Persuasion

Featuring a Look at the Influence of Mass Media Outlets

Power of the Media

• Up to 3000 advertising messages a day!– Include signs, flyers, scented ads, previews

• Blatant attempts include commercials– We like to think that we are smart and thus

immune to their deceit – but we are not• Daryl Bem’s aspirin commercial example

• Robert Zajonc’s research – when dealing with similar products familiarity makes a huge difference

Advertising

• So much of our buying behavior is influenced by brand loyalty and habit (that which is familiar)– People tend to buy the same brands that their

parents used– If soup cans are moved around shelves, people

unwittingly buy the wrong soup!

Unintentional Persuasion• Our news programs are evaluated on entertainment

quality – Newspaper motto is “if it bleeds, it leads”

• What do we (along with the ancient Romans) find entertaining? Blood and gore.– Leads to a preponderance of the news content being

violent– High school violence statistics versus perception

• Other examples: what countries do we aid? In 80’s we aided Ethiopia and not others. Why? No gruesome and heart wrenching footage.

Media Contagion

• Tylenol “copycat” poisonings

• David Phillips and his research on copycat suicides– After well publicized suicides: suicide rate goes

up, 1 person 1 car accidents go up, victims ages correlate highly with those of original victim

• Recent concerns about copycat violence in high schools after the Columbine coverage

TV Research

• Gerbner and associates have been analyzing TV content since the 1960’s

• Representation of reality is grossly inaccurate– Men outnumber women 3 to 1– Women are depicted as younger and less experienced– Nonwhites and the elderly are underrepresented – Only 25% of characters have blue collar jobs (true % is

67%)– 10x more crime on TV than in reality– Average 15 year old has witnessed 13,000 TV killings

Haney and Manzolati• Research done in the late 70’s – changes?

• Depiction of crime on TV is devoid of reality

• Under represents white collar crime while focusing on violent crime

• On TV criminals are inhuman and unknown

• TV is not the result of situational factors. Two motives account for 70% of TV crime – greed and insanity

Haney and Manzolati

• TV cops always investigating – never doing mundane tasks like paperwork

• Never make mistakes

• 2-3 constitutional violations per hour

• Police on TV don’t speak highly of “rights”

• Heavy viewers start with a higher presumption of guilt when jurors

Education or Propaganda?

• Even in schools, tremendous amount of information is inadvertently passed on– Text example of math examples using interest– Although cooperative groups have been shown to

augment education, competition is stressed in our classrooms

– Try to find a picture of a female in a science textbook

How Does Persuasion Occur?

• Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) – Petty and Cacioppo

• Two routes can be used to persuade– Central: relies on facts, figures, and thought– Peripheral: attempts to persuade you without

thought occurring. Rely on emotion.

Yale Communication Paradigm

• Hovland, Janis, and Kelly are the main contributors. – Based upon research undertaken to support the

U.S. Army during WWII

• The question they investigated was: Who said what to whom with what effect

WHO

• Two issues are credibility and attractiveness• Credibility involves appearing to be an expert

on the matter (Ph.D. vs. B.A.) and appearing trustworthy

• Hovland and Weiss – attribute same point of view to Oppenheimer or Pravda. Participants are persuaded by Oppenheimer

• Strongly influenced by peripheral characteristics, such as race

Success of Athlete Endorsements

• Despite the overabundance of these commercials, they don’t work very well

• Further, credibility declines as the number of products endorsed increases

How to Increase Trust

• Appear to contradict one’s own self-interest– Good example is heir to the R.J. Reynolds

fortune arguing against cigarette smoking

• Appear to not be trying to persuade someone– E.g., allow people to “overhear” a persuasive

argument and their opinion changes more than if argument is aimed at them

Attractiveness

• On trivial issues– The more we like someone, the more they can

persuade us– Even truer if we can identify with the

individual– This follows logically from Social Learning

Theory (Model Behavior)

What

• Logical vs. Emotional Appeals– Focus has been on the utility of using fear to

increase influence

• Central to this research has been Howard Leventhal– Key to behavior change appears to be high level

of fear and inclusion of specific instructions

• Backfires when applied to condom use– People don’t like to think about death during

sex, so they ignore the information

Attitude-Behavior Consistency

• Issue is brought up in Leventhal article• Research over the years has demonstrated that

attitudes are actually a poor predictor of behaviors

• This begins with LaPiere (1934) and his travels with a Chinese couple– 1 out of 184 refuse them service, when he writes

after the trip 91% of the 128 who respond say that they would refuse service to Chinese

• Ajzen & Fishbein include attitudes, norms, and perceived control in the theory of planned behavior

More What

• Statistical Evidence vs. Emotional Appeals – Nisbett (and Ross) have shown that vivid

examples are more persuasive– Listen to any argument about welfare

• One vs. Two sided arguments– Two sided if audience is knowledgeable – Two sided if initial opinion of audience runs

contrary to persuasive message

What: Order of Presentation

• Tricky issue. Learning theory suggests primacy, retention suggests recency

• Research shows the following:– Primacy wins if short gap exists between the

two messages– Recency wins if decision will be made

immediately after the competing messages

• Academic positions and interview order

What: Size of the Discrepancy

• Greatest attitude change occurs after the presentation of a message with a moderate amount of discrepancy from original opinion

• Large discrepancy leads people to shut out message. – However, can increase discrepancy as

communicator prestige increases: Becomes more difficult to derogate the messenger

To Whom

• Self-Esteem– In general, the lower the self-esteem the more easily

persuaded– Although one exception is high fear message: those

with low self-esteem tend to tune these out at first (no difference in behavior over the long run)

• Prior experience of the audience– A happy audience is a persuadable audience– Decrease persuasibility if audience is forewarned

that a persuasive message is on the way (Reactance)

Inoculation Effect

• Developed by William McGuire

• Receive exposure to a brief communication that they can refute, immunize against a full-blown presentation of the argument– Same exact logic as our immunization programs

• The person who is easiest to brainwash is the one who’s beliefs have never been challenged