Persuasive communication:
Lecture 2: Attitudes and behaviour.
Defining persuasion: A successful intentional effort at influencing another’s mental state
through communication in a circumstance in which the persuade has some measure of
freedom.
Is persuasion ok?
- Science must aid society -> if persuasion research is not aimed at the greater good, it
is unethical.
- “Persuasion research must not violate social norms or sensitivities”
- “persuaders (and persuasion researcher) have freedom of speech” -> everything
goes unless hate or violence is incited (or illegal behaviour)
- “persuades are free” and can choose to ignore the persuasive communication.
The concept attitude: a person’s general evaluation of an object.
Statistical analysis is a tool to estimate whether this result is a real difference, or merely due
to chance. If a difference is unlikely to be due to chance, it is called significant. Only
significant differences should be interpreted, otherwise there is just “no effect”.
Meet the RAT
Examples:
- Attitude
- Perceived norm
Injunctive norm: Most people who are important to me feel that I should …
Descriptive norm: People like me …
- Self-efficacy: If I really want to
- Behavioural intention: I intend to …
ABC- fundamentals of attitudes
- Affective component (feelings/emotions about the object in two dimensions:
valence/intensity)
- Behavioural component (attitudes influence behaviour, but behaviour can also
influence attitudes)
- Cognitive component (knowledge/beliefs about the object, typically in descriptive
terms)
Belief-based attitude models:
Beliefs= proposition/statement about an object
Beliefs-based models: Attitudes are functions of the beliefs that one has about the attitude
object.
Summative attitude models: attitude is sum of products of belief strength x belief evaluation
Strength/probability from -3(very unlikely) to +3(very likely)
Evaluation from -3(very bad) to +3 (very good)
, Implications of the summative model:
- Instill new positive beliefs
- Increase salience of existing positive beliefs
- Increase positive evaluations
- Reduce negative evaluations
- Increase probability of positive beliefs
- Decrease probability of negative beliefs
Summative model helps to identify targets for persuasive appeals
Cognitive dissonance theory
- People like to feel consistency in their attitudes and behaviour
- Inconsistencies between what people believe and how they can generate
psychological tension or discomfort
- People will try to prevent or resolve feelings of dissonance.
Degree of dissonance depends on the proportion of dissonant elements and their
importance.
Dissonance can be reduced by:
- Changing behaviour
- Adding consonant cognitions
- Avoiding dissonant cognitions, or
- Changing the importance of cognitions
Lecture 3: Processing messages
Keyword when we talk about expressing on persuasive communication: Elaboration
Elaboration vis-à-vis mental effort
High Mental Effort Low
Two routes to attitude change: Central route and Peripheral route
Elaboration Likelihood Model
Central route:
- Message elaboration
- Carefully scrutinize ideas
- Higher cognitive effort
- Stronger attitude change
Peripheral route:
- Mental shortcuts
- Using cues to make quick decisions
- Lower cognitive effort
- Weaker attitude change
ELM: Elaboration likelihood model
Lecture 2: Attitudes and behaviour.
Defining persuasion: A successful intentional effort at influencing another’s mental state
through communication in a circumstance in which the persuade has some measure of
freedom.
Is persuasion ok?
- Science must aid society -> if persuasion research is not aimed at the greater good, it
is unethical.
- “Persuasion research must not violate social norms or sensitivities”
- “persuaders (and persuasion researcher) have freedom of speech” -> everything
goes unless hate or violence is incited (or illegal behaviour)
- “persuades are free” and can choose to ignore the persuasive communication.
The concept attitude: a person’s general evaluation of an object.
Statistical analysis is a tool to estimate whether this result is a real difference, or merely due
to chance. If a difference is unlikely to be due to chance, it is called significant. Only
significant differences should be interpreted, otherwise there is just “no effect”.
Meet the RAT
Examples:
- Attitude
- Perceived norm
Injunctive norm: Most people who are important to me feel that I should …
Descriptive norm: People like me …
- Self-efficacy: If I really want to
- Behavioural intention: I intend to …
ABC- fundamentals of attitudes
- Affective component (feelings/emotions about the object in two dimensions:
valence/intensity)
- Behavioural component (attitudes influence behaviour, but behaviour can also
influence attitudes)
- Cognitive component (knowledge/beliefs about the object, typically in descriptive
terms)
Belief-based attitude models:
Beliefs= proposition/statement about an object
Beliefs-based models: Attitudes are functions of the beliefs that one has about the attitude
object.
Summative attitude models: attitude is sum of products of belief strength x belief evaluation
Strength/probability from -3(very unlikely) to +3(very likely)
Evaluation from -3(very bad) to +3 (very good)
, Implications of the summative model:
- Instill new positive beliefs
- Increase salience of existing positive beliefs
- Increase positive evaluations
- Reduce negative evaluations
- Increase probability of positive beliefs
- Decrease probability of negative beliefs
Summative model helps to identify targets for persuasive appeals
Cognitive dissonance theory
- People like to feel consistency in their attitudes and behaviour
- Inconsistencies between what people believe and how they can generate
psychological tension or discomfort
- People will try to prevent or resolve feelings of dissonance.
Degree of dissonance depends on the proportion of dissonant elements and their
importance.
Dissonance can be reduced by:
- Changing behaviour
- Adding consonant cognitions
- Avoiding dissonant cognitions, or
- Changing the importance of cognitions
Lecture 3: Processing messages
Keyword when we talk about expressing on persuasive communication: Elaboration
Elaboration vis-à-vis mental effort
High Mental Effort Low
Two routes to attitude change: Central route and Peripheral route
Elaboration Likelihood Model
Central route:
- Message elaboration
- Carefully scrutinize ideas
- Higher cognitive effort
- Stronger attitude change
Peripheral route:
- Mental shortcuts
- Using cues to make quick decisions
- Lower cognitive effort
- Weaker attitude change
ELM: Elaboration likelihood model
