Chapter 7: Persuasion

Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)

A model of persuasion that maintains that there are two routes to persuasion: the central route and the peripheral route.

Central Route

A route to persuasion wherein people think carefully and deliberately about the content of a persuasive message, attending to its logic and the strength of its arguments as well as to related evidence and principles.

Peripheral Route

A route to persuasion wherein people attend to relatively easy-to-process, superficial cues related to a persuasive message, such as its length or the expertise or attractiveness of the source of the message.

Source Characteristics

Characteristics of the person who delivers a persuasive message, such as attractiveness, credibility, and certainty.

Sleeper Effect

An effect that occurs when a persuasive message from an unreliable source initially exerts little influence but later causes attitudes to shift.

Message Characteristics

Aspects or content of a persuasive message, including the quality of the evidence and the explicitness of its conclusions

Identifiable Victim Effect

the tendency to be more moved by the vivid plight of a single individual than by the struggles of a more abstract number of people.

Audience Characteristics

Characteristics of those who receive a persuasive message, including need for cognition, mood, and age.

Agenda Control

Efforts by the media to emphasize certain events and topics, thereby shaping which issues and events people think are important.

Hostile Media Phenomenon

The tendency for people to see media coverage as biased against their own side and in favor of their opponents' side.

Thought Polarization Hypothesis

The hypothesis that more extended thought about a particular issue tends to produce a more extreme, entrenched attitude

Attitude Inoculation

Small attacks on people's beliefs that engage their preexisting attitudes, prior commitments, and background knowledge, enabling them to counteract a subsequent larger attack and thus resist persuasion.