Cognitive response model
The cognitive response model of persuasion locates the most direct cause of persuasion in the self-talk of the persuasion target, rather than the content of the message.
When most people think about attitude change, what comes to mind is a persuasive communication, either written (e.g., a newspaper editorial) or oral (e.g., a television commercial). In addition, most people think of the importance of strong arguments, in the sense that a communication with strong arguments will probably be persuasive whereas a communication containing weak arguments will probably be rejected. This perspective on attitude change focuses on information-based persuasion, and is very similar to a theory in social psychology known as cognitive response theory.
Cognitive response theory argues that people's thoughts in response to a message are critical determinants of attitude change. When a communication stimulates positive thoughts, called proarguments in the theory, attitude change occurs, whereas when a communication stimulates negative thoughts, called counterarguments in the theory, attitude change does not occur.
A critical determinant of the nature of people's thoughts in response to a message is the strength of the arguments. A cogent, compelling message elicits proarguments, whereas a silly, unconvincing message elicits counterarguments. These responses (proarguments or counterarguments), in turn, determine whether or not attitude change occurs.
Cognitive response theory is very straightforward and commonsensical. The idea that strong arguments elicit positive thoughts, which produce attitude change, whereas weak arguments elicit negative thoughts, which inhibit attitude change, is logical and not very surprising. But don't be misled by its simplicity “ these processes are important and occur everyday.
This section of the textbook describes several interesting research findings that have been obtained by cognitive response researchers, such as the effects of mere thought and the effects of head nodding. This latter study showed that getting people to nod their heads increased their agreement with arguments they were hearing at the same time! A web-based article reporting the head-nodding study is available at the following site:
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20030609233203data_trunc_sys.shtml
I want to add a simple study that demonstrated the importance of cognitive responses in persuasion. John Cacioppo and Richard Petty (1985) asked university students to listen to a message arguing that seniors at their university should have a new requirement that they must pass a comprehensive examination in their major area before they can graduate. Needless to say, almost all students opposed this idea. Two messages were used, one containing strong arguments and the other containing weak arguments. An example of a strong argument was Graduates from universities with comprehensive exams are recruited more heavily by employers. An example of a weak argument was Comprehensive exams maintain a tradition dating back to the ancient Greeks. A second independent variable was also manipulated in the experiment: participants heard the message either once or three times. The researchers hypothesized that repeating the message three times should heighten the impact of argument strength because participants would have three chances to think about how convincing or how stupid the arguments were.
After hearing the strong or weak message once or three times, participants were asked to report their own attitude toward instituting comprehensive exams for seniors. Here were the attitude findings from their experiment:
When participants heard the message just once, the strong arguments produced more positive attitudes toward comprehensive exams than did the weak message, as would be expected. When participants heard the message three times, this difference was exaggerated: the strong message produced even more positive attitudes, and the weak message produced even more negative attitudes. Thus, the impact of the message in this study depended on its quality, as well as participants' opportunities to consider it carefully.
Although attitude change often occurs because strong arguments convince the listener that the conclusion is valid (as in cognitive response theory), there is a second way that attitude change can occur, which is not so rational, logical, or argument-based. Specifically, people sometimes adopt an attitude simply because there are cues or features that imply the position is correct. This is the type of persuasion that results when our doctor tells us that we should take a certain medicine; we do not question him/her or demand data to support the recommendation. He or she is the doctor, and that is that. The expertise of the medical degree is sufficient to convince us that doctors know what they are talking about. This is also the type of persuasion that can occur when we are influenced by someone we admire or like. For example, when a popular singer introduces a new look, fans may copy the clothing and appearance simply because they identify with the singer. Or when someone we like tells us that a political candidate is good, we may accept this conclusion as valid because we trust the person and want to please him or her.
Can these two types of attitude change (one based on strong arguments and one based on cues that imply the position is correct) be integrated into a single theory? Petty and Cacioppo's elaboration likelihood model does so. This model is probably the most influential theory of persuasion today. It has been tested in many studies and applied to many persuasion domains. The textbook reviews the major features of the theory, and Figure 11-3 (page 261) illustrates the full theory in its original form.
Essentially, the theory distinguishes between two routes to persuasion. The central route refers to persuasion that is based on information and strong arguments. The peripheral route refers to persuasion that is based on simple cues and assumptions (e.g., the doctor is an expert). Persuasion that occurs in the central route is effortful, because the person must pay attention to the message and think carefully about the arguments. Therefore, to conserve psychological resources, the central route is activated primarily when the issue is important to the individual. When central processing does occur, attitude change tends to be long-lasting and to affect behaviour. In contrast, the peripheral route is less work, so people are likely to use it when the issue is not particularly important. However, attitude change resulting from the peripheral route may be short-lived and have less impact on behaviour.
Petty and Cacioppo hypothesized that the rational, argument-based type of attitude change will occur only when the individual is both (1) motivated to engage in the necessary thinking and (2) capable of understanding the arguments. Thus, for example, the issue must be at least somewhat important to the individual (to motivate him or her to exert the effort to think carefully), and the arguments must be simple enough and presented slowly enough that the individual is able to understand them. If either of these two requirements is missing, then the peripheral route is the only avenue by which persuasion can occur (see Figure 11-3).
Many researchers have obtained evidence of both central route persuasion and peripheral route persuasion in the same study. Typically, these researchers have shown that the strength of the arguments in a message is very influential when recipients are motivated to listen and the arguments are clear. But if recipients are not interested in the topic, or if the arguments are complex and difficult to understand, then persuasion occurs only when there is a cue implying that the message is valid, such as a highly credible source (e.g., a doctor).
For example, Carolyn Hafer (who obtained her Ph.D. here at Western) conducted an interesting experiment at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, that tested students' persuasion in response to a message on plea bargaining (Hafer et al., 1996). Plea bargaining occurs when a person accused of a crime agrees to plead guilty to a reduced charge in order to receive a shorter sentence. At the time the study was conducted, the highly publicized case of Karla Homolka's plea bargain was still fresh in people's memories in St. Catharines. Karla Homolka was the wife of Paul Bernardo. This couple kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and murdered two teenage girls in St. Catharines. Homolka claimed that she was coerced by her husband to participate in the murders. In a plea bargain, she agreed to plead guilty and testify against her husband in return for a relatively short sentence. Shortly after the plea bargain was negotiated, however, videotapes of the murders were found, which showed that Homolka was more involved in the events than she had stated and which also made her testimony against her husband much less important in the case against him. Almost everyone in St. Catharines thought that Homolka's plea bargain was too lenient; thus, almost everyone had a negative attitude toward plea bargaining. (Homolka served 12 years in prison for the murders. She was released in July 2005.)
Participants listened to a taped message that argued in favour of plea bargaining. The credibility of the source was manipulated: some participants were told that the speaker was His Honour Judge William Grovestead, a summa cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, who had been sitting on the bench for 15 years and was an expert on plea bargaining, whereas other participants were told that the speaker was William Grovestead, a second-year law student at Rockway University, who had recently become interested in plea bargaining. The strength of the arguments was also manipulated: the message contained either five strong arguments or five weak arguments supporting plea bargaining. Finally, the complexity or comprehensibility of the message was manipulated: the arguments were stated either in clear and straightforward language (e.g., Plea bargaining may make a charge more appropriate to the circumstances of a crime) or in complex and difficult-to-understand language (e.g., Plea bargaining can acquire a conviction by obtaining a guilty plea in a weak case that may otherwise yield an acquittal, should the case be held over for trial).
What did Hafer and her colleagues predict? Although the message would be of interest to all participants because of the well-publicized local trial, participants who listened to the complex message were not expected to be able to understand what the speaker was saying. Thus, when the message was complex, the strength of the arguments would not matter, and the only factor that would influence persuasion would be the expertise of the source “ the highly credible judge would produce more persuasion than the less credible law student (persuasion via the peripheral route). In contrast, participants who listened to the simpler and clearer version of the message were expected to be able to understand the arguments, so strong arguments would produce more persuasion than weak arguments, and the expertise of the source would be less important (persuasion via the central route).
Here is what they found:
The results were exactly what the researchers predicted. When participants were unable to process the message carefully because it was so complex (the four bars on the right side of the figure), they were more favourable toward plea bargaining when the source was Judge Grovestead than when the source was student Grovestead, but the strength of the arguments had relatively little effect on persuasion (in fact, there was a non-significant tendency for the weak arguments to produce more persuasion than the strong arguments). On the other hand, when participants listened to the clear, easy-to-understand message (the four left-most bars), they were more favourable toward plea bargaining when the arguments were strong than when the arguments were weak, and the credibility of the source did not affect persuasion (in fact, there was a non-significant tendency for the low credibility source to produce more persuasion than the high credibility source).
The distinction between central versus peripheral persuasion in the elaboration likelihood model (and a similar distinction between systematic versus heuristic processing by Shelly Chaiken, which is mentioned in the textbook) has been very influential in social psychology, as well as in related fields such as marketing. For example, researchers interested in consumer psychology have used the model to understand different kinds of commercials. In fact, a distinction between two types of advertisements corresponds quite closely to the central/peripheral distinction. Specifically, hard sell advertisements correspond to persuasion by the central route, and soft sell advertisements correspond to persuasion by the peripheral route. In the next two paragraphs, I provide a brief description of the hard sell and the soft sell.
When advertisers talk about the hard sell as a technique for promoting a product, they usually are referring to the use of information about the quality of a product to market it. The positive characteristics of the product are front and centre: the message attempts to convince the recipients that the product is a good one. The appeal is rational and logical, rather than emotional or symbolic. The hard sell assumes that people process advertisements carefully and can be induced by information to purchase or use the product. Some types of products are more easily promoted with a hard sell than others. First, products whose performance can be objectively specified “ such as stereo equipment, computers, appliances, and automobiles “ lend themselves well to the hard sell. These products can be promoted by comparing their performance to that of other brands and highlighting their advantages. A written mode of communication, such as newspaper ads, is often an effective way to present this information. Second, products that are strictly functional and do not have any status or symbolic value “ such as garden tools, insect repellents, air conditioners, and surge protectors “ also lend themselves well to the hard sell. Let's face it “ we don't buy a spade or an insect repellent to make an impression on other people. With these kinds of products, people are simply looking for ones that work effectively, so the only relevant consideration is information about their features.
Advertisers do not always try to sell products by emphasizing their positive features. In fact, they probably use an approach called the soft sell just as often as the hard sell. What is the soft sell? It refers to the use of images, emotions, symbols, or values to sell a product. The advertiser tries to associate the product with positive feelings or images, in the hope that consumers will come to like the product. The soft sell relies, in many cases, on cues implying that the product is a good one without necessarily providing relevant information. Examples of the soft sell are easy to find. Many advertisements try to arouse positive emotions or moods, which will then be associated with the product in consumers' minds: humorous ads use jokes or slapstick to evoke positive affect; sentimental ads use babies or puppies to arouse warm feelings and happy memories; and many ads use cheerful or lively music to elicit good moods. These ads often have little information about the product “ the goal of the ad is simply to make viewers feel good. Other advertisements try to link a product with success, attractiveness, or high status without providing specific facts. For instance, beer ads show attractive young people having lots of fun at a party; car ads portray handsome drivers as popular and successful; and clothing ads show beautiful models in prestigious settings. These images are intended to evoke impressions of happiness, attractiveness, prosperity, and status, which consumers will subconsciously associate with the product.
Here are examples of the hard and soft sell, respectively, in advertising:
http://vimeo.com/32727600 Both hard sell and soft sell commercials can be effective. Some products lend themselves better to one approach or the other. Advertisers sometimes use a combination of hard sell and soft sell ads to maximize the likelihood of persuading customers to try their product.
There are many interesting websites on advertising. For example, the following website provides information for parents on advertising, especially ads that target children and how parents can deal with such ads:
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/parents/marketing/advertising_everywhere.cfm
Finally, here is a humorous website. It presents a variety of funny ads. A warning that a few of them might offend some people:
http://veryfunnyads.com
Anthony Greenwald first proposed the theory in 1968.[1]
Research
Research supporting the model shows that persuasion is powerfully affected by the amount of self-talk that occurs in response to a message.[2] The degree to which the self-talk supports the message and the confidence that recipients express in the validity of that self-talk further support the cognitive response model.
Implications for persuasion
The cognitive response model suggests that effective messages should take into account factors that are likely to enhance positive cognitive responses to the receivers.
Counterarguments, in contrast, are negative cognitive responses that prohibit persuasion. Factors that reduce counterarguments include communicator expertise and insufficient time and ability to formulate counterarguments. Such tactics are often used in interrogations.