Persuasion:
Theory and Research Third Edition – Ebook PDF Version
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Detailed Contents
Preface
1 Persuasion, Attitudes, and Actions
The Concept of Persuasion
About Definitions: Fuzzy Edges and Paradigm Cases
Five Common Features of Paradigm Cases of Persuasion
A Definition After All?
The Concept of Attitude
Attitude Measurement Techniques
Explicit Measures
Semantic Differential Evaluative Scales
Single-Item Attitude Measures
Features of Explicit Measures
Quasi-Explicit Measures
Implicit Measures
Summary
Attitudes and Behaviors
The General Relationship
Moderating Factors
Correspondence of Measures
Direct Experience
Summary
Encouraging Attitude-Consistent Behavior
Enhance Perceived Relevance
Induce Feelings of Hypocrisy
Encourage Anticipation of Feelings
Summary
Assessing Persuasive Effects
Attitude Change
Beyond Attitude Change
Conclusion For Review
Notes
2 Social Judgment Theory
Judgments of Alternative Positions on an Issue
The Ordered Alternatives Questionnaire
The Concept of Ego-Involvement
Ego-Involvement and the Latitudes
Measures of Ego-Involvement
Size of the Ordered Alternatives Latitude of Rejection
Own Categories Procedure
Reactions to Communications
Assimilation and Contrast Effects
Attitude Change Effects
Assimilation and Contrast Effects Reconsidered
The Impact of Assimilation and Contrast Effects on Persuasion
Ambiguity in Political Campaigns
Adapting Persuasive Messages to Recipients Using Social Judgment Theory
Critical Assessment
The Confounding of Involvement With Other Variables
The Concept of Ego-Involvement
The Measures of Ego-Involvement
Conclusion For Review
Notes
3 Functional Approaches to Attitude A Classic Functional Analysis
Subsequent Developments
Identifying General Functions of Attitude
Assessing the Function of a Given Attitude Influences on Attitude Function
Individual Differences
Attitude Object
Situational Variations
Multifunctional Attitude Objects Revisited
Adapting Persuasive Messages to Recipients: Function Matching
The Persuasive Effects of Matched and Mismatched Appeals
Explaining the Effects of Function Matching
Commentary
Generality and Specificity in Attitude Function Typologies
Functional Confusions
Some Functional Distinctions
Conflating the Functions
Reconsidering the Assessment and Conceptualization of Attitude Function
Assessment of Attitude Function Reconsidered
Utilitarian and Value-Expressive Functions
Reconsidered
Summary
Persuasion and Function Matching Revisited
Reviving the Idea of Attitude Functions
Conclusion For Review
Notes
4 Belief-Based Models of Attitude
Summative Model of Attitude
The Model
Adapting Persuasive Messages to Recipients Based on the Summative Model
Alternative Persuasive Strategies
Identifying Foci for Appeals
Research Evidence and Commentary
General Correlational Evidence
Attribute Importance
Belief Content
Role of Belief Strength
Scoring Procedures
Alternative Integration Schemes
The Sufficiency of Belief-Based Analyses
Persuasive Strategies Reconsidered
Belief Strength as a Persuasion Target
Belief Evaluation as a Persuasion Target
Changing the Set of Salient Beliefs as a Persuasion Mechanism
Conclusion For Review
Notes
5 Cognitive Dissonance Theory
General Theoretical Sketch
Elements and Relations
Dissonance
Factors Influencing the Magnitude of Dissonance
Means of Reducing Dissonance
Some Research Applications
Decision Making
Conflict
Decision and Dissonance
Factors Influencing the Degree of Dissonance
Dissonance Reduction
Regret
Selective Exposure to Information
The Dissonance Theory Analysis
The Research Evidence
Summary
Induced Compliance
Incentive and Dissonance in Induced-Compliance
Situations
Counterattitudinal-Advocacy–Based Interventions
The “Low, Low Price” Offer
Limiting Conditions
Summary
Hypocrisy Induction
Hypocrisy as a Means of Influencing Behavior
Hypocrisy Induction Mechanisms
Backfire Effects
Revisions of, and Alternatives to, Dissonance Theory
Conclusion
For Review
Notes
6 Reasoned Action Theory
The Reasoned Action Theory Model
Intention
The Determinants of Intention
Attitude Toward the Behavior
Injunctive Norm
Descriptive Norm
Perceived Behavioral Control
Weighting the Determinants
The Distinctiveness of Perceived Behavioral Control
The Predictability of Intention Using the RAT Model
Influencing Intentions
Influencing Attitude Toward the Behavior
The Determinants of AB
Changing AB
Influencing the Injunctive Norm
The Determinants of IN
Changing IN
Influencing the Descriptive Norm
The Determinants of DN
Changing DN
Influencing Perceived Behavioral Control
The Determinants of PBC
Changing PBC
Altering the Weights
Intentions and Behaviors
Factors Influencing the Intention-Behavior Relationship
Correspondence of Measures
Temporal Stability of Intentions
Explicit Planning
The Sufficiency of Intention
Adapting Persuasive Messages to Recipients Based on Reasoned Action Theory
Commentary
Additional Possible Predictors
Anticipated Affect
Moral Norms
The Assessment of Potential Additions
Revision of the Attitudinal and Normative Components
The Attitudinal Component
The Normative Components
The Nature of the Perceived Control Component
PBC as a Moderator
Refining the PBC Construct
Conclusion
For Review
Notes
7 Stage Models
The Transtheoretical Model
Decisional Balance and Intervention Design
Decisional Balance
Decisional Balance Asymmetry
Implications of Decisional Balance Asymmetry
Self-Efficacy and Intervention Design
Intervention Stage-Matching
Self-Efficacy Interventions
Broader Concerns About the Transtheoretical Model
The Distinctive Claims of Stage Models
Other Stage Models
Conclusion For Review
Notes
8 Elaboration Likelihood Model
Variations in the Degree of Elaboration: Central Versus Peripheral Routes to Persuasion
The Nature of Elaboration
Central and Peripheral Routes to Persuasion
Consequences of Different Routes to Persuasion
Factors Affecting the Degree of Elaboration
Factors Affecting Elaboration Motivation
Personal Relevance (Involvement)
Need for Cognition
Factors Affecting Elaboration Ability
Distraction
Prior Knowledge
Summary
Influences on Persuasive Effects Under Conditions of High Elaboration: Central Routes to Persuasion
The Critical Role of Elaboration Valence
Influences on Elaboration Valence
Proattitudinal Versus Counterattitudinal Messages
Argument Strength
Other Influences on Elaboration Valence
Summary: Central Routes to Persuasion
Influences on Persuasive Effects Under Conditions of Low Elaboration: Peripheral Routes to Persuasion
The Critical Role of Heuristic Principles
Varieties of Heuristic Principles
Credibility Heuristic
Liking Heuristic
Consensus Heuristic
Other Heuristics
Summary: Peripheral Routes to Persuasion
Multiple Roles for Persuasion Variables
Adapting Persuasive Messages to Recipients Based on the ELM
Commentary
The Nature of Involvement
Argument Strength
One Persuasion Process?
The Unimodel of Persuasion
Explaining ELM Findings
Comparing the Two Models
Conclusion
For Review
Notes
9 The Study of Persuasive Effects
Experimental Design and Causal Inference
The Basic Design
Variations on the Basic Design
Persuasiveness and Relative Persuasiveness
Two General Challenges in Studying Persuasive Effects
Generalizing About Messages
Ambiguous Causal Attribution
Nonuniform Effects of Message Variables
Designing Future Persuasion Research
Interpreting Past Persuasion Research
Beyond Message Variables
Variable Definition
Message Features Versus Observed Effects
The Importance of the Distinction
Conclusion
For Review
Notes
10 Communicator Factors
Communicator Credibility
The Dimensions of Credibility
Factor-Analytic Research
Expertise and Trustworthiness as Dimensions of Credibility
Factors Influencing Credibility Judgments
Education, Occupation, and Experience
Nonfluencies in Delivery
Citation of Evidence Sources
Position Advocated
Liking for the Communicator
Humor
Summary
Effects of Credibility
Two Initial Clarifications
Influences on the Magnitude of Effect
Influences on the Direction of Effect
Liking
The General Rule
Some Exceptions and Limiting Conditions
Liking and Credibility
Liking and Topic Relevance
Greater Effectiveness of Disliked Communicators
Other Communicator Factors
Similarity
Similarity and Liking
Similarity and Credibility: Expertise Judgments
Similarity and Credibility: Trustworthiness Judgments
Summary: The Effects of Similarity
Physical Attractiveness
Physical Attractiveness and Liking
Physical Attractiveness and Credibility
Summary
About Additional Communicator Characteristics
Conclusion
The Nature of Communication Sources
Multiple Roles for Communicator Variables
For Review
Notes
11 Message Factors
Message Structure and Format
Conclusion Omission
Recommendation Specificity
Narratives
Complexities in Studying Narrative and Persuasion
The Persuasive Power of Narratives
Factors Influencing Narrative Persuasiveness
Entertainment-Education
Summary
Prompts
Message Content
Consequence Desirability
One-Sided Versus Two-Sided Messages
Gain-Loss Framing
Overall Effects
Disease Prevention Versus Disease Detection
Other Possible Moderating Factors
Summary
Threat Appeals
Protection Motivation Theory
Threat Appeals, Fear Arousal, and Persuasion
The Extended Parallel Process Model
Summary
Beyond Fear Arousal
Sequential Request Strategies
Foot-in-the-Door
The Strategy
The Research Evidence Explaining FITD Effects
Door-in-the-Face
The Strategy
The Research Evidence
Explaining DITF Effects
Conclusion For Review
Notes
12 Receiver Factors
Individual Differences
Topic-Specific Differences
General Influences on Persuasion Processes
Summary
Transient Receiver States
Mood
Reactance
Other Transient States
Influencing Susceptibility to Persuasion
Reducing Susceptibility: Inoculation, Warning, Refusal
Skills Training
Inoculation
Warning
Refusal Skills Training
Increasing Susceptibility: Self-Affirmation
Conclusion For Review
Notes
References
Author Index
Subject Index
About the Author
Preface
This preface is intended to provide a general framing of this book and is particularly directed to those who already have some familiarity with the subject matter. Such readers will be able to tell at a glance that this book is in many ways quite conventional (in the general plan of the work, the topics taken up, and so forth) and will come to see the inevitable oversimplifications, bypassed subtleties, elided details, and suchlike. Because this book is pitched at roughly the level of a graduateundergraduate course, it is likely to be defective both by having sections that are too shallow or general for some and by having segments that are too detailed or technical for others; the hope is that complaints are not too badly maldistributed across these two categories. This book aims at a relatively generalized treatment of persuasion; in certain contexts in which persuasion is a central or recurring activity, correspondingly localized treatments of relevant research literatures are available elsewhere, such as for consumer advertising (e.g., Armstrong, 2010) and for certain legal settings (e.g., Devine, 2012). Readers acquainted with the second edition will notice the addition of chapters concerning social judgment theory and stage models, revision of the treatment of the theories of reasoned action and planned behavior, and new attention to subjects such as reactance and the use of narratives as vehicles for persuasion.
This edition also gives special attention to questions of message adaptation. One broad theme that recurs in theoretical treatments of persuasion is the need to adapt persuasive messages to their audiences: different recipients may be persuaded by different sorts of messages. Thus one way of approaching any given theoretical framework for persuasion is to ask how it identifies ways in which messages might be adapted to audiences. For this reason, a number of the chapters concerning theoretical perspectives contain a section addressing this issue (and, as appropriate, this matter also arises in other chapters).
Some readers will see the relationship of this theme to concepts such as “message tailoring” and “message targeting.” In the research literature, these labels have often been used to apply quite loosely to any sort of way in which messages are adapted to (customized for) recipients, although sometimes there have been efforts to use different labels to describe different degrees or kinds of message customization (e.g., sometimes
“targeting” is described as adaptation on the basis of group-level characteristics, whereas “tailoring” is based on individual-level properties). But no matter the label, there is a common underlying conceptual thread here, namely, that different kinds of messages are likely to be persuasive for different recipients and hence to maximize persuasiveness, messages should be adapted to their audiences.
As should be apparent, there are quite a few different bases for such adaptation: messages might be adapted to the audience’s literacy level, cultural background, values, sex, degree of extroversion, age, regulatory focus, level of self-monitoring, or race/ethnicity. A message may be customized to the audience’s current psychological state as described by, say, reasoned action theory (e.g., is perceived behavioral control low?), protection motivation theory (is perceived vulnerability sufficiently high?), or the transtheoretical model (which stage is the recipient in?). It may be superficially personalized (e.g., by mentioning the recipient’s name in a direct mail appeal), mention shared attitudes not relevant to the advocacy subject, and so on.
For this reason, it is not fruitful to pursue questions such as “are tailored messages more persuasive than non-tailored messages?” because the answer is virtually certain to be “it depends” if nothing else, the answer may vary depending on the basis of tailoring. For example, it might be that adapting messages through superficial personalization typically makes very little difference to persuasiveness, but adapting messages by matching the message’s appeals to the audience’s core values could characteristically substantially enhance persuasiveness.
Still, the manifest importance of adapting messages to recipients recommends its prominence. Aristotle was right (in the Rhetoric): the art of persuasion consists of discerning, in any particular situation, the available means of persuasion. Those means will vary from case to case, and hence maximizing one’s chances for persuasion will require adapting one’s efforts to the circumstance at hand. Whether one calls this message adaptation, message tailoring, message targeting, message customization, or something else, the core idea is the same: different approaches are required in different persuasive circumstances.
Adding material (whether about audience adaptation or other matters) is an easy decision; omitting material is not, because one fears encouraging the loss of good (if imperfect) ideas. Someone somewhere once pointed out
that in the social and behavioral sciences, findings and theories often seem to just fade away, not because of any decisive criticisms or counterarguments but rather because they seem to be “too old to be true.” This apt observation seems to me to identify one barrier to social-scientific research synthesis, namely, that useful results and concepts somehow do not endure but rather disappear making it impossible for subsequent work to exploit them.
As an example: If message assimilation and contrast effects are genuine and have consequences for persuasive effects, then although there is little research attention being given to the theoretical framework within which such phenomena were first clearly conceptualized (social judgment theory) we need somehow to ensure that our knowledge of these phenomena does not evaporate. Similarly, although it has been some time since substantial work was done on the question of the dimensions underlying credibility judgments, the results of those investigations (the dimensions identified in those studies) should not thereby fail to be mentioned in discussions of credibility research.
To sharpen the point here: It has been many years since the islets of Langerhans (masses of endocrine cells in the pancreas) were first noticed, but medical textbooks do not ignore this biological structure. Indeed, it would be inconceivable to discuss (for example) mechanisms of insulin secretion without mentioning these structures. Now I do not mean to say that social-scientific phenomena such as assimilation and contrast effects are on all fours with the islets of Langerhans, but I do want to suggest that premature disappearance of social-scientific concepts and findings seems to happen all too easily. Without forgetting how grumpy old researchers can sometimes view genuinely new developments (“this new phenomenon is just another name for something that used to be called X”), one can nevertheless acknowledge the real possibility that “old” knowledge can somehow be lost, misplaced, insufficiently understood, unappreciated, or overlooked.
It is certainly the case that the sheer amount of social-scientific research output makes it difficult to keep up with current research across a number of topics, let alone hold on to whatever accumulated information there might be. In the specific case of persuasion research which has seen an explosion of interest in recent years the problem is not made any easier by the relevant literature’s dispersal across a variety of academic locales. Yet somehow the insights available from this research and theorizing must
not be lost.
Unfortunately, there are not appealing shortcuts. One cannot simply reproduce others’ citations or research descriptions with an easy mind (for illustrations of the attendant pitfalls, see Gould, 1991, pp. 155–167; Gould, 1993, pp. 103–105; Tufte, 1997, p. 71). One hopes that it would be unnecessary to say that as in the previous editions, I have read everything I cite. I might inadvertently misrepresent or misunderstand, but at least such flaws will be of my own hand.
Moreover, customary ways of drawing general conclusions about persuasive effects can be seen to have some important shortcomings. One source of difficulty here is a reliance on research designs using few persuasive messages, a matter addressed in Chapter 9. Here I will point out only the curiosity that generalizations about persuasive message effects generalizations intended to be general across both persons and messages have commonly been offered on the basis of data from scores or hundreds of human respondents but from only one or two messages. One who is willing to entertain seriously the possibility that the same manipulation may have different effects in different messages should, with such data in hand, be rather cautious.
Another source of difficulty has been the widespread misunderstandings embedded in common ways of interpreting and integrating research findings in the persuasion literature. To illuminate the relevant point, consider the following hypothetical puzzle:
Suppose there have been two studies of the effect on persuasive outcomes of having a concluding metaphor (versus having an ordinary conclusion that does not contain a metaphor) in one’s message, but with inconsistent results. In Study A, conclusion type made a statistically significant difference (such that greater effectiveness is associated with the metaphorical conclusion), but Study B failed to replicate this result.
In Study A, the participants were female high school students who read a written communication arguing that most persons need from 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night. The message was attributed to a professor at the Harvard Medical School; the communicator’s identification, including a photograph of the professor (an attractive, youthful-looking man), was provided on a cover sheet immediately
preceding the message. The effect of conclusion type on persuasive outcome was significant, t(60) = 2.35, p < .05: Messages with a concluding metaphor were significantly more effective than messages with an ordinary (nonmetaphorical) conclusion.
In Study B, the participants were male college undergraduates who listened to an audio message that used a male voice. The message advocated substantial tuition increases (of roughly 50% to 60%) at the students’ university and presented five arguments to show the necessity of such increases. The communicator was described as a senior at the university, majoring in education. Although the means were ordered as in Study A, conclusion type did not significantly affect persuasive outcome, t(21) = 1.39, ns.
Why the inconsistency (the failure to replicate)?
A typical inclination has been to entertain possible explanatory stories based on such differences as the receivers’ sex (“Women are more influenced by the presence of a metaphorical conclusion than are men”), the medium (“Metaphorical conclusions make more difference in written messages than in oral messages”), the advocated position (“Metaphorical conclusions are helpful in proattitudinal messages but not in counterattitudinal ones”), and so on. But for this hypothetical example, those sorts of explanatory stories are misplaced. Not only is the direction of effect identical in Study A and Study B (each finds that the concludingmetaphor message is more effective) but also the size of the advantage enjoyed by the concluding-metaphor message is the same in the two studies (expressed as a correlation, the effect size is .29). The difference in the level of statistical significance achieved is a function of the difference in sample size, not any difference in effect size.
Happily, recent years have seen some progress in the diffusion of more careful understandings of statistical significance, effect sizes, statistical power, confidence intervals, and related matters. (Some progress but not enough. It remains distressingly common that even graduate students with statistical training can reason badly when faced with a problem such as that hypothetical.) With the hope of encouraging greater sensitivity concerning specifically the magnitude of effects likely to be found in persuasion research, I have tried to include mention of average effect sizes where appropriate and available.
But there is at present something of a disjuncture between the available methods for describing research findings (in terms of effect sizes and confidence intervals) and our theoretical equipment for generating predictions. Although research results can be described in specific quantitative terms (“the correlation was .37”), researchers are currently prepared to offer only directional predictions (“the correlation will be positive”). Developing more refined predictive capabilities is very much to be hoped for, but significant challenges lie ahead (for some discussion, see O’Keefe, 2011a).
Even with increasing attention to effect sizes and their meta-analytic treatment, however, we are still not in a position to do full justice to the issues engaged by the extensive research literature in persuasion, given the challenges in doing relevant, careful, reflective research reviews. For example, research reviews all too often exclude unpublished studies, despite wide recognition of publication biases favoring statistically significant results (see, e.g., Dwan, Gamble, Williamson, Kirkham, & the Reporting Bias Group, 2013; Ferguson & Heene, 2012; Ioannidis, 2005, 2008). Similarly, meta-analytic reviews too often rely on fixed-effect analyses rather than the random-effects analyses appropriate where generalization is the goal (for discussion, see Card, 2012, pp. 233–234). All these considerations conspire to encourage a rather conservative approach to the persuasion literature (conservative in the sense of exemplifying prudence with respect to generalization), and that has been the aim in this treatment.
Of course, one cannot hope to survey the range of work covered here without errors, oversights, and unclarities. These have been reduced by advice and assistance from a number of quarters. Students in my persuasion classes have helped make my lectures and so this book clearer than otherwise might have been the case. Many good insights and suggestions came from the reviewers arranged by Sage Publications: Jonathan H. Amsbary, William B. Collins, Julia Jahansoozi, Bonnie Kay, Andrew J. Kirk, Susan L. Kline, Sanja Novitsky, Charles Soukup, Kaja Tampere, and Beth M. Waggenspack. Jos Hornikx also provided especially useful commentary on drafts of this edition’s chapters. And I thank Barbara O’Keefe both for helpful conversation and for an unceasingly interesting life: “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety.”
