Social Perception: Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination (PDF)

102 Chapter 3 3.2: Attribution: Understanding the Causes of Behavior Objective Explain how the process of attribution helps our understanding...

102 Chapter 3 3.2: Attribution: Understanding the Causes of Behavior Objective Explain how the process of attribution helps our understanding of others’ behavior Suppose you meet a very attractive person at a party. You’d like to see them again, so you ask, “Would you like to get together for a movie next week?” Your dreams of a wonderful romance are shattered when this person answers “No, sorry.” Now you are left wondering why this person refused your invitation. Is it because the person doesn’t like you? Or, is the person currently in a serious relationship and doesn’t want to date anyone else? Maybe the person is so busy with other commitments that they have no spare time. You’d like to believe that this person wants to see you again, but is just too busy right now. Whichever inference you draw is likely to impact your self-esteem and will also influence what you do next. If you conclude that the person doesn’t like you or is involved in a serious relationship, the chances are lower that you’ll try to arrange another meeting than if you decide the person is currently just too busy. This simple example illustrates an important fact about social perception: We often want to know why someone says or does certain things, and further, what kind of person they really are—what are their traits, motives, and goals? Social psycholo- gists believe that our interest in such questions stems, in large part, from our basic desire to understand cause-and-effect relationships in the social world (Pittman, 1993; Van Overwalle, 1998). We don’t simply want to know how others have acted—that’s something we can readily observe. We also want to understand why, because that knowledge can help us understand them better and also help us predict their future actions. The process through which we seek such information and draw inferences is Attribution known as attribution. This process not only concerns our efforts to understand the The process through which we causes behind others’ behaviors and goals, on some occasions, we also use it to under- seek to identify the causes of stand the causes behind our own behavior. We’ll now take a closer look at what social others’ behavior and so gain psychologists have learned about this important aspect of social perception (Graham knowledge of their stable traits & Folkes, 1990; Heider, 1958; Read & Miller, 1998; Uleman, Saribay, & Gonzalez, 2008). and dispositions 3.2.1: Theories of Attribution: How We Attempt to Make Sense of the Social World Because the attribution process is complex, many theories have been proposed to explain its operation—when, why, and how we do so. In this section, we will focus on two classic theories of attribution that continue to be especially influential. We’ll also examine other factors related to causal attribution, including the effect of time, the ability to control or influence circumstances, the belief in fate versus personal choice, and the ways we interpret others’ actions. USING OTHERS’ BEHAVIOR AS A GUIDE TO THEIR LASTING TRAITS Jones and Correspondent Inference ­ avis’s (1965) theory of correspondent inference asks how we use information about D A theory describing how we use others’ behavior as a basis for inferring their traits. In other words, the theory is con- others’ behavior as a basis for cerned with how we decide, on the basis of others’ overt actions, whether they possess inferring their stable dispositions specific traits or dispositions likely to be fairly stable over time. At first glance, this process might seem to be a simple task. Others’ behavior provides us with a rich source on which to draw. So, if we observe behavior carefully, we should be able to learn a lot about people. Up to a point, this is true. The task is complicated, however, by the following fact: Individuals often act in certain ways not because doing so reflects their own preferences or traits, but rather because external factors leave them little choice. Suppose you go to restaurant and the receptionist who greets you smiles and acts in a friendly manner. Does this mean the receptionist is a friendly person who simply likes  Social Perception: Seeking to Understand Others 103 people? It’s possible, but this may simply reflect emotional labor that we discussed pre- viously. Situations like this are common, so using others’ behavior as a guide to their lasting traits or motives can be very misleading. When are we likely to adjust our judgments about others’ traits based on situational factors? According to the theory of correspondent inference (Jones & Davis, 1965; Jones & McGillis, 1976), we tend to focus on the types of actions that are most likely to prove informative. First, we are likely to consider behavior as corresponding a person’s traits when the behavior seems freely chosen. In contrast, if behavior appears to be some- how forced on the person in question, we tend to see it as less indicative of that per- son’s traits. Second, we pay careful attention to actions that show what Jones and Davis called noncommon effects—conditions that can be caused by one specific factor, but Noncommon Effects not by others. (Don’t confuse this term with uncommon effects, which means infrequent Effects produced by a particular effects.) Actions that produce noncommon effects are informative, because they rule out cause that could not be produced other possible causes and allow us to zero-in on a specific reason for another’s behavior. by any other apparent cause To illustrate the concept of noncommon effects, consider two different scenar- ios. Imagine that one of your friends just became engaged. His future spouse is very attractive, appears to love your friend, and has a warm personality. What can you learn about your friend from his decision to marry this person? Not so much. There are so many good reasons to select such a person that it is difficult to choose among them. In contrast, imagine that your friend’s fiancé is very physically attractive, but she often treats him disrespectfully, and she has large student debts. Does the fact that your friend is marrying this woman tell you anything about him? Definitely. You can probably conclude that he cares more about physical beauty than being respected by his partner or having financial security. As you can see from this example, we usually learn more about others from actions on their part that yield noncommon effects. This example also illustrates how expectations can affect the inferences we draw about another person’s behavior. We usually expect a person to marry someone who obviously loves them. In this case, when your friend violates that expectancy by selecting a partner who appears not to act “normally,” then we are more certain his decision reveals a great deal about him. Finally, Jones and Davis suggest that we pay more attention to others’ actions that are low in social desirability, than to actions that are high on this dimension. In other words, we learn more about others’ traits from actions they perform that are some- how out of the ordinary, than from actions that are very much like those of most other people. For instance, if we see someone raise their hand to hit a small child or pet animal, we are likely to assume that behavior tells us something about the person’s traits—in this case, that the person may be typically angry or aggressive. On the other hand, if we see someone act in a socially desirable way—such as treating a child or a pet gently—then we don’t learn much that is unique about that person since most people would act in a similar socially desirable manner (see Figure 3.11). In summary, according to the theory proposed by Jones and Davis, we are most likely to conclude that others’ behavior reflects their stable traits (i.e., we are likely to reach correspondent inferences between their behavior and their personal qualities), when their behavior (1) is freely chosen; (2) yields distinctive, noncommon effects; and (3) is low in social desirability or otherwise violates social norms. KELLEY’S COVARIATION THEORY: HOW WE ANSWER “WHY” BEHAVIOR ­OCCURS Consider the following events: You arrange to meet someone at a restaurant, but she doesn’t show up. You send several texts to a friend, but he never responds. You expect to receive a job promotion, but you don’t receive it. In all these situations, you would probably wonder why these events occurred. Why didn’t your acquaintance show up at the restaurant—did she forget, did she deliberately not come, or was there some other reason? Why did your friend fail to 104 Chapter 3 Figure 3.11 Usual Behavior Often Does Not Tell Us a Lot About Others When other people engage in usual behavior—behavior that is largely socially desirable—it does not provide much useful information since most people would act in a similar manner. return your text messages—is he angry with you, is his cell phone not working, or is he just really busy? Why didn’t you get the job promotion you wanted—is your boss disappointed in your performance, could you be the victim of some kind of discrimi- nation, or did a combination of reasons influence the result? In many situations, understanding the reason(s) “why” behind an event is the central attributional task we face. We want to know why other people acted as they did or why events turned out in a specific way. Such knowledge is crucial, for only if we understand the causes behind others’ actions or events can we hope to make sense of the social world (and potentially prevent bad outcomes from happening in the future). Obviously, the potential number of specific causes behind others’ behavior can be very large. To make the task more manageable, we often begin with a prelimi- nary question: Did others’ behavior stem mainly from internal causes (their own traits, motives, intentions), mainly from external causes (aspects of the social or physical world), or from a combination of the two? For example, you might wonder if the rea- son you didn’t receive the promotion was that you really haven’t worked very hard Consensus (an internal cause), your boss is unfair and biased against you (an external cause), or The extent to which other people perhaps both were factors. How do we attempt to answer this question? react to some stimulus or event in According to Kelley’s covariation theory (Kelley, 1972; Kelley & Michela, 1980), in the same manner as the person we our attempts to answer the question “Why?” about others’ behavior, we focus on three are considering major types of information. First, we consider consensus—the extent to which other Consistency people react to a given stimulus or event in the same manner as the person we are The extent to which an individual evaluating. The higher the proportion of people who react in the same way, the higher responds to a given stimulus or is the consensus. Second, we consider consistency—the extent to which the person in situation in the same way on question reacts to the stimulus or event in the same way on other occasions, over time. different occasions (i.e., across And third, we examine distinctiveness—the extent to which the person reacts in the time) same manner to other, different stimuli or events. Distinctiveness According to Kelley’s theory, we are most likely to attribute another’s behavior The extent to which an individual to internal causes under conditions in which consensus and distinctiveness are low, responds in the same manner to but consistency is high. In contrast, we are most likely to attribute another’s behav- different stimuli or events ior to external causes when consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness are all high.  Social Perception: Seeking to Understand Others 105 Finally, we usually attribute another’s behavior to a combination of internal and exter- nal factors when consensus is low, but consistency and distinctiveness are high. To illustrate these ideas, imagine that you see a server in a restaurant flirt with a customer. This behavior raises interesting questions. Why does the server act this way? Will you attribute the behavior to internal or external causes? Is the server simply someone who likes to flirt (an internal cause)? Or, is the customer extremely attractive—someone with whom many people flirt (an external cause)? According to Kelley’s theory, your decision (as an observer of this scene) would depend on information relating to the three factors mentioned earlier. First, assume that the fol- lowing conditions prevail: (1) You observe other servers flirting with this customer (consensus is high); (2) you have seen this server flirt with the same customer on other occasions (consistency is high); and (3) you have not seen this server flirt with other customers (distinctiveness is high). Under these conditions—high consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness—you would probably attribute the server’s behav- ior to external causes. In other words, you would probably conclude that this cus- tomer is very attractive and that is why the server flirts with them. Now, in contrast, assume these conditions exist: (1) No other servers flirt with the customer (consensus is low); (2) you have seen this server flirt with the same cus- tomer on other occasions (consistency is high); and (3) you have seen this server flirt with many other customers, too (distinctiveness is low). In this case, Kelley’s theory suggests that you would attribute the server’s behavior to internal causes—the server is sim- Figure 3.12 Kelley’s Covariation Theory: An Example ply a person who likes to flirt (see Figure 3.12). Under the conditions shown in the top part of this figure, we would attribute The basic assumptions of Kelley’s theory have the server’s behavior to external causes—for example, the attractiveness of been confirmed in a wide range of social situa- this customer. Under the conditions shown in the bottom part, however, we tions, so it seems to provide important insights would attribute the server’s behavior to internal causes—for instance, this into the nature of causal attributions. However, person likes to flirt. research on the theory also suggests the need Many other servers for certain modifications or extensions, which also flirt with the we will now consider. customer (consensus is high) OTHER DIMENSIONS OF CAUSAL ATTRIBU- The server’s TION Although we are often very interested in This server also flirts behavior is knowing whether others’ behaviors stem mainly Server attributed to with this customer at flirts with external causes from internal or external causes (i.e., something other times customer (e.g., the (consistency is high) in the situation), this is not the entire story. In customer’s addition, we are concerned with two other ques- attractiveness) tions: (1) Are the causal factors that influenced This server does not flirt their behavior likely to be stable over time, or are with other customers those factors likely to change? (2) Are the factors (distinctiveness is high) controllable—can individuals change or influence them if they wish to do so (Weiner, 1993, 1995)? No other servers These aspects are independent of the internal– flirt with the external dimension we just considered. customer (consensus is low) Some internal causes of behavior tend to be The server’s quite stable over time, such as personality traits behavior is and temperament (e.g., Miles & Carey, 1997). This server also flirts Server attributed to with the customer at Other internal causes can, and often do, change flirts with other times internal causes greatly, for instance, motives, health, and customer (e.g., this (consistency is high) server likes fatigue. Similarly, some internal causes are con- to flirt) trollable. For example, individuals can, if they This server also flirts wish, learn to hold their tempers in check. Other with other customers internal causes, such as chronic illnesses or dis- (distinctiveness is low) abilities, may be nearly impossible to c­ ontrol. M03_BRAN8320_14_GE_C03.indd 105 13/05/2022 13:14  106 Chapter 3 The same is true for external causes of behavior: Some are stable over time (e.g., laws or social norms that define how we should behave in various situations), while oth- ers are not stable (e.g., encountering someone who is in a bad mood). A large body of evidence indicates that in trying to understand the causes behind others’ behavior, we do take note of all three of these dimensions—internal–external, stable–unstable, and controllable–uncontrollable (Weiner, 1985, 1995). FATE ATTRIBUTIONS VERSUS PERSONAL CHOICE Attribution is also affected by whether we believe that events in our lives are “meant to be,” or if we conclude that we play a role in causing those events to happen. For example, suppose something unex- pected but important happens in your life: You win the lottery, or you break your leg just before a planned vacation and can’t go. How do we account for such events? One interpretation is that events are due to our own actions: You broke your leg because you foolishly tried to reach something on a very high shelf while standing on a rickety chair. Another approach is attributing such events to fate—forces outside our understanding and control. In fate attributions, events occur because they are simply “destiny.” Both interpretations are possible, so what factors lead us to prefer one over the other? This intriguing question has been investigated in many studies (e.g., Burrus & Roese, 2006; Trope & Liberman, 2003), but some of the most interesting answers were provided by research conducted by Norenzayan and Lee (2010). These social psychol- ogists suggested that belief in fate is related to two more basic beliefs: religious convic- tions concerning the existence of God, and a belief in complex causality—the idea that many causes influence events, and no one cause is essential. This idea also leads to the conclusion that unlikely events that occur are “meant to be.” Since so many factors combine to lead to their occurrence, the presence or absence of one factor makes little difference—the events are “overdetermined.” Figure 3.13 How Do People Attribute Improbable Events? To test these predictions, Norenzayan and Lee (2010) asked participants who identified themselves as Research findings indicate that improbable but important events are often attributed to fate rather than to personal actions. Religious Christians or as nonreligious, and who were of either persons who have a strong belief in God and people from cultures European heritage or East Asian heritage, to read brief with strong beliefs in causal complexity (i.e., many factors combine stories describing unexpected and improbable events. to produce unlikely events) are most likely to attribute such events to Participants were then asked to indicate the extent to fate and see them as “meant to be.” which those events were due to fate or to chance. Here’s an example: It was 8:00 a.m. in the morning and the street Religious persons attribute improbable events to fate more than nonreligious was busy as usual. Kelly, on her way to school, stopped and persons; this was true for both reached down to tie her shoelace. While bent over, she found Europeans and East Asians a little diamond ring lying right in front of her that couldn’t have been spotted otherwise. 0.5 As you can see in Figure 3.13, research results 0.44 showed that people with strong religious beliefs were 0.45 Mean Proportion of Fate Responses more likely to attribute unlikely events to fate (i.e., saw 0.4 them as “meant to be”) than nonreligious people. East 0.37 0.35 Asians were more likely to do this too, because of their 0.3 strong cultural beliefs concerning complex causality. In further studies, Norenazyan and Lee (2010) found that 0.25 0.24 the belief in fate itself stemmed from the Christians’ 0.2 0.17 belief in God and the East Asians’ belief in causal com- 0.15 plexity. 0.1 ACTION IDENTIFICATION AND THE ATTRIBUTION Europeans PROCESS When we try to understand why others 0.05 East Asians do what they do, including what goals they want to 0 accomplish, we usually have a wide range of possible Religious Nonreligious interpretations to choose from. Suppose you saw some- Participants' Cultural Heritage one putting loose change into a jar. You could conclude,  Social Perception: Seeking to Understand Others 107 “She wants to avoid losing the change so she puts it into the jar.” Alternatively, you could conclude, “She is trying to save money so she can contribute to her own educa- tion.” The first conclusion is a concrete interpretation that focuses on the action itself. The second, in contrast, is more abstract, attributing intentions and goals to this person. The action is the same (putting change into a jar), but our interpretation of it—and why it occurs—is very different. The interpretation we place on an act—in terms of differing degrees of abstraction—is known as action identification. Action Identification Research findings indicate that action identification is a basic influence on the attri- The level of interpretation we butions we make. When we view others’ actions concretely, involving little more than place on an action; low-level the actions themselves, we also tend to make few attributions about their intentions or interpretations focus on the higher-order cognition. When, instead, we view others’ actions more abstractly, as hav- action itself, whereas higher- ing greater meaning, we attribute much greater mental activity to them. We see their level interpretations focus on its actions not simply as produced by the present situation, but as reflecting much more— ultimate goals the person’s goals, characteristics, and intentions—their mind, if you will. Research con- ducted by Kozak, Marsh, and Wegner (2006) provides strong support for this reasoning. Across several studies, they found that the more others’ actions are interpreted at higher levels of abstraction (as reflecting more than the action itself), the more those people are also perceived as possessing complex motives, goals, and thought processes. So, where attribution is concerned, it is not simply what other people do that helps shape our per- ceptions of them; our interpretation of their actions is crucial, too. 3.2.2: Basic Sources of Error in Attribution Although we generally do a good job of evaluating the social world, we are far from being perfectly accurate. In fact, our efforts to understand other people—and our- selves—are subject to several types of biases. Attribution “errors” can lead us to false conclusions about why others acted as they did and also influence our predictions of how they will act in the future. CORRESPONDENCE BIAS: THE FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR Imagine that you witness the following scene. A man arrives at a meeting 1 hour late. On enter- ing, he drops his notes on the floor. While trying to pick them up, his glasses fall off and break. Later, he spills coffee all over his tie. How would you explain these events? The chances are good that you might conclude “This person is disorganized and clumsy.” Are such attributions accurate? Perhaps, but it is also possible that the man was late because of unavoidable delays at the airport, he dropped his notes because they were printed on slick paper, and he spilled his coffee because the cup was too hot to hold. In this example, the inclination to overlook potential external causes of the man’s behavior illustrates what Jones (1979) labeled the correspondence bias—the tendency to explain Correspondence Bias others’ actions as stemming from (corresponding to) their dispositions, even in the (Fundamental Attribution presence of clear situational causes (e.g., Gilbert & Malone, 1995). Error) The correspondence bias has been observed so frequently (at least among people The tendency to explain others’ in Western nations) that social psychologists refer to it as the fundamental ­attribution actions as stemming from error. In short, we tend to perceive others as acting as they do because they are “that dispositions even in the presence kind of person,” rather than because of the many external factors that may influence of clear situational causes their behavior. This tendency occurs in a wide range of contexts, but appears to be strongest in situations where both consensus and distinctiveness are low, as pre- dicted by Kelley’s theory, and when we are trying to predict others’ behavior in the far-off future rather than the immediate future (Nussbaum, Trope, & Liberman, 2003; Van Overwalle, 1998). Why? When we think of the far-off future, we tend to do so in abstract ways. This leads us to think about others in terms of their traits. As a result, we tend to overlook potential external causes of their behavior. Even though this fundamental attribution error has been demonstrated in many studies and also strongly affected subsequent research aimed at understanding 108 Chapter 3 a­ ttribution processes, we now know religious orientation and culture can modify this bias. Li et al. (2012) examined whether Protestants and Catholic Christians differed in their causal attributions. Unlike Catholics, Protestants hold a stronger belief in the soul, and accordingly believe that peoples’ inward states and beliefs are the causes of their actions. Therefore, Protestant Christians would be more likely than Catholics to attribute events and behaviors to internal (vs external) causes. In a series of experi- mental studies, Li et al. (2012) demonstrated that Protestants were indeed more likely than Catholics to make internal attributions, and that this effect was stronger when Protestants were primed with the concept of the “soul.” With regards to cross-cultural differences, we know that people in Asian cultures are considerably less susceptible to making internal attributions for other people’s behavior. Indeed, adults in India, when asked to explain why others had behaved either positively or negatively, favored situ- ational explanations over internal attributions (Miller, 1984). THE STRENGTH OF THE CORRESPONDENCE BIAS Suppose that you read a short essay written by another person on a controversial topic. On the basis of this essay, you would probably expect to get an idea where the writer stands with respect to this issue—is she “pro” or “anti”? So far, so good. But now assume that before reading the essay, you learned that the author had been instructed to write it so as to support a par- ticular position—again, “pro” or “anti.” From a purely rational perspective, you should realize that in this case, the essay may tell you nothing about the writer’s true views. After all, they were merely following instructions. However, two social psychologists— Jones and Harris (1967)—challenged the idea that people would correct their inference about the writer even though they were aware of the situational constraint the writer faced. Instead, these researchers predicted that the fundamental attribution error is so strong, that most people would assume they can determine the writer’s views from the essay—even when the person was told to write it in a particular way. To test their reasoning, Jones and Harris asked research participants to read a short essay that either supported or opposed Fidel Castro’s rule in Cuba (remember, the research was conducted in 1967 by American researchers). In one condition, par- ticipants were told that the essay writer had free choice as to what position to take. In another condition, they were told that the writer was instructed to create the essay in a pro-Castro or anti-Castro manner. After reading the essay, participants were asked to estimate the essay writer’s true beliefs. Results were clear: Even in the condition where the writer had been instructed to take one specific position, American research participants assumed they could tell the writer’s real views from the essay. In other words, they attributed the essay writer’s actions to internal factors (their true beliefs), even though they knew this was not the case! Clearly, this research was a dramatic demonstration of the fundamental attribution error in action. Subsequent research, also viewed as “classic” in the field, reached the same con- clusions. For instance, in a revealing study by Nisbett, Caputo, Legbant, and Marecek (1973), participants were shown a series of 20 paired traits (e.g., quiet-talkative, lenient-firm) and were asked to decide which of those traits were true of themselves, their best friend, their father, a casual acquaintance, and a famous newscaster at the time. The participants were also offered a third option: They could choose “depends on the situation.” Results again offered strong evidence for the fundamental attri- bution error. Participants in the study chose “depends on the situation” much more often for themselves than for other people. In other words, they reported that their own behavior varied from situation to situation, but the behavior of others (their best friend, father, or even a famous news anchor) primarily reflected personal traits (see Figure 3.14). CORRESPONDENCE BIAS IN E-MAIL Suppose you receive an e-mail message filled with spelling and grammatical errors. Would you assume that the person who sent the e-mail was in a big hurry, was lazy and careless, or perhaps doesn’t know ­English very well? Would it make a difference if the message seemed rude, or if you knew  114 Chapter 3 their own group as more justifiable than when the same behavior is committed by members of another group (Tarrant, Branscombe, Warner, & Weston, 2012). In summary, basic principles of attribution theory help shed light on the ­reasons why terrorists feel justified in doing what they do—and also why powerful ­nations feel justified in using their military might to, ostensibly, contribute to human ­well-being. While these suggestions should be viewed as only tentative in nature—ones that rest on only a small amount of evidence—they illustrate the basic fact that attribution the- ory can provide insights for a wide range of situations and events. 3.3: Impression Formation and Management: Combining Information About Others Objective Describe why initial information is important in forming perceptions of others When we meet another person for the first time, we are—quite literally—flooded with information. We can see, at a glance, how they look and dress, how they speak, and how they behave. Although the amount of information reaching us is large, we some- how manage to combine it into an initial first impression of this person—a mental rep- resentation that is the basis for our reactions to them. In this section, we’ll explore how these impressions develop and what we do to maintain favorable impressions. 3.3.1: Impression Formation Impression Formation Clearly, impression formation—how we develop our views of others—is an impor- The process through which we tant aspect of social perception. This fact raises several critical questions: What, form ­impressions of others exactly, are first impressions? How are they formed—and how quickly? Are they accu- rate? We’ll now examine what social psychologists have discovered about these and related issues. To do so, we’ll begin with some classic research in the field, and then move on to more recent research and its findings. FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH ON FIRST IMPRESSIONS: CENTRAL AND PERIPH- ERAL TRAITS As we have already seen, some aspects of social perception, such as attribution, require lots of hard mental work. It’s not always easy to draw inferences about others’ motives or traits from their behavior. In contrast, forming first impres- quicker than attribution sions seems to be relatively effortless. As Solomon Asch (1946), one of the founders of less mental work experimental social psychology, put it: “We look at a person and immediately a certain impression of his character forms itself in us. A glance, a few spoken words are suffi- cient to tell us a story about a highly complex matter...” (p. 258). How do we manage to do this? How, in short, do we form impressions of others in the quick and seemingly effortless way that we often do? This is the question Asch set out to study. At the time Asch conducted his research, social psychologists were heavily influ- enced by the work of Gestalt psychologists, specialists in the field of perception. A basic principle of Gestalt psychology is: “The whole is often greater than the sum of its parts.” This means that what we perceive is often more than the sum of individual sensations. To illustrate this point for yourself, simply look at a painting. What you see is not individual strokes of paint on the canvas; rather, you perceive an integrated whole—for example, a portrait, a landscape, or a bowl of fruit. So as Gestalt psycholo- gists suggested, each part of the world around us is interpreted, and understood, in terms of its relationships to other parts or stimuli—in effect, as a totality. Asch applied these ideas to understanding impression formation, suggesting that we do not form impressions simply by adding together all of the traits we observe in  Social Perception: Seeking to Understand Others 115 other persons. Rather, we perceive these traits in relation to one another, so that the traits cease to exist individually and become, instead, part of an integrated, dynamic whole. To test these ideas, Asch came up with an ingenious approach. He gave individuals lists of traits supposedly possessed by a stranger, and then asked them to indicate their overall impressions of this person. For example, in one study, participants read one of the following two lists: intelligent—skillful—industrious—warm—determined—practical—cautious intelligent—skillful—industrious—cold—determined—practical—cautious As you can see, the lists differ only with respect to two words: warm and cold. Thus, if people form impressions merely by adding together individual traits, or by averag- ing over the value assigned to each trait, the impressions formed by persons exposed to these two lists should not differ very much. However, this was not the case. Partici- pants who read the list containing warm were much more likely to view the stranger as generous, happy, good-natured, sociable, popular, and altruistic than were people who read the list containing cold. The words warm and cold, Asch concluded, were central traits—ones that strongly shaped overall impressions of the stranger and colored the meaning of other adjectives in the lists. Asch obtained additional support for this view by substituting the words polite and blunt for warm and cold. When he did this, the two lists yielded highly similar impressions of the stranger. So, it appeared that polite and blunt were not central traits that colored the entire impressions of the stranger. On the basis of many studies such as this one, Asch concluded that forming impressions of others involves more than simply combining individual traits. As he put it: “There is an attempt to form an impression of the entire person.... As soon as two or more traits are understood to belong to one person they cease to exist as isolated traits, and come into immediate... interaction.... The subject perceives not this and that quality, but the two entering into a particular relation....” (1946, p. 284). While research on impression formation has become far more sophisticated since Asch’s early work, many of his basic ideas about impression formation have exerted a lasting ­impact, and are still worthy of careful consideration today. HOW QUICKLY AND ACCURATELY ARE FIRST IMPRESSIONS FORMED? A growing body of research suggests that first impressions are often accurate. Many studies have reported that even working with what are known as thin slices of information about Thin Slices others—for instance, photos or short videos of them—perceivers’ first impressions Small amounts of information are reasonably accurate (e.g., Ambady, Bernieri, & Richeson, 2000; Borkenau, Mauer, about others we use to form first Riemann, Spinath, & Angleitner, 2004). For example, “thin slices” of body movement impressions of them information accurately predicted judges’ perceptions of a speaker’s extraversion ­(Koppensteiner, 2013). People do better in forming first impressions of some characteristics than others (Gray, 2008), but overall, they can accomplish this task fairly well—very quickly and with better-than-chance accuracy. How quickly? In one study (Willis & Todorov, 2006), participants viewed faces of strangers for very brief periods of time: 1/10 of a second, half a second, or a second. Then, they rated the strangers on several traits: trustwor- thiness, competence, likeability, aggressiveness, and attractiveness. These impression ratings were compared with the ratings provided by another group of people who were allowed to examine photos of the same actors without any time constraints. The ratings of the two groups were very similar (i.e., they were highly correlated). In fact, correlations between the two sets of ratings (the ones done without any time limits and the ones completed at short exposure times) ranged from about.60 to about.75. So, first impressions can be formed very quickly and are slightly better than chance in terms of accuracy (see Figure 3.17). Forming first impressions of others quickly is especially valuable if these impres- sions involve characteristics that can help us avoid danger. For example, threat—to  116 Chapter 3 Figure 3.17 How Quickly Are First Impressions Formed? Research findings indicate that first impressions of others are formed with lightning speed—in many cases, within a few seconds and sometimes in less than one second! the extent this characteristic shows on strangers’ faces—would be especially valuable to detect as quickly as possible. Evidence reported by Bar, Neta, and Linz (2006) indi- cates that impressions of others’ potential threat can be formed very fast. Participants were shown photos of faces with neutral expressions, but still differed in the extent to which they appeared threatening. These faces were shown for 26 milliseconds (.026 seconds), 39 milliseconds (.39 seconds), or 1,700 milliseconds (1.7 seconds). Partici- pants then rated each face on a scale ranging from least threatening to most threaten- ing. Results indicated that the ratings of faces shown for 39 milliseconds and 1,700 milliseconds correlated highly, but that these correlations were much lower for the 26 milliseconds condition. This suggests there are some limits to how quickly we can form first impressions of others—below.04 seconds, this task does not seem possible. But still,.04 seconds is an incredibly short period of time, so clearly we can get an overall idea of what others are like very, very quickly. Another aspect of Bar and colleagues’ research involved asking participants to rate others’ intelligence, again from seeing their faces for 39 milliseconds or 1,700 mil- liseconds. In this case, there was no relationship between the ratings in the two con- ditions. This suggests that first impressions of others’ intelligence are not formed as quickly as those for threat. Perhaps, since judgments of intelligence are not as impor- tant for our survival as judgments about threat, there may be no major advantage to being able to form impressions of intelligence as quickly. In any case, this research raises an important question: What factors influence the extent to which first impres- sions are accurate? While there are no definite answers, the formation of first impres- sions depends on several factors such as the format in which information about others is encountered (face-to-face meetings, photos, videos of others), and the dimensions along which these ratings are made. In general, though, existing evidence suggests that our first impressions of others are more accurate than chance—that is, our impres- sions of others are somewhat related to their actual personalities, intelligence, and many other factors, but only slightly better than chance (Ames, Kammrath, Suppes, & Bolger, 2010). M03_BRAN8320_14_GE_C03.indd 116 13/05/2022 13:15  Social Perception: Seeking to Understand Others 117 CAN FIRST IMPRESSIONS BE CHANGED? Given that our first impressions of oth- ers are not always accurate, then another important question is under what conditions are we likely to correct our impressions. Research results indicate that we can adjust or even reverse our first impressions of others, but only under certain conditions. Evidence for such adjustments has been obtained in several studies (Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006). Drawing on existing evidence (e.g., Cone & Ferguson, 2015), ­researchers have noted that first impressions can be changed by acquiring new ­information, or rejecting existing information. One of the most informative studies on changing first impressions was conducted by Mann and Ferguson (2015). They sug- gested that first impressions are often changed through a reinterpretation of previous information. Suppose you meet someone for the first time and acquire information that indicates the person is rude—he walked away from you in the middle of a conversa- tion. Later, you learn that the person left because he was diabetic and needed insulin immediately. Under those conditions, you might reinterpret the information that led you to form your initial negative first impression. To test this reasoning, Mann and Ferguson (2015) presented participants with information about a stranger named Francis who had broken into two houses. Some participants learned that he had done this to vandalize the homes. As a result, they formed negative first impressions of him. Later, they received information indicating that, in fact, he had broken into the homes to save people from a fire. The research- ers predicted that this new information would lead the participants to reinterpret the initial information, so that now they would view his actions as positive. Indeed, the findings revealed that their impressions of Francis did change, becoming more positive. In further studies, Mann and Ferguson found that only certain types of new information used for reinterpreting initial impressions produced positive changes. For example, in the case when participants learned that Francis had saved a child who had fallen onto subway tracks, the overall impression of him improved, but the new information did not totally offset the original, negative first impression. In other words, the information about saving a child, although positive, was not relevant to the initial information that Francis had broken into two houses (see Figure 3.18). Overall, Mann and Ferguson’s (2015) research indicates that first impressions can be changed in several ways: by acquiring new information, rejecting previous information, or per- haps most effectively, reinterpreting information that produced the initial impression. To summarize, research indicates that people can form first impressions of oth- ers on the basis of small amounts of information and these impressions show a Figure 3.18 Can First Impressions Be Changed? Research findings indicate that first impressions can be changed, especially when the information that led to the initial first impression is reinterpreted on the basis of additional, relevant information. New Information Initial Information A First Impression Leads to About Another of the Person Reinterpretation Person Is Received Is Formed of Initial Information Initial Impression is Adjusted Based on Relevancy of New Information 118 Chapter 3 ­ etter-than-chance level of accuracy. However, despite people being generally quite b confident about the validity of their first impressions, such confidence and actual accuracy are unrelated to each other. So, should we trust our first impressions of oth- ers? The best answer seems to be we can to some extent, but we should do so with caution. 3.3.2: Impression Management The desire to make a favorable impression on others is a strong one, so most of us do our best to “look good” to others when we meet them for the first time. Social Impression Management (Self- psychologists use the term impression management or self-presentation to describe Presentation) these efforts to make a good impression on others. The research results on this process Efforts by individuals to produce suggest it is well worth our effort: people who engage in impression management favorable first impressions on successfully often gain important advantages in many situations (e.g., Sharp & Getz, others 1996; Wayne & Liden, 1995). What tactics do people use to create favorable impres- sions on others, and which tactics work best? Is impression management related to subsequent behavior in social or work situations? Let’s see what careful research has revealed about these intriguing questions. TACTICS FOR “LOOKING GOOD” TO OTHERS Although we use many different techniques for boosting our images, most of these tactics fall into two major cat- egories: self-enhancement (efforts to increase our appeal to others) and other-enhance- ment (efforts to make the target person feel good in various ways). With respect to self-enhancement, specific strategies include efforts to boost one’s appearance— either physical or professional. Physical appearance relates to the attractiveness and appeal of the individual, while professional appearance relates to personal grooming, appropriate dress, and personal hygiene. A meta-analysis of the many studies assessing the biasing effects of physical attractiveness on job-related out- comes revealed that it plays a substantial role and applies to both men and women (Hosoda, Stone-Romero, & Coats, 2003). The existence of extensive beauty aids and flourishing clothing industries suggests some ways in which people attempt to improve both aspects of their appearance and the first impressions they make on others (see Figure 3.19). Self-enhancement is also prolific in social media where people may choose which aspects of themselves to promote to others in order to yield more favorable evaluations, such as number of likes on Facebook (Bareket- Bojmel, Moran, & S ­ hahar, 2016). Forms of other-enhancement include flattering oth- ers, expressing agreement with them, doing f­ avors for others, and Figure 3.19 Self-enhancement—One asking for their advice. Technique of Impression Management H O W W E L L D O I M P R E S S I O N M A N A G E M E N T TA C T I C S In order to improve the impressions we make on WORK? Growing evidence, much of it from practical real-life situ- others, many people use products claiming to enhance ations, indicates that impression management tactics do not always physical beauty and appeal to others. work. Up to a point, efforts to “put our best foot forward” do result in positive first impressions (Barrick, Swider, & Stewart, 2010). But if others perceive we are trying to fool them, they may react nega- tively. Such effects are clearly visible in job interviews. For instance, Swider, Barrick, Harris, and Stoverink (2011) asked students who were studying to be accountants to participate in interviews con- ducted by graduate students. These graduate students were study- ing to become human ­resource experts—people who often conduct interviews to screen for the best job applicants. The interviews consisted of two parts. The first part was used to create rapport—friendly feelings—between the inter- viewers and interviewees. The second part was a very realistic  Social Perception: Seeking to Understand Others 119 job i­ nterview. After the interviews, the interviewees were Figure 3.20 Can People Engage in Too Much asked to rate the extent to which they had used impression Impression Management? management tactics. Specifically, they rated the extent to Up to a point, efforts to make a good impression on others can which they tried to present themselves in a very positive succeed. However, when these efforts become obvious to the way—as the perfect person for the job. Ratings indicated people toward whom they are directed, tactics can backfire and that some interviewees used impression management tac- actually produce negative impressions. tics to a moderate degree—they simply emphasized their Up to point, impression qualifications. Others tried to boost the impressions made Positive management tactics build a on the interviewers by actually lying about their qualifica- positive impression. Beyond this tions—for instance, by claiming to have experience they point, a negative impression is likely to form. did not have. When interviewers rated the students seeking a job, it First Impression was found that where impression management tactics are concerned, there can be “too much of a good thing.” In other words, beyond some point, the more interviewees engaged in impression management, the lower they were rated (see Figure 3.20). The general message from these findings is this: It’s OK to use impression management tactics to make a good first impression on others but be careful about overdoing it. Excessive use of these tactics will likely produce negative rather than positive results. Negative Low Moderate High Use of Impression Management Tactics Chapter 3 Rapid Review Learning Objectives Key Points DETERMINE HOW THE Social perception involves the processes through which we seek to understand other people. It FIVE BASIC NONVERBAL plays a key role in social thought and behavior. CHANNELS OF In order to understand others’ emotional states, we often rely on nonverbal communication—an COMMUNICATION HELP ­unspoken language of facial expressions, eye contact, body m ­ ovements, and touching. US JUDGE EMOTIONAL While facial expressions for all basic emotions may not be as universal as once believed, they do STATES often provide useful information about others’ emotional states. Although a high level of eye contact is usually interpreted as a sign of positive feelings, staring—a continuous gaze—is often perceived as a sign of anger or hostility. ­Another type of nonverbal behavior is body language, which often reflects emotions through the positions, postures, and movements of our bodies. Likewise, touching, such as the way we shake hands, can reveal things about us. Many people express emotions through sounds independent of the words they speak. This type of nonverbal ­communication is called paralanguage—vocal effects other than speech, such as tone, volume, pitch, or rhythm. The facial feedback hypothesis suggests that we not only show what we feel in our facial expressions; those e­ xpressions can also influence our own emotional states. We are generally not very accurate at recognizing ­deception for many reasons, such as our tendency to perceive others as truthful and our desire to be polite. As a result, we don’t typically search for clues of deception. However, we are more successful at detecting liars when in a negative mood than in a positive mood. (Continued) M03_BRAN8320_14_GE_C03.indd 119 13/05/2022 13:15  Attitudes: Evaluating and Responding to the Social World 181 this person think they are? What nerve!” or, perhaps your response is more situational, “Gee, this person must be in a big hurry.” Whichever of these interpretations of the event is made, it will shape the individual’s behavior. Several studies provide support for this perspective on how attitudes can influence behavior by affecting the interpreta- tion given to the situation. In short, attitudes affect our behavior through at least two mechanisms, and these operate under somewhat contrasting conditions. When we have time to engage in careful, reasoned thought, we can weigh all the alternatives and decide how we will act. Under the hectic conditions of everyday life, however, we often don’t have time for this kind of deliberate weighing of alternatives, and often people’s responses appear to be much faster than such deliberate thought processes can account for. In such cases, our attitudes seem to spontaneously shape our perceptions of various events—often with very little conscious cognitive processing—and thereby affects our immediate behavioral reactions (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000; Dovidio, Brigham, Johnson, & G ­ aertner, 1996). To the extent that a person repeatedly performs a spe- cific b ­ ehavior—and a habit is formed—that person’s responses may become relatively automatic whenever that same situation is encountered (Wood, Quinn, & Kashy, 2002). 5.4: The Science of Persuasion: How Attitudes Are Changed Objective Indicate the factors that determine whether persuasion attempts to alter our attitudes will be effective How many times in the last few days has someone tried to change your attitude about something or other? If you stop and think for a moment, you may be surprised at the answer, for it is clear that each day we are literally bombarded with such attempts, some of which are illustrated in Figure 5.13. Billboards, television commercials, Figure 5.13 Persuasion: A Part of Daily Life Each day we are bombarded with dozens of messages designed to change our attitudes or our behavior. Clearly, if they weren’t effective at least some of the time, advertisers would not pay the sums that they do for these opportunities to try and persuade us to buy what they are promoting. M05_BRAN8320_14_GE_C05.indd 181 14/05/2022 13:37 182 Chapter 5 ­ agazine ads, telemarketers, pop-up ads on your computer, and even our friends— m the list of potential “would-be persuaders” seems almost endless. To what extent are Persuasion such attempts at persuasion—efforts to change our attitudes through the use of vari- Efforts to change others’ attitudes ous kinds of messages—successful? And what factors determine if they succeed or fail? through the use of various kinds of Social psychologists have studied these issues for decades, and as we’ll soon see, their messages efforts have yielded important insights into the cognitive processes that play a role in persuasion (Petty, Wheeler, & Tormala, 2003; Wegener & Carlston, 2005). 5.4.1: Persuasion: Communicators, Messages, and Audiences Early research efforts aimed at understanding persuasion involved the study of the following elements: Some source directs some type of message to some person or group of persons (the audience). Persuasion research conducted by Hovland, Janis, and K ­ elley (1953) focused on these key elements, asking: “Who says what to whom with what ­effect?” This approach yielded a number of important findings, with the ­following ­being the most consistently obtained. Communicators who are credible—who seem to know what they are talking about or who are expert with respect to the topics or issues they are presenting—are more persuasive than those who are seen as lacking expertise. For instance, in a famous study on this topic, Hovland and Weiss (1951) asked participants to read communications dealing with various issues (e.g., atomic submarines, the future of movie theaters—remember, this was back in 1950). The supposed source of these messages was varied so as to be high or low in credibility. For instance, for atomic submarines, a highly credible source was the famous scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, while the low-credibility source was Pravda, the newspaper of the Communist party in the Soviet Union (notice how the credible source was an in- group member, but the low credible source for these American participants was an out-group source). Participants expressed their attitudes toward these issues a week before the experiment, and then immediately after receiving the commu- nications. Those who were told that the source of the messages they read was a highly credible in-group member showed significantly greater attitude change than those who thought the message was from the out-group, which lacked trust- worthiness and credibility. Members of our own group are typically seen as more credible and therefore are likely to influence us more than those with whom we do not share a group membership and with whom we might even expect to dis- agree (Turner, 1991). Communicators can, though, lose their credibility and therefore their ability to persuade. One means by which credibility can be undermined is if you learn that a communicator has a personal stake (financial or otherwise) in persuading you to adopt a particular position. Consequently, communicators are seen as most credible and, therefore persuasive, when they are perceived as arguing against their self-interests (Eagly, Chaiken, & Wood, 1981). Communicators who are physically attractive are more persuasive than communi- cators who are not attractive (Hovland & Weiss, 1951). Frequently, advertisers who use attractive models are attempting to suggest to us that if we buy their product, we too will be perceived as attractive. Another way that communicators can be seen as attractive is via their perceived likeability (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). We are more likely to be persuaded by a communicator we like than one we dislike. This is one reason that famous sports figures such as Cristiano Ronaldo or Serena Wil- liams, musicians such as Beyoncé Knowles, actresses such as Julia Roberts, and actors such as Daniel Craig are selected as spokespersons for various products (see Figure 5.14)—we already like them so are more readily persuaded by them.  Attitudes: Evaluating and Responding to the Social World 183 Figure 5.14 Attractiveness in Persuasion: Can the Same Person Persuade Us to Buy Different Types of Products? Research reveals that we are more persuaded by someone we view as attractive and like. In fact, actresses such as Julia Roberts shown here are selected to be spokesperson for many different products. Communicators who we feel we know already—that is, those in our own so- cial networks—are also likely to be persuasive. When opinions, including rec- ommendations and general product information, are provided in an informal person-to-person manner, it is referred to as word-of-mouth marketing (Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1955). If you have ever told someone about a good restaurant or movie or made some other type of product recommendation, you’ve engaged in word-of-mouth marketing. People we know and already like will be especially influential, in part because we see them as trustworthy and as having the same interests as ourselves. In what has come to be called eWOM (electronic word-of-mouth), Facebook, ­Twitter, and the other Internet forums have become means by which the trans- mission of word-of-mouth communications is accomplished. When tracking a conversation on Facebook or just browsing through your daily “news feed,” information about which of your friends “like” a particular product is readily available. Marketers know such “recommendations” from friends will be highly persuasive. Cheung, Luo, Sia, and Chen (2009) found that credibility in the on- line context is a major concern so recommendation ratings from “friends” are particularly important in determining whether consumers will be persuaded to act by purchasing. As H­ arris and Dennis (2011) indicate, Facebook alone has a membership of 500 ­million worldwide, and the average user has 130 “Friends.” People are ­spending more time on Facebook than other sites combined and, in- creasingly, many of our commercial transactions and retail decisions now occur within that site. Messages that do not appear to be designed to change our attitudes are often more successful than those that seem to be designed to achieve this goal (­ Walster & Festinger, 1962). Indeed, a meta-analysis of the existing research on this issue in- dicates that forewarning does typically lessen the extent to which attitude change occurs (Benoit, 1998). So, simply knowing that a sales pitch is coming your way can undermine its persuasiveness. 184 Chapter 5 One approach to persuasion that has received considerable research attention is Fear Appeals the effect of fear appeals—messages that are intended to arouse fear in the re- Attempting to change people’s cipient. When the message is sufficiently fear arousing that people genuinely feel behaviors by use of a message that threatened, they are likely to argue against the threat, or else dismiss its applicabil- induces fear ity to themselves (Liberman & Chaiken, 1992; Taylor & Shepperd, 1998). Indeed, there is evidence using neuroscience methods, where event-related brain poten- tials are assessed, that when people are exposed to a highly threatening health message, they allocate their attention away when the message is ­self-relevant (Kessels, Ruiter, Wouters, & Jansma, 2014). Yet, as Figure 5.15 illustrates, gruesome fear-based ads have been used in an attempt to frighten people about future consequences if they fail to change their behavior. Fear appeals have been hotly debated, with some scholars arguing that they are ineffective and that alternative persuasive strategies should be used in areas such as health promo- tion (Ruiter et al., 2014). Other meta-analyses, however, have shown that fear appeals can actually work by producing changes in people’s attitudes, intentions, and behavior (Tannenbaum et al., 2014). It actually appears that there can be certain conditions under which fear appeals can optimize or even hinder health-related behavior change. Might inducing more moderate levels of fear work better? There is some evidence that this is the case—but it needs to be paired with specific methods of behavioral change that will allow the negative consequences to be avoided (Petty, 1995). If people do not know how to change, or do not believe that they can succeed in doing so, fear tends to induce avoidance and defensive responses. Research findings (Broemer, 2004) suggest that health messages of various sorts are more effective if they are framed in a positive manner (e.g., how to attain good health) rather than in a negative manner (e.g., risks and undesirable consequences of particular behaviors). Consider how message framing and perceived risk of having a serious out- come befall the self can affect persuasion following exposure to a message designed to encourage a certain section of women to be tested for HIV (Apanovitch, McCarthy, & Salovey, 2003). Those women who perceived themselves as unlikely to test positive for HIV were more likely to be persuaded to be tested (and they actually got tested) when the message was framed in terms of the gains to be had by doing so (e.g., “The peace of mind you’ll get or you won’t have to worry that you could spread the virus”) than when the message was framed in terms of potential losses they would otherwise expe- rience (e.g., “You won’t have peace of mind or you could spread the virus unknow- ingly to those you care about”). Positive framing can be effective in inducing change—­ especially when individuals fail to perceive themselves as especially at risk. Early research on persuasion certainly provided important Figure 5.15 Using Fear to Encourage Change insights into the factors that influence persuasion. What this work did not do, however, was offer a comprehensive account of how Many messages use frightening images in an attempt to “scare people” into changing their attitudes and behavior, persuasion occurs. For instance, why, precisely, are highly credible including the sorts of warnings illustrated here that are or attractive communicators more effective in changing attitudes aimed at getting people to stop smoking or behave in than less credible or attractive ones? Why might positive message environmentally friendly ways to mitigate climate change. framing (rather than negative, fear-based) produce more attitude change? In recent years, social psychologists have recognized that to answer such questions, it is necessary to carefully examine the cognitive processes that underlie persuasion—in other words, what goes on in people’s minds while they listen to a persuasive message. It is to this highly sophisticated work that we turn next. 5.4.2: The Cognitive Processes Underlying Persuasion What happens when you are exposed to a persuasive message— for instance, when you watch a television commercial or see ads  Attitudes: Evaluating and Responding to the Social World 185 pop up on your screen as you surf the Internet? Your first answer might be something Systematic Processing like “I think about what’s being said,” and in a sense, that’s correct. But as we saw in Processing of information in a Chapter 2 people often do the least amount of cognitive work that they can in a given persuasive message that involves situation. Indeed, people may want to avoid listening to such commercial messages careful consideration of message (and thanks to DVDs and Netflix, people can skip commercials with those formats content and ideas entirely). But when you are subjected to a message, the central issue—the one that seems to provide the key to understanding the entire process of persuasion—is really, Central Route to Persuasion “How do we process (absorb, interpret, evaluate) the information contained in such Attitude change resulting messages?” The answer that has emerged from hundreds of separate studies is that from systematic processing basically, we can process persuasive messages in two distinct ways. of information presented in SYSTEMATIC VERSUS HEURISTIC PROCESSING The first type of processing we persuasive messages can employ is known as systematic processing or the central route to persuasion, and it involves careful consideration of message content and the ideas it contains. Such Heuristic Processing processing requires effort, and it absorbs much of our information-processing capac- Processing of information in a ity. The second approach, known as heuristic processing or the peripheral route to persuasive message that involves ­persuasion, involves the use of mental shortcuts such as the belief that “experts’ state- the use of simple rules of thumb ments can be trusted,” or the idea that “if it makes me feel good, I’m in favor of it.” This or mental shortcuts kind of processing requires less effort and allows us to react to persuasive messages in an automatic manner. It occurs in response to cues in the message or situation that evoke various mental shortcuts (e.g., beautiful models evoke the “What’s beautiful is Peripheral Route to Persuasion good and worth listening to” heuristic). Attitude change that occurs in When do we engage in each of these two distinct modes of thought? M ­ odern theo- response to peripheral persuasion cues, which is often based on ries of persuasion such as the elaboration-likelihood model (ELM; Petty & Cacioppo, information concerning the 1986; Petty, Cacioppo, Strathman, & Priester, 2005) and the h ­ euristic-­systematic expertise or status of would-be model (­Chaiken, Liberman, & Eagly, 1989; Eagly & C ­ haiken, 1998) provide the fol- persuaders lowing answer. We engage in the most effortful and systematic processing when our motivation and capacity to process information relating to the persuasive message is high. This type of processing occurs if we have a lot of knowledge about the topic, Elaboration-Likelihood Model we have a lot of time to engage in careful thought, the issue is sufficiently important (ELM) to us, or we believe it is essential to form an accurate view (Maheswaran & Chaiken, A theory suggesting that 1991; Petty & ­Cacioppo, 1986). persuasion can occur in either In contrast, we engage in the type of processing that requires less effort (heuristic of two distinct ways, differing in processing) when we lack the capacity or time to process more carefully (we must the amount of cognitive effort or make up our minds very quickly or we have little knowledge about the issue) or when elaboration the message receives our motivation to perform such cognitive work is low (the issue is unimportant to us or has little potential effect on us). Advertisers, politicians, salespersons, and oth- Heuristic-Systematic Model ers wishing to change our attitudes prefer to push us into the heuristic mode of pro- Two distinct routes to persuasion: cessing because, for reasons described later, it is often easier to change our attitudes one where heuristic low-effort when we think in this mode than when we engage in more careful and systematic strategies are employed, and ­processing. Strong arguments in favor of the position being advocated are not needed the other where effortful and when people do not process those arguments very carefully! The two routes to persua- systematic information processing sion suggested by the ELM model are shown in Figure 5.16. is used What role might consuming a drug like caffeine have on persuasion? The central route to persuasion works when people attend to a message and systematically pro- cess its contents. Given that caffeine intake should increase people’s ability to system- atically process the contents of a message, if people have the opportunity to focus on a persuasive message without being distracted, they should be persuaded more after consuming caffeine than after not consuming it. In contrast, when people are highly distracted, it should prevent them from systematically processing the message—and if caffeine works via the central route—distraction should lessen the extent to which they are persuaded. Research findings have supported these ideas: In low-distraction conditions, those who have consumed caffeine agree more with the message (they are per- suaded away from their original opinion) than those who received a caffeine-free  186 Chapter 5 Figure 5.16 The ELM Model: A Cognitive Theory of Persuasion According to the elaboration-likelihood model (ELM), persuasion can occur in one of two ways. First, we can be persuaded by systematically processing the information contained in the persuasive messages (the central route), or second, by use of heuristics or mental shortcuts (the peripheral route). Systematic processing occurs when the message is important to us and we have the cognitive resources available to think about it carefully. Heuristic processing is most likely when the message is not important to us or we do not have the cognitive resources (or time) to engage in careful thought. Attitude change Message Central Route depends on important; Careful processing strength of processing of information in arguments in capacity high message message Persuasive message Attitude change Message Peripheral Route depends on unimportant; Heuristic processing presence of processing of information in persuasion cues, capacity low message which trigger heuristic processing placebo. In contrast, when people are distracted and systematic processing of the message content is impossible, there is no difference in the attitudes of those who consumed caffeine and those who did not (Martin, Hamilton, McKimmie, Terry, & Martin, 2007). It is the increased thinking about the message when people are not distracted that can result in increased persuasion in caffeine drinkers. So, as shown in Figure 5.17, be prepared to think carefully about the messages you are exposed to when you get your next “caffeine fix”!