Myers Chs 6 & 7: Conformity & Obedience, and Persuasion

Persuasion

Chapter 7

https://enterpriseleague.com/blog/elements-of-persuasion/

Persuasion: the process by which a message induces a change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors.

Why might we want to persuade someone?

https://theskinnyon.typepad.com/the-skinny-on/2011/08/10-ways-to-persuade-someone-to-your-point-of-view.html

What is Persuasion?

• Persuasion's power enables us to promote health or to sell addiction, to advance peace or stir up hate, to enlighten or decieve
• The power of persuasion:
• Spread of false beliefs: 24% of Americans and 33% of Europeans think the sun revolves around the earth or that the moon landing and the holocaust never happened
• Attitudes around equality (Electing an African American president, marriage equality via civil rights campaigns, etc.)

• Climate change skepticism: In 2010, 48% of Americans said CC was "generally exaggerated" (Saad, 2019). Now about 23% of Americans believe there is still a lot of disagreement among scientists regarding CC (Marlon et al., 2022)
• Promoting healthier living: the pandemic and vaccines. How would you rank this effort?

• Persuasion can sometimes be beneficial and sometimes evil
• "education" when we believe it
• "propaganda" when we don't

https://venngage.com/blog/infographic-6-principles-of-persuasion/

What Paths Lead to Persuasion?

• Persuasion is likely to occur via one of two routes, but either way, persuasion entails clearing several hurdles.
• The central route to persuasion occurs when people are motivated to think about the issue and thus, focus on the arguments.
• If the arguments are strong and compelling, persuasion is likely
• The peripheral route to persuasion occurs when people are distracted or uninvolved, so they are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness.
• This route focuses on cues that trigger automatic acceptance without much thinking.

Different Paths for Different Purposes

• Central route processing can lead to more enduring change than the peripheral route.
• When people think carefully, they rely not just on persuasive appeals but on their own thoughts in response.
• Often we take the peripheral route because its quicker.
• Simple rule-of-thumb heuristics are often used, such as “trust the experts” or “long messages are credible.”
• When a speaker is articulate and appealing, has apparently good motives, and has several arguments, we usually take the easy peripheral route.

Question: In marketing and advertising, what are some common peripheral cues that advertisers use to persuade consumers?

What Are the Elements of Persuasion?

• Among the ingredients of persuasion explored by social psychologists are these:
• Communicator.
• Audience.
• Message.
• How the message is communicated.

• Who says what, by what method, to whom?

https://nicklasstenderkastrup.medium.com/5-phrases-to-convince-others-youre-right-every-time-bef99f6868dd

Who Says? The Communicator

• A critical characteristic of the communicator is credibility or believability.
• Credibility is affected by perceived expertise, speaking style, and perceived trustworthiness.
• Attractiveness and liking have a powerful influence.

• Appealing communicators (often similar to the audience) are most persuasive on matters of subjective preference. Meaning, a speaker who says things the audience agrees with comes across as smart.

• We trust people more when we think the communicator is not trying to persuade us.

"All I knew was that Al Gore was for it, and therefore I was against it"

It Depends on the Audience!

• The choice of reason or emotion in persuasion depends on the audience.
• Education: well-educated or analytical people respond to rational appeals
• Motivation: those who have the time and motivation to think through an issue also respond to rational appeals
• Disinterest: those who aren't interested are more affected by their liking of the communicator
• Attitude formation: If initially peripheral, they are later persuaded by emotional appeals. If initially central, they are later persuaded via information
• Good feelings often enhance persuasion.
• Messages can also be made effective by evoking negative emotions such as fear.
• Did this work for the COVID vaccine?

Fear Campaigns

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Forming of Attitudes

• Remember:
• When an attitude about a topic is formed through the peripheral route, people are more likely to later be persuaded by emotional appeals.
• When an attitude on a topic is initially formed through the central route, people are later more likely to be persuaded by information-based arguments.
• Example: Many who distrust vaccines developed this attitude based on the emotion of fear - that vaccines will harm their children. Trying to persuade them that this is incorrect via information campaigns was mostly ineffective. What worked was this:

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What is the Audience Thinking?

• Forewarned is forearmed—if you care enough to counterargue.
• Knowing someone is going to try to persuade you allows you to think of counterarguments.
• Distraction inhibits counterarguing.
• Political ads will use this technique - the visuals distract us from analyzing their words.
• Uninvolved audiences use peripheral cues.
• People who like to conserve their mental resources are quicker to use heuristics and the peripheral route.

https://www.dreamstime.com/controlling-narrative-media-manipulation-directing-conversation-as-censorship-political-persuasion-to-control-image241426733

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What is the Audience Thinking?

• Stimulating thinking makes strong messages more persuasive, and because of counterarguing, weak messages less persuasive.
• Ways to stimulate thinking:
• Using rhetorical questions
• Using multiple presenters
• Make people feel responsible
• Repeating the message
• Get people's undistracted attention

Sometimes the crucial aspect is not the message but the response it evokes!

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Two Audience Characteristics: Age and Thoughtfulness

• Social psychologists offer two explanations for the effects of age and persuasion :

• Life cycle explanation: attitudes change as people grow older (for example, they become more conservative)
• Generational explanation: attitudes do not change; older people largely hold onto the attitudes they adopted when they were young.
• The evidence mostly supports this explanation.
• A generation gap develops because attitudes differ from those adopted by young people today.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstudy.com%2Flearn%2Flesson%2Fgeneration-gap-causes-effects.html&psig=AOvVaw1y5TES6RIuptGActalsZrT&ust=1710270996793000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBUQjhxqFwoTCMCH25X27IQDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

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A “life cycle” explanation of generational differences in attitudes suggests that people become more conservative with age. A “generational explanation” suggests that each generation tends to hold on to attitudes formed during the adolescent and early adult years.

Attitudes of older people show less change than young people

The Generation Gap in U.S. Attitudes toward Same-Sex Marriage, 2018

Source: General Social Survey

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What Is Said? The Message Content, Continued

• If your audience will be exposed to opposing views, offer a two-sided appeal.
• Acknowledge opposing arguments.
• Ex: A defense case seems more credible when the defense brings up damaging information before the prosecution
• It makes you seem more honest
• Primacy is more commonly effective than recency.
• Primacy effect: other things being equal, the information presented first usually has the most influence.
• Recency effect: information presented last sometimes has the most influence.
• See next slide

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When two persuasive messages are back-to-back and the audience then responds at some later time, the first message has the advantage (primacy effect). When the two messages are separated in time and the audience responds soon after the second message, the second message has the advantage (recency effect).

Primacy Effect versus Recency Effect

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How Is It Said? The Channel of Communication

• Channel: the way the message is delivered—whether face-to-face, in writing, on film, or in some other way.
• Written and visual appeals are both passive, and many are relatively ineffective.
• Repetition and rhyming of a statement, however, serve to increase its fluency and believability.
• Children and adults are more likely to believe a statement they have heard twice instead of once.
• So much so, correct information can fail to discount implanted information, and people tend to remember the original story, not the retraction.
• Attorneys frequently employ this tactic.
• So if trying to counteract a falsehood, make your story simple and repeat it many times.

• Active experience strengthens attitudes, making individuals more confident, stable, and less vulnerable to attack.

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How Can Persuasion Be Resisted?

• Being persuaded comes naturally—accepting persuasive messages is easier than doubting them.

• Attitude Inoculation

• When participants were "immunized" by writing an essay refuting a mild attack on a belief, they could better resist a more powerful attack later.

• Examples:
• Inoculating children against peer pressure to smoke.

• Inoculating children against the influence of advertising (junk food vs. healthy food)
• Writing fake news articles

Cialdini et al. (2003) used a "poison parasite" defense. For example, overlaying the message "I miss my lung" onto an ad that looked like Marlboro's.

• Counterarguments: defined as reasons why a persuasive message might be wrong.

Article: Fight Fake News

How do you know if something is fake?

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• The percentage of cigarette smokers at an “inoculated” middle school was much less than at a matched control school using a more typical smoking education program.
• Being called a chicken for not trying cigarettes and then taught "I'd be a real chicken if I smoked to impress you"

Source: Data from McAlister et al., 1980; Telch et al., 1981.

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Implications of Attitude Inoculation

• Building resistance to brainwashing is likely not just stronger indoctrination into one's current beliefs.

• Educators should be wary of creating a “germ-free ideological environment.”
• People who live amid diverse views become more discerning and more likely to modify their views only in response to credible arguments.

• FYI, children under the age of 8:
• have trouble telling the difference between commercials and tv shows and do not grasp their persuasive intent
• trust TV ads indiscriminately
• badger parents for the advertised products
• What are some advertising tricks you have seen?

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The Best Way to Persuade

1. Use logic or emotion, depending on the audience and the message.
2. Ask a small favor before making a big request.
3. Offer two-sided messages that challenge arguments against your message.
4. Go first or last — not in the middle — for best results.

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Concluding Thoughts: Being Open but Not Naïve

• Each person we encounter has some expertise that exceeds our own and thus has something to teach us.
• Being open to informational influence need not be a weakness.
• When we think critically, we can learn from others without being gullible to misinformation—and we can reciprocate by sharing our own knowledge.

https://classful.com/6-thinking-critically-tips-to-teach-students/

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