Social Psychology

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Social Psychology

• Lecture 2 Persuasion and Attitude Change
• (Chapter 6 Hogg Vaughan)

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At the end of the lecture

• General Question How Social Psychology explains
  persuasion and changes in attitude and
  behaviour?
• Persuasive communications
• Compliance interpersonal influence
• Attitude-behaviour discrepancy and cognitive
  dissonance
• When attitude change fails resistance to
  persuasion

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Figure 6.1 The Yale approach to communication
and persuasion Source Based on Janis Hovland
(1959)
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Research Highlight 6.1 Characteristics of a
communication likely to lead to attitude change
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Research Highlight 6.1 Characteristics of a
communication likely to lead to attitude change
(Continued)
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Source Credibility (Bosch Insko, 1966)

• Respondents asked how much sleep was required to
  maintain ones health
• 8 hours
• Exposed to two sources of opinion
• Nobel Scientist (high credibility) and Medical
  Student (low credibility)

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Figure 6.2 The effect of communicator
credibility and position discrepancy on opinion
change Source Based on data from Bochner Insko
(1966)
So graph shows extent person deviated based on
information given Moderate changes to the
original figure (8 hours) had an effect, but
extreme changes had less of an effect. General
resistance Some indication for High Credibility
having an effect for extreme for 1 hour?
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Does Fear work?

• Experiments with low fear, medium fear and high
  fear conditions.
• Leventhal, Watts and Pagano (1967)
• Median Fear respondents told about link between
  cigarettes and lung cancer
• High Fear Additional video about operation with
  someone with lung cancer.
• Greater willingness to give up smoking among high
  fear group
• Janis and Feschbach (1953) experiment when they
  encourage oral health
• Low fear told respondents about the importance
  of oral health
• Median Fear respondents told about gum disease
• High Fear Gum disease
• Low fear group taking better care of teeth
• Just too much? Smoking?

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Figure 6.3 The inverted U-curve relationship
between fear and attitude change
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Persuasive communications

• According to the elaboration likelihood model and
  the heuristic-systematic model, there are two
  processes through which we respond to a
  persuasive message.

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Persuasive communications

• We can attend carefully to a message and process
  it deliberatively, systematically, and with
  effort through a central cognitive route.

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Persuasive communications

• Alternatively, we can attend less carefully and
  process the message heuristically and with less
  effort through a peripheral cognitive route.

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Figure 6.5 The elaborationlikelihood model of
persuasion Source Based on Petty Cacioppo
(1986b)
Which route is taken is a matter of motivation
and cognitive capacity. If we have followed the
arguments then the central route will be used. If
so then the arguments have to be put carefully as
we will pay attention to them. If arguments are
sound we will change based on our attitudes. If
we havent then the peripheral route is used
then we can have used much more superficial
arguments and base it around persuasion cues
(attractiveness).
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Compliance Interpersonal influence

• Perhaps the most common form of persuasion is to
  ask someone to do something for you and then to
  try to get them to comply. Quite often, we comply
  with requests without even thinking
  (mindlessness). However, there are a number of
  factors and tactics that increase compliance.
• One very effective way to increase compliance is
  first to get someone to like you (ingratiation)
  people comply more with people they like.

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Compliance Interpersonal influence

• There is another group of interpersonal influence
  tactics that involve multiple requests. If you
  get someone to first comply with a small request,
  you are more likely to get him or her to comply
  with a subsequent, larger request (foot-in-the
  door ).
• The opposite tactic (door-in-the face) can also
  work If you get someone to decline a large
  request, he or she is more likely to agree to a
  subsequent, scaled-down request.
• Another effective technique takes advantage of
  the reciprocity principle If you do someone a
  favour, they feel compelled to return the favour
  at a later date.

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Compliance Interpersonal influence

• A third tactic (low-balling) involves first
  getting someone to agree to do something, and
  then gradually withdrawing some of the incentives
  or attractive features of the choice. Having
  already committed themselves, people tend to
  stick with their original decision.
• Persuasion can sometimes be easier if, rather
  than directing it at the target, you actively
  involve the target in the process through
  discussion and collaboration. This idea has been
  used to change attitudes while simultaneously
  doing research on such attitudes (action
  research).

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Attitude-behaviour discrepancy and cognitive
dissonance

• One way in which attitudes can be changed is by
  drawing peoples attention to an inconsistency
  between what they are doing (their behaviour) and
  what they think (their attitudes).
• Attitudebehaviour discrepancy can create
  cognitive dissonance, which is averse and
  motivates attitude change. Dissonance may be
  raised vicariously by witnessing someone we feel
  connected with experience dissonance.
• Because dissonance is averse, people generally
  avoid situations where their attitudes and
  behaviour may clash (selective exposure
  hypothesis)

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Attitude-behaviour discrepancy and cognitive
dissonance

• Attitudebehaviour inconsistency not only
  produces dissonance but also challenges the image
  of ourselves as consistent and moral human
  beings. According to self-affirmation theory,
  inconsistency causes us to affirm that we are
  positive human beings in other self domains, and
  this circumvents the need to resolve dissonance.
• When attitudebehaviour inconsistency is small,
  dissonance may not lead to the process of
  attitude change. Under these circumstances we may
  simply observe our behaviour and decide that it
  reflects the kind of person we are
  (self-perception theory).

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When attitude change fails Resistance to
persuasion

• Persuasion fails more often than it succeeds,
  particularly when people's original attitudes are
  strongly held, because their attitudes are
  features of their self-conception. A number of
  factors strengthen resistance to attitude change.
  
• When we are aware that someone is trying to
  persuade us, we often dig our heels in to resist,
  and this reactance is strengthened when there is
  forewarning of a persuasive attempt. A
  particularly strong defence against persuasion is
  inoculation, a method where you are exposed in
  advance to a mild form of the persuasion and then
  rehearsed in counter-arguments.

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Advice on Revision

• Attitudes and Attitude Change are big area, they
  overlap, so be sure you are clear in your
  revision which areas are pertinent to which.
• In your reading of the chapter, take a critical
  approach. Show an understanding of the evidence,
  but also those areas of the reading that notes of
  caution can be applied.

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At the end of the lecture

• General Question How Social Psychology explains
  persuasion and changes in attitude and
  behaviour?
• Persuasive communications
• Compliance interpersonal influence
• Attitude-behaviour discrepancy and cognitive
  dissonance
• When attitude change fails resistance to
  persuasion