SOCPSY-Social Psychology Module 5 2023-2024 PDF

FR Module 5 PERSUASION SOCPSY...

FR Module 5 PERSUASION SOCPSY SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY to your fifth module! COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES ALONDRA ARA A. MENA, RPm Instructor San Mateo Municipal College Gen. Luna St. Guitnang Bayan I, San Mateo, Rizal Tel. No. (02) 997-9070 www.smmc.edu.ph No part of this module may be San Mateo Municipal College reproduced, distributed, Psychology SOCPSY-Social or transmitted in Bachelor of Science in Psychology any form Ms. Alondra Ara A. Mena,without or by any means RPm the prior permission of the instructor.  SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Module 5: PERSUASION ” Remember that to change they mind and to follow him that sets thee right, is to be none the less a free agent.” - Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations, San Mateo Municipal College SOCPSY-Social Psychology Bachelor of Science in Psychology Ms. Alondra Ara A. Mena, RPm  MODULE 5: PERSUASION MODULE OUTLINE MODULE DURATION: I. 2 weeks CONSULTATION HOURS: If you have any clarifications or queries, you may reach me at my: Gmail: [email protected] or message me at my messenger account: Facebook: Alondra Ara Mena I’ll make a concerted effort to entertain your questions within 24 hours. Provide only one account for regular basis. LEARNING OBJECTIVES: At the end of the module, you will be able to: identify two paths leading to influence. describe the type of cognitive processing each involves—and its effects. explain how the factors that compose persuasion affect the likelihood that we will take either the central or the peripheral route to persuasion. list some tactics for resisting influence. formulate ways how we might prepare people to resist unwanted persuasion. COURSE MATERIALS: Textbook/ E-book: “Social Psychology (12th Edition) by Myers and Twenge Module San Mateo Municipal College SOCPSY-Social Psychology Bachelor of Science in Psychology Ms. Alondra Ara A. Mena, RPm  INPUT INFORMATION PERSUASION - The process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors. Efforts to persuade someone are sometimes diabolical, sometimes controversial, and sometimes beneficial. Persuasion is neither inherently good nor bad. A message’s purpose and content elicits judgments of good and bad. The bad we call “propaganda.” The good we call “education.” Education is more factually based and less coercive than propaganda. We call it “education” when we believe it, “propaganda” when we don’t. Persuasion, whether it’s education or propaganda, is everywhere- --at the heart of the politics, marketing, dating, parenting, negotiation, religion, and courtroom decision making. Social psychologists therefore seek to understand what leads to effective, long-lasting attitude change. What factors affect persuasion? As persuaders, how can we most effectively “educate” others? WHAT PATHS LEAD TO PERSUASION? Persuasion entails clearing several hurdles. Any factors that help people clear the persuasion hurdles will increase persuasion. EXAMPLE: If an attractive source increases your attention to a message, the message should have a better chance of persuading you. THE CENTRAL ROUTE The central route to persuasion occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts. San Mateo Municipal College SOCPSY-Social Psychology Bachelor of Science in Psychology Ms. Alondra Ara A. Mena, RPm THE PERIPHERAL ROUTE The peripheral route to persuasion occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues such as a speaker’s attractiveness. It focuses on cues that trigger automatic acceptance without much thinking. In these situations, easily understood familiar statements are more persuasive than novel statements with the same meaning. Thus, for uninvolved or distracted people: “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” has more impact than “Don’t risk everything on a single venture. These two routes to persuasion---one explicit and reflective, the other more implicit and automatic--- were a forerunner to today’s “dual processing” models of the human mind. Central route processing often swiftly changes explicit attitudes. Peripheral route processing more slowly builds implicit attitudes through repeated associations between an attitude object and an emotion. DIFFERENT PATHS FOR DIFFERENT PURPOSES The ultimate goal of the advertiser, the preacher, and even teacher is not just to have people pay attention to the message and move on. Typically, the goal is behavior change (buying a product, loving one’s neighbors or studying more effectively.) Are the two routes to persuasion equally likely to fulfill that goal? Petty and colleagues note that central processing can lead to more enduring change than the peripheral route. When people are thinking carefully, they rely not only on the strength of persuasive appeals but on their own thoughts in response. It is not so much the arguments that are persuasive as the way they get people thinking. When people think deeply rather than superficially, any changed attitude will more likely persist, resist attack, and influence behavior. None of us has the time to thoughtfully analyze all issues. Often, we take the peripheral route, by using simple rule of thumb heuristics such as “trust the experts” or “long messages are credible.” WHAT ARE THE ELEMENTS OF PERSUASION? 1. WHO SAYS? THE COMMUNICATOR Social psychologists have found that who is saying something does affect how an audience receives it. In one experiment, when the Socialist and Liberal leaders in the Dutch parliament argued identical positions using the same words, each was most effective with members of his own party. People are more willing to agree with statements made by leaders in the political party they identify with. It is not just the message that matters, but also who says it. What makes one communicator more persuasive than another? 1.1. CREDIBILITY - Believability. A credible communicator is perceived as both expert and trustworthy. SLEEPER EFFECT – a delayed impact of a message that occurs when an initially discounted message becomes effective, such as we remember the message but forget the reason for discounting it. San Mateo Municipal College SOCPSY-Social Psychology Bachelor of Science in Psychology Ms. Alondra Ara A. Mena, RPm  1.2. PERCEIVED EXPERTISE How do you become an authoritative “expert”? One way is to begin by saying things the audience agrees with, which makes you seem smart. One reason the “scientific consensus” about climate change fails to persuade is that people count as “expert” someone whose conclusions support their own preexisting values and views. - Congenial views seems more expert” 1.3. SPEAKING STYLE - Another way to appear credible is to speak confidently and fluently. - it is not good to speak too much and not listen. 1.4. PERCEIVED TRUSTWORTHINESS - We are more willing to listen to a communicator we trust. - Online reviews of products are seen as more trustworthy if they are negative---at least for practical products. Apparently, we’re more willing to believe that negative comments are honest than positive comments. - Trustworthiness is also higher if the audience believes the communicator is not trying to persuade them. - Another effective strategy is to have someone else convey your expertise. - Some television ads are obviously constructed to make the communicator both expert and trustworthy. IS THERE ANY WAY TO OVERCOME PEOPLE’S RESISTANCE TO COMMUNICATORS THEY DON’T TRUST? 1. Humors can distract from distrust 2. Another thing that---surprisingly---does not improve persuasion is direct eye contact between the communicator and the audience. (A correlational study result: Students who chose to look at a speaker’s eyes were less persuaded by her arguments). SIX PERSUASION PRINCIPLES PRINCIPLE APPLICATION AUTHORITY: People to defer credible experts. Establish your expertise: identify problems you have solved and people you have served. LIKING: People respond more affirmatively to Win friends and influence people. Create bonds those they like based on similar interest, praise freely. SOCIAL PROOF: People allow the example of Use “peer power” ---have respected others lead others to validate how to think, feel, and act. the way. RECIPROCITY: People feel obliged to repay in Be generous with your time and resources. What kind what they’ve received. goes around, comes around. CONSISTENCY: People tend to honor their public Instead of telling restaurant reservation callers commitments. “Please call if you change your plans,” ask, “Will you call if you change your plans?” and no-shows will drop. San Mateo Municipal College SOCPSY-Social Psychology Bachelor of Science in Psychology Ms. Alondra Ara A. Mena, RPm  SCARCITY: People prize what’s scarce. Highlight genuinely exclusive information or opportunities. ATTRACTIVENESS AND LIKING We may think we are not influenced by attractiveness or likability, but researchers have found otherwise. We’re more likely to respond to those we like, a phenomenon well known to those organizing charitable solicitations and candy sales. (Sure, Girl Scout cookies are tasty, but a lot fewer people would buy them if they were sold by unattractive middle-aged men instead of cute little girls. Attractiveness- having qualities that appeal to an audience. An appealing communicator (often someone similar to the audience) is most persuasive on matters of subjective preference. Attractiveness comes in several forms: 1. PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS Arguments, especially emotional ones, are often more influential when they come from people we consider beautiful. Most people understand that attractiveness matters most when people are making superficial judgments. 2. SIMILARITY ALSO MAKES FOR ATTRACTIVENESS. We tend to like people who are like us. We also are influenced by them. You might have seen some consumer-generated ads online or on TV. For example: Since 2006, Doritos has asked consumers to make their own 30-seconds commercial, and the winning ad is shown during the Super Bowl. Do these types of ads work? If people see the ad creator as a “regular guy” --- someone like them---they might. WHAT IS SAID? THE MESSAGE CONTENT It matters not only who says something but also what the person says. If you were to help organize an appeal to get people to vote for school taxes or to stop smoking or to give money to world hunger relief, you might wonder how best to persuade. Is a logical message more persuasive---or one that arouses emotion? How should you present your message? Should the message express your side only, or should it acknowledge and refute the opposing views? If people are to present both sides---say, in successive talks at a community meeting or in a political debate---is there an advantage to going first or last? How much information should you include? REASON VERSUS EMOTION Suppose you were campaigning in support of world hunger relief. Would you best itemize your arguments and cite an array or impressive statistics? Or would you be more effective presenting an emotional approach---perhaps the compelling story of one starving child? Answer: It depends on the audience. Well-educated or analytical people are responsive to rational appeals. Thoughtful, involved audiences often travel the central route to persuasion; they are more responsive to reasoned arguments. Uninterested audiences more often travel the peripheral route; they are more affected by their liking of the communicator. San Mateo Municipal College SOCPSY-Social Psychology Bachelor of Science in Psychology Ms. Alondra Ara A. Mena, RPm  “The truth is always the strongest argument.” -Sophocies, Phaedra “Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings and not the intellect.” -Herbert Spencer, Social Statics, 1851 THE EFFECT OF GOOD FEELINGS. Messages also become persuasive through association with good feelings, such as what often accompanies munching food or hearing pleasant music. Receiving money or free sample often induces people money or buy something. That might be why so many charities include address labels, stickers, and even coins in their mailings. Good feelings often enhance persuasion partly by enhancing positive thinking and partly by linking good feelings with the message. People who are in a good mood view the world through rose-colored glasses. But they also make faster, more impulsive decisions; they rely more on peripheral cues. THE EFFECT OF AROUSING FEAR Messages can also be effective by evoking negative emotions. Example: When persuading people to cut down on smoking, get a tetanus, or vaccination shot, or drive carefully, a fear-arousing message can be potent. But how much fear should you arouse? Should you evoke just a little fear, lest people become so frightened that they tune out your painful message? Or should you try to scare the daylights out of them? Experiments shoe that, often, the more frightened and vulnerable people feel, the more they respond. However, there are exceptions. Playing on fear works best if a message leads people not only to fear the severity and likelihood of a threatened event but also to perceive a solution and feel capable of implementing it. Many ads designed to reduce sexual risk will aim both to arouse fear---“AIDS kills”--- and to offer a protective strategy: Abstain, wear a condom, or save sex for a committed relationship. These types of appeals tell people not just to be scared, but do something about it, increasing their sense of self-efficacy. Morales, Wu, and Fitzsimons theorized that fear appeals can be ineffective because they do not present a solution; in contrast, an element of disgust inspires an immediate solution of rejection and revulsion. Appeals can also focus on what you gain by using the preventative product (“If you wear sunscreen, you’ll have attractive skin”) instead of focusing on what you lose (“If you don’t wear sunscreen, you’ll have unattractive skin”). MESSAGE CONTEXT The context of your message---especially what immediately precedes it---can make a big difference in how persuasive it is. Examples: 1. In one study, a confederate approached a passerby at a Polish train station and said, “Excuse me…. Haven’t you lost your wallet?” Everyone immediately checked their pockets or bags to find, to their relief, that their wallet was still in place. San Mateo Municipal College SOCPSY-Social Psychology Bachelor of Science in Psychology Ms. Alondra Ara A. Mena, RPm  2. Then…A Confederate explained she was selling Christmas Cards for a charity, ending with “It’s sublime to help people who are helpless!”. Nearly 40 percent bought the cards, compared to only 10 percent who heard the appeal but had not felt the relief of still having their wallets. The researchers named this highly effective approach fear-the-relief. Other persuasion techniques rely on the size of the request being made. Experiments suggest that if you want people to do a big favor for you, you should get them to do a small favor first. In the best-known demonstration of FOOT-IN-THE-DOOR PHENOMENON. FOOT IN THE DOOR PHENOMENON- the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request. EXAMPLES: First, your parents request you to clean your wardrobe to which you say yes. Then they ask you to clean your entire room, to again which you agree. When you walk into any departmental store, the salesperson asks you to try the latest line of perfume & may also give you a small sample for free. Then she asks you to buy the entire bottle for Php. 500 to which you readily agree. In one, Cialdini and his collaborators (1978) explored a variation of the foot-in-the-door phenomenon by experimenting with the lowball technique. After the customer agrees to buy a new car because of it’s bargain price and begins completing the sales forms, the salesperson removes the price advantage by charging for options or by checking with a boss who disallows the deal because “we’d be losing money.” Folklore has it more lowballed customers now stick with the higher-priced option. LOWBALL TECHNIQUE- a tactic for getting people to agree to something. People who agree to an initial request will often still comply when the requester ups the ante, People who receive only the costly request are less likely to comply with it. San Mateo Municipal College SOCPSY-Social Psychology Bachelor of Science in Psychology Ms. Alondra Ara A. Mena, RPm  The foot-in-the-door technique is a lesson worth remembering. Someone trying to seduce us--- financially, politically, or sexually---will often sneak their foot in the door to create a momentum of compliance. The practical lesson: Before agreeing to a small request, think about what may follow. DOOR-IN-THE-FACE TECHNIQUE- a strategy for gaining a concession. After someone first turns down a large request (the door-in-the-face), the same requester counteroffers with a more reasonable request. EXAMPLE: 1. In flea markets, for example, where prices are often negotiable, a man might ask an antique seller the price of a clock. “The clock is priced at Php500,” the seller tells the man. Both parties realize that the price is unreasonable - the clock cannot be worth more than Php50, a tenth of the asking price. The man politely declines the seller and turns to walk away - shutting a metaphorical ‘door in the face’ of the retailer. Then, the seller calls after the man. “But today, sir, I will sell the clock to you for just Php100!”, he calls. The man thinks that this second price is more reasonable and purchases the clock. He thinks that the seller reducing the price has resulting in him winning a good deal. Yet, he has paid twice the price of Php50 he originally estimated the clock to be worth. 2. In another situation, a mother might ask her son, who is playing a game, to clean the living room, dining room and his bedroom whilst she prepares dinner. The boy might resist, claiming that there is too much to clean in such a short amount of time. The mother replies, “Very well, but can’t you at least clean your bedroom?”. By comparison with the first request, the second seems reasonable to the boy, and he would agree. By using this persuasive technique, the mother has convinced her son to clean his bedroom rather than play games. PRIMACY VS. RECENCY A belief, once formed, is difficult to discredit, so going first could give voters ideas that would favorably bias how they perceive and interpret the second speech. Besides, people may pay more attention to what comes first. Then again, people remember recent things better. Might it really be more effective to speak last? Your first line of reasoning predicts what is most common, a primacy effect: Information presented early is most persuasive. First impressions are important. For example, can you sense a difference between these two descriptions? John is intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, and envious. John is envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive, industrious, and intelligent. Some other primacy effect examples: Students who read positive reviews of a hotel before the negative reviews liked the hotel more than those who read the negative reviews first. In political polls and in primary election voting, candidates benefit from being listed first on the ballot. San Mateo Municipal College SOCPSY-Social Psychology Bachelor of Science in Psychology Ms. Alondra Ara A. Mena, RPm  Television viewers were more likely to remember brands when the commercial advertising was first in the block of commercials What about the opposite possibility? Would our better memory of recent information ever create a recency effect? We have all experienced what the book of Proverbs observed: “The one who first states a case seems right, until the other comes and cross-examines.” 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. Forgetting creates the recency effect when: 1. Enough time separates the two messages 2. The audience commits itself soon after the second message. When the two messages are back-to-back, followed by a time gap, the primacy effect usually occurs. This is especially so when the first message stimulates thinking. Dana Carney and Mahzarin Banaji (2008) discovered that order can also affect simple preferences. When encountering two people or products, people tend to prefer the first presented option. Example: When offered two similar-looking pieces of bubble gum, one placed after the other on a white clipboard, 62 percent, when asked to make a snap judgment, chose the first-presented piece. Across four experiments, the findings were consistent: “First is best.” In answer to the list of questions at the beginning of this topic, the best advice for persuasion is the following: Use logic or emotion, depending on the audience and the message Ask a small favor before making a big request Offer two-sided messages that challenge arguments against your message.. Go first or last best results. San Mateo Municipal College SOCPSY-Social Psychology Bachelor of Science in Psychology Ms. Alondra Ara A. Mena, RPm  HOW IS ITSAID? THE CHANNEL OF COMMUNICATION For persuasion, there must be communication. And for communication, there must be a channel: a face-to-face appeal, a written sign or document, a media advertisement. ACTIVE EXPERIENCE OR PASSIVE RECEPTION? Are spoken appeals more persuasive? Not necessarily. Those of us who speak publicly, as teachers or persuaders, often become so enamored of our spoken words that we overestimate their power. With such power, can the media help a wealthy political candidate buy an election? Advertising exposure helps make an unfamiliar candidate into a familiar one. Mere exposure to unfamiliar stimuli breeds liking. Moreover, mere repetition can make things believable. Mere repetition of a statement also serves to increase its fluency---the ease with which it spills off our tongue---which increases believability. Other factors, such as rhyming, further increase fluency and believability. “Haste makes waste” may say essentially the same thing as “rushing causes mistakes”, but it seems more true. Whatever makes for fluency (familiarity, rhyming) also makes for credibility. Because passively received appeals are sometimes effective and sometimes not, can we specify in advance the issues most amenable to persuasion? There is a simple rule: the more familiar people are with an issue, the less persuadable they are. Active experience also strengthens attitudes. When we act, we amplify the idea behind what we’ve done, especially, when we feel responsible. What is more, attitudes more often endure and influence our behavior when rooted in our own experience. Compared with attitudes formed passively, experience- based attitudes are more confident, more stable, and through consumer-generated ads, viral videos, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and online games---consumers who have interactive experiences with brands and products are more engaged than those who merely see or hear advertisements. PERSONAL VERSUS MEDIA INFLUENCE Persuasion studies demonstrate that the major influence on us is not the media but our contact with people. Modern selling with strategies seek to harness the power of word-of-mouth personal influence through “viral marketing,” “creating a buzz,” and “seeding” sales. EXAMPLE: the Harry Potter series was not expected to be a best seller (the first book in the series had a first printing of 500 copies). It was kids talking to other kids that made it so. MEDIA INFLUENCE: THE TWO-STEP FLOW Although face-to-face influence is usually greater than media influence, we should not underestimate the media’s power. Those who personally influence our opinions must get their ideas from some source, and often their sources are the media. Elihu Katz (1957) observed that many of the media effects operate in a two-step flow of communication: from media to opinion leaders to everyone else. In any large group, it is these opinion leaders and trendsetters- --“the influential” ---that marketers and politicians seek to woo. TWO-STEP FLOW OF COMMUNICATION- the process by which media influence often occurs through opinion leaders, who in turn influence others. San Mateo Municipal College SOCPSY-Social Psychology Bachelor of Science in Psychology Ms. Alondra Ara A. Mena, RPm COMPARING MEDIA. Lumping together all media, from mass mailings to television to social networking, oversimplifies. Studies comparing different media find that the more lifelike the medium, the more persuasive its message. Thus, the order of persuasiveness seems to be: live (face-to-face), videotaped, audiotaped, and written. However, messages are best comprehended and recalled when written. Comprehension is one of the first steps in the persuasion process. THE INFLUENCE OF ADULTS ON CHILDREN. Communication flows from adults to children---although as most parents and teachers can tell you, getting them to listen is not always easy. Your parents likely taught you which foods are healthy, and which are not. But how effective were their appeals? EXAMPLE: In one experiment, children read one of three versions of a story about a girl who ate wheat crackers--- one in which she “felt strong and healthy,” another in which she “thought the crackers were yummy, and she was happy,” and a third with no additional description. The children then had the opportunity to eat some the crackers. Guess who ate the most? The children who read that another child ate them---and nothing else. Those who heard they were yummy ate fewer, and those who heard they were healthy ate less than half as many. The same was true for younger children given messages about carrots. The lesson: When you’re trying to get children to eat healthy food, just give it to them, and forget about saying anything else. If you have to say something, say it’s yummy, not healthy. TO WHOM IS IT SAID? THE AUDIENCE Persuasion varies with who…says what…by what medium…to whom. HOW OLD ARE THEY? People’s social and political attitudes correlate with their age. Social psychologists offer two possible explanations for age differences. A life cycle explanation: Attitudes change (for example, become more conservative) as people grow older. A generational explanation: Attitudes do not change; older people largely hold onto the attitudes they adopted when they were young. Because these attitudes are different from those being adopted by young people today, a generation gap develops. WHAT ARE THEY THINKING? The crucial aspect of central route persuasion is not the message but the responses it evokes in a person’s mind. Our minds are not sponges that soak up whatever pours over them. If a message summons favorable thought, it persuades us. If it provokes us to think of contrary arguments. We remain unpersuaded. FOREWARNED IS FOREARMED---IF YOU CARE ENOUGH TO COUNTER-ARGUE. What circumstances breed counterargument? One is knowing that someone is going to try to persuade you. DISTRACTION DISARMS COUNTERARGUING. Persuasion is also enhanced by distraction that inhibits counterarguing. UNINVOLVED AUDIENCES USE PERIPHERAL CUES. Recall the two routes to persuasion---the central route of systematic thinking and the peripheral route of heuristic cues. San Mateo Municipal College SOCPSY-Social Psychology Bachelor of Science in Psychology Ms. Alondra Ara A. Mena, RPm  Like a road that winds through a small town, the central route has starts and stops as the mind analyzes arguments and formulates responses. Like the freeway that bypasses the town, the peripheral route speeds people to their destination. Analytical people---those with a high need for cognition---enjoy thinking carefully and prefer central routes. People who like to conserve their mental resources---those with a low need for cognition---are quicker to respond to such peripheral cues as the communicator’s attractiveness and the pleasantness of the surroundings. Need for cognition- the motivation to think and analyze. Assessed by agreement with items such as “The notion of thinking abstractly is appealing to me” and disagreement with items such as “I only think as hard as I have to.” This simple theory---that what we think in response to a message is crucial, especially if we are motivated and able to think about it---has generated many predictions, most of which have been confirmed. Many experiments have explored ways to stimulate people’s thinking, By using rhetorical questions. By presenting multiple speakers (for example, having each of three speakers give one argument instead of one speaker giving three);\ By making people feel responsible for evaluating or passing along the message; By repeating the message; or By getting people’s undistracted attention. The consistent finding with each of these techniques: Stimulating thinking makes strong messages more persuasive and (because of counterarguing) weak messages less persuasive. HOW CAN PERSUASION BE RESISTED? STRENGTHENING PERSONAL COMMITMENT The “conformity” chapter presented another way to resist: Before encountering others’ judgments, make a public commitment to your position. Having stood up for your convictions, you will become less susceptible (or, should we say, less “open”) to what others have to say. In mock civil trials, straw polls of jurors can foster a hardening of expressed positions, leading to more deadlocks. DEVELOPING COUNTERARGUMENTS Attitude inoculation-exposing people to weak attacks upon their attitudes so that when stronger attacks come, they will have refutations available. REAL-LIFE APPLICATIONS: INOCULATION PROGRAMS INOCULATING CHILDREN AGAINST PEER PRESSURE TO SMOKE INOCULATING CHILDREN AGAINST THE INFLUENCE OF ADVERTISING San Mateo Municipal College SOCPSY-Social Psychology Bachelor of Science in Psychology Ms. Alondra Ara A. Mena, RPm