Social Psychology
Lecture 2: Persuasion and Attitude Change
(Chapter 6; Hogg & Vaughan)
At the end of the lecture …
• General Question: ‘How Social
Psychology explains persuasion and
changes in attitude and behaviour?’
• Persuasive communications
• Compliance: interpersonal influence
• Attitude-behaviour discrepancy and
cognitive dissonance
• When attitude change fails:
resistance to persuasion
Figure 6.1
The Yale approach to communication and persuasion
Source: Based on Janis & Hovland (1959)
Research Highlight 6.1
change
Characteristics of a communication likely to lead to attitude
Characteristics of a communication likely to lead to attitude
change (Continued)
Research Highlight 6.1
Source Credibility (Bosch
Insko, 1966)
• Respondents asked how much sleep
was required to maintain ones health
• 8 hours
• Exposed to two sources of opinion
• Nobel Scientist (high credibility) and
Medical Student (low credibility)
Figure 6.2
The effect of communicator credibility and position discrepancy on opinion
change
Source: Based on data from Bochner & Insko (1966)
So graph shows
extent person
deviated based on
information given
Moderate changes
to the original figure
(8 hours) had an
effect, but extreme
changes had less of
an effect.
General resistance
Some indication for
High Credibility
having an effect for
extreme for 1 hour?
Does Fear work?
• Experiments with low fear, medium fear and high fear
conditions.
• Leventhal, Watts and Pagano (1967)
– Median Fear: respondents told about link between cigarettes and
lung cancer
– High Fear: Additional video about operation with someone with
lung cancer.
– Greater willingness to give up smoking among high fear group
• Janis and Feschbach (1953) experiment when they
encourage oral health
–
–
–
–
Low fear: told respondents about the importance of oral health
Median Fear: respondents told about gum disease
High Fear Gum disease
Low fear group taking better care of teeth
• Just too much? Smoking?
Figure 6.3
The inverted U-curve relationship between fear and attitude change
Persuasive communications
•According to the elaboration likelihood
model and the heuristic-systematic
model, there are two processes through
which we respond to a persuasive
message.
Persuasive communications
•We can attend carefully to a message and
process it deliberatively, systematically, and with
effort through a central cognitive route.
Persuasive communications
•Alternatively, we can attend less carefully and
process the message heuristically and with less
effort through a peripheral cognitive route.
Figure 6.5
The elaboration–likelihood model of persuasion
Source: Based on Petty & Cacioppo (1986b)
Which route is taken is a matter of motivation and cognitive capacity.
If we have followed the arguments then the central route will be used. If
so then the arguments have to be put carefully as we will pay attention
to them. If arguments are sound we will change based on our attitudes.
If we haven’t then the peripheral route is used; then we can have used
much more superficial arguments and base it around persuasion cues
(attractiveness).
Compliance: Interpersonal influence
• Perhaps the most common form of
persuasion is to ask someone to do
something for you and then to try to get
them to comply. Quite often, we comply
with requests without even thinking
(mindlessness). However, there are a
number of factors and tactics that
increase compliance.
• One very effective way to increase
compliance is first to get someone to
like you (ingratiation) — people comply
more with people they like.
Compliance: Interpersonal influence
• There is another group of interpersonal
influence tactics that involve multiple
requests. If you get someone to first comply
with a small request, you are more likely to
get him or her to comply with a subsequent,
larger request (foot-in-the door ).
• The opposite tactic (door-in-the face) can
also work: If you get someone to decline a
large request, he or she is more likely to
agree to a subsequent, scaled-down request.
• Another effective technique takes advantage
of the reciprocity principle: If you do
someone a favour, they feel compelled to
return the favour at a later date.
Compliance: Interpersonal influence
• A third tactic (low-balling) involves first
getting someone to agree to do something,
and then gradually withdrawing some of the
incentives or attractive features of the choice.
Having already committed themselves, people
tend to stick with their original decision.
• Persuasion can sometimes be easier if, rather
than directing it at the target, you actively
involve the target in the process through
discussion and collaboration. This idea has
been used to change attitudes while
simultaneously doing research on such
attitudes (action research).
Attitude-behaviour discrepancy
and cognitive dissonance
• One way in which attitudes can be
changed is by drawing people’s attention
to an inconsistency between what they are
doing (their behaviour) and what they think
(their attitudes).
• Attitude–behaviour discrepancy can create
cognitive dissonance, which is averse
and motivates attitude change. Dissonance
may be raised vicariously by witnessing
someone we feel connected with
experience dissonance.
• Because dissonance is averse, people
generally avoid situations where their
attitudes and behaviour may clash
(selective exposure hypothesis)
Attitude-behaviour discrepancy
and cognitive dissonance
• Attitude–behaviour inconsistency not only
produces dissonance but also challenges
the image of ourselves as consistent and
moral human beings. According to
self-affirmation theory, inconsistency
causes us to affirm that we are positive
human beings in other self domains, and
this circumvents the need to resolve
dissonance.
• When attitude–behaviour inconsistency is
small, dissonance may not lead to the
process of attitude change. Under these
circumstances we may simply observe our
behaviour and decide that it reflects the
kind of person we are (self-perception
theory).
When attitude change fails: Resistance
to persuasion
• Persuasion fails more often than it succeeds,
particularly when people's original attitudes
are strongly held, because their attitudes are
features of their self-conception. A number of
factors strengthen resistance to attitude
change.
• When we are aware that someone is trying to
persuade us, we often dig our heels in to
resist, and this reactance is strengthened
when there is forewarning of a persuasive
attempt. A particularly strong defence against
persuasion is inoculation, a method where
you are exposed in advance to a mild form of
the persuasion and then rehearsed in counterarguments.
Advice on Revision
• Attitudes and Attitude Change are big
area, they overlap, so be sure you are
clear in your revision which areas are
pertinent to which.
• In your reading of the chapter, take a
critical approach. Show an
understanding of the evidence, but also
those areas of the reading that notes of
caution can be applied.
At the end of the lecture …
• General Question: ‘How Social
Psychology explains persuasion and
changes in attitude and behaviour?’
• Persuasive communications
• Compliance: interpersonal influence
• Attitude-behaviour discrepancy and
cognitive dissonance
• When attitude change fails:
resistance to persuasion