Persuasion, Attitude and Change

1
Persuasion, Attitude and Change
Persuasion and attitude change
Attitudes and decision making
Effectiveness of Television
2
Persuasion and Attitude Change

• Schwerin Newell (1981)
• Behavioural change cannot occur without attitude
  change
• Behavioural change is when you change your
  lifestyle (ie. Healthier living) or change your
  habits (ie. What you buy)

3
Persuasion and Attitude Change

• Changing attitudes changing behaviour
• Psychologists look at the SCIENCE OF PERSUASION

THE HOVLAND-YALE MODEL
ELABORATION -LIKELIHOOD
4
THE HOVLAND-YALE MODEL

• Hovland worked for the US war dept. He had to
  find ways to persuade Americans to support the
  final stages of WWII.
• At Yale he studied the nature of persuasive
  communication.
• Achieved by focusing on who says what to whom
• Communicator
• Message
• Audience

5
Major Findings
SOURCE FACTORS Experts Popular/attractive
MESSAGE FACTORS Persuasive message is not apparent Level of FEAR
AUDIENCE FACTORS Low and High intelligence Both sides of the argument
6
Methodological Problems

• What problems are there with the Hovland-Yale
  approach?

7
ELABORATION-LIKELIHOOD

• Petty Cacioppo (1981)
• Two different routes to persuasive communication
• A) Focus on message
• B) Focus on other factors (how attractive/creditab
  le the source appears to be)

8
Petty Cacioppo (1981)

• CENTRAL ROUTE
• Focus on arguments which are of personal
  interest to them

• PERIPHERAL ROUTE
• Focus on the context of the message more than the
  message itself

9
Petty Cacioppo (1981)

• CENTRAL ROUTE
• Audience motivated to think about the message
• Focus on quality of arguments
• Lasting attitude change

• PERIPHERAL ROUTE
• Audience not motivated to think about the message
• Focus on peripheral factors
• Temporary attitude change

10
ELABORATION-LIKELIHOOD

• AO2
• Need for cognition
• Real-life applications
• Support for central route processing