Social Influence and Persuasion

1
Chapter 8

• Social Influence and Persuasion

2
Chapter Outline

• Attitude Change via Persuasion
• Compliance with Threats and Promises
• Obedience to Authority
• Resisting Influence and Persuasion

3
Social Influence

• Social influence occurs when one person engages
  in some behavior (persuading, threatening,
  promising, or issuing orders) that causes another
  person to behave differently from how he or she
  would otherwise behave.

4
Attitude Change

• Attitude change is a fairly common result of
  social influence.
• The influencing source may produce a change in
  the targets beliefs and attitudes about some
  issue, person, or situation.

5
Forms of Social Influence

• Influence attempts can be either open or covertly
  manipulative.
• In open influence, the attempt is readily
  apparent to the target.
• In manipulative influence, the attempt is hidden
  from the target.

6
Forms of Open Influence

1. The use of persuasive communication to change the
   targets attitudes or beliefs.
2. The use of threats or promises to gain
   compliance.
3. The use of orders based on legitimate authority
   to gain compliance.

7
Attitude Change Via Persuasion

• Persuasion may be defined as changing the
  beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors of a target
  through the use of information or argument.
• Persuasion is widespread in social interaction
  and assumes many different forms.

8
Reactions to Persuasive Messages

• Ignore it.
• Dismiss the communicator.
• Listen to the message but suspend judgment on the
  issue.
• Misperceive or misconstrue the content of the
  message.
• Attempt counterpersuasion.

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Elaboration Likelihood Model

• Holds that there are two basic routes through
  which a message may alter a targets existing
  attitudes
• central route
• peripheral route

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Central Routes

• Persuasion via the central route occurs when
• a target actively scrutinizes the arguments
  contained in a persuasive message
• interprets and evaluates them (taking into
  account what he or she already knows)
• and integrates them into a coherent position.

11
Peripheral Routes

• Occurs when the target pays attention primarily
  to extraneous cues linked to the message.
• The target does not carefully think about the
  message but appraises peripheral cues and uses
  them as a basis for accepting or rejecting the
  message.

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Communication-Persuasion Paradigm

• Fundamental components of the communication-persua
  sion paradigm
• Source
• Message
• Target
• Response

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Communication-Persuasion Paradigm
14
Source

• The identity of the source provides the target
  with information above and beyond the content of
  the message itself.
• Because some sources are more credible than
  others, the target may pay attention to the
  sources identity when assessing whether to
  believe the message.

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Credibility of the Source

• Communicator credibility denotes the extent to
  which the communicator is perceived as
  believable.
• Factors that influence the extent to which a
  source is credible include
• Expertise
• Trustworthiness
• Attractiveness
• Likeability.

16
Social Impact Theory

• The impact of an influence attempt is a function
  of
• strength (social status or power)
• immediacy (physical or psychological distance)
• number of influencing sources.
• A target will be more influenced when the sources
  are strong, when the sources are physically
  close, and when the sources are numerous.

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Message

• A discrepant message advocates a position that is
  different from what the target believes.
• Emotional appeals try to arouse basic drives and
  stimulate a need where none was present.
• The most common emotional appeals involve fear.

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Attitude Change Communicator Credibility and
Message Discrepancy
19
Media

• Mass media refers to channels of communication
  that enable a source to reach a large audience.
• A media campaign is a systematic attempt by a
  source to use the mass media to change attitudes
  and beliefs of a target audience.

20
Target

• Involvement with the issue affects the way the
  target processes a message.
• A need for cognition, or how much an individual
  enjoys puzzling through problems and thinking
  about issues, plays an important role in
  persuasion attempts.
• Distraction, or anything that prevents the target
  from giving full attention to the argument, will
  affect the persuasion attempt.

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The Effects of Personal Involvement on Persuasion
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Compliance with Threats and Promises

• Compliance is behavioral conformity by the target
  to the sources requests or demands.
• Threats and promises are two types of social
  power that can be used to induce compliance.

23
Threats and Promises

• A threat is a communication from one person to
  another that takes the general form, If you
  dont do X, then I will do Y.
• A promise involves a reward controlled by the
  source. A person using a promise says, If you
  do X , then I will do Y.

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Social Power and Compliance

1. Promise of reward - rewarding desired behavior.
2. Coercion through threat - negative outcome used
   to assure compliance.
3. Referent power - desire to be like others that we
   admire compels behavior.

25
Social Power and Compliance

1. Legitimate power - accepted authority.
2. Information - providing information about desired
   behavior.
3. Expertise - expert compels behavior.

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Subjective Expected Value

• A threats subjective expected value (SEV) is a
  measure of the pressure that the target feels
  from the threat.

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Compliance with Threats
28
Bilateral Threat and Negotiation

• Negotiation is communication between opposing
  sides in a conflict wherein the parties make
  offers and counteroffers and a solution occurs
  only when the parties reach an agreement.
• A bilateral threat situation is one where both
  participants issue threats and inflict damage on
  one another.

29
Deterrence and Conflict Spiral

• Mutual deterrence is a kind of armed standoff.
• Conflict spiral is a form of escalation in which
  the participants insist on compliance to their
  demands, even though they realize the other can
  inflict damage.

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Obedience to Authority

• Authority refers to the capacity of one member to
  issue orders to others.
• They direct or regulate the behavior of other
  members by invoking rights that are vested in his
  or her role.

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Resisting Influence and Persuasion Attitude
inoculation

• Enables target persons to defend their beliefs
  against persuasion attempts.
• A refutational defense consists of giving the
  target exposing a target to weak attacks with an
  opportunity to refute them so they can build up
  resistance and prepare for stronger attacks.

32
Resisting Influence and Persuasion Forewarning

• Forewarning is simply warning people that they
  are about to be exposed to a persuasion attempt.
• In order for the forewarning process to work, the
  targets of the persuasion attempt must care about
  and be psychologically involved in the issue.
• If they do not care about the issue, the
  forewarning may have little effect and, in some
  instances, can even produce greater attitude
  change.

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Resisting Influence and Persuasion Reactance

• Occurs when the target of the persuasion attempt
  begins to feel that their independence and
  freedom being threatened reacts in opposition.
• Feeling the need to reassert control, the targets
  will behave in a way counter to the persuasion
  attempt in order to demonstrate their
  independence.