Social Psychology

1. Social Psychology David Myers 10e BY: LON Haidula

2. Chapter Seven • Persuasion BY: LON Haidula

3. Persuasion • Process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors BY: LON Haidula

4. What Paths Lead to Persuasion? • Central Route • Occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts • Peripheral Route • Occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness • Focuses on cues that trigger automatic acceptance without much thinking BY: LON Haidula

5. What Paths Lead to Persuasion? • Different Paths for Different Purposes • Peripheral route • Superficial and temporary attitude change • Central route • More durable and more likely to influence behavior BY: LON Haidula

6. Central and Peripheral Routes to Persuasion BY: LON Haidula

7. What Are the Elements of Persuasion? • Who Says? The Communicator • Credibility • Believability • Sleeper effect • Delayed impact of a message that occurs when an initially discounted message becomes effective, as we remember the message but forget the reason for discounting it BY: LON Haidula

8. What Are the Elements of Persuasion? • Who Says? The Communicator • Credibility • Perceived expertise • Speak confidently • Perceived trustworthiness • Eye contact • Arguing against own self-interest • Speak quickly BY: LON Haidula

9. What Are the Elements of Persuasion? • Who Says? The Communicator • Attractiveness and liking • Physical attractiveness • Similarity BY: LON Haidula

10. What Are the Elements of Persuasion? • What Is Said? The Message Content • Reason versus emotion • Effect of good feelings • Effect of arousing fear • Discrepancy • Depends on the communicator’s credibility BY: LON Haidula

11. What Are the Elements of Persuasion? • What Is Said? The Message Content • One-sided versus two-sided appeals • Which one is more effective? • Depends on whether the audience already agrees with the message; if the audience is unaware of opposing arguments, it is unlikely later to consider the opposition BY: LON Haidula

12. What Are the Elements of Persuasion? • What Is Said? The Message Content • Primacy versus recency • Primacy effect • Other things being equal, information presented first usually has the most influence • Recency effect • Information presented last sometimes has the most influence. Recency effects are less common than primacy effects BY: LON Haidula

13. Primacy Effect versus Recency Effect BY: LON Haidula

14. What Are the Elements of Persuasion? • How Is It Said? The Channel of Communication • Active experience or passive reception? • Active experience strengthens attitudes • Repetition and rhyming of a statement serves to increase its fluency and believability BY: LON Haidula

15. What Are the Elements of Persuasion? • How Is It Said? The Channel of Communication • Personal versus media influence • Media influence: The two-step flow communication • Process by which media influence often occurs through opinion leaders, who in turn influence others BY: LON Haidula

16. What Are the Elements of Persuasion? • How Is It Said? The Channel of Communication • Personal versus media influence • Comparing media • The more lifelike the medium, the more persuasive its message BY: LON Haidula

17. What Are the Elements of Persuasion? • To Whom Is It Said? The Audience • How old are they? • Life cycle explanation • Attitudes change as people grow older • Generational explanation • Attitudes do not change; older people largely hold onto the attitudes they adopted when they were young BY: LON Haidula

18. What Are the Elements of Persuasion? • To Whom Is It Said? The Audience • What are they thinking? • Forewarned is forearmed–If you care enough to counterargue • Distraction disarms counterarguing • Words can promote candidate/product • Visual images keep us occupied so we don’t analyze the words BY: LON Haidula

19. What Are the Elements of Persuasion? • To Whom Is It Said? The Audience • What are they thinking? • Uninvolved audiences use peripheral cues • Ways to stimulate people’s thinking • Use rhetorical questions • Present multiple speakers • Make people feel responsible • Repeat the message • Get people’s undistracted attention BY: LON Haidula

20. Extreme Persuasion: How Do Cults Indoctrinate? • Cult • “New religious movement” • Group typically characterized by • Distinctive ritual and beliefs related to its devotion to a god or a person • Isolation from the surrounding “evil” culture • Charismatic leader BY: LON Haidula

21. Extreme Persuasion: How Do Cults Indoctrinate? • Attitudes Follow Behavior • Compliance breeds acceptance • Initiates become active members of the group • Foot-in-the-door phenomenon • Gradual induction BY: LON Haidula

22. Extreme Persuasion: How Do Cults Indoctrinate? • Persuasive Elements • Communicator • Message • Audience BY: LON Haidula

23. Extreme Persuasion: How Do Cults Indoctrinate? • Group Effects • Social implosion • Isolation of members with like minded groups • External ties weaken until the group collapses inward socially • Monasteries • Fraternities and sororities • Therapeutic communities for recovering drug and alcohol abusers BY: LON Haidula

24. How Can Persuasion Be Resisted? • Strengthening Personal Commitment • Challenging beliefs • Developing counterarguments • Attitude inoculation • Exposing people to weak attacks upon their attitudes so that when stronger attacks come, they will have refutation available BY: LON Haidula

25. How Can Persuasion Be Resisted? • Real-Life Applications: Inoculation Programs • Inoculating children against: • Peer pressure to smoke • The influence of advertising BY: LON Haidula

26. How Can Persuasion Be Resisted? • Prepare others to counter persuasive appeals • An ineffective appeal can be worse than none • A way to strengthen existing attitudes is to weakly challenge them BY: LON Haidula