CA 368 Final Exam

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance

a negative unpleasant state that occurs whenever a person holds two cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent

Types of Cognitive Dissonance

- Induced compliance
- Effort justification
- Spreading of alternatives
- Rationalization

Aversive consequences

something that makes people feel guilty or unhappy about doing something

Impression Management

a goal-directed conscious or subconscious process in which people attempt to influence the perceptions of other people about people, objects, or events

Self-Perception

change their attitude by observing their own behavior, can preserve a positive sense of self

Self-affirmative

need to see oneself as a good person again

Ways to reduce cognitive dissonance

- Change attitude
- Add additional beliefs consistent with attitude
- Downplay importance of behavior
- Suppress thoughts
- Deny responsibility
- Change behavior (least likely)

Induced compliance

an unpleasant task that someone is asked to do (not forced), the individual freely decides to comply with a dissonance producing request (minimal/no reward)

Benjamin Franklin Effect

a person who has performed a favor for someone is more likely to perform another favor for them than if they had received a favor from that person

Spreading of Alternatives

emphasize the positive aspects of your choice and negative aspects of the unchosen alternatives so that now your choice seems vastly superior to the others (household goods ratings study)

Effort Justification

put lots of effort into something; the result might not be important or good enough; "I hate this group (attitude) but it was really hard to get into (behavior), I actually want to be in this group (changed attitude)"
- Sex discussion study

Degrading the victim

Hurt a person -> the deserved it

Rationalization trap

the need to justify behavior leads to more reasons for doing it in the future

Rewards

Higher rewards -> less cognitive dissonance (external motivation)
No rewards -> internal motivation

Is cognitive dissonance psychological?

Yes. It's Psychologically uncomfortable, physiologically arousing, and drives individuals to reduce it

Action-Oriented Mindset

resolve dissonance, engage in action, and enact decisions

Can monkeys have dissonance?

Yes

Direct way to affirm self concept

change behavior of attitude that addresses the threat directly
(know smoking is bad, quit smoking)

Indirect way to affirm self concept

alleviating dissonance by doing things that make themselves look better; affirm other valued self images
(can't quit smoking, so complete important projects at work - so I'm still a good person)

Collectivists

more likely to put a person into context
- an adherent of the practice or principle of giving a group priority over each individual in it
- more connected to other people
- groups, environment, in-group, out-group
- behavior determined by culture
- kids pictures that focused on the environment

Individualists

tend to focus on the person
- an advocate of a social theory favoring freedom of action for individuals over collective or state control
- more dissonance because we can "only blame ourselves" for an action
- individual
- kids pictures focused on the individuals (person rather than surroundings)

Bem's theory of self-perception

Behavior causes attitudes
- people infer their attitudes from observing their behavior
(Boy decides he likes a girl because he finds himself texting her a lot and getting excited when she texts back)

Hypocrisy

People don't want to seem like hypocrites so they're more likely to change their attitude towards the behavior to resolve the dissonance

Condom hypocrisy study

Students had to talk about safe sex in video (provoked inconsistency because many of the students don't use condoms). Students purchased condoms after the study

When is Commitment most persuasive (effective)?

when: public, written down, out of free-will, invested time/money

Consistency

- central motivator of our behavior
- we want integrity - we are reliable people
- heuristic processing to rely on past decisions
- public pressure
- Ex: "will you call to cancel?" creates commitment for appointment

Question-behavior effect

- asking people about pro-social behavior increases pro-social behavior
- compelled to say they engage in socially desirable behaviors

What is the Four walls technique?

(sales technique) - asking people four "yes" questions to trap them into buying your product

Compliance Gaining

act of altering another's behavior
- changed behavior over attitude

How to say NO

- Pay attention to our own signals
- Point out that they're using consistency on you
- "If this was the initial offer, would I still take it?" "if I could go back in time, would I make the same choice?"

Distraction & Diversions

- make it hard to think elaborately
- say things in a strange way
- people will shift attention to figure out what is going on

Acknowledging resistance

use indirect strategies when high resistance is expected (when little resistance, use direct strategies)

Sequential influence technique

persuasive communications that follow one another in a step-by step fashion (such as foot-in-the-door or door-in-the-face)

Ways to reduce resistance to persuasive appeal?

- Disrupt and reframe
- Fear then Relief

What is Disrupt and reframe?

(cognitive disorientation)
- deliver persuasive message, reframe to understand, you become more susceptible, use peripheral cues, mood, association (ex: 300 pennies and $3)
- works best with people who have a high need for cognition

Fear then relief

(emotional disorientation)
- distract people with negative emotions, then make them feel relief, person is then more likely to think mindlessly (ex: good cop, bad cop)
- emotional whiplash (from bad to good)
- Ex: Polish telecom study (in trouble but you're actually not)

Foot-in-the-door technique

compliance to small request increases likelihood of compliance to a large request

Foot-in-the-door technique works best with:

- Pro-social issues
- When second request is a logical outgrowth of the first
- Some time/space between 1st and 2nd request
- Same person making the request

Lowballing

get commitment to attractive request then replace with less attractive alternative (bait and switch)
- Ex: Black Friday (out of one item, but this item is similar)

Door-in-the-face technique

start with a larger request, but you expect a smaller one, that you think the person is likely to agree to

Why does Door-in-the-face technique work?

- Obligation to reciprocate a concession
- guilt
- self-presentation
- perceptual contract principle (the smaller one seems not that bad compared to the larger one)

Door-in-the-face technique works best when:

- The same person asks the request immediately after
- same issue
- short duration/delay
- volunteer/pro-social behavior

"And That's Not All!" technique

- Emotions are higher due to increased excitement for more (additional small product)
- Why it works: Customers get something for nothing
- Works best when: in direct interaction with customers (talking)

Open-ended survey

- Pro: allow people to indicate in their own words how they get compliance. No speculation about hypothetical behavior in artificial situations
- Con: researchers must make sense of and categorize subjects' responses - difficult and time consuming, may not fully capture the ideas

Close-ended survey

- Pro: efficient way to gather information, insights on how people try to gain compliance in representative life situation
- Con: people frequently give socially desirable responses

Strategies of compliance:

- Direct / Indirect
- Rational / Non-rational
- Hard sell / Soft sell
- Dominance based / Non dominance based
- External / Internal

Direct

assertion and persistence

Indirect

targets emotion and thought manipulation

Rational

reasonable arguing and favors

Non-rational

deceit and threat

Hard sell

yelling, demanding, verbal aggression

Soft sell

kindness, flattery, flirting

Dominance based

emphasize the power the communicator has over target

Non-dominance based

egalitarian approach

External

rewards/punishments

Internal

self-persuasion

How does Self-monitoring affect compliance?

- High self monitoring - people who want to look good and constantly look at others (tend to adapt their technique to fit the person they are trying to influence)
- [How willing and able they are to change to situation]
- Low self monitoring - generally oblivious to how others see them (use same technique with different people)
- [have attitudes predict their behavior more because they say and act upon what they believe]

How does individualism and collectivism affect compliance?

- Individualism - request is more effective when it is made as clearly and directly as possible (more American)
- Collectivism - likes indirectly better, degree to which the request is sensitive to individual's feelings and doesn't create disapproval (more Western culture)

Situational constraints on compliance

- compliance benefits the persuader
- influence attempt has consequences for their relationship

Resistance

people frequently reject appeals so persuaders must adjust and take it into account

Dependency

use different strategy depends on whether we are dependent on the person we are trying to influence (people lack power usually use rational and indirect)

Intimacy

predicts use of conflict-reducing strategy (people in deep relationship employ more spontaneous and emotional strategy)

Rights

whether they have the right; if they feel they do not have the moral right to make a request they will use softer tactics (Prof. VS had no problem asking people to give up seats on public transportation)

Deontological approach

- believes that morality lies in intention, no the consequences
- lies are okay as long as you intend to help others or benefit people in some way

Utilitarian approach

- a lie must be evaluated in terms of its consequences
- negative consequences = negative persuasion attempt
- ex: more costs than benefit

How does goal incompatibility affect compliance?

- Primary goal - influence target's behavior
- Secondary goal - maintain a good public impression, not damage a friendship; determine how people approach their primary goal
- 2 goals can be conflicting

Reciprocity

- the idea of returning a favor, giving a gift and receiving one in return
- trigger feature
- Works because of: implied obligation to reciprocate gift (by giving/complying with request), social norms

How to avoid reciprocity

- Recognize what's happening
- Acknowledge that a favor is just a favor
- Obligation is a powerful force
- May reject taking the gift - but may reject the people offering real gifts and favors
- If you feel it's a sales device, tell yourself so and then feel free to decline without any psychological obligation

Reciprocity study example

Post its
- no note = 34% complete survey
- blank note = 43%
- handwritten note = 69% and more prompt about it

Is reciprocity the same as incentive systems?

No. Reciprocity is a reciprocal gift giving while incentive systems are rewarding a person for certain behavior
(Reciprocity is more powerful)

Subliminal messages

a message not consciously internalized

Subliminal primes

An image is flashed very quickly

Embedding

images that contain messages or smaller images within them

Sub-audible messages

placebo effect/self-fulfilling prophecy
- tapes labeled as one thing but they actually do another (subject relates the label to the experience)

Back-masking

hidden persuasive messages when music is played backwards (Led Zeppelin)

Subliminal smell

rate stimuli worse when smells bad even report no sense of smell

Subtle/Supraliminal messages

- product placement
- able to be noticed by the viewer of the message, but not necessarily going to happen

Subliminal messages in comparison to supraliminal messages

- embedded messages or things that are not consciously recognized
- Relevant when: increasing familiarity (brand recognition), goal relevant, highly controlled/focused, short-lived, commercial (distracted)

Placebo Effect

tend to work if you think it is working

Self-fulfilling prophecy

- a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior.
- tell people they are listening to a tape embedded with "improving memory" messages but actually something else, people report improved memory

Why is there still belief that subliminal messaging is so effective?

- Mass media exaggerates
- Mysterious and interesting
- expectations and self-fulfilling
- uneducated about persuasion
- easy to understand compared to other scientific theories
- hard to prove the nonexistence of subliminal messages

History of subliminal messages

- little research until 2000s
- Eat popcorn/drink coke study
(fake - resulted in hysteria & made subliminal messages illegal)

Product placements

- may be effective because mere exposure and association, but may have boomerang effect
- when you can see and consciously acknowledge the image and subliminal messages are below the threshold of awareness

How does music persuade?

- takes less cognitive effort for the same message as a voice; less counterarguing, more relaxed
- Peripheral route - creates positive mood and association
- Advertising: reinforces product's image (association), tolerate watching the same commercial more times (mere exposure), mnemonic device

How does Background music work?

- Influences shoppers through pace (buy more with slow tempo music), faster pace to get people out of the restaurant faster
- Uplifting music makes people more compliant
- Set mood for brand atmosphere (buy more expensive wine with classical music)

Aromas

- Pleasant fragrances relax people / increase moods, shoppers linger & buy more expensive stuff
- Peripheral processing - increases attitude accessibility, distraction

Perfume + Peripheral processing

- If you have Weak arguments, distract consumers using disrupt and reframe, attractive spokespeople, entertaining content, artsy layouts, and confusing content
- Smelling the perfume distracts (increases peripheral cues)
- Association - like the smell = like the object/person

Sensory branding

Association - visual images are more effective when coupled with an aroma (think Hollister)

How do "Clean" scents affect behavior

- Citrus scents promote clean behavior
- people exposed to a clean smell were more likely to clean up after themselves
- Increase reciprocity behavior
- Increase charitable behavior
- Increased fairness in study

Distraction in advertising

encourages peripheral processing through preventing cognitive thinking, so we rely more on peripheral processing

Humor in advertising

- Increases cognitive ease toward a message and reduces counter-arguing by lowering defenses (not as much need to overthink something that made you laugh)
- Persuades by:
- capturing attention, increases liking and perceived social attractiveness, encourages cognitive ease, create an association between humor/good mood and brand

Time compression in advertising

- short on time = peripheral process
- creates distraction: trying to cram everything into a 30 second ad

Attractive spokesperson

works when consumers are in a low-involvement mode (TV ads = effective, door-to-door salesperson, not as much)

How does the peripheral route in advertising work?

- classical condition, semiotics, accessibility
- Perloff book

How does mere exposure work in advertising?

- Amount you have been exposed to the stimulus - repeated exposure leads to cognitive ease because can process fluidly; increasing exposure lead to likability / accessibility
- Forming attitudes - if someone can increase your cognitive ease to a subject with a message, you are more likely to form the attitude the message imposed upon you

Wearout

- In response to ad
- start to hate them after too many exposures
- CAN BE AVOIDED with variation

Repetition with Variation

- works better with peripheral processing when people aren't paying attention too much
- Also makes people less likely to be annoyed/worn out
- Ex: free credit report .com ads

Association in advertising

associating products with pleasant, exciting, and beautiful images, advertisers hope the products will take on these desirable attributes

Classical conditioning

pavlov and his dogs (helps us understand how people develop favorable attitudes towards products; association is a trigger feature)

Semiotics

study of signs and symbols (Nike swoosh, Apple, etc.)