PERSUASION

Question 1

what is persuasion
what are the primary ingreadients of persuasion

Answer 1

the process by which message changes a person’s attitudes- how they evaluate the object- of change their behaviors (Sutton and Douglas, 2013)

Primary ingredients of persuasion
o Who- who is the source of the message, their credibility, and attractiveness, power
o What- what is the message itself, the content of the message, are arguments strong
o To whom- the audience, adjust the message according to the audience
o How- the medium used to communicate our message

Question 2

steps of the persuasion process

Answer 2

1. Attention- people must pay some attention/ cognitive effort to understand the message
2. Comprehension- the message is clearly understood
3. Acceptance- the message fits with their values
4. Retention- retained in our cognition

Question 3

the communicator

Answer 3

 Characteristics of the source can affect how acceptable a message is
 Key ones; expertise, physical attractiveness, and extensive interpersonal and verbal skills
 Also; familiarity, closeness ness, and a sense of power

 Chaiken 1979= concluded from the fact that attractive well liked celebrities are used in advertising. Shows attractive, popular and likeable people are more persuasive
 Insko 1966-audience pays more attention to a credible communicator, creating more room for persuasion

 Speech rate- communicators who speak more rapidly are more persuasive than those who speak more slowly; it gives the impression that they know what they are talking about (miller at al., 1976)

Question 4

the message

Answer 4

 Perceived manipulation- we are more easily persuaded when we think the message is not deliberately intended to manipulate us(Festinger 1962)
 Linguistic power- a message in a powerless linguistic style (Frequent hedges, tag questions, hesitations) is less persuasive than one in a powerful linguistic style (Holtgraves 2005)
 Fear- messages that arouse fear can be very effective, for example to stop people smoking we may show them cancerous lungs (Singer et al., 1965)

Question 5

the audience

Answer 5

 High vs low self-monitors- people who are high self-monitors are persuaded more when attractive. Low self-monitors persuaded more to experience

• Lukin et al., (2017)- audience effects in persuasion- ppl who are more open typically are receptive to new ideas; agreeable people may also be motivated to change belief by emotional arguments

 Self esteem-people with low self esteem are persuaded more easily than people with high self esteem (Janis 1954)
 Distraction= people are sometimes more susceptible to persuasion when they are distracted or paying less attention, especially when the message is simple (Festinger 1961)
 Age-people in the impressionable years are more susceptibe to persuasion than those of younger years (Alwin 1989)’
 Gender-cooper 1979 found women are more easily persuaded than men. This may be because women are socialised to be cooperative and non assertive. However findinfs show men are more persuaded when topics are female orientated

Question 6

other factors on persuasion

Answer 6

• Repetition= repeated exposure to a product can improve familiarity with that product/person/object leading to more persuasion-‘
• Fear =for example health campaigns to stop smoking – people who are frightened may be motivated to attend to the message. However, people might be unable to process the information or change their behavior as they are too frightened
• The fear factor- only works if there is effective communication, but also info on how to cope with the threat
• Fear appeals can be effective way of achieving compliance; these appeals frequently combine info that is fear arousing with info that provokes a sense of personal vulnerability to the illness threat.
• In order to arouse dear a health risk must only have serious consequences but the individual must also feel personally at risk
• Hoog et al., 2007= The attitudes towards the health recommendations are affected by severity of the health threat and argument quality, but not necessarily by personal vulnerability

 Wood 2000- argues fear works if there is effective presentation of how to cope with the danger