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Psychology of Communication: persuasion
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Psychology of Communication: persuasion
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To any rational person, it may seem self-evident that the best way to persuade someone of your point of view is to present them with a reasoned argument. In fact, it seems quite clear that much depends on the audience. If people are unable, or unwilling, to pay close attention to your message and evaluate it, then there is no point in developing a thoughtful, reasoned argument; in such a case its better to try to use, say, classical conditioning (see the section on conditioned reflex) as a means of persuasion. It does seem to help if you give a reason in support of your views, but research suggests that it doesn't necessarily have to be a particularly good reason. In an experiment by Hellen Langer (unfortunately, I've lost the reference), she arranged with her college librarian that all of the photocopiers but one would be 'out of order'. This rapidly produced long queues in front of the one remaining photocopier. Her confederates then approached those in the line qith a request to jump the queue. Not surprisingly, 'Can I use the photocopier?' was a good deal less successful than 'Can I use the photocopier? I'm late for my class.' Amazingly, though, 'Can I use the photocopier? I have to make some copies' was only marginally less successful than 'I'm late for my class'.
An appeal to fear is often thought of as being an effective persuasive device. Of course, it can be if you're actually threatening the Receiver, but that's not what is meant here. What is meant here is that the message appeals to fear, perhaps showing the Receiver what will happen to her if she persists in her current behaviour. In advertising, direct appeals to fear of this sort are strictly limited by the ASA, though they do tend to be tolerated more in public information advertising, e.g. an AIDS campaign.
You might expect that an appeal based on fear has to be hard-hitting to be effective. However, a study conducted by Janis and Feschbach in 1954 suggests that a minimal appeal is likely to be more effective. They used three different versions of a lecture on dental hygiene. The strong appeal provoked the most tension in the audience, but the greatest change in behaviour n conformity with the message was produced by the minimal appeal to fear.
This probably suggests that when people feel they can do nothing about the threat then they are not likely to change their behaviour. They may well repress their anxiety (see defence mechanisms). An appeal to fear should probably be counterbalanced by the reassurance that it is possible to do something about it. It's probably worth mentioning also that Leventahl and others found in a 1956 study that a high degree of fear did indeed lead to higher attitudinal change, in contrast to what Janis and Feshbach found. In their case, however, they were dealing with tetanus rather than oral hygiene, which suggests that the question of fear arousal cannot be divorced from the subject matter of the message.
The 1992 drink-driving campaign at Christmas was particularly hard-hitting, in fact provoking a number of complaints. It showed a close-up of a young woman with a ventilator in her mouth, her eyes wide open in a glassy stare. The ambulance crew could be heard busying themselves around her, as the blue lights flashed constantly across her face. In the background we could hear an anguished motorist asking for reassurance that she would be all right and protesting that he hadn't intended to do anyone any harm. Great things were expected of the campaign, but it seems in fact to have been less effective than others. A possible explanation is that the motor car is seen as an essential part of everyday life, just as essential as walking. Cars kill, as all motorists know, but there is nothing they can do about it. Conceivably, the ad was perceived as stating strongly that cars kill people, rather than differentiating between the causes of accidents. Consequently, drivers would see that they could avoid such horrendous accidents only by stopping driving, something they of course 'can't' do.
It's perhaps worth remarking in passing that a general atmosphere of fear may also contribute to the success of a message. This of course is a factor extraneous to the message and thus does not properly belong here under 'message', but should rather be under a heading such as 'context'. For example, Orson Welles's War of the Worlds broadcast may have owed some of its success to the general atmosphere of fear and confusion which prevailed in world affairs at the time.
If we are persuaded by an 'expert' communicator, then the chances are that some technical jargon will increase the apparent expertise. The ability to use certain kinds of vocabulary is also associated with the 'elaborated code' identified by Bernstein and valorised by the education system, so that may also contribute to the apparent expertise of the communicator.
You'll be aware no doubt of the relationship in Britain between accent and social class, an RP accent being suggestive of status and a high terminal level of education. The use of accent has to be balanced against source attractiveness (see the section on the Communicator), avoiding , for example, the possibility of being seen by certain audiences as a 'toff'.
It's not at all clear whether it works or not. British advertisers achieved an international reputation for their humour, but research studies show contradictory results.
You might think, as I would, that the communicator should decrease speed in order to be persuasive, especially if dealing with a complex topic. However, the research shows that an increase in speed is likely to be more persuasive - anything up to 50% faster, in fact! This probably connects with the notion of 'expertise'. If a communicator can speak fast about a complex issue, then they must know what they're talking about. It also has the advantage of shutting other people out, denying them the opportunity to interrupt before you've finished what you have to say. It's not necessarily as simple as that, though, since a range of variables have to be taken into account. I, for example, tend to be put off by suits, so someone wearing a suit and talking fast might well be dismissed by me as merely 'slick' rather than 'expert'. Speaking fast can be helpful if you're arguments are weak, because it doesn't give your audience time for cognitive processing of your arguments. However, if you have strong arguments, it can be useful to slow down precisely in order to allow cognitive processing to take place.
I would have thought, as with speed above, that you would increase your apparent expertise by packing in as many arguments as possible. In fact, it seems that you're more likely to be persuasive if you limit yourself to the most important and strongest arguments only.
From the point of view of cognitive response theory, though, this does make sense. If you present your weaker arguments, you give the receiver the opportunity to formulate negative cognitive responses. By giving your audience, say, six weak arguments and two strong ones, you give them the opportunity to form six negative responses and only two positive ones. Remember that it is not the arguments themselves which are normally later recalled by receivers, but their own reactions to those arguments (i.e. their cognitive responses), so you would be best advised to limit yourself to the two strong arguments.
To an extent, this will depend upon the audience's sense of involvement in the issue. As we have seen with the question of expertise, they will tend to use some general rule of thumb if their involvement is not high, saying something like, 'she's got a lot of arguments, so I suppose she must know what she's talking about. An uninvolved audience won't even bother to distinguish between weak and strong arguments, so, in such a case, your best bet would be to produce all your arguments, whether weak or strong.
If you can't avoid giving the bad news, then, according to research, it's best to give the good news first.
This may be connected with the general perception that 'first impressions count'. However, it's not entirely clear that they do. In an experiment conducted by Tomorrow's World on March 25 1995, viewers were shown a man being interviewed for an ambulance driver's job. In fact, without the viewers' knowledge, two different versions of the interview were shown in the east and west of the country. In the east, the interviewee began by giving the 'good news', namely that he had been in the army medical corps where he had learnt various skills and ended with the bad news, namely that, since leaving the army he had never held down a job for long. In the west exactly the same information was given, but with the 'bad news' first. In the east 45% of viewers would have given him the job; in the west 54% would have given him the job. This strongly suggests that first impressions do not count for much and that it's best to end with the 'good news'.
This question of ordering revolves around what is known as primacy and recency effects. The adage that 'first impressions count' states that the primacy effect is likely to dominate, whereas the Tomorrow's World experiment suggests that the recency effect is dominant.
Whether or not you should include arguments for and against your case depends very much on your audience. If you know that they already agree with you, a one-sided argument is quite acceptable. If they are opposed to your point of view, then a one-sided message will actually be less effective, being dismissed as biased. Even if your audience don't know much about the subject, but do know that there are counterarguments (even if they don't know what they are) will lead them to reject your views as biased. Hovland's investigations into mass propaganda used to change soldiers' attitudes also suggests that the intelligence of the receivers is an important factor, a two-sided argument tending to be more persuasive with the more intelligent audience.
It is possible to inoculate audiences against certain views. If you present them with a weakened version of the arguments against your case, then they are likely to be resistant to stronger versions of those arguments that they may come across later. Again, this seems to be explained by cognitive response theory, since, by giving them a weakened version, you allow them to formulate negative cognitive responses.
Hovland's research results are unclear here. Hovland tends to assume that you should draw the conclusions for your audience where complex issues are involved. He also seems to believe that it depends on your assessment of the audience's intelligence.
The time delay between your presentation of your case and the audience's having to reach a decision on it is of some importance.
The first side has the advantage when the second side immediately follows and there is a delay before the receivers reach a decision.
The second side has the advantage if the receivers are to reach a decision immediately after presentation of the two cases, if there is a gap between presentation of the first and second sides.
Research (following up Zajon's findings in the 60s) has shown again and again that repeated exposure to a stimulus will increase subjects' liking for that stimulus. It doesn't seem to matter whether the stimulus is one which would normally be judged positively or negatively, nor even whether subjects are aware that they are more familiar with the stimulus than they are with others. The research seems to suggest that this is more likely to be the case with complex, rather than simple, stimuli.
So it does seem that, say, a political party with plenty of money for the campaign has a better chance, simply because it stands more chance of using the media to increase exposure to its messages and its candidates.
Repetition, then, will certainly strengthen a message, but you can soon reach the point of diminishing returns and that, of course, is something that advertisers have to bear in mind. We all know from seeing the same ad for what seems like the thousandth time that too much exposure can lower our liking of a message. The problem, naturally, is to be able to gauge where the point of diminishing returns lies.
Hovland: introduction
Hovland: the Communicator
Hovland: the Channel
Hovland: the Receiver
Consistency theory
Attitudes
Cognitive dissonance
The hypodermic needle model
Empiricist tradition
Cultural effects
Recent developments
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