attitudes

Attitudes

Evaluations of people, objects, ideas, or situations that can be positive or negative. can influence how we feel, think, and behave.

Source, content, audience of message

three factors that influence persuasion. Example: An advertisement for a skincare product may use a dermatologist as the source, scientific evidence as the content, and target young adults as the audience. (know the important aspects of each)

Source (who)

The person delivering the message. Expertise, attractiveness, and celebrity status can make a source more persuasive.

Content (what)

What the message says and how it is presented. Two-sided arguments can seem more balanced because they acknowledge opposing views and explain why one position is stronger.

Audience (to whom)

The characteristics of the people receiving the message. Distraction, intelligence, age, motivation, and the ability to think carefully can affect how persuasive a message is.

3 components of attitudes

affect, cognition, behavior

Affect

Feelings or emotions about something.

Cognition

Beliefs or thoughts about something.

Behavior

Actions or behavioral tendencies toward something.

Components of attitude example: Regarding exercise

Affect: You enjoy exercising. Cognition: You believe exercise improves health. Behavior: You regularly go to the gym.

Elaboration likelihood model

A theory explaining how people process persuasive messages through either the central or peripheral route, depending on their motivation and ability to think about the message.

Central route

People carefully evaluate the message's arguments. Most likely when motivation and ability are high. This route is especially effective for cognitively based attitudes.

Peripheral route

People rely on simple cues instead of carefully evaluating the arguments. These cues may include attractiveness, expertise, or the length of the persuasive message.

ELM example:Central

Buying a laptop after comparing its specifications, price, and reviews.

Peripheral

Buying a laptop because a celebrity recommends it.

Dissonance to promote attitude change

Using cognitive dissonance, or discomfort caused by inconsistency between beliefs and behavior, to encourage someone to change their attitude. When people behave in a way that conflicts with their existing attitudes, they may change their attitudes to reduce the discomfort. Example: Someone who believes they dislike another person agrees to do that person a favor. They may later convince themselves they like the person more than they originally thought.

Arousing fear

Using fear to persuade people to change their attitudes or behavior. Fear-based messages are more effective when they provide a manageable action people can take to address the threat. If the message creates overwhelming fear without a clear solution, it may backfire. Example: A public health advertisement explains the dangers of smoking and provides resources to help people quit.

Classical conditioning

Learning through association, in which a previously neutral stimulus becomes associated with an emotional response after being repeatedly paired with something that naturally produces that response. Example: An advertisement repeatedly pairs a product with happy music and enjoyable experiences, potentially causing consumers to associate the product with positive feelings.

Advertising

Communication designed to influence attitudes toward products, brands, services, or ideas. Advertisers may use celebrities, positive emotions, repeated exposure, and brand familiarity to influence consumers. Your notes also discuss split-market cable tests, which demonstrated that advertising can influence actual purchasing behavior.

Mere exposure

repeated exposure can increase liking as long as the first exposure was not negative. Brand familiarity can increase preference. The notes also describe a “premium” product example in which lowering the price reduced purchases because consumers interpreted the lower price as a sign that the product was not as good.

Subliminal advertising

Advertising that presents messages or images below the level of conscious awareness, with the goal of influencing attitudes or behavior. George and Jennings (1975) reported increased chocolate purchases after subliminal exposure, but the result was not replicated. Gable et al. (1987) found that subliminal sexual images in advertisements did not significantly change preferences. Greenwald et al. (1991) found that supposed subliminal self-help tapes did not produce the claimed improvements; people's beliefs about which tape they received explained the reported changes better. Main takeaway: Subliminal priming can influence perceptions in highly controlled laboratory settings, but evidence that subliminal advertising reliably changes real-world purchasing decisions is weak.

Attitude inoculation

Strengthening resistance to persuasion by exposing people to a weaker version of an opposing argument and helping them develop responses to it. Example: Before someone tries to persuade you that smoking is harmless, you learn common arguments used to defend smoking and prepare evidence-based responses

Reactance theory

The idea that people resist or oppose attempts to restrict their freedom of choice. When people feel forced to do something, they may become more motivated to do the opposite.