Attitude and persuasion

 Benjamin. B Lahey, Wikipedia.com

Social psychologist define attitudes as beliefs that predispose us to act and feel in certain ways. An attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's degree of like or dislike for an item. Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or event-- this is often referred to as the attitude object. People can also be conflicted or ambivalent toward an object, meaning that they simultaneously possess both positive and negative attitudes toward the item in question.

Attitudes are judgments. They develop on the ABC model (affect, behavior, and cognition). The affective response is an emotional response that expresses an individual's degree of preference for an entity. The behavioral intention is a verbal indication or typical behavioral tendency of an individual. The cognitive response is a cognitive evaluation of the entity that constitutes an individual's beliefs about the object. Most attitudes are the result of either direct experience or observational learning from the environment.

Attitude change

Attitudes can be changed through persuasion and we should understand attitude change as a response to communication. Experimental research into the factors that can affect the persuasiveness of a message include:

1.   Target Characteristics: These are characteristics that refer to the person who receives and processes a message. One such trait is intelligence - it seems that more intelligent people are less easily persuaded by one-sided messages. Another variable that has been studied in this category is self-esteem. Although it is sometimes thought that those higher in self-esteem are less easily persuaded, there is some evidence that the relationship between self-esteem and  persuasibility is actually curvilinear, with people of moderate self-esteem being more easily persuaded than both those of high and low self-esteem levels (Rhodes & Woods, 1992). The mind frame and mood of the target also plays a role in this process.

2. Source Characteristics:The major source characteristics are expertise, trustworthiness and interpersonal attraction or attractiveness. The credibility of a perceived message has been found to be a key variable here; if one reads a report about health and believes it came from a professional medical journal, one may be more easily persuaded than if one believes it is from a popular newspaper.

    Some psychologists have debated whether this is a long-lasting effect and Hovland and Weiss (1951) found the effect of telling people that a message came from a credible source disappeared after several weeks (the so-called "sleeper effect"). Whether there is a sleeper effect is controversial. Perceived wisdom is that if people are informed of the source of a message before hearing it, there is less likelihood of a sleeper effect than if they are told a message and then told its source.

3.  Message Characteristics: The nature of the message plays a role in persuasion. Sometimes presenting both sides of a story is useful to help change attitudes.

Cognitive Routes: A message can appeal to an individual's cognitive evaluation to help change an attitude. In the central route to persuasion the individual is presented with the data and motivated to evaluate the data and arrive at an attitude changing conclusion. In the peripheral route to attitude change, the individual is encouraged to not look at the content but at the source. This is commonly seen in modern advertisements that feature celebrities. In some cases, physician, doctors or experts are used. In other cases film stars are used for their attractiveness.

Persuasion

Persuasion is the process of changing another person’s attitudes through arguments and other related means.

Techniques of persuasion

A classic technique of persuasion is the foot-in-the-door technique. The person first makes a small, reasonable request,. After you agree to that request, however, he or she follows up with a larger request. If someone were to call you at home and say that she was a researcher at another university who would like to come over and inspect your home, would you agree to let her in? most people would be reluctant to agree, but people who first agree to answer a few questions over the telephone are more likely to allow researches to inspect their homes. Agreeing to one small request makes us more likely to agree to a  second, larger request.

The low – ball technique is similar to the foot-in-the-door. First, you are offered a very reasonable deal. When you accept it, the deal is changed-for the worse. This is a favorite of some auto salespeople. First, they get you to commit to a particular car for a fair price. While you’re dreaming of driving this wonderful car, you get the bad news that the salesperson forgot to figure in the delivery charge and the undercoating. Now the car costs more than you thought-do you still buy it? This technique of persuasion works more often than not-most people don’t walk away from the deal.