Lecture 11 Part 1: Social Influence and the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) of Persuasion

Introduction to Persuasion and Social Influence

• Persuasion is defined as active attempts to change an individual's attitudes toward various things.

• It is categorized as the second major topic within the broader study of social influence, following conformity.

• Distinction between Conformity and Persuasion:

  • In conformity, others are not necessarily trying to change you, though it can occur as a byproduct of social pressure.

  • In persuasion, the goal is explicitly to change your attitudes.

Historical and Contemporary Examples of Persuasion

• Advertising and Commercials: These are ubiquitous examples of persuasion. The psychological logic is that if a consumer develops a more positive attitude towards a product, such as a car, they are more likely to purchase it.

• Cigarette Advertising:

  • The speaker notes that individuals in cigarette advertisements are never shown actually using the product, possibly due to legal restrictions.

  • An example is given of people swimming in cigarette ads, which is described as illogical since one cannot smoke while swimming.

• "Direction Hoops" (Erection/Pharmaceutical) Advertisements:

  • These ads also typically do not show the product being used for obvious reasons.

  • The speaker critiques the absurdity of advertisements where couples drag heavy bathtubs to remote mountain locations without a water supply, implying the water would be cold and the lack of logic in two people being in separate tubs.

• Health and Social Behavior:

  • Persuasion is used to change health-related behaviors, such as encouraging vaccinations.

• Historical Propaganda:

  • "Rosa and Riveter": A famous World War II ad aimed at empowering women to enter the workforce while men were fighting in Europe.

  • Venereal Disease Prevention: During World War II, ads were used to influence soldiers' opinions to prevent them from sleeping with women in Europe to avoid venereal diseases (e.g., the "she may be a bag of trouble" campaign).

  • Nazi Germany and Hitler: Hitler utilized propaganda to portray himself as divinely ordained, using imagery of light and clouds to suggest a messianic leadership while failing to mention the atrocities committed.

Mindlessness and Heuristic Processing

• A recurring theme in social psychology is that humans generally prefer not to think deeply (cognitive misers).

• This reliance on heuristics leads to behaviors like the Fundamental Attribution Error.

• In the context of persuasion, humans often behave "mindlessly," making decisions without careful thought or consideration of implications.

• Consequently, people are often influenced by unimportant or irrelevant variables because they are not processing messages in-depth.

Research on Mindless Compliance: The Photocopy Study

• Conducted by Ellen Planner in the $\text{1970s}$ at a university library.

• Methodology: All photocopiers except one were disabled to create a line. Research assistants then attempted to cut the line using three different strategies.

• Strategy $1$: No Excuse

  • Request: "Excuse me. Can I cut in front of you?"

  • Result: Approximately $60\%$ of people agreed to let the person cut.

• Strategy $2$: Real Excuse

  • Request: "Excuse me. Can I cut in front of you? I'm in a rush."

  • Result: Compliance increased significantly to $94\%$.

• Strategy $3$: Placebo Excuse

  • Request: "Excuse me. Can I cut in front of you? I need to make some copies."

  • Logical Analysis: This is functionally equivalent to no excuse because everyone in the line needs to make copies.

  • Result: Compliance was $93\%$.

• Conclusion: This demonstrating mindlessness; people did not process the content of the excuse, only the "form" or sound of an excuse (the word "because").

Research on Script Disruption: Atypical Money Requests

• Researchers requested money from random people in public using different methods.

• Typical Request:

  • Request: "Can you spare a quarter?"

  • Result: Likely to trigger an automatic, canned response (e.g., "Sorry, I don't have any money") because people have been asked many times.

• Atypical Request:

  • Request: "Can you spare $37\text{ cents}$?" or "$17\text{ cents}$?"

  • Result: These atypical requests earned more money than typical requests.

• Explanation: The strange request disrupts the automatic script. It forces the person out of a mindless state to process the request, leading them to think there might be a specific, logical reason for that exact amount.

The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)

• The ELM is the dominant model in social psychology used to explain how persuasion occurs.

• Key Assumption: Humans can think in-depth if motivated and if they have the cognitive resources, but they often lack either the motivation or ability to do so.

• Motivation and Ability:

  • Motivation is low if the topic is uninteresting or irrelevant to the individual.

  • Ability is low if the individual is "cognitively busy" or distracted.

• A quote attributed to the field of manipulate history states: "The receptive ability of the masses is very limited. Their understanding is small… they have a great power of forgetting."

The Central Route to Persuasion

• Occurs when individuals have both the MOTIVATION and the ABILITY to think about the message.

• Process: Analysis of argument content, logical coherence, and quality of the arguments.

• Indicators: Only argument strength matters. Superficial variables are ignored.

• Outcome: Attitude change via the central route tends to be long-lasting because the individual has internalized the reasons for the change.

• Examples:

  • A Miller Lite ad comparing calories and carbs ($110\text{ calories, } 6.6\text{g carbs}$ vs. $96\text{ calories, } 3.2\text{g carbs}$) provides logical reasons for preference.

  • A real estate ad describing a house ($3\text{ to } 4\text{ million dollars}$, two acres, English gardens) targets the central route by providing relevant property data.

The Peripheral Route to Persuasion

• Occurs when individuals lack the motivation or ability to process the message (mindless state).

• Process: Influence by superficial or irrelevant "peripheral cues."

• Peripheral Cues include:

  • Celebrity status (e.g., professional athletes).

  • Physical attractiveness of the spokesperson.

  • Use of humor.

  • Fluency and eloquence of the speaker.

  • Style of delivery.

  • Quantity of arguments (e.g., being more persuaded by $10$ weak arguments than $2$ strong ones).

• Outcome: Attitude change is typically short-lived and does not result in long-term conviction.

• Examples:

  • A KFC ad featuring soccer star Ronaldo eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. Logically, an athlete's diet doesn't validate the health or quality of the food, but it works on the peripheral route.

  • Beer commercials using attractive spokespeople to sell the product regardless of taste or quality.

Questions & Discussion

• Question: Regarding whether an expert in one field (like physics) speaking on another field (like biology) still influences people.

• Response: The speaker confirms this is true. This type of source credibility—where expertise is irrelevant to the actual topic—only influences people who are on the peripheral route. Individuals on the central route would recognize the irrelevance of the expertise to the specific argument.