Attitude Change

Persuasion & Attitude Change
The Psychology Debrief

Sam Fairlamb
@thepsychdebrief
Department of Psychology
@thepsychologydebrief
Aims of the session
▪ By the end of this session, you should have gained a better

understanding of:
▪ How attitudes change
▪ Persuasive communication
1. Cognitive Dissonance
3
Cognitive consistency theories
▪ Seek to have coherent self, attitudes, thoughts, beliefs, values,

behaviours etc.
▪ Inconsistency among these is an aversive state that arouses a
desire to reduce this aversion
Attitudes
Conflict
Aversion
Behaviours Beliefs
Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp 153-154). Essex, UK: Pearson
Education.
Cognitive consistency theories
▪ Attitudes changes to be consistent with each other

▪ Attitudes change to be consistent with behaviour
Education.
Cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957)
▪ Conflict between related attitudes, cognitions, actions can lead

to dissonance (i.e., tension)
▪ Tension can be alleviated by changing one of our existing
cognitions or adding an extra one to “explain” this discrepancy
Education.
Smoking is bad for

you
I am not a smoker I am a smoker I like swimming
CONSONANT DISSONANT IRRELEVANT
Dissonance
No Action No Action
Reduction
Education.
Possible
resolutions
Change one (or Add new

Change behaviour
more) cognitions cognitions
“Smoking
“I will quit “Harmful effects suppresses
smoking” can be reversed” appetite so has
health benefits”
Education.
Cognitive dissonance
▪ Dissonance can be initiated in different ways:

1. Forced compliance
2. Decision-making
3. Effort
▪ All forms will lead to actions that aim to reduce dissonance
Education.
Forced compliance
▪ Boring task for 1 hour

▪ Persuade another person that the
task was interesting, educational,
worthwhile
▪ Paid either $1 or $20 for doing so
Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)

Education.
Decision-making
▪ Rate desirability of eight household products

▪ Product as a reward
▪ Choice between two highly desirable
products – high dissonance
▪ Choice between one highly desirable and
less desirable – low dissonance
▪ Given one highly desirable product but no
choice – control
▪ Provided factual information about each
product and rated products again Brehm (1956)
Education.
Decision-making
Attitude Change (Post-Pre)

Low Dissonance High Dissonance
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
Reject choice Select choice
Change in evaluation of products in high PS1030 Replication

dissonance condition
Brehm (1956)
Education.
Effort justification
▪ I suffered for it, so I like it!
Education.
Effort justification
▪ Female volunteers on group

discussion about sex
▪ Must pass screening before joining
▪ Severe – explicit descriptions
▪ Mild – read words (e.g., petting)
▪ Control - no screening
▪ Subsequently listened to boring and
incoherent group discussion
Aronson & Mills (1959)

Education.
Selective exposure hypothesis
▪ Where possible, avoid exposure to

information that might arouse dissonance
- selective exposure
▪ Decision whether to
terminate/continue employment
▪ Decision either (i) reversible or (ii)
irreversible
▪ Able to select additional information
after decision - information consonant
or dissonant
Frey & Rosch (1984)
Education.
Alternative views to cognitive dissonance
▪ Self-perception (Bem, 1972)

▪ Attitudes inferred from behaviour
▪ LoA – self-perception
▪ LoR – cognitive dissonance
Latitude of Latitude of Latitude of

rejection (LoR) acceptance (LoA) rejection (LoR)
How much would you pay for dinner out?
Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp 226). Essex, UK: Pearson
Education.
2. Compliance
17
Compliance
▪ Compliance - response to a request by another individual
Education.
Foot in the door
▪ More likely (53%) to accept large request

after smaller request (22%) (Freedman &
Fraser, 1966)
▪ May not always work if first request
too small, or second request too large
(Foss & Dempsey, 1979)
▪ Series of graded requests more
effective (Goldman et al., 1981)
▪ Self-consistency vs. self-perception?
Education.
Door in the face
▪ Cialdini et al. (1975)

▪ Voluntary counsellor at youth
offender centre for two years – 1st
request
▪ Chaperone offenders for two hour
zoo trip – 2nd request
▪ 50% vs 17%
Education.
Our replications
Small request Intermediate

request
• 5 minute • Attend a one Foot in the Door

survey hour session at
end of term 66.3% (Control) vs.
51.1% (FITD) –
p = .016
Intermediate
request
• Attend a one
hour session at
end of term
Door in the Face
Large request Intermediate 66.3% (Control) vs.

request
77.1% (DITF) –
• Hourly weekly • Attend a one p = .048
meeting hour session at
end of term
Low ball tactic
▪ Cialdini et al (1978)
▪ Take part in experiment that
begins at 7am
▪ Take part in experiment →
experiment begins at 7am
▪ 31% vs 56%
▪ Sunk cost fallacy (Fox & Hoffman,
2002)
Education.
Break
3. Persuasion
24
Changing attitudes via persuasion
▪ The Yale Attitude Change Approach (Hovland et al., 1953)

▪ Attitude change/persuasion is influenced by 3 factors that
may interact to produce attitude change
▪ Source – originator of communication (WHO)
▪ Message – features of the communication itself (WHAT)
▪ Audience – characteristics of who is receiving the message
(TO WHOM)
Education.
Source – originator of communication
▪ Credibility (e.g., Hovland & Weiss, 1951)

▪ Expertise
▪ Trustworthiness
Education.
Source – originator of communication
▪ Appearance
▪ Attractiveness (Chaiken, 1979)
▪ Similarity (Goethals & Nelson, 1973)
Education.
Message – features of the communication
▪ One sided vs. two sided messages

▪ Effectiveness may depend on the
audience (e.g., motivation, intelligence)
▪ Fact vs. feelings
▪ Might depend on type of attitude held
(e.g., affect vs cognition)
Education.
▪ Repetition
▪ Repeated exposure increases familiarity
▪ Can provide a ‘ring of truth’ (Arkes et al., 1991)
Education.
▪ Fear
Change in desire to quit

smoking
1.5
0.5
0
Control Moderate High
Janis & Feshbach (1953) Leventhal et al., (1967)
Education.
Fear
Inverted U-curve hypothesis (e.g., Janis, 1967)

Education.
Fear
▪ Protection Motivation Theory (Rogers, 1975)
Threat appraisal
- Severity
- Susceptibility
Protection
Behaviour
Motivation
Coping appraisal
- Response cost
- Response efficacy
- Self-efficacy
Floyd, D. L., Prentice‐Dunn, S., & Rogers, R. W. (2000). A meta‐analysis of research on

protection motivation theory. Journal of applied social psychology, 30(2), 407-429.
Audience – characteristics of the receiver
▪ Self-Esteem
▪ Inverted U-curve shape (McGuire, 1968)
▪ Individual differences in needs e.g.,
▪ Need for cognition (e.g., Haugtvedt & Petty, 1992)
▪ Need for closure (e.g., Kruglanski et al., 1993)
▪ Age
▪ High susceptibility during early adulthood and later life, but
lower in middle adulthood (U-curve)
▪ Lifelong openness to some extent throughout life
Education.
Dual-process models of persuasion
▪ Elaboration-Likelihood Model (ELM; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986)
Petty, R. E., Cacioppo, J. T., (1986). The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion. In L. Berkowitz
(Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (pp.123-205). New York: Academic Press
Central:
Cost Peripheral:
Efficiency Limited supply
Performance Positive self image
Reliability Sex appeal
Colour
Petty, R. E., Cacioppo, J. T., (1986). The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion. In L. Berkowitz
(Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (pp.123-205). New York: Academic Press
▪ Involvement: high vs low

▪ Argument quality: strong vs weak
▪ Endorser: famous vs. non-famous
Low Involvement High Involvement
2 2.5
2
1.5
1.5
1 1
0.5
0.5 0
0 -0.5
-1
-0.5 -1.5
Famous Non-Famous Famous Non-Famous
Weak Strong Weak Strong
Petty et al., (1983)

Petty, R. E., Cacioppo, J. T., & Schumann, D. (1983). Central and peripheral routes to advertising
effectiveness: The moderating role of involvement. Journal of consumer research, 10(2), 135-146.
Action research
▪ Action Research - attitude change more effective if active

participator rather than passive recipient (Lewin, 1943)
▪ American housewives - feed families unusual but highly
nutritious foods
▪ 32% of women in discussion group vs. 3% in the lecture group
▪ Used extensively in community health issues
Education.
4. Resistance to Persuasion
38
Resistance to persuasion
▪ Inoculation (McGuire, 1964)

▪ Vaccine analogy – weak argument
that is easy to rebut increases
ability to resist future arguments
McGuire & Papageorgis (1961)
Education.
Resistance to persuasion
▪ Attitude strength (e.g., Bassili 1996)

▪ When people are certain about
their attitudes, they are more
resistant to persuasive arguments
Education.
We have covered…
▪ Theories regarding how attitudes change over time
▪ Persuasive techniques in producing attitude change

▪ Understanding how attitudes change is vital in tackling several
societal issues
▪ You will see issues related to attitude change elsewhere in the

degree e.g.,
▪ Prejudice reduction
▪ Persuasion and propaganda

Attitude Change

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Attitude Change

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Persuasion & Attitude Change

The Psychology Debrief

▪ By the end of this session, you should have gained a better

▪ Seek to have coherent self, attitudes, thoughts, beliefs, values,

▪ Attitudes changes to be consistent with each other

▪ Conflict between related attitudes, cognitions, actions can lead

Smoking is bad for

I am not a smoker I am a smoker I like swimming

CONSONANT DISSONANT IRRELEVANT

Change one (or Add new

▪ Dissonance can be initiated in different ways:

▪ Boring task for 1 hour

Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)

▪ Rate desirability of eight household products

Attitude Change (Post-Pre)

Change in evaluation of products in high PS1030 Replication

▪ I suffered for it, so I like it!

▪ Female volunteers on group

Aronson & Mills (1959)

▪ Where possible, avoid exposure to

▪ Self-perception (Bem, 1972)

Latitude of Latitude of Latitude of

▪ Compliance - response to a request by another individual

▪ More likely (53%) to accept large request

▪ Cialdini et al. (1975)

Small request Intermediate

• 5 minute • Attend a one Foot in the Door

Large request Intermediate 66.3% (Control) vs.

▪ The Yale Attitude Change Approach (Hovland et al., 1953)

▪ Credibility (e.g., Hovland & Weiss, 1951)

▪ One sided vs. two sided messages

Change in desire to quit

Inverted U-curve hypothesis (e.g., Janis, 1967)

▪ Protection Motivation Theory (Rogers, 1975)

Floyd, D. L., Prentice‐Dunn, S., & Rogers, R. W. (2000). A meta‐analysis of research on

▪ Elaboration-Likelihood Model (ELM; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986)

▪ Involvement: high vs low

Petty et al., (1983)

▪ Action Research - attitude change more effective if active

▪ Inoculation (McGuire, 1964)

McGuire & Papageorgis (1961)

▪ Attitude strength (e.g., Bassili 1996)

▪ Theories regarding how attitudes change over time

▪ Persuasive techniques in producing attitude change

▪ You will see issues related to attitude change elsewhere in the

You might also like