Attitudes and Persuasion

they participate in, which are situational. Most people have certain expectations of behavior in certain social roles. Think of the roles of a teacher and student and determine what behaviors you would most likely expect from them.

Social norms are related to social roles. Social norms are the behaviors that a group expects of itself. They describe what is acceptable and what isn t acceptable. Social norms differ according to the situation and are different, depending on where you are. Scripts are a person s individual knowledge of what to expect in a given situation and what order they are expected. These are different, depending on the circumstances and the culture.

ATTITUDES AND PERSUASION

Social situations affect a person s attitudes and beliefs. An attitude is an evaluation of an idea, an object, or a person. Attitudes can be favorable or unfavorable. They involve feelings about a person, behaviors directed at something, and what is thought about something. You will have favorable or unfavorable thoughts, behaviors, and feelings toward something, which is your attitude toward it. The attitude is based on internal and external factors.

Cognitive dissonance involves having a psychological discomfort that comes out of having more than one attitude, thought, or behavior about something. Having a positive self-esteem is a strong motivator of human behavior. Most people in the US have a positive self-esteem. Anytime a person has thoughts, feelings, or behaviors that differ from what they believe about themselves, this is cognitive dissonance. People will try to reduce this dissonance in one way or another.

Methods to decrease cognitive dissonance include the following:

• Change the behavior that is dissonant.

• Rationalize and change the cognition. This can also involve denial.

• Add another thought or cognition to change the dissonance.

In the military, for example, the stress of boot camp can lead to cognitive dissonance. Surprisingly, in a situation where there is a difficult initiation into a group situation like

the military, it drives a person to like the group to a greater degree because they don t want to feel like they have wasted their time in joining and being initiated into the group.

Persuasion happens to change a person s attitude about something based on communicating with them. Most persuasion comes from external forces. Advertising employs persuasion to a great degree in order to change people s opinion of something. According to the Yale Attitude Change Approach, the things that most change attitudes are the source of the information, the content of the message given, and the particular characteristics of the audience.

If the speaker is credible and attractive, there is greater ability to persuade an audience. If the message is subtle, has more than one side, and is well-timed, there is more ability to persuade. In a debate, usually the first debater has a greater impact, unless there is a delay before the second person speaks, in which case the second person has the greater impact. People with moderate self-esteem and of less intelligence are more easily persuaded.

There are two routes toward being able to persuade an audience. The first is the central route. This is driven by logic and data. The argument needs to be strong and the audience needs to be engaged. This kind of route leads to lasting change in attitudes. The peripheral route Is indirect and uses peripheral cues that associate positivity with the message given. The focus is not on the facts or on a product s quality. This is done when there are actors or athletes promoting a product. This yields a less permanent change in attitude. Peripheral route change does not require a motivated audience.

There is a phenomenon called the foot in the door technique, which means that the persuader gets the person to agree to something small and then asks them for something much bigger. Those who agree to the small thing are more likely to later agree to a larger thing at a later time in order to demonstrate some type of consistency.