PERSUASION, ATTITUDE, AND CHANGE
To read up on persuasion, attitude, and change, refer to pages 567–587 of Eysenck’s A2 Level
Psychology.
Ask yourself
 How did you form your attitudes, your likes, and your dislikes?
 Have you ever had a major attitude change and, if so, what do you think
caused it?
 If the media wants to change attitudes, what’s the best way to go about it?
 What influence do you think television has on the ordinary attitudes of the
majority of people?
What you need to know
HOVLAND–
YALE MODEL
OF ATTITUDE
CHANGE




The
commun
icator;
the
commun
ication;
the
recipient
The
processe
s of
attitude
change
Researc
h
findings
Evaluati
on
THE
ELABORATION
LIKELIHOOD
MODEL


Researc
h
findings
Evaluati
on
COGNITIVE
DISSONANCE
THEORY
(FESTINGER,
1957)


SELFPERCEPTION
THEORY (BEM,
1972)
Researc
h
findings
Evaluati
on


Researc
h
findings
Evaluati
on
EXPLANATION
S FOR THE
EFFECTIVENES
S OF
TELEVISION IN
PERSUASION



Research
findings
Cultivati
on
theory
Agenda
setting
and
priming
An attitude is a positive or negative reaction to a person, object, or idea. It involves
feelings (“I love that dress”, “He gives me the creeps”, “Chemistry is boring”).
Persuasion can be defined as the process by which attitude change is brought about.
The media has an important influence on attitude change, not only in the most obvious way of advertising
but in the images and messages it conveys. We are talking about a whole range of attitudes from political
ideologies to what to buy for dinner.
Hovland–Yale Model of Attitude Change
This model states that there are three major factors in attitude change:
- The communicator—who or what gives the message.
- The communication—what the message contains.
- The recipient—the person(s) at whom the message is aimed.
The communicator: findings
Expert: Hovland and Weiss (1951, see A2 Level Psychology page 568–569): People are more easily
influenced by an expert or a prestigious journal than by a lay person or an ordinary magazine.
Celebrity: Chaiken and Eagly (1983, see A2 Level Psychology page 569): People are easily persuaded to
buy things by a well-liked attractive celebrity.
Trustworthy: Priester and Petty (1995, see A2 Level Psychology page 569): People are more easily
persuaded by a trustworthy source than by someone who could be seen to be acting in their own interest.
The communication: findings
One-sided or two-sided? If you are trying to persuade someone to take a particular view, is it better to
present the opposing argument as well as the one you want them to take or just give a one-sided view?
Hovland, Lumsdaine, and Sheffield (1949, see A2 Level Psychology page 569) showed that a one-sided
argument works well with people who are liable to agree with the argument and have not been exposed to
counter-arguments (nor likely to go looking for them). However, with people who are familiar with the
opposing view, quite intelligent, and well-informed, it is better to present both sides of the argument.
Emotional or non-emotional? A threatening message can be effective but only if the recipient feels they
can do something about it. A highly threatening message about, for example, the dangers of drugs or
smoking, works well if the recipients have never used them (or used them very little) but not as well with
addicts.
The recipient: findings
Need for cognition (NC): People high in NC enjoy a challenge—they like working on difficult problems,
searching for clues, and analysing situations. Cacioppo, Petty, and Morris (1983, see A2 Level Psychology
pages 569–570): People high in NC are more easily persuaded by strong arguments but less by weak
arguments than are those low in NC.
Sex: Eagly and Carli (1981, see A2 Level Psychology page 570): Both women and men are more easily
persuaded by topics they know little about (and are probably not interested in) than topics on which they
are well informed.
Self-esteem: Baumeister and Covington (1985, see A2 Level Psychology page 570): Contrary to
expectation, there is no difference in how easily people of low or high self-esteem are persuaded. The only
difference is that people high in self-esteem don’t like to admit it!
The processes of attitude change
Hovland et al. (1953, see A2 Level Psychology page 568) argued that people go through a series of four
successive stages in attitude change, all of which affect the degree of this change:
 Attention: The amount of attention they pay to a message influences the
extent of influence.
The extent to which the communication is understood.
The amount of acceptance of the message.
The amount of retention (memory) of the message.
EVALUATION OF THE HOVLAND–YALE MODEL
 It has provided a useful framework for further research. This model
represented the first systematic approach to understanding attitude change.
Its emphasis on considering the message, communicator, and recipient has
been very helpful in providing a template for further research.
 Many specific predictions of the model have been supported. For
example, that attitude change depends on the expertise and trustworthiness
of the source.
 It has shown the importance of cognitive factors. It has outlined the
processes (e.g. attention, comprehension) that recipients use when
presented with a message.



It does not clearly indicate how the factors influence each other. There
are many factors to consider and, although the model covers some of the
interactions, such as how personal knowledge relates to whether a one- or
two-sided argument should be used, a lot of the interactions are not
considered.
 One prediction disproved. There is no evidence that those low in selfesteem are more easily influenced than those high in self-esteem.
 Processing through attention, comprehension, acceptance, and
retention successively is too simplistic. The idea that these stages are
followed in order is not necessarily the case. For example, once we start to
think about the meaning of the message, we go back and pay some or all of it
more attention, so we are not processing in a simple stage-by-stage manner.
 It does not take sufficient account of internal factors. The Hovland–Yale
model concentrates on external processes (the communication, the
communicator, etc.) but does not take sufficient account of the underlying
internal factors (e.g. attention, comprehension). These are covered in the
next model.
The Elaboration Likelihood Model

It is convenient to express this model in four assumptions:
1. There are two routes to persuasion: recipients of messages can be persuaded in two different ways
involving two distinct processing routes:
 Central route: This involves being persuaded by the message itself. This is

used if the motivation and ability of the recipient are high (i.e. they are
knowledgeable and are interested in the issue).
Peripheral route: This involves being persuaded by factors other than the
message, such as by an attractive or celebrity communicator. This is likely to
be used if there is limited time to think about the message.
2. There is a variety of reasons why certain factors are influential. When we looked at the Hovland–Yale
model, we considered various factors that may influence the recipient. The Elaboration Likelihood model
suggests reasons why these factors are influential and offers a variety of reasons why they might be. For
example, Bohner (2001, see A2 Level Psychology pages 571–572) points out that there are a large number
of reasons why an attractive model advertising shampoo may be persuasive. Some suggestions are:
 She’s attractive and people associate the shampoo with attractiveness.
 She encourages people to want hair as good as hers.
 The attractiveness of the model may increase the recipients’ motivation to
attend to the message.
3. Individual differences in need for cognition influence attitude change. Individuals high in need for
cognition are motivated to make an effort when processing information and prefer the central processing
route. Those low in need for cognition are more likely to use the central route.
4. Central processing leads to more enduring (long-lasting) attitude change and more strongly held attitudes
than peripheral processing. This is because if we spend a lot of time considering the message itself and the
arguments for and against, the attitude is likely to be strengthened by such cognitive activity.
RESEARCH EVIDENCE
 Petty, Cacioppo, and Goldman (1981, see A2 Level Psychology page 572)
varied the conditions of a message in three ways:
o Using the central route or peripheral route (this was manipulated by
making the message immediately relevant or irrelevant to the
individual recipient).
o
o
The credibility of the source—high or low in expertise.
The quality of the argument—strong (based on statistics) or weak
(based on opinions).
They found that for those using the central route, the quality of the argument was the most relevant factor
in persuading them. For those using the peripheral route, it was the source. This demonstrates that there are
two separate processing routes.
 Petty, Wells, and Brock (1976, see A2 Level Psychology pages 572–573)
predicted that when arguments were processed centrally, distraction would
reduce their impact because they would have less time to process the
information. When they were processed peripherally, distraction would
increase persuasion because it would reduce counterarguments. Both of
these assumptions were found to be correct.
 Petty, Brinol, and Tormala (2002, see A2 Level Psychology page 573) have
demonstrated the assumption of the model that any given factor can
influence attitude change in different ways in different situations. For
example, attractive communicators produce more attitude change when
arguments are strong and less when they are weak.

Cacioppo et al. (1996, see A2 Level Psychology page 573) reviewed studies
that showed that other predictions of the model were true. For example,
those high in need for cognition use more central processing than those low
in need for cognition and that those high in need for cognition are less
affected by peripheral cues than those low in this need.
EVALUATION OF THE ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL
 It focuses on internal processes of attitude change. This is obviously
important in assessing how attitudes are formed and changed.
 The notion that two routes are involved is more realistic than only one
being suggested.
 It emphasises the importance of contextual information. Factors such as
likeability of the communicator are important influences that are taken into
consideration by the model.
 It takes account of individual differences. For example, the need for
cognition.
 It takes account of the notion that the importance of any given factor
varies from situation to situation. This is an advance on the Hovland–Yale
model.
 Oversimplification. The notion of two forms of processing is oversimplified.
It is better to view these as being along a continuum rather than being two
distinct processes; it is unlikely that people either use central or peripheral
processing but a mixture of the two.
 Not clear how the central and peripheral processing interact.
 It is difficult to predict behaviour from the model. The model is complex,
which makes it difficult to tell which processing anyone will use.
Cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957)
This theory explains attitude change. It states that if people hold two cognitions (pieces of information) that
are discrepant (at odds with each other), such as “I smoke” or “Smoking seriously damages health”, then
they experience a feeling of cognitive dissonance—an uncomfortable emotional state that they are
motivated to reduce. In order to do this, they can either change one or both of the cognitions or introduce a
new one and this may lead to attitude change. For example, in the example above, a new cognition to
reduce dissonance could be “I could go under a bus tomorrow, so I may as well carry on smoking”.
Festinger (1957, see A2 Level Psychology pages 574–575) argued that people often change attitudes to
reduce the dissonance between behaviour and attitude. In other words, the behaviour determines the
attitude, not the attitude determines the behaviour.
Gibbon, Eggleston, and Benthin (1997, see A2 Level Psychology page 574) found that smokers who were
trying to give up held the cognition that smoking was very dangerous. However, if they started smoking
again, they tended to change their attitude to one that reduced how dangerous they considered it to be.
Faller, Schilling, and Lang (1995, see A2 Level Psychology page 574) interviewed smokers with lung
cancer and found that 80% believed that smoking was not the main reason why they had the disease.
RESEARCH EVIDENCE
 A lot of the following studies are based on two methods:
o induced compliance: persuading people to behave in a way that is
inconsistent with their attitudes.
o effort justification: making people put a great deal of effort into some
trivial activity so they have to justify this.
 Festinger and Carlsmith (1959, see A2 Level Psychology page 575) found that
participants who were paid $1 to do a really boring task for hours, and were
then asked to give a positive view of the task to the next participant, rated it
as more enjoyable than those paid $20 to do the same thing. In terms of the
theory, the dissonant cognition was that they had lied about the study. Being
paid $20 justified this but being paid $1 did not, so the latter group had to
reduce their dissonance by believing that the task was not too bad.
 Aronson and Mills (1959, see A2 Level Psychology page 576): Female students
who gave a very embarrassing talk in order to join a group discussion on sex,
which turned out to be very boring, rated the discussion more highly than
those who had given a far less embarrassing talk.
 Burris, Harmon-Jones, and Tarpley (1997, see A2 Level Psychology page 576)
put participants in a situation in which their religious beliefs were
disconfirmed then gave them the opportunity of having additional
information that accounted for the discomfirmation. Those participants who
reported the greatest reduction in dissonance also reported the lowest levels
of discomfort (negative affect).
EVALUATION OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY
 It has been applied successfully to numerous situations. Time and again,
people justify behaviour by changing their attitudes.
 There is much research support. All the studies cited earlier, and many
others, support this theory even though some of the findings are not what
would be expected by common sense or learning theory (e.g. the Festinger
and Carlsmith findings).
 It has shown that behaviour sometimes causes attitudes. Festinger
acknowledged that behaviour was often caused by attitudes but he was one
of the first to show that sometimes it can be the other way round.
 There is research evidence against. Some of the findings have not been
replicated, especially the Festinger and Carlsmith ones.
It may only apply to individualistic cultures. The studies that were not in
support of the theory were conducted on Korean individuals. It is possible
that cognitive dissonance due to conformity is not experienced so strongly in
collectivist cultures because they expect to conform, therefore doing so does
not cause cognitive dissonance to the same extent as in individualistic
cultures.
 It ignores individual differences. Some people experience lower levels of
dissonance than others and this is not taken into account in the theory.
 People are more tolerant of cognitive dissonance than the theory
assumes. Some people are able to accept that they do not always act
according to their beliefs (“I know I ought to go to the gym but I’m just lazy”).
In addition, if they don’t accept responsibility for their actions they don’t
experience dissonance (“I know smoking is bad for me but I’m addicted to it;
I can’t help doing it”).
 It is less successful than self-perception theory at explaining some
findings. We will now consider an alternative theory that is better at
explaining situations in which people argue for a position fairly close to their
original one.
Self-perception Theory (Bem, 1972)

Self-perception theory (SPT) argues that, on some occasions, we work out our attitudes from our own
behaviour; we perceive our own behaviour and draw conclusions from it. This only occurs if the attitude is
weak or ambiguous (e.g. “I’ve eaten a lot of oranges, I must like them”). This differs from cognitive
dissonance theory in two ways:
 It does not assume that a negative state needs to exist for attitudes to change.
 It argues that we infer our attitudes from behaviour rather than we know
them already.
RESEARCH EVIDENCE
 Salancik and Conway (1975, see A2 Level Psychology pages 578–579) asked
participants to express their attitudes towards religion. One group had
previously been asked to focus on occasions when they had shown religious
observance, whilst the other was asked to focus on times when they had not
shown religious observance. As predicted, the first group expressed attitudes
more in favour of religion than did the second group.
 Sherman (1980, see A2 Level Psychology page 579) investigated the theory by
using the foot-in-the-door technique. This works on the basis that getting
someone to agree to a small request increases the likelihood that they will
agree to a larger one. They asked participants to spend 3 hours collecting for
charity. Only 4% of those given no prior contact agreed to do it whereas 30%
who had previously been asked if they would do it (by a different researcher)
agreed. The theory argues that, by saying they would agree, the participants
perceive that they must have a positive attitude to charity work.
 Guadagno et al. (2001, see A2 Level Psychology page 579) found evidence that
contradicts the theory. They found that some people did not respond to the
foot-in-the-door technique. These were individuals who had been shown on
a questionnaire to be low in the need for consistency.
EVALUATION OF SELF-PERCEPTION THEORY
 There is evidence that attitudes can change without dissonance being
felt.
 There is evidence that attitudes are sometimes inferred from
behaviour. This is especially the case when those attitudes are weak.
 It can explain the foot-in-the-door technique.
 We often do not use our behaviour to infer our attitudes. This applies if
our attitudes are important and/or strongly felt or when there is a large
discrepancy between attitudes and behaviour.
 It does not take sufficient account of individual differences. Those
people low in need for consistency are not affected by the foot-in-the-door
technique and may even show the reverse of what it would predict.
Explanations for the Effectiveness of Television in Persuasion
Research evidence into effectiveness of TV in changing attitudes
 Dijkstra, Buijtels, and van Raaij (2005, see A2 Level Psychology page 581)
found that people remembered advertisements on TV better than those in
print or on the internet. They suggested this might be due to it using more
sensory modalities (sight + sound) than the other two.
 Worchel, Andreoli, and Eason (1975, see A2 Level Psychology page 581)
compared the effectiveness of TV, radio, and written material in changing
attitudes. They found that TV was the most effective of the three to changing
existing attitudes if a trustworthy source was used but the least if an
untrustworthy source was used. This may be because the source is more
visible on TV.
 Chaiken and Eagly (1983, see A2 Level Psychology page 581) found that TV
was the most effective when the message was easy to understand but when it
was difficult, written material was better. This may be because the message
can be gone over again with written material but not with radio or TV.
 Slater, Rouner, and Long (2006, see A2 Level Psychology page 581) looked at
attempts to change strong opinions and found that TV was effective at
moving people towards supporting the death penalty but not towards
supporting gay marriage. The framework of the argument may be
important—the death penalty argument was presented as a way of
producing a crime-free society.
All these studies demonstrate that there is no simple answer to the question “Is TV the most effective way
of changing attitudes?” because the source, the message itself, and various other factors have to taken into
consideration.
Cultivation Theory (Gerbner et al., 1986)
This theory assumes that:
 TV provides a systematically distorted view of reality (e.g. it shows a lot more

violent crime than actually occurs; a lot more bad news).
Long-term TV viewing causes viewers’ attitudes to become similarly
distorted (e.g. they believe that more violent crime exists than really does;
that they are in more danger of suffering the effects of crime than they really
are). This distortion of views is the cultivation effect.
This means that the effect of TV is very general, it shapes a great many general attitudes and beliefs (e.g.
that the world is a dangerous place full of criminals).
RESEARCH EVIDENCE
 Gerbner et al. (1986, see A2 Level Psychology page 583) and others have
shown that TV does not reflect reality but gives a very distorted view. They
point out that, for example, crime and violence on TV is ten times greater
than in real life.
 Shrum (1999, see A2 Level Psychology page 583) found that heavy viewers of
TV have distorted attitudes towards reality. They believe, for example, they
are more likely to exaggerate the rate of crime and the prevalence of divorce,
prostitution, alcoholism, and drug use.
 Shrum (1999) used a natural experiment rather than a correlational design
to compare heavy and light viewers of TV (matched on other important
variables) and found that the heavy viewers had more distorted attitudes
than the light viewers.
 Shrum, Wyer, and O’Guinn (1998, see A2 Level Psychology page 583) showed
that if viewers’ attention was drawn to the fact that much of their
information came from TV, they did not show the cultivation effect.
EVALUATION OF CULTIVATION THEORY
 There is supporting evidence. With the exception of Shrum et al. (1998),
the studies above provide evidence in favour of the theory.
 It has shown the long-term effects of TV viewing.
 Most of the research is correlational so does not show cause and effect.
It’s possible that heavy viewers of TV choose to watch programmes that
confirm their existing distorted view of reality, so cause and effect are in the
opposite direction.
 The theory is descriptive not explanatory. Cultivation theory does not say
much about why and how TV distorts views and attitudes, just that it does.
 The attitudes formed in this way may not be deep-seated. Shrum et al.
(1998) showed that the attitudes are not changed if the source of the
information is clear. In defence of the theory, though, most attitudes are not
“tapped” during short-term studies by psychologists but are part of people’s
everyday life and there is genuine evidence that the attitudes of many people
do conform to the views presented on TV.
Agenda Setting and Priming
This theory states that by systematically highlighting certain issues whilst ignoring others, TV puts forward
an agenda and primes people to hold certain attitudes. This then influences the standards by which
governments and policies are judged. This applies mainly to news broadcasts.
In sum, this theory states that that TV influences what we think (agenda setting) and also helps to determine
the factors influencing why we come to hold attitudes.
RESEARCH EVIDENCE
 McCombs and Shaw (1972, see A2 Level Psychology page 584) found a close
correspondence between coverage of specific issues in the 1968 presidential
campaign and the importance people attached to these issues. However, this
study did not show whether TV coverage shaped attitudes or the demands of
the public shaped the TV coverage.
Iyengar and Kinder (1987, see A2 Level Psychology page 584) showed that
during the course of a week of watching TV news broadcasts, people did
change their attitudes on the importance of certain issues. This addresses the
problem of cause and effect—it demonstrated that TV coverage did change
attitudes.
 Krosnick and Kinder (1990, see A2 Level Psychology page 584) found
evidence of the priming effect. They showed that TV’s concentration on
certain controversial foreign affairs policies of Reagan did influence people to
pay more attention to these issues when rating Reagan’s performance.
EVALUATION OF AGENDA SETTING AND PRIMING
 There is evidence that TV does set the agenda and prime viewers. Both
in everyday life and in research studies there is evidence that what is covered
on TV and the issues emphasised do influence attitudes.
 The important terms are imprecise. The notion of agenda setting has been
applied to short-term and long-term issues but the theory does not clearly
differentiate between them and say whether this is a factor that might make
one issue more influential than another.
 It is descriptive rather than explanatory. It does not indicate the
processes that lead to attitude change via TV watching, whether they are, for
example, conscious or unconscious.
 It does not explain why some attitudes are liable to greater change than
others. In the study by Krosnick and Kinder (1990), the attitude to Reagan’s
character was not altered as much as the attitude to his job performance. The
theory does not explain why agenda setting and priming changes some
attitudes more than others.
So What Does This Mean?

Theories of attitude change have enormous implications for our lives. Some of their predictions are
admittedly unsurprising, such as a trustworthy source being more influential than an untrustworthy one.
Nevertheless, some of the predictions are very surprising and extremely important, such as the idea that
threatening messages will not always be as effective in changing attitudes than non-threatening ones. We
need to take careful notice of such theoretical predictions if we are, for example, to discourage smoking in
the young or change people’s views on the dangers of climate change. Sometimes the hobnail boot
approach is counter-productive. Another important finding is that there is, in some cases, very little
relationship between attitudes and behaviour and that we cannot predict that a change in attitude will bring
about a corresponding change in behaviour.
Cognitive dissonance theory and self-perception theory offer different explanations of attitude change but
in many situations they make the same predictions. It is quite possible, as suggested by Fazio, Zanna, and
Cooper (1977, see A2 Level Psychology page 580) that they explain rather different attitudes. Whilst
cognitive dissonance accounts well for attitude change that occurs when there is a considerable discrepancy
between attitudes and behaviour, self-perception theory is better at predicting attitude change when the
attitudes are quite weak or when behaviour only differs slightly from the attitude.
People spend an enormous amount of time watching television and knowledge of its influence is therefore
of great importance. If it does, as appears, produce a distorted, often very frightening, set of attitudes then
we need to be aware of this if we are to address these fears which, although based on a distortion of reality,
are of importance because they are no less real to those experiencing them.
Over to you
(a) Describe one model of attitude change. (10 marks)
(b) Evaluate theories that seek to explain the influence of attitudes on decision making, including the roles
of cognitive consistency/dissonance and/or self-perception. (15 marks)