week 5

attitude inoculation: Exposing people to weak attacks on their attitudes so that when stronger attacks come, they will have refutations available

attractiveness: Having qualities that appeal to an audience. An appealing communicator (often someone similar to the audience) is most persuasive on matters of subjective preference

central route to persuasion: Occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favourable thoughts.

certainty: efers to the level of subjective confidence or validity that people attach to their attitudes.

channel of communication: The way the message is delivered— whether face to face, in writing, on film, or in some other way.

credibility: Believability. A credible communicator is perceived as both expert and trustworthy.

cults: Groups typically characterized by (1) the distinctive ritual of their devotion to a god or a person, (2) isolation from the surrounding “evil” culture, and (3) a charismatic leader; also called new religious movements. (A sect, by contrast, is a spinoff from a major religion.)

need for cognition: The motivation to think and analyze; assessed by agreement with items such as “the notion of thinking abstractly is appealing to me” and disagreement with items such as “I only think as hard as I have to.”

peripheral route to persuasion: Occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness

persuasion: The process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviours.

primacy effect: Other things being equal, information presented first usually has the most influence.

reactance: A motive to protect or restore our sense of freedom. Reactance arises when someone threatens our freedom of actio

recency effect: Information presented last sometimes has the most influence. Recency effects are less common than primacy effects

selective attention: The extent to which people’s attitudes bias the attitude-relevant information they attend to, once exposed.

selective exposure: The extent to which people’s attitudes bias the attitude-relevant information they expose themselves to.

selective memory: The extent to which people’s attitudes bias recall and recognition of attitude-relevant information.

sleeper effect: A delayed impact of a message; occurs when we remember the message but forget a reason for discounting it.

two-step flow of communication: The process by which media influence often occurs through opinion leaders, who in turn influence others.