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Persuasion
Comm 210
Instructor: Derrick Ellis
Communication vs. Persuasion

Basic model of Communication: SMCR
 Persuasion always involves Communication
 What makes persuasion unique?
– Intent.
• Communicator seeks to elicit a desired response
• It involves a conscious effort—by the communicator—
aimed at influencing the thoughts or actions of a receiver
Communication that is similar to
Persuasion

Information Campaigns – Change Belief
– not attitudes, not behaviors!

Compliance Gaining Strategies – Change overt
behavior (Almost always involve dishes and the mother)
– takes advantage of pre-existing beliefs, feelings of
commitment.. etc.

Propaganda – Change viewpoint of others to further
your own cause (or damage the opposition)
– Used to bias information; misrepresent opinion as
fact/fiction as truth

Mass Media Effects – results in modeling, imitating
presented images
– Does not always involve persuasive communication
Judging the Success of
Persuasive Communication

Consider 4 things:
– Nature of the Correspondence between intentions
of the source and subsequent behavior of the
receiver (magnitude and direction?)
– Degree of Change secured
– Nature of Opposition to source’s message (strongweak? Organized-scattered?)
– Difficulty level of the task being engaged in
(is attitude weak-fixed? Habitual?)
Behavior, Attitudes and Beliefs

Ultimate Goal of Persuasive
Communication = Behavior Change
– Examples in motivational context?
– Difficulties in dealing with Habit, Routine,
Frequency of the behavior (Toilet Paper)
– Behavior Change is not always a realistic
goal.
• Q: How do we change behavior?
A: By Changing attitudes and beliefs.
Defining Key Concepts
Belief
Attitude
Value
Belief
Following Fishbein and Ajzen (1975),
we define belief to be the subjective
probability that a statement about an
object is true or false.
 What does this mean?

– In order to alter people’s beliefs, you have
to provide them with new information and
they have to accept it
Types of Beliefs

Descriptive- those that tell us about the world
around us: “I believe that the spring semester
should not be called ‘spring’; rather because
of the frigid temperatures should be called
winter semester”
 Evaluative- those that focus on our judgments
of what is good and bad: “I believe that
Burger King’s hamburgers are healthier than
McDonald’s burgers.”
 Prescriptive- those that concern how people
should behave: “I believe that college
students should not take classes before
noon.”
Sarbin, Taft & Bailey (1960) find
4 major sources of Beliefs


Induction- Person’s own, developed, generalized
belief, based on a summation of their past
observations.
Construction- A person develops a belief concerning
how two or more events are related to one another,
based on limited observations (not necessarily logical:
“People who used to drink at Café Earth are snobby jerks” )


Analogy- A person develops a belief based on
similarities among things or events
– Could lead to analogical fallacy
Authority- A person develops and maintains a belief
based on the authority of others (Easiest to influence)
Attitudes
Traditionally defined as a relatively
stable predisposition to respond to an
object in a positive or negative way.
 Our definition: an enduring affective
response to some object or class of
objects

Attitudes serve certain Needs
(Functions) – Katz

Ego-Defensive Function
– Certain attitudes may help protect the individual
from unflattering truths about themselves or about
others who are important to them (theory builders)

Value-Expressive Function
– People can perceive that their attitudes also
enable them to express important values
(environmental concerns through attitudes toward
products)
Attitudes serve certain Needs
(Functions) – Katz (cont’d)

Knowledge Function
– Attitudes can be used by the person to help
organize their environment (political/social
attitudes—liking or disliking Bush depending upon
whether or not you applaud or blame him for the
current state of world affairs)

Utilitarian Function
– People are motivated to seek rewards and avoid
punishment—I should exercise

Key to this concept is the idea that different
people can hold the same attitude but for
different reasons (or different needs)
Attitude – Attitude Object
The Attitude Object (the concept that the attitude
refers to) can be concrete, such as beer, or abstract,
such as euthanasia.
Attitude Objects can also refer to purely imaginary
objects, such as vampires or mermaids.
-Our definition treats attitude as cognitive
dispositions rather than as mere emotional
responses. People decide what their attitude
towards something is.
-An attitude is not just a response — it is
something that endures, and exists even when
the stimulus that originally generated the
emotional response is not present.
Attitude Structures

Attitudes are linked to one another in
memory. This is in part due to the role of
brain structures that link emotion and memory
 Activation of one attitude can lead to the
activation of related attitudes.
– For example, suppose that you are asked to
describe your attitude toward Budweiser. As you
begin thinking about Budweiser, your mind may
wander into thinking about spring break, playing
football, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.
– Attitudes toward Recycling will undoubtedly be
related to attitudes toward purchasing recycled
products
• Which leads us to…
The Belief-Attitude-Behavior Sequence
aka the Knowledge-Attitude-Behavior (KAB) sequence
Emotionally-based
change
Attitudes
Beliefs
Behavior
Cognitively-based
change
Belief-Behavior Sequence
It is possible that the person will make the
purchase decision on beliefs alone, without
intervention from the attitude.
•This might occur if an ad claimed that the Viper or the
Reliant is durable. The ad might support the claim of
durability based on quality of workmanship awards, repair
records, customer satisfaction, etc.
•These beliefs about the car’s durability might predict
purchase of the Viper or Reliant without eliciting an emotional
response.
•These conditions vary greatly between individuals: some
of you get excited about cars, others just want theirs to
work.
Values

Values are sometimes referred to as “global
attitudes,“ or even “super attitudes” because
they are connected to many other attitudes.
– Recycling, Recycled Goods, and Environmentalist
Values

People may value a concept like “family
values” to the same degree, but have
different connotations for that concept, with
different reasons for valuing that concept
– How could we find out what someone means by
“family values”?
• You might start by asking them about their concept of a
family
What are “Family Values”

For Conservatives, correlates of a positive
attitude toward family would include respect
for parents, doing work around the house,
attending religious services, etc.
 Liberals might also highly value the family, but
include much different correlates such as
engaging in dialogue with parents, doing work
in the community and attending cultural
events such as a play.
Attitude as an Evaluative
Semantic Dimension

Semantic Space
– There are many dimensions, or continuums that
something can be evaluated on.
• The Positive – Negative dimension is just one of many
possible associative dimensions on which “fingers” or
any other concept can be rated
• For instance, we could rate fingers on the long-short
continuum, or the clean-dirty continuum. Some of the
dimensions will be more salient to us than others.
Semantic Space

Taken together, these dimensions constitute
space that is often referred to as “semantic
space.”
 One of the major underlying themes of this
semantic space is evaluation. Where you
locate a referent on the evaluative dimension
is your attitude toward the referent.
 Osgood, Suci and Tannenbaum (1957) asked
people to map a multitude of objects in
semantic space.
– These researchers claim that any referent can be
located in this space
– They found 3 fundamental dimensions people use
for evaluations
Relationship among the Three Dimensions
Most
Important
for
Attitudes
Potency
Dimension
Evaluative
Dimension
Activity
Dimension
Fast-Slow
Active-Passive
Good-bad
Beneficial-Harmful
Strong-Weak
Assertive-Meek
And Now… How We Learn
 Operant
Conditioning
 Classical Conditioning
 Social Learning/Modeling
Operant Conditioning
Also called “instrumental learning” and
applies to voluntary behavior, where
classical conditioning applies to reflex
 Known as “goal-directed’ learning, in
that the organism learns the behaviors
leading to rewards and those leading to
punishment.

– Ask me about my mouse.
Operant Conditioning (cont’d)

Reinforcements can be positive or negative
and increase behavior.
 Punishments decrease behavior.
 Reinforcement schedules maintain behavior.
– Ex. Variable Reward-Variable Interval and Casinos
– Positive and negative incentives are learned in the
process
Classical Conditioning
Key Terms
UCS – the unconditioned stimulus
 UCR – the unconditioned response
 CS – the conditioned stimulus
 CR – the conditioned response

Classic Pavlov Experiment
Step 1
Unconditioned
Stimulus 1
Meat
Salivation
Unconditioned
Response
Conditioned
Stimulus 2
Meat+Bell
Salivation
Unconditioned
Response
Salivation
Conditioned
Response
Conditioned
Stimulus 2
Unconditioned
Stimulus 2
Step 2
Conditioned
Stimulus 3
Conditioned
Stimulus 3
Step 3
Bell
Salivation
Unconditioned
Response
Bell+Whistle
Salivation
Unconditioned
Response
Whistle
Salivation
Conditioned
Response
Bell
Unconditioned
Stimulus 3
Whistle
Salivation
Unconditioned
Response
Conditioned
Stimulus 4
Whistle+Beep
Salivation
Unconditioned
Response
Beep
Salivation
Conditioned
Response
Conditioned
Stimulus 4
Phases of the Conditioning
Process
The CS must be paired with the UCS
often enough so that the organism
comes to associate the CS with the
UCR
 Once the CS to CR link has been
established, the CS can serve as the
UCS for another CS

Classical Conditioning:
Basic Principles
Recency
 Frequency
 Stimulus-generalization
 Stimulus-discrimintation
 Extinction
 Spontaneous recovery

Probability that stimulus evokes
desired response in organism

The more recently and frequently the
stimulus pairing, the greater the
probability that the stimulus will elicit the
desired response.
Stimulus Generalization
Once a stimulus is conditioned to elicit a
response, similar stimuli may produce
the same response. There is
generalization from a particular stimulus
to similar stimuli.
 Beep with different tones? Different
French Fries?

Stimulus Discrimination

When the organism responds to
particular stimuli from a class of objects,
and not the other similar stimuli from
that class of objects.
– Just salivate when looking at McDonald’s
fries

Discrimination can be trained
Extinction

When a conditioned stimulus is
repeatedly presented without
reinforcement from the unconditioned
stimulus, the conditioned response will
weaken and eventually disappear.
Spontaneous Recovery

After a response appears to be
extinguished, it may occasionally
reappear in the presence of the
conditioned stimulus.
Social Learning Theory
(Bandura, 1971)

Comes from observing others and noticing
the consequences of their actions (also called
“observational learning”)
 3 Main tenets:
– We are capable of self-reward and self-influence
– Environmental punishments and rewards are
simply symbolic representations of costs and
benefits we store in memory and later use to guide
behavior
– Our internal and External worlds continuously
interact to shape many of our behaviors
Social Learning Theory (cont’d)

Reinforcements come from 3
environmental sources:
– Direct Experience (recall Induction)
– Role Playing (trying to imagine life as
someone else… “how would they
respond”)
– Modeling*** (Key)
• We observe others behaving and model our
behavior after their example
• Likely to occur when:
–
–
–
–
Observer is Attending to the model behavior
Observer retains the information
Observer is competent to mimic the model’s behavior
Observer is motivated to enact the bahavior
6 Factors influencing
Success of Modeling

Observers are more likely to model a behavior when
the benefits outweigh the costs
 Observers are more likely to model a person who is
similar to themselves
 Observers are more likely to model a person who
seems competent, reliable and informed about the
behavior in question
 Observers are more likely to model a person who
appears to have high status
 Observers are more likely to model a person who
seems consistent in their own behavior (we prefer
predictable models)
 Observers are more influenced by multiple role
models as opposed to a single one
Frame of Reference
Attitudes “filter” incoming information.
 Brain organizes stimuli into meaningful
patterns called Gestalts, which are influenced
by our past experiences, motivation and
needs. This influences perceptions of
attribution, meaning, evaluations, etc.
 “We do not see things the way they are, we
see things the way we are.”

– Talmudic Saying
Balance Theories
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