Attitudes and Attitude Change CHAPTER 7 Attitudes and Attitude ...

170
Copyright © 2010 by Pearson Education, inc. All rights reserved.
Attitudes and Attitude Change
influenced by message content and when they will be more influenced by superficial
characteristics of the message.
• Both theories state that under certain conditions, people are motivated to pay attention to and
think about (elaborate on) the facts in a message. Under other conditions, people are not
motivated to pay attention to the facts a message presents and only attend to superficial
characteristics.
• More specifically, the elaboration likelihood model states that there are two ways in which
persuasive communications can cause attitude change. The central route to persuasion is the
case whereby people elaborate on a persuasive communication, listening carefully to and thinking
about the arguments; this occurs when people have both the ability and the motivation to listen
carefully to a communication. The peripheral route to persuasion is the case whereby people do
not elaborate on the arguments in a persuasive communication but are instead swayed by
peripheral cues or surface characteristics (e.g., who gave the speech).
• The audience’s motivation to listen and ability to listen determine which route they will take
(Figure 7.3, p. 186).
2. The Motivation to Pay Attention to the Arguments
• The personal relevance of a message influences motivation; thus, when a message is relevant,
the amount of persuasion depends on argument quality.
• Petty, Cacioppo, & Goldman (1981) had students listen to a persuasive message advocating a
senior comprehensive exam. Personal relevance was manipulated by saying that the exam was
considered for next year or for ten years hence. Also, the message contained either strong or weak
arguments and was presented by either a high or low prestige source. They found that under high
relevance, people were more influenced by strong than by weak arguments, regardless of source
prestige; while under low relevance, people were influenced by the prestige of the speaker more
than by the quality of the arguments (Figure 7.4, p. 187).
• People’s motivation to listen carefully to message content may also depend on their level of
need for cognition, the extent to which they seek out and think about information in their social
worlds.
3. The Ability to Pay Attention to the Arguments
• People’s ability to attend to message content may be influenced by tiredness, outside distracters,
or by the complexity of the message.
4. How to Achieve Long-Lasting Attitude Change
• Attitude change will be more long-lasting if it occurs through the central route; thus develop
strong arguments and get people to think about them by making the issue personally relevant.
F. Emotion and Attitude Change
• In order to get people to use the central processing route, you need to get their attention. This can be
done by playing to their emotions.
1. Fear-Arousing Communications
• Fear-arousing communications are persuasive messages that attempt to change people’s
attitudes by arousing their fears. They are most effective if they induce a moderate amount of fear
and if people believe that listening to the message will provide them with actions they can take to
reduce this fear. If the message is too scary or not scary enough, it will fail (Figure 7.5, p. 190).
2. Emotion as a Heuristic
• Chaiken’s heuristic-systematic model of persuasion states that there are two ways in which
persuasive communications can cause attitude change; people either systematically process the
merits of the arguments, or they use mental shortcuts (heuristics). Thus when people take the
peripheral route to persuasion they often use heuristics, e.g., “(Message) length equals strength”
or “Experts are always right.”
• Emotions and moods themselves can be used as a heuristic; we ask ourselves “How do I feel
about it?” and if we feel good, we infer we have a positive attitude. This can get us into trouble if