Attitudes and PersuasionOctober 2nd, 2009 : Lecture 7

Lecture Overview

• Midterm 1

• Extra Credit Assignment

• Attitudes Overview

• Cognitive Dissonance

• Liking

• Balance Theory

• Attitude change: Persuasion & Persuasion Tactics

Midterm 1

• Date:

• Friday, October 16th

• Time:

• 3 - 4 pm

• Locations:

• AA 112, AC 223, SW 309

Midterm 1

• Format:

• 26 Multiple choice questions

• 3% each

• 11 Matching

• 2% each

Material covered by Midterm 1

• Lectures 1 - 7

• Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6 (except pages 91 - 96)

• TEXTBOOK IS MANDATORY

Preparing for Exam

• Review sheet and practise questions:

• http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/psyb10/exams.html

Preparing for exam

• How to use review sheet:

• Questions will be asked on a subset of topics

• FOR EACH TOPIC:

1.Write a few sentences in your own words of what the topic means

2.Come up with an example from your life of when that happened

Preparing for exam

• Practise questions:

• 5 multiple choice

• Example matching

• Give you a flavour of the way I ask questions

Preparing for exam

• External factors:

• Get 8 hours sleep before exam

• Eat both breakfast and lunch on 10/16

• Eat a snack around 2:30

• MAKE SURE THEY ALL INCLUDE PROTEIN

Extra Credit Assignment

• “Elimination Slate”

• Will Become Available on Blackboard at the end of the 10/4 Premiere

• Will only remain available until midnight on 10/10

Demo of Elimination Slate

Weekly Analysis

• Each week:

• Watch that week’s episode

• Think about how something from the class relates

• Email your analysis to: psyb10extracredit@gmail.com WITH YOUR STUDENT ID AS THE SUBJECT

Marking

• 0% - 2% based on # of complete analyses:

• 0% for ≤ 2 complete analyses

• 1% for 3 - 5 complete analyses

• 2% for ≥ 6 complete analyses

“Complete analysis”

• A complete analysis has two elements:

• Refers to something that happened THAT WEEK in Battle of the Blades

• Relates at least ONE topic you learned in this course

Demo of submitting Weekly analysis

What are Attitudes?

• A like or dislike that influences our behaviour toward someone or something

What are attitudes?

• ABCs:

• Affective: What you feel about something

• Behavioural: What you are likely to do

• Cognitive: What you think about something

What goes into an attitude?

• Valence

• Bipolar dimension from good to bad

• Strength

• Intensity of the attitude

Attitude Types

• Explicit Attitudes

• Implicit Attitudes

Explicit Attitudes

• Attitude stored in the form of a statement of which you are fully aware

Implicit Attitudes

• Attitude stored as an association in your semantic network

• Association between the object of the attitude and the concepts of “good” and “bad”

• You may or may not be aware of it

Attitudes and Behaviour

• Which comes first?

Your Belief About

Something

Your Behaviour in Relation to

That Thing

Cognitive DissonanceCognitive Dissonance

• A change in people’s behaviour alters their attitudes (Festinger, 1957)

• Dissonance:

• Unpleasant feeling of tension

Cognitive DissonanceCognitive Dissonance

• You experience unpleasant tension (dissonance) when:

• You experience contradictory attitudes

• You behave inconsistently with your attitudes

Cognitive DissonanceCognitive Dissonance

• To relieve this tension ...

• You change your attitude since you cannot change your behaviour

• Or, you reappraise the situation so that your behaviour no longer indicates anything about your attitudes

• Overjustification Effect

Cognitive Dissonance

• Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)

• Method:

Thanks for participating.

1 WeekLater

“HowEnjoyab

leWasThe

Study?”

I’ll give you $1 to tell the next participant it was very enjoyable.

I’ll give you $20 to tell the next participant it was very enjoyable.

Cognitive Dissonance

• Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)

• Results:

Cognitive DissonanceCognitive Dissonance

• To relieve this tension ...

• You change your attitude since you cannot change your behaviour

• Or, you reappraise the situation so that your behaviour no longer indicates anything about your attitudes

Overjustification effect

• If one can justify an attitude-inconsistent behaviour, then they will not experience dissonant feelings

Post-Decision Dissonance

• Dissonance aroused after making a decision, typically reduced by:

• Enhancing the attractiveness of the chosen alternative,

• Devaluing the rejected alternatives

Post-decision Dissonance

• Brehm (1956):

• Method:

20 MinutesLater

Post-decision Dissonance

• Brehm (1956):

• Results:

Liking

• Positively-valenced attitude

Balance Theory

• To reduce cognitive dissonance, we desire to keep a positive “balance” between our opinions and those of others

SelfSelf

FriendFriend

Issue

Issue

Balance Theory

• To reduce cognitive dissonance, we desire to keep a positive “balance” between our opinions and those of others

SelfSelf

FriendFriend

Issue

Issue

+

(+)*(+)*(+)=+In Balance

+

+

Balance Theory

• To reduce cognitive dissonance, we desire to keep a positive “balance” between our opinions and those of others

SelfSelf

FriendFriend

Issue

Issue

+

(+)*(+)*(-)=-Unbalanced

+

-

Balance Theory

• Options when unbalanced:

• Try to change friend’s attitude

SelfSelf

FriendFriend

Issue

Issue

+

(+)*(+)*(+)=+In Balance

+

+

Balance Theory

• Options when unbalanced:

• Try to change friend’s attitude

• Change your attitude toward the issue

SelfSelf

FriendFriend

Issue

Issue

+

(+)*(-)*(-)=+In Balance

-

-

Balance Theory

• Options when unbalanced:

• Try to change friend’s attitude

• Change your attitude toward the issue

• Change your liking • of your friend

SelfSelf

FriendFriend

Issue

Issue

-

+

-

(-)*(-)*(+)=+In Balance

Attitude Change

• Persuasion

• The altering of an existing attitude or the adoption of a new attitude

“Routes” of Persuasion

• Central route to Persuasion

• When a person invests the necessary decision-making time and effort to evaluate the evidence and logic behind each persuasive message

• Peripheral route to Persuasion

• When people attend to indirect factors to make a decision about a persuasive message (e.g., speaker’s appearance)

6 Basic Tendencies to say “YES”

1. Reciprocation

2. Consistency

3. Social Proof

4. Liking

5. Authority

6. Scarcity

Reciprocity Norm

• A social norm stating that we should try to repay in kind what another person has given us

• The power of a gift

Consistency

• People will go to extremes to try to appear consistent in their behaviour

• Public commitments are powerful determinants of behaviour

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Consistency

• Example: Restaurant Reservations

• If told, “Please call if you need to cancel”

• 3/10 = no call, no show

• If asked, “Will you please call if you need to cancel?” and wait for response, “Yes I will.”

• 1/10 = no call, no show

Social Proof

• We follow the lead of similar others, and accept “personal stories” as proof of a product’s promises

“I love the product and so do my kids. I have attached a couple of pictures just to show you how good your product looks … not that you didn’t already know that.”Beckie M.Pickering, Ontario

Social Proof as Information

• Other people’s “stories” is a very effective means of persuasion

• The experiences of others are used as pieces of information for decision-making

Social Proof as information

• Method:

• On a cold winter New York morning, a man stops on a busy sidewalk and gazed skyward for 60 seconds, at nothing in particular

• IV: Varied number of skyward lookers

Social Proof as Information

• Results:

Liking

• If you like someone, you are more likely to do what they want you to do

Liking as a Persuasive tool

• Effective campaigns using Liking:

• Tupperware Parties

• Close friends gather for a party

• Party is organized by Tupperware

• Big Catch: Friends are selling to friends

Authority/Credibility

• We are much more likely to be persuaded if we perceive the source of the persuasive message to be credible or respectable

• E.g., Celebrities, actors dressed in lab coats

Authority / Credibility

• Method:

??

Authority / Credibility

• Results:

• The man could increase the number of pedestrians who followed him by 350% by wearing a suit & tie

Scarcity

• An item or opportunity becomes more desirable as it becomes less available

“The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost”

- GK Chesterton

“The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost”

- GK Chesterton

Persuasion Strategies

• Door-in-the-face technique

• Foot-in-the-Door technique

• Low-balling

• Bait-and-switch

• That’s-Not-All Technique

• Emotional/Traumatic Messages

• Fearful messages

Door-in-the-face

• After making someone refuse a large, unreasonable request, they will be more likely to agree to a more reasonable second request

Door-in-the-face

• Cialdini et al. (1975)

• Method:

• Ask college students moderate request:

• Taking juvenile delinquents to the zoo for 2 hours

• Half were first asked a big request:

• Counsellor at juvenile correction facility for 2 hours per week for 2 years

Door-in-the-face

• Cialdini et al. (1975)

• Results:

Foot-in-the-door

• After agreeing to a small request, people are more likely to agree to a larger request than they might have been without the first small request

• Works through desire for consistency

Foot-in-the-door

• Freedman & Fraser (1966)

• Method:

• Ask homeowners moderate request:

• Put “Drive Carefully” sign on lawn

• Ask some homeowners for small request first:

• Sign safe driving petition two weeks earlier

Foot-in-the-door

• Freedman & Fraser (1966)

• Results:

Low-Balling

• Inducing a customer to agree to purchase a product at a very low cost, and then claiming there was an error at the last minute

• Relies on consistency

Low-BallING

• Cialdini, Cacioppo, Bassett, & Miller (1978)

• Half participants:

• Experimenter: “Will you participate in my experiment?”

• 56% of Potential Participants: “Yes.”

• Experimenter: “It’s at 7 am.”

• 95% of participants showed up

• Other half of participants:

• E: “Will you participate in my experiment at 7 am?”

• 24% of Potential Participants: “Yes.”

Bait-and-switch

• Drawing someone in by making a desirable offer, but then changing the deal or switching the terms at the last minute

That’s Not All!

• Padding an offer with an additional offer before the person has responded to the initial offer

That’s Not All

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are needed to see this picture.

Emotional / Traumatic Messages

•Messages which involve emotionally arousing content

Fearful Messages

• Persuasive messages which evoke fear and arousal

• Effectiveness:

• Slightly fearful = persuasive

• Moderately to very fearful:

• Provide a solution?

• Yes: Very persuasive

• No: Very Unpersuasive

Sleeper Effect

• A delayed persuasion technique where an initially rejected message is adopted later

• Mechanism:

• Works through Source Monitoring Errors

Source monitoring errors

• The tendency to forget the source of a memory before we forget the source’s message

• Episodic memory decays before declarative memory

• Provides a back door for underhanded persuaders

Propaganda and source monitoring errors

• Donald Rumsfeld on CBS Face the Nation

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are needed to see this picture.

Resisting Persuasive Techniques

• Forewarning Effect

• Inoculation Effect

Forewarning Effect

• Simply informing people that they are about to hear a persuasive speech activates their resistance and weakens the effect of the message on their attitudes

Inoculation Effect

• A person is more likely to reject a moderately good persuasive communication if the person first heard a weaker argument as opposed to hearing no prior argument

Propaganda of the Day:“You will evaluate this class very highly ...”

☻

• Next Lecture (10/7):

• Conformity and Dissent

• Relevant websites:

• http://projectimplicit.org

• http://www.cbc.ca/battle