COM 318 Exam 1 Study Guide
 Date: Thursday, February 7th, 1:30-2:45 p.m. ONLINE only
 Please plan to take the exam using a computer, and using the Firefox browser.
 Exam will be 50 multiple choice, true/false, and short answer questions. Questions will
come from the lecture slides and chapter readings. It will cover chapters 1-5.
 Please know that the exam format will prohibit backtracking.
For all items, be able to define and identify examples.
Chapter 1
1. What is the definition of persuasion (the one provided in lecture)? What do the key
elements of the definition mean?
2. What is the “law of the few”? What is a tipping point? How does this change occur?
What are the 3 roles within this process? What do the following terms mean when
considering tipping points: context, stickiness, scalability, effortless transfer?
3. What are 4 ways persuasion occurs digitally and online? Are native ads or traditional
banner ads more successful in getting consumers to pay attention?
4. What are the benefits of studying persuasion?
Chapter 2
1. What is the Elaboration Likelihood Model? What is the goal of the model? What are the
4 assumptions? What are central and peripheral processing? How do they differ? What
are the role of motivation and ability in this model?
2. What are some peripheral cues/strategies?
3. Be able to identify when someone may be more likely to use central processing vs
peripheral processing.
4. What is the Heuristic Systematic Model of persuasion? What is systematic processing?
What is heuristic processing?
5. What is the Unimodel of persuasion?
Chapter 3 (there are 2 slides, part 1 and part 2)
1. What is an attitude? What do key parts of the definition mean?
2. What are ways to measure attitudes? What are types of explicit measures vs implicit
measures? How do explicit vs implicit measures differ? How do likert scales differ from
semantic differential scales? From visually oriented scales?
3. What is social desirability bias? What do people often over-report and under-report?
4. What is the theory of reasoned action (TRA)? What are the three big predictors of
intention? Why does intention matter?
a. Why do beliefs and attitudes matter in TRA?
b. Why do normative beliefs matter? How do descriptive and injunctive norms
differ?
c. What is perceived behavioral control?
5. What is consistency theory?
6. What are some strategies for maintaining consistency?
7. What is cognitive dissonance theory? What are 3 features that influence the degree of
cognitive dissonance? What happens when people feel their freedom of choice is
threatened?
8. What is counter-attitudinal advocacy?
9. How does psychological commitment contribute to cognitive dissonance?
Chapter 4
1. What is credibility?
a. Dictionary: the quality of being trusted and believed in
b. Synonyms: trustworthiness, reliability, dependability, integrity, character
c. Credibility defined: “Judgments made by a perceiver (e.g., message recipient)
concerning the believability of a communicator” (O’Keefe, 2002)
d. Also referred to as Ethos
e. One of the most important parts of persuasion
2. What are features of credibility?
a. Receiver-based construct: credibility is in the eye of the beholder
i. Value assigned to the source resides in the receiver, not the source
b. Multidimensional construct: credibility is a composite of source characteristics
i. Ex. What makes someone a good student?
c. Credibility is a situation specific, contextual in nature
d. Credibility is a dynamic: it can change overtime, sometimes even suddenly
i. Ex. Michael Phelps & Kellogg’s cereal
1. Phelps’s behavior was “not consistent” with the brand image
(Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals in the Beijing Olympics but 6
months later was caught smoking cannabis)
ii. Ex. Coco Chanel & Kate Moss
1. Coco Chanel & Kate Moss (in 2005 after she was caught snorting
cocaine)
3. How do celebrities help create product credibility?
a. Celebrity endorsements are common
i. 25% of advertisements use celebrity endorsements
ii. Nike spent $500 million on endorsements in 2016
b. Celebrity endorsement works better for new products rather than known products
c. Third-person effect
i. Consumers underestimate the effect of advertising on themselves
ii. Consumers overestimate the effect of advertising on others
d. Brand Equality: endorsers (celebrities) enhance the value of a brand
e. Sales increase by approx. 20%
f. Meaning transfer perspective: endorser qualities “rub off” on the brand
g. Match-up hypothesis: the endorser must be a good fit with the brand
4. What are the primary and secondary dimensions of credibility?
a. Primary Dimensions:
i. Expertise
1. Is the source knowledgeable? Have experience in what they are
discussing?
a. Have a degree?
2. Is the source competent?
3. We evaluate sources on:
a. Experienced/inexperienced
b. Informed/uniformed
c. Trained/untrained
d. Qualified/unqualified
e. Skilled/unskilled
f. Intelligent/unintelligent
g. Expert/inexpert
h. Competent/incompetent
ii. Trustworthiness
1. Called character or personal integrity
2. We evaluate sources on:
a. Honest/dishonest
b. Trustworthy/untrustworthy
c. Open-minded/closed-minded
d. Just/unjust
e. Fair/unfair
f. Unselfish/selfish
g. Moral/immoral
h. Ethical/unethical
i. Genuine/phony
iii. Goodwill
1. Referred to as perceived caring
2. We evaluate sources on:
a. Honest/dishonest
b. Trustworthy/untrustworthy
c. Open-minded/closed-minded
d. Just/unjust
e. Fair/unfair
f. Unselfish/selfish
g. Moral/immoral
h. Ethical/unethical
i. Genuine/phony
b. Secondary Dimensions:
i. Extroversion/Dynamism
1. Is the source energetic, enthusiastic?
2. Extroverted?
3. Peppy?
4. Too much dynamism can ruin credibility
ii. Composure
1. Is the source cool?
iii. Sociability
1. Is the source friendly, outgoing?
5. Thinking of the elaboration likelihood model, is credibility part of central or
peripheral processing?
a. Elaboration Likelihood Model
i. Central processing: cognitive elaboration, thinking about the context of a
message, reflecting on the ideas and information contained in it, and
securitizing the evidence and reasoning presented.
ii. Peripheral processing: focusing on cues that are not directly related to the
substance of a message.
iii. Credibility as a peripheral cue
b. Low involvement: not motivated or not able to process information
i. Listeners defer to authority
ii. Source credibility exerts more influence
c. High involvement: motivated and able to process information
i. Listeners focus less on source factors
ii. Listeners focus more on message content
6. What is facework? What is positive and negative face?
a. Facework involves negotiating positive, negative face needs
7. What are strategies for improving your credibility?
8. What is the sleeper effect? (it’s not in the slides but I talked about it in class and it’s in
the book )
Chapter 5
1. How does age influence persuasion?
2. What are common lures that are used against children (and other people)?
3. What is the life-stages hypothesis?
4. How does gender influence persuasion?
5. What are individualism and collectivism? How do they influence persuasion?
6. How does intelligence influence persuasion?
7. How does self-esteem influence persuasion?
8. How does anxiety influence persuasion?
9. How does preference for consistency influence persuasion?
10. How does self-monitoring influence persuasion?
11. How does ego involvement influence persuasion?
12. What is Social Judgement Theory? What are latitudes of acceptance, noncommitment,
and rejection? What is the contrast effect? What is the assimilation effect?
13. How does authoritarianism influence persuasion?
14. How does dogmatism influence persuasion?
15. How does narcissism influence persuasion?
16. How does cognitive complexity influence persuasion?
17. How does argumentativeness influence persuasion?
18. How does verbal aggressiveness influence persuasion?