PY1118 Persuasion & Attitude Change
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Transcript of PY1118 Persuasion & Attitude Change
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Persuasion & Attitude Change
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Overview
Attitude changeAttitude inconsistency & cognitive dissonancePersuasion
Models of persuasionElaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1984)
Increasing compliance
Resisting persuasion
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Attitude change via cognitive dissonance
Cognitive dissonance = inconsistencybetween attitudes and/or behaviour
Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)asked participants toperform a boring task (turning pegs quarter turn left,then quarter turn right) for twenty minutes
After completing the task, paid them either $1 or$20 to tell the next participant that the task wasreally interesting.
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Festinger & Carlsmiths (1959) results
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Enjoy Task
$1
$20
TaskIntere
st
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Attitude change via cognitive dissonance
$1 group rated task more interesting than $20 group
Why? participants in the $20 group explain the
inconsistency between their experience and the liethey tell the next participant because they havebeen fairly well paid
However, the $1 group dont have this explanation,because they only received $1. So, the only way thecan reduce the feeling of dissonance is to convincethemselves that the task was really interesting
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Cognitive dissonance: Limitations
Dissonance harder to create than imagined
Most attempts at attitude change, therefore, focuson trying to persuade people to change theirattitudes
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Persuasive Communication
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Attitude change: Yale Model
Persuasive communication major WW2 research effort
into voluntary rationing, propaganda etc. (Hovland et al.,
1953)
Source (communicator): Who is trying to persuadeyou?
Message (communication): What is being said?
Audience: Who is the audience?
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Who do you believe?
We must reduce ourcarbon footprint to
prevent climate change
We do not need to reduceour carbon footprint to
prevent climate change
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Attitude change: Yale Model; Source
Source (communicator): Who is trying to
persuade you?Hovland & Weiss (1951) found that participants
evaluated articles from a believable and trustworthysource (e.g., an academic journal) more favourably
than articles from a low credibility source (e.g., a
politically biased columnist)
Bochner & Insko (1967) found that students weremore inclined to believe an expert when it came to
estimating how many hours sleep humans need
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Which message is more likely to changebehaviour?
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Attitude change: Yale Model; Message
Message (communication): What is being said?Janis and Fesbach (1953) found message advocating
frequent teeth brushing was more effective if it elicited
moderate fear about the risks of not brushing, byshowing discoloured and decayed teeth as opposed
to high fear by showing gory effects of not brushing,
like death!
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Attitude change: Yale Model
When might experts fail to persuade you?
Why do gruesome images fail to change behaviour?
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When might experts fail to persuade you?
?
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Why do gruesome images fail to changebehaviour?
?
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Attitude change: Who is the audience?
Different audiences may require differentmessages, in different formats
Chaiken and Eagly (1983) looked at theinteraction between message complexity (easy,hard) and medium of delivery (written, audio,
video) on attitude change
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Chaiken & Eagly (1983)
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Easy Difficult
Written
Audio
VideoOpinionChange
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Attitude change: Who is the audience?
Key factor in persuasion is the audiences prior beliefs
Strong beliefs are hard to change, even when presented
with strong counter-arguments
Weak, or non-existent, beliefs much easier to change
Duck et al. (1999) also showed that we tend to see otherpeople as more easily persuaded compared to us.
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Dual-process models of persuasion
Several models of persuasion in SocialPsychology propose that there are two routes topersuasion
Direct route focusing on content using strongarguments
Indirect route focusing on surface features ofmessage; present persuasion using attractive orknowledgeable sources
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Attitude Change via Elaboration
Petty & Cacioppo (1986) Elaboration Likelihood
Model (ELM) proposes two routes to persuasion
Central route
Closely attended to, has personal meaning,cognitive route, try to remember eg. Medical
advice, Essay guidelines
Peripheral route
More superficial, association of cues with
message e.g., ISA allowance information
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Attitude change: ELM: Relevance to you
ELM states that people elaborate arguments more when
they are about a topic that matters to them
If the topic is important to you (e.g., tuition fees) you will
process the argument carefully!
However, if the topic is unimportant (e.g., tax credits for
elderly people) you will probably not process the
argument so carefully.
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Attitude change: ELM: Relevance to you
Petty et al. (1981) tested the idea that relevance affects
attitudes
Students reported their attitudes about a new exam, then
listened to a radio broadcast outlining why new exams
were needed
This year (high relevance)
In ten years time (low relevance)
Arguments were either strong (exams help with
coursework) or weak (sounds like a good idea)
Attitudes measured again
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Petty et al.s (1981) Results
-0.8
-0.6
-0.4
-0.2
00.2
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0.6
0.8
Low Relevance High Relevance
P
ost-meassage
attitudes
Strong
Weak
Argumentquality doesnot matter
Argumentquality matters
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Enhancing message compliance: Foot in the door
Foot-in-the-door = If target agrees to a small request theymay agree to a larger one later.
Freedman and Fraser (1966): Went door-to-door randomlyselecting houses in California and asked homeowners to
put a large, ugly, sign urging people to Drive Carefully.
Two weeks before, asked some homeowners to sign apetition to support a campaign for safe driving
Over 55% agreed to put up the sign if they agreed to signthe petition
Less than 20% agreed to put up the sign if they had notbeen approached before
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Enhancing message compliance: Door-in-the-face
Door-in-the-face = start with large request that is bound tobe refused, follow-up with small request
Cialdini et al. (1975) asked students to serve as a voluntarycounseller at a youth offenders centre for two hours a
week for two yearsNo takers
Then asked if they would chaperone a group of offendersto the zoo for two hours
50% agreed
Participants who were just asked if they would chaperoneoffenders to the zoo
17% agreed
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Enhancing message compliance: Low-ball tactic
Low-ball tactic = agree to request even after details change
Cialdini et al. (1978)Half their participants asked to be in an experiment thatbegan at 7am (Control)
Other half asked to commit themselves to theexperiment beforebeing told the experiment starts at 7(Low Ball)
31% of Control group agreed to take part in the study
56% of Low Ball group agreed to take part; they were alsomore likely to turn up!
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Resistance to persuasion
Cognitive processes help us resist persuasion
Attention: Selectively process arguments to support our
point of view; ignore strong counter-arguments, butremember weak counter-arguments
Memory: Very unlikely to be persuaded if we cannot
remember arguments: poor processing of counter-arguments undermines memory for the arguments
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Resistance to persuasion
Reactance (Brehm 1966)react against message; do the opposite of GPs
advice
Forewarningcan lead to forearming with counter arguments
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Resistance to persuasion: Inoculation (McGuire)
Inoculation: exposure to small doses of persuasionboosts resistance
McGuire & Papageorgis (1961) students indicatedagreement on 15-pt scale with health beliefs like:Good idea to brush your teeth after each meal
Effects of penicillin have been of great benefit to mankind
Everyone should get a chest X-ray to detect TBMental illness is not contagious
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Resistance to persuasion: Inoculation (McGuire)
McGuire & Papageorgis (1961) students allocatedto different conditions:
Supportive defence (essay supporting position)
Inoculation defence (essay with weak attack of position,
which was refuted)
Control (no attack)
Control (attack)
Finally, students asked to indicate agreement with
health beliefs
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McGuire & Papageorgis (1961) results
0
2
4
6
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10
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Inoculation Support Control (no
attack)
Control
(attack)
Acce
ptanceofHea
lthBelief
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McGuire & Papageorgis (1961):Interpretation
McGuire & Papageorgis (1961) results show:Control (attack) reduced agreement, while Control (no
attack) did not change agreement
Supportive defence (essay supporting position) helped
maintain agreement relative to control (attack)
However, Inoculation defence (essay with weak attack
of position, which was refuted), was more effective
relative to control (attack)
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Resistance to Persuasion: Attitude Certainty
Tormala & Petty (2002): participants who resistedmore persuasive arguments had higher attitudecertainty than participants who resisted lesspersuasive arguments
Tormala & Petty argue resisting strong argumentsboosts our confidence in our attitudes and increasesour certainty.
Only works for strong arguments because it is tooeasy to dismiss weak arguments
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References
Chapter 6 Hogg & Vaughan
Chapter 4 Crisp & Turner
Tormala, Z.L., & Petty, R.E. (2002). What doesnt
kill me makes me stronger: The effects ofresisting persuasion on attitude certainty, Journal
of Personality & Social Psychology, 83, 1298-
1313.