PSYC 2310 - Social Psychology Chapter 7 Notes. Persuasion

PSYC 2310 - Social Psychology Chapter 7 Notes. Persuasion Social Psychology Chapter #7: Persuasion - Persuasion: communication that is designed to influence a person’s attitudes and behavior - These communications can be deliberate attempts to influence attitudes in general, such as through advertisements on TV, etc. and they can be less formal, such as the arguments you hear from a friend who wants you to vote for a particular provincial candidate How do we process persuasive messages? - In one study researches asked participants to listen to a speech supposedly made by another student o One condition contained the speech included strong arguments and another condition the speech consisted of weak arguments o In addition half of the participants in each condition heard the speech at moderate, and the other half heard the speech at a very high rate of speech o Participants who heard weak arguments at a normal rate of speech were least persuaded o Participants who heard weak arguments at fast rate were just as persuaded as those who heard strong arguments at either normal or fast rate - The faster delivery is more amendable to peripheral than central processing as it gives the audience less time to think about the content of the message - Found that voice characteristics significantly affected attitudes toward an advertisement o Found a voice more credible (either men or women’s) if it spoke with moderate intensity, no marked voice intonation, and at a fast speech rate Routes to persuasion - Elaboration likelihood model (ELM): a model describing two distinct routes (central and peripheral) that are used to process persuasive messages - Central or systematic route processing: a type of processing of persuasive messages that occur when people have the ability and motivation to carefully evaluate the arguments in a persuasive message o When people think carefully about a communication message and are influenced by the strength of the arguments o Ex. deciding to buy a car you decide to read the latest issue of consumer reports and then test drive several evaluating different features