Com 318 Unit 2

Individual Differences

Things about you that make you unique and interesting

Individual differences variables

• Age

• Gender

• Race/ethnicity

• Culture

• Education level

• Political Identity (party and ideology)

• Predispositions and established attitudes

Traits

•  enduring characteristics presumed to be relatively stable across time

  • Demographics (but only some)

  • Personality characteristics

States

Temporary behaviors or feelings that depend on a person's situation or motives at a particular time

Examples of Traits

• Age

• Gender

• Culture

• Intelligence

• Personality

Traits - Age

• Life stage hypothesis - openness to persuasion

• Children and elderly are more persuadable

Age - Children

• Very susceptible to persuasion

• Aren't as cognitively developed

  • Can't evaluate message as effectively

  • Don't realize when others are trying to persuade them

• Less adept at resisting advertising

  • Education helps lessen effects of ads

Age - Elderly

• Some seniors experience cognitive decline

• Some scammers target elderly folks

  • Loneliness: Eager for human interaction

  • Savings: Nest-egg is a tempting target

  • Fixed incomes: looking for extra money

Traits - Gender

• Generally, gender is not a significant predictor of persuasion

  • Men are perceived as being more persuasive

  • Double-bind for women

    • Women who are direct, assertive, or forceful may be perceived negatively

    • Women are less persuasive when they use aggressive and assertive tactics than when they use more stereotype-consistent tactics

Traits - Culture

One's identification with and acceptance into a group that shares symbols, meanings, experiences, and behaviors

• Hofstede’s Five dimensions

• Lecture discussed Individualism and Collectivism

Hofstede’s Five dimensions

• Long-term orientation

• Power distance

• Uncertainty avoidance

• Masculinity/Feminity

• Individualism and Collectivism

Individualism

• "I" perspective: the individual is the more important entity. "What's in it for me?"

• Stresses independence

• Members reward successes and achievements

• Uniqueness is valued

• Low context - say what you mean

• Use direct persuasive strategies

• United States and Australia

Collectivism

• "We" perspective: Group needs supersede individuals

• Behavior is guided by duty and not pleasure

• Self is defined in relation to others, not as distinct from others

• Focus on cooperation, not competition

• High context because value harmony over clarity/directness - meaning is implied

• Use indirect persuasive strategies

• China

Individualism or Collectivism: “the art of being unique”

 Individualistic

Individualism or Collectivism: “We have a way of bringing people closer together”

Collectivist

Traits - Intelligence

• Cognitive complexity - one's ability for nuanced thinking

  • Nuanced thinking is when we are thinking about how many constructs a person can use to describe or understand an idea or belief

    • Construct: Perceptual category (ex. Good/bad, popular/unpopular, strong/weak) that we use to evaluate things

• In general, less intelligent people are more easily persuaded than more intelligent people

Cognitive Complexity

• one's ability for nuanced thinking

  • Nuanced thinking is when we are thinking about how many constructs a person can use to describe or understand an idea or belief

    • Construct: Perceptual category (ex. Good/bad, popular/unpopular, strong/weak) that we use to evaluate things

Individuals with lower intelligence and lower cognitive complexity:

• May not comprehend the message

• May rely more heuristic cues (peripheral route processing)

Individuals with higher intelligence and higher cognitive complexity:

• Have higher tolerance for messages that are inconsistent with their preexisting beliefs/cognitions

• Pay closer attentions to messages and evaluate those messages

• Are less influenced by the source of the message

• Rely more on central route processing

Traits - Personality

• Self-esteem

• Self-Monitoring

Self-esteem

• People with moderate levels of self-esteem are more likely to be persuaded (when compared to people with high or low self-esteem)

  • High - may notice the message but not be persuaded by it

  • Low - may assume the message is not geared toward them and not pay attention to it

Self-Monitoring

• How much people observe and regulate their behaviors in social contexts

  • Research shows that some people work harder to manage their public image than others do

High self-monitors

• Responsive to social cues

• Acceptance, social cues

• More likely to adjust appearances and behaviors

• More likely to conform to social norms

• More responsive to image-based advertising

  • Where better name, packaging, and branding matters

Low self-monitors

• Less responsive to social cues

• Can come across as unaware or insensitive

• Less likely to do something because it looks good to others

• Are more attentive to message content

• Rely more on their own judgement

Ego Involvement

 The strength of your attitude and how committed you are to that

• Knowing a person's attitudes and ego involvement will help in designing a message that persuades them

• People make evaluations about content of messages based on their anchors, or stances, on a particular topic messages

• The strength of someone's attitudes influences how they process messages related to that attitude

Social Judgement Theory

• People don't just consider a persuasive message on its merits (contents) alone

  • They consider how it fits within their own perceptions

  • Their perceptions serve as a filter for new information

Evaluations of persuasive arguments under SJT

• Latitude of acceptance

• Latitudes of Noncommitment

• Latitudes of Rejection

Latitude of Acceptance

Statements and ideas with which the listener agrees

Latitude of Noncommitment

Statements and ideas with which the listener neither agree or disagrees

Latitudes of Rejection

Statements and ideas with which the listener judges as objectionable or unacceptable

Influences latitude of acceptance and rejection

• Their ego involvement with an issue

  • High personal relevance = High degree of ego involvement

  • High Ego involvement

    • How much a person will be open to change

    • How likely a person will be to accept the opinions of others

Anchor position in Social Judgement Theory

This is the most preferred position (your preexisting attitude is)

More ego involvement

• Larger latitude of rejection

  • If you are highly committed to an idea, you are more likely to reject anything that questions it or tried to change it

• Smaller latitude of noncommitment

  • The more important an issue is to you, the more you will have thought about it and the less persuadable you will be

Less ego involvement

• Larger latitude of noncommitment

• Increased possibility of shifting to latitude of acceptance

Contrast Effect in SJT

• When a message is perceived as farther from the person's original position (anchor) than it really is

• Rejects new information

Assimilation effect in SJT

• When individual minimizes the difference between the two positions

• Accepts new information

Moral Foundation Theory

• Proposed new way to think about persuasion and politics

  • Instead of thinking about just liberal or conservative ideologies, we can think about what might inform those ideologies

The 5 moral foundation

• Care

• Fairness

• Loyalty

• Authority

• Purity

MFT and Persuasion

• How might you use these different more foundations to persuade someone?

  • We can use language to emphasize the different moral foundations

  • Care: Empathy, Safe, Benefit, Compassion

  • Fairness: Equal, Justice, Rights, Tolerant

  • Loyalty: Together, Family, Patriot, Group

  • Authority: Obey, Respect, Duty, Leader

  • Purity: Clean, Innocent, Chaste, Modest

How to persuade

• Adapt your persuasive message to your receiver's frame of reference

  • Adject your message based on the receiver's age, gender, culture, intelligence, etc.

  • Tailor the message based on the receiver's preexisting attitudes and beliefs

  • Consider the receiver's personality when designing the message

Conformity

• Adhering to or observing standards, rules, or laws

  • Behaviors in accordance with socially accepted conventions or standards

  • Rules may not be clearly stated but you learn to follow them in order to be part of the group

Norms

Expectations held by a group of people about what behaviors or opinions are right or wrong, good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable, appropriate or inappropriate

Formal and Explicit Norms

No cheating on tests - written in the syllabus and said

Informal and implicit Norms

Not picking your nose during class

Norms may not be apparent until violated

• Texting during class - the teacher doesn't say anything possibly until someone actually does it

• May have to learn as you go

Variables that influence group conformity

• Group size

• Number of dissenters

• Difficulty joining the group

• Reference groups

• Communicator characteristics

Stages of indoctrination into cults

1. softening-up stage (often targeted with vulnerable, “love bombing”)

2. Compliance stage - recruits experiment with some of the behaviors of the cult

3. Internalization stage - recruit it considering some of the demands and beliefs

4. Consolidation stage - they become loyal

Ostracism

the act of excluding and ignoring others

Decision in group settings, people are motivated by…

1. Informational influence

2. Normative influence

3. If others are expressing dissent

Informational Influence

Wanting to be right/correct

• We conform to the group because we think the group is correct and we want to be correct

• This type of response is stronger when you response in private (instead of in front of the group)

Normative influence

Wanting to be liked and accepted

• We conform to the group because we want others to like us or make us feel included

  • If there is something they are doing but we might have slight objections we may do it anyways so that the group will accept us

• This type of response is stronger if you have to respond in front of the group

If others are expressing dissent

• Difficult for a lone dissenter to hold out

• If a second dissenter emerges, conformity decreases by 80%

  • This means that if one other person says they disagree, others are more likely to say they disagree, too

Dissent

People who question the authority figure saying maybe we should double check that.

Indoctrination

 a way group influence can go wrong

• Individuals have stronger conformity in groups if they experience severe/challenging indoctrination

  • If it's hard to get in, we value the group more

  • If we value the group more, we are likely to conform to the rituals and practices

    • Hazing

Identification

• Includes experiencing shared meaning and goals

  • For persuasion to occur, one party must "identify" with another

    • That is, the one who becomes persuaded sees that one party is like the other in some way

  • The more we identify with a group, the greater the group's power to influence behavior

Identification through media occurs when…

• You form an imaginary interpersonal relationship with an individual in the media

• You feel like you are the individual in the media

  • I am so much like so and so and we really understand each other

• You feel a lot like the individual in the media

  • The way they reacted is similar to how I would have reacted

Identification through media

• You form an imaginary interpersonal relationship with an individual in the media

• When we feel like we're engaged in a social relationship with the individual (not merely watching them through media)

  • They don't always reciprocate such as celebrities, athletes, actors, characters on a show

How identification through media occurs

• Cognitive --> I wonder is ____ was similar to me

• Affective --> Sometimes I really loved ___ for what he/she did

• Behavioral --> Occasionally, I said something to ____

Reference Group

• A group that has the power to influence us through the process of identification

  • Groups we respect, admire, identify with

Social Identity Theory

Explains how we categorize ourselves and other people into desirable and undesirable groups

• In-group

• Out-group

In-group

• the group we want to be a part of or are already part of

  • "we"

• We perceive our in-group - the groups of people we associate ourselves with - to be most similar to us

Out-group

• the group we do not want to be part of

  • "they"

• We see the out-group as negative and hurting our self-esteem and self-identity

Social Identity Theory - Comparing ourselves with other

• We see a small social distance between ourselves and our friends, family, etc.

• This social distance increases as the degree of separation increases

• We try to associate ourselves with the in-group and distance ourselves from the out-group

Negative consequences to identification

• Ethnocentrism

• Groupthink

• Strong culture (book)

Ethnocentrism

 Assuming one's culture is the standard for judging other cultures

• can lead to hatred, discrimination, and violence toward members of another culture

Groupthink

•  tendency to engage in consensus seeking

  • Failure to question or challenge the group's opinions

  • Need for someone to play devil's advocate

  • too concerned with everyone getting along and agreeing

Groupthink and Strong culture involve

• Involve collective of people who are all thinking in the same way and are notorious for bad decision making

Strong culture

in organizational communication contexts, too much identification can lead to this.

Employees may identify so much with their organization that they conform to the organization’s values and actions

How to prevent the negatives of identification

1. Encourage group members to "kick the problem around" before focusing on a solution

   • Encourage disagreement when brainstorming

2. Establish a norm of critical evaluation

   • Promote expression of disagreement

   • Assign a devil's advocate (to find issues with suggestions)

   • Leader must be open to having ideas scrutinized

Social Cognitive theory

How we learn from other people's actions and decide what actions we are going to take ourselves

Social Cognitive Theory - Learning

• Is cognitive and behavioral

• Can take place by observing a behavior and its consequences

• Can translate into acting out the learned behavior

• Interacts with cognition, behavior, and background characteristics

• Simply put, social learning involves observational learning (monkey see, monkey do)

Social learning and consequences

• We evaluate what we see and whether we're willing to take the same chance…

• … with the possibility of the same outcome

Consequence of social learning materialize in 2 ways

1. External concerns: Fear of punishment

2. Internal concerns: Questions of morality

In order for social learning to take place these things must occur

1. Attention - you have to see it happen

2. Retention - you have to remember it occurred

3. Reproduction

4. Motivation

Example of Social Cognitive Theory and media

• An example in college students

  • A student swinging on a wrecking ball on their campus imitating Miley Cyrus in her music video

  • Started with the Miley Cyrus video and then the students wanted to imitate that behavior

Unintended effects of Social Cognitive Theory

Usually negative

• TV viewing and smoking among youth

• Reading women's magazines and the desire to be thin

  • No the intention of the magazine but people were seeing these thin women in the magazine and wanted to imitate that

• Teens watching sexually explicit TV content and intentions to have sex

  • But also more knowledge about safe sex practices and fewer negative ideas about sex

Intended Effects of Social Cognitive Theory

Usually positive

• Entertainment-educations about various topics, including AIDS preventions, condom use, and gender equality

• Health campaigns to encourage healthy behavior change (sunscreen use)

Social Proof

• Tendency to view behaviors as more appropriate or correct when a lot of other people are doing it

• Others' behaviors is used as a yardstick for how to behave

  • Includes viral marketing

  • Social proof via online reviews

• Explains fads, trends, jumping on the bandwagon, etc.

According to Social Proof which one worked best?Researchers placed fliers on doors of San Diego residents once a week for a month. Residents were given only one of these messages:

A majority of your neighbors regularly try to conserve energy

Social Loafing

Reducing one’s efforts when working in a group

Explanations of Social Loafing

• Colletive effort model

• Free ride effect

• Sucker effect

• On the other end - Diligent isolates

Collective effort model

We get lazy if we don't think our efforts are valued or will be useful

• Argues that we tend to get lazy if we don’t expect our efforts to lead to personally valued outcomes or if we don’t think our effects will be instrumental in obtaining those outcomes (Book)

Free ride effect

We'll do less if we can get away with it

• suggest that when they can get away with it people try to benefit from the efforts of others (book)

Sucker effect

When others are slacking, some will do less to match the level of the other slackers

• occurs when people suspect that others may be taking a free ride

Diligent isolates

People who increase their efforts and work to rescue group projects

To counter social loafing

• Monitor individual performance

• Set individual goals

Social facilitation

• the tendency to perform better when other people are around