2. Persuasion and Marketing

What is the definition for persuasion?

• A change in attitude, beliefs or behaviour in response to direct messages

• persuasion requires internalisation

What are the 3 attitude components that people may or may not include when defining what an attitude is?

• Affect: evaluation (+/-)

• Behaviour: readiness to act

• Cognition: A collection of thoughts

What question do we ask when deciding whether mental construct is implicit or explicit?

does it require a distinct mental/neural construct?

The attitude to behaviour gap: why is it difficult to show the attitude to behaviour link in the laboratory?

• not clear which component of the three component model is important in a given situation

• not clear which attitude is driving behaviour in a given situation - lots of different targets

• behaviour toward one attitude object could be controlled by attitude toward another

What are the key features of heuristic processing?

• argument quality is not so important

• less cognitively demanding

• relies upon simple rules: “majority rules”, “he looks trustworthy”, lecturers are always right”

What are they key features of systematic processing?

• argument quality is important

• involves the effortful scrutiny of all relevant information: “are the arguments logically coherent?”, “do they fit with my existing knowledge?”

• attitude change is more enduring and more resistant to change

When is heuristic processing most likely to occur?

• most likely to occur as the default

when is systematic processing most likely to occur?

when

• one has the motivation to be accurate, defend an attitude, or create a positive impression

• one has the cognitive capacity for effortful processing

• one tends, by personality, to need clear explanation

What kind of arguments are most effective in high and low motivation states and which kinds are employed as a result?

• strong arguments lead to greater attitude change with high motivation to be accurate. 

• opposite with weak arguments, systematic processing occurs

• heuristic processing occurs in low motivation state, different arguments have no difference

  

What kind of arguments are most effective in high and low distraction states and which kinds are employed as a result?

• strong arguments most effective in low distraction, systematic processing occurs

• no difference between kinds of arguments in high distraction, heuristic processing occurs

Which three factors affect persuasion?

• source

• message

• audience

these factors interact to determine the efficacy of persuasion

Which factors affect the Source as a factor affecting persuasion?

• expertise

• trustworthiness

• likeability

• status

• group membership

Which factors affect the Message as a factor affecting persuasion?

• one vs two-sided arguments

• emotional vs cognitive appeal

• explicit vs implicit conclusion

Which factors affect the Audience as a factor affecting persuasion?

• intelligence

• self-esteem

• need for cognition

• cognitive load

What was the procedure of Dubois et al used to examine how sources are more persuasive when they share characteristics with the audience?

• participants were put in groups where power was made salient through recalling events (baseline, low power or high power)

• they were given the role of either communicator (e.g. write a persuasive speech), or audience

• they measured audience attitudes toward the university, coding of argument competence, coding of argument warmth (more emotional)

What were the result of Dubois et al used to examine how sources are more persuasive when they share characteristics with the audience?

• supports the matching hypothesis

• with high audience power - high power communicator were more persuasive

• with low power audience - low power communicator more persuasive

What might explain the high-power individuals behaviour in Dubois study

high power individuals

• less dependent on others

• more agentic

• focused on competence

What might explain the low-power individuals behaviour in Dubois study

low-power individuals

• more dependent on others

• more “communal”

• focused on warmth (affiliation)

What was found by dubois in the high power communicators speeches

• used more competence-related arguments

• competence related arguments more persuasive among high power audiences

What was found by Dubois in the low power communicators speeches?

• used more warmth-related arguments

• warmth-related arguments more persuasive among low-power audiences

How has need for cognition/affect been operationalised to be able to test the effect of matching message and audience

• need for affect: scale from -3 (strongly disagree) to +3 (strongly agree) to rate items such as: i like to dwell on my emotions

• need for cognition: scale from 1 to 5 to rate items such as: i really enjoy a task that involves coming up with new solutions to problems

What was the procedure of Haddock’s Lemphur study which investigated the effect of matching the audience and message on persuasion

• participant who had either need for cognition or need for affect

• shown affects vs cognition oriented message about imaginary animal

• measured their result attitude toward lemphurs

What were the results of Haddock’s Lemphur study

• affect orientated messages did predict audience attitude for those who have need for affect

• cognition orientated messages did predict audience attitude for thsoe who have need for cognition

• there was a matching effect

Source expertise and audience motivation: do experts make us think and attend more carefully or do we readily accept their message?

• findings are mixed

• people process experts’ message heuristically when not very motivated

• however, people are likely to attend more closely to expert’s arguments (and process them systematically) when they are interested

Why might we systematically process expert’s messages more than non-experts when motivated?

we seek to confirm our existing attitudes

What are our attitudes towards experts in proattitudinal situations?

• when people agree with us, we trust experts and process their arguments heuristically

• but we scrutinise non-experts in order to identify weaknesses in “our side”

What are our attitudes towards experts in counterattitudinal situations?

• when people disagree with us, we ignore non-experts

• but we scrutinise experts in order to better counter them

What procedure did Clark et al use to examine expertise, argument and audience?

1. attitude pre-assessment separated ppts into pro-attitudinal arguments and counter-attitudinal arguments

2. then put into expert/non-expert condition (leading scholar/ high school junior)

3. argument manipulation: strong condition had millions of dollars at stake, weak conditions: smaller amount of money

4. then an attitude post-assessment

What were the results of Clark et al examining expertise, argument and audience

How might we perceive brands as social objects

brands are social objects and, like humans, are perceived in terms of intentions and ability (analogous to warmth and competence) the combination of these dimensions elicits different emotional responses

What are some effects of strong brand relationships?

• elicit loyalty that goes beyond habit

• reflect or contribute to self concept

• lead to resistance to negative information about the brand

• lead to feelings of betrayal when the brand falls short of expectations

• rely to some extent on anthropomorphism of the brand

• vary with individual differences in personality

What is anthropomorphism in the context of branding

• the attribution of human characteristics to inanimate objects, animals, etc

• used in branding whereby brands themselves are anthropomorphised

• used in product design whereby products have humanlike features

• these features can have a positive effect on product impressions

how did Puzakova study the effect of anthropomorphism

• participants learned about a product that was either anthropomorphised or was not

• then participants learned that product did not work - what are their attitudes toward the brand? might take it not working personally if cultivated relationship to anthropomorphised them

• they hypothesised that it was depend on the social beliefs of the consumer: entity theorists will hold its mistakes against it, incremental theorists will not

entity theorists

• expect behaviour to be consistent over time

• characterise a person based on a single act

incremental theorists

• believe that behaviour changes with context

• do not expect behaviour to be stable over time

Results of Puzakova’s study of brand anthropomorphism

larger difference in attitude towards brand for entity theorists with anthropomorphised condition

In puzakova’s corporate response study leading on from anthropomorphised brands who failed, what were the three conditions? And what did they find

• Denial

• Apology

• compensation

What are three strategies and their factors that audiences and use to resist persuasion?

• avoidance: physical, mechanical, cognitive

• contesting: content, source, tactics

• empowering: attitude bolstering, social validation, self assertion

What are the resistance neutralising tactics that brands use against avoidance?

• forced exposure

• branded content

• viral marketing

What are the resistance neutralising tactics that brands use against contesting?

• two-sided advertising

• cognitive depletion

• distraction

• safety cues

What are the resistance neutralising tactics that brands use against empowering?

• self affirmation

• freedom