ATTITUDES AND PERSUASION

Activity

Raise your hands if you agree  Our country needs to address the growing number of

homeless persons.   It is a good idea to floss your teeth daily.   The right to vote is one of the most valuable rights of Korean

citizens.   Eating a variety of foods each day, including five or more

servings of fruits and vegetables, contributes to good health.  

Now answer yes/no

Do you personally do anything to help the homeless (e.g., volunteer at a homeless shelter or donate money)?  

Do you floss your teeth everyday? Did you vote in the last election for

which you were eligible?  Do you regularly eat five servings of

fruits and vegetables each day?

Cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1954)

Conflict between our view of ourselves and a thought or behavior

When we surprise ourselves, feel stupid, or feel guilty

Feel dissonance (like physiological arousal)

Motivated to Change behavior Justify the behavior Decrease how important the discrepancy is

Cognitive dissonance examples http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=korGK

0yGIDo http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-

may-8-2012/bad-credit http://www.psych.utah.edu/2006_spring_

3410_00/disscorner.html

Justifications

Justify behavior Hypocrisy paradigm

Justify choice In Japan, only happens when others are

watching Justify effort Cultural differences

Even monkeys show cognitive dissonance

Monkeys and M&Ms 4 year old children

Cognitive dissonance

Shuts down the reasoning part of the brain

More emotional

Attitudes

An enduring disposition toward an object or issue

Can be Cognitive Affective Both

Measurement of attitudes

Self-report Observation Implicit attitude test Other indirect tests

Where do we get our attitudes? Genetics From others Prior experience From how they relate to other attitudes Mere exposure

Tesser, A. (1993). The importance of heritability in psychological research: The case of attitudes. Psychological Review, 100(1), 129-142. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.100.1.129

© 1993 American Psychological Association

Tesser, A. (1993). The importance of heritability in psychological research: The case of attitudes. Psychological Review, 100(1), 129-142. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.100.1.129

© 1993 American Psychological Association

Attitude change

Yale attitude change approach Source effects Message effects Audience effects

Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1984)

Two routes to persuasion: Central route

Motivated and able to process message Message is relevant Use strong arguments Longer lasting change

Peripheral route Not motivated or relevant Use peripheral cues like number of arguments,

attractiveness of source, credibility of source

Strong vs. weak arguments

http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/labs/attitudeslab.htm

Need for cognition scale: http://www.liberalarts.wabash.edu/ncs/

Draw expected results

3 6 9Number of arguments

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

strength of ar-guments strong strength of ar-guments weak

3 6 9

Number of arguments

0

4

8

12

strength of ar-guments strong strength of ar-guments weak

Low relevance or low need for cognition High relevance or high need for cognition

Fear appeals

Needs to be moderate amount of fear so people pay attention

Need to give recommendations on how to reduce the fear

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0LCmStIw9E

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/06/21/cigarette.labels/index.html?on.cnn=2

Other examples?

Fear ad

Subtle persuasion

Product placements in tv shows Video games:

http://www.americasarmy.com/ Other examples? Subliminal ads

Doesn’t work in everyday life Can have an effect in lab

Subliminal examples

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NPKxhfFQMs

More “central route” approaches Two-sided messages can be effective if

you give good counterarguments.

Cultural effects

It’s easy when you have the right shoes. Shoes for your family American ads: individuality, self-

improvement, benefits for me Korean ads: family, concerns about

others, benefits for one’s social group

Sample ads

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNdPPEwguDQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIHwxMm_8vA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6eNqwaL1h8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p5fhPkdJZM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k7pabu1lA0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TZxw9wMdUI

Attitudes and behavior

Remember the LaPiere study from the first reading?

Attitudes that are accessible predict spontaneous behaviors

Theory of planned behavior

http://people.umass.edu/~aizen/tpb.diag.html#null-link