided was more effective with those who already agreed, two-sided was more effective with those who disagreed

• simulated trials showed that two-sided arguments are better for people who are aware of opposing arguments
→ people will make up their own counterarguments if they have one-sided

39
Q

What studies examine the primacy v. recency effect?

A

• Asch’s study describing a person with terms going intelligent-envious gave better impressions than envious-intelligent
→ previous descriptors coloured later ones

  • success coming earlier for people are more able than those who successes come after early failures
  • candidates benefit from being first on ballot
40
Q

What is the rule for passive v. active appeals?

A

• Persuasion decreases as the significance of the issue increases.
→ On minor issues, such as which brand of aspirin to buy, it’s easy to demonstrate the media’s power.
→ On more important issues, it is not impossible, but one shove won’t do it.

41
Q

Which two field experiments illustrated the strength of personal influence?

A
  • people divided into three groups who weren’t intending to vote, effectiveness of : media < mailings < in person
  • same with heart disease people
42
Q

What is the two-step flow of communication?

A

• process by which media influence often occurs through opinion leaders, who in turn influence others

43
Q

How does age affect persuade-ability?

A
  • older = Conservative, younger = NDP

* younger people have very changeable attitudes that stabilize through middle adulthood

44
Q

What breeds counter-arguing?

A

• warning that someone is trying to persuade you

45
Q

What inhibits counter-arguing?

A
  • disctraction

* low need for cognition

46
Q

What is a cult?

A

group typically characterized by:

  • distinctive ritual of its devotion to a god or person
  • isolation from the surrounding culture
  • a charismatic leader
47
Q

How does compliance breed acceptance in cults?

A
  • new converts are made active members of the team through behavioural rituals, public recruitment, and fund-raising
  • greater personal commitment must be justified by believing
48
Q

Using the factors known to affect the impact of persuasive communications, analyze cult persuasion.

A

THE COMMUNICATOR
• charismatic leader perceived as expert and trustworthy

THE MESSAGE
• vivid and emotional message
• warmth and acceptance offered

THE AUDIENCE
• vulnerable
• young people under 25 in a transitional period of their life
• white middle-class people who lack either “street smarts” or wariness
• facing personal crisis or away from home