Attitudes (Persuasion Models)

What is persuasion?

Persuasion is the process of changing out attitude word something based on some kind of communication from others.

What are the three theories regarding persuasion (attitude change) ?

• Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)

• Yale Attitude Change Approach (YACA)

• Experience

What is the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) ?

ELM considers variables of the YACA to determine when attitude change will occur:

• Source

• Content

• Audience

What are the 2 main routes of the ELM?

Central and peripheral

Describe what the source, content and audience are in the ELM:

Source: where the message is from

Content: the content of the message

Audience: characteristics of the audience

What is the central route of persuasion?

• Uses facts, figures and reasoning.

• Makes the audience think carefully about the message to allow them to evaluate the information.

• Most effective upon people who are more likely yo think and analyse the content of the message during arguments.

Messages need to be credible, clearly presented and backed up with evidence.

What is the peripheral route of persuasion?

• Uses images and emotions (peripheral cues) to perpetuate change.

• This route requires minimal thinking and processing from the audience

• the audience targeted by this route is usually young as they are still in a strong phase of learning and development, therefore most commonly easily persuaded

• also commonly targets those with low self-esteem and a negative self-concept

What are the three aspects of the YACA?

Source, Message, Audience

What is the source in YACA?

Source: the person who conveys the message

• the more favorably we regard to the source, the more likely we are to view the message favourably

What is the message in YACA?

Message: for the message to be effective, you need to evoke strong emotions or strong processing in the audience

• good feeling can make a message more convincing

• fear is often used to create a strong message

• Messages that you statistics incorporates the central route to encourage a person to think

What is the audience in YACA?

Audience: features of the audience of a message also so affect how easy it is to persuade attitude change

• older generations often have more conservative views as they are more likely to have formed opinions through direct experience

-Young people often inform their attitudes from secondhand sources (i.e. media, what someone has said) and therefore, are easier to persuade

• Time of day can also impact levels of alertness and therefore how likely they are to change opinion

What are three factors that are apart of the audience?

Self-esteem: people with low self-esteem persuaded more easily as people with high self-esteem because they are less likely to have counter points

Personality: traits and personality types can often shape attitude formation due to things like extra version versus introversion

Knowledge: level of prior knowledge on a topic can influence attitude change, if someone knows a lot about the topic they will be less willing to change their opinion

What are the two aspects of the Experience persuasion approach?

Direct and indirect

What is direct experience?

Experiencing something for yourself.

• Attitudes formed here are generally stronger.

• More likely to think and talk about a direct experience, more accessible.

What is indirect experience?

Being exposed to a topic, event or issue in a secondary way (less personal).

• reading, being told, watching an advert.

• attitudes formed this way are more susceptible to change as they are less emotionally intense and don't evoke the same thought processing

What are the three persuasion strategies?

1. The norm of reciprocity.

2. Door in the Face.

3. Foot in the door.

What are persuasion strategies effective for?

Selling products, changing attitudes, ideas and behaviours

What is the norm of reciprocity?

Based on the social norm that people will return a favour when one is granted to them.

• linked to the psychology of compliance, is more likely to occur when the request has previous previously complied with a target request

• used by marketers to manipulate purchasers

What is the door in the Face strategy?

Begins with an initial large request and then progressively lower to something smaller.

• purchasers feel obliged to buy the smaller option because they rejected the initial large offer

What is the foot in the door strategy?

Begin begins with getting the purchaser to agreed to a small favour or item, only to request a larger purchase.

• Linked to the psychology of compliance, as you have agreed to the initial request you are more likely to agree with others.