CMST 3400 Exam 1

Fixed Action Pattern

unlearned behaviors that are triggered by a stimulus; any action that wasn't consciously learned

ex: running away from a dangerous situation, nursing a newborn baby to make it stop crying

Functions of Studying Persuasion

1. Instrumental Function: persuasion serves as an instrument (ability to persuade others)

2. Knowledge and Awareness Function: learning about persuasion will enhance our knowledge and awareness of a variety of persuasive processes

3. Defensive Function: By studying persuasion, we are less likely to be taken in by it and be able to recognize when we are being persuaded

4. Debunking Function: will be able to decipher fact from fiction when it comes to common persuasion practices

Gamification

applies video game methods to other contexts to increase consumer engagement

-points, badges, leaderboards, competition, etc

Tipping Points

the idea that word of mouth and how a small number of influential people can generate a lot of support for an idea, brand, or phenomenon. Needs:

-Uber influencers (mavens, salespeople, connectors)

-context, scalability, effortless transfer

-has to be unpredictable and infectious

Once this idea gets momentum, it reaches a tipping point and become contagious

Contexts for Persuasion

Word of mouth, social media, tipping points, gamification, persuasion in the sciences, persuasion in the arts, interpersonal settings

Criticisms of study of persuasion and responses

1. Does learning about persuasion foster manipulation?

a. view persuasion as not immoral or moral, but ethically neutral

b. persuasion educates people to become more discriminating of consumers and persuasive messages

c. antimanipulation is also attempting to persuade

2. Are Persuasion findings too inconsistent or confusing?

a. persuasion isn't easy to study, but doesn't mean we don't need to study it

b. persuasion research has revealed a number of significant, relevant generalizations

Habitual Persuasion

a form of persuasion that people continually use, regardless of its effectiveness

-aka "mindless" persuasion

ex: threatening people

Logical vs. Emotional Appeals

when people agree with a message, they tend to perceive it as being more logical or rational in nature. When they disagree with a message, they tend to think of it as being more emotional in nature.

Meta analysis

a way to combine quantitative and qualitative data from different studies to develop a single conclusion and generalization about persuasion

Propaganda

-typically has a strong bias

-institutional in nature

-involves mass persuasion, targeting a mass audience and relies on mass media to persuade

-is not the most ethically sound

How can we define persuasion?

involves one or more people who are engaged in the activity of creating, reinforcing, modifying, or extinguishing beliefs, attitudes, intentions, motivations, and or behaviors within the constraints of a given communication context

Pure vs. Borderline Persuasion

-pure persuasion: clear cut cases of persuasion in which most people would agree

ex: presidential debate, tv commerical

- includes: interpersonal, intentional, effects, noncoercive and symbolic

-borderline persuasion: things that are not so clear cut and can be on the border of being seen as persuasive or not

ex: involuntary reflexes (burping, blinking), people's appearances

-includes: intrapersonal, unintentional, no effects, coercive, nonsymbolic

Limiting Criteria for Defining Persuasion

1. Intentionality: must be deliberately wanting to change or influence an attitude or idea

2. Effects: was the persuasion effective? Ineffective?

3. Free Will and Conscious Awareness: Persuasion is noncoercive; we have the free will and freedom to choose to be coerced by someone

4. Symbolic: persuasion involves more than just symbolic action (language) and can include nonverbal cues, images, and nonsymbolic actions

5. Interpersonal vs. Intrapersonal: does it involve two people? One person?

Gass/Seiter Model of Persuasion

Pure/Borderline Persuasion--> #of communicators, synchronous/asynchronous, ratio of verbal/nonverbal cues, mediation, goals of participants, sociocultural factors-->Face to Face Persuasion, Public Persuasion, Mass Media Persuasion

Contextual Factors of Persuasion

-# of communicators

-synchronous/asynchronous

-ratio of verbal/nonverbal cues

-mediation

-goals of participants

-sociocultural factors

Dual Process Models (ELM and HSM) and their elements

Elaboration Likelihood Model

-states that there are two ways routes to persuasion, the central route and the peripheral route

-Central Route: involves cognitive elaboration (the ability to think about a message and reflect on it) and the motivation to engage in central processing

-tends to be more long lasting

-Peripheral Route: involves focusing on cues that aren't directly related to the substance of a message

ex: physical attractiveness, credibility

-more short term

Heuristic Systematic Model of Persuasion

operates on the assumption that individuals rely on two different modes of information processing

1. systematic processing: more thoughtful and deliberate

2. heuristic processing: relies on mental shortcuts; helps simplify the thought process

Attitudes

A psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor

Functions or Characteristics of Attitudes

1. attitudes reflect tendencies or predispositions to respond to things in predictable ways

2. attitudes represent favorable or unfavorable evaluations of things

a. can vary in degree or intensity

3. always directed toward an attitude object (towards someone or something)

Different ways of measuring attitudes:

1. Explicit measures

a. Likert scales, semantic differential scales, visually oriented scales

2. Implicit measures

a. Implicit Association Test, AMP

Limitations of attitude scales ( e.g. social desirability bias)

1. social desirability bias: when people know their words or actions are on display, they may exhibit what they perceive to be socially acceptable norms or conduct

2. non-attitudes: people make up their attitudes in order to not look uniformed or unintelligent

3. mindfulness: some people don't understand their own minds

attitude-behavior consistency

behavior can be extremely revealing of attitudes, but care must be taken in determining which attitudes best reflect which behaviors

Stanley Milgram Shock Experiment

-Stanley Milgram shock experiment (learners vs. teachers)

-the closer the "teachers" physical proximity was to the experimenter, the more obedience there was

-People can do inhumane things that are against human nature with authority above them

-50% of the subjects gave the shocks until the very end

Associative Networks

our attitudes, beliefs, and values are all connected and in

balance

-a change in one of these will cause a change in others

Image Oriented Ads

try to help a person or corporations image through positive association of things

- eat this and you will look like that

-drink beer and you will have fun

Operant Conditioning (Skinner)

type of learning where behavior is learned by consequences (rewards and punishments)

-behavior that is reinforced tends to be repeated, and behavior that is not reinforced tends to die out

Classical Conditioning (Watson)

a theory that involves learning a new behavior via the process of association

-Unconditioned Stimulus/Response: a stimulus in the environment has produced a behavior or response that is unlearned and is a natural response; they have not been learned yet

ex: stomach flu would produce a response of nausea

-Conditioned stimulus and response: pairing an unconditioned stimulus with a conditioned response or vice versa

ex: getting a stomach virus might be associated with eating a certain food

Social Learning Theory (Bandura)

1. learning occurs because of rewards and punishments

2. rewards and punishments can be real or imagined

3. Rewards and punishments can be immediate or delayed

4. Reinforcement can be personally experienced or vicariously experienced

a. vicarious learning: people learning about behaviors without actually partaking in them (ex: aggression video shown in class teaches you not to bully others)

5. Rewards can be internally or externally based

Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger)

when attitudes and behaviors contradict, it produces cognitive dissonance

-when a person makes a certain choice or decision, they worry about whether they made the right decision or not, and they are motivated to reduce the dissonance

How dissonance is reduced or increased

justification, rationalization, denial, bolstering, modifying of attitude

Brand Loyalty

by instilling brand loyalty in consumers, advertisers hope to discourage us from brand switching

Commitment

commitment goes hand in hand with persuasion; in order to be aware of the downsides of commitment:

1. Don't allow persuaders to "box you in" by getting you to commit to something when you don't want to

2. Don't paint yourself into a corner by making public commitments you don't want or intend to keep

3. If you make an ill advised commitment, admit it and do what you can to fix it

Balance Theory

a theory of attitude change, and that people want to maintain in a cognitive balanced state

-odd # of + is balanced

theory of unreasoned action

assumes that people are rational decision makers who make use of all the information available to them

-First Component: intentions are the best way to guide behavior

a. attitudes toward the behavior

b. beliefs about the outcome

c. evaluation of the outcome

-Second Component: subjective norm

-a person's perception of what others think about the behavior in question

-based on normative beliefs (peer pressure, parental pressure) and motivation to comply

Unimodel of Persuasion

rather than two distinct modes of information processing, there is a single route to persuasion; central processing and peripheral processing can be used together, just at different levels

Counter Attitudinal Advocacy

a person creates or presents a message that is at odds with his or her existing attitude

-causes psychological conflict in the individual because of inconsistency between attitude and behavior

-the way to resolve the conflict is to make the private beliefs and attitudes more consistent with one's public behavior, which is a shift in attitude