Earlier, we discussed the surprisingly weak connection that attitudes and behavior sometimes have. We also discussed cognitive dissonance research and saw that when attitudes and behavior are connected, it's often the case that attitudes follow behavior rather than cause behavior. In this video, I'd like to focus on attitude change and the psychology of persuasion, an area in which there's been just a tremendous amount of research. In fact, by some estimates, more than 1,000 studies on attitude change are published in psychology journals each year. So with such a vast research literature, we obviously need a way to organize the topic, and one of the best frameworks to do exactly that was developed by Bill McGuire, a Yale attitude researcher, in a landmark research review. McGuire created a matrix with independent variables, or variables under the control of the experimenter, arranged along the top, and mediating or dependent variables, what he called "output steps," arranged along the side. What you see here is a simplified version of the matrix adapted from the original. McGuire's five categories of independent variable were the following: Source variables—that is, variables having to do with the persuader, the source of the communication. Message variables—that is, variables concerning the way a message is constructed (so, for example, whether it uses humor, or fear appeals, or informative statistics, and so on). Channel variables—that is, variables related to whether a persuasive appeal is given in person, on television, in magazine advertisements, the Internet, or other channels of communication. Receiver variables, or variables having to do with the audience—the receivers or recipients of the message. And finally, target variables, or variables that have to do with the thing you're targeting for change, such as getting people to wear seat belts or buy a product, vote for a candidate, and so on. The output variables included things such as paying attention, liking, understanding, agreeing, remembering the message, deciding, acting on it, and so forth. When you think about it, the sheer number of variables that you could study, and the number of ways these variables could interact with each other, is staggering, so it's no wonder that there's so many studies on attitude change (for example, the effects of source attractiveness on purchasing decisions made by people in their twenties). Research on persuasion is also of great practical importance, and the results aren't always what you'd predict. Let's pause for five pop-up questions that should illustrate the point. Very few people get all five of these items correct, and even those who do aren't always 100% sure beforehand that their answers were correct, which suggests that persuasion research has something to teach almost all of us. I know that I continue to be surprised when I read new studies on this topic. So, how are we going to cover this large terrain? Well, selectively. In this video, I'm going to focus on just three questions, and the next video—an animated guest lecture by Bob Cialdini and Steve Martin—will focus more broadly on "Secrets from the Science of Persuasion," a wonderful title and a terrific lecture. Anyway, here are the three questions that I'd like to focus on. First, if you want to be persuasive, is it a good idea to explicitly discuss counter-arguments to your position? Second, should you use a central route to persuasion or a more peripheral route? (And I'll explain these terms in a moment.) And third, should you try to scare the receiver—that is, are fear appeals effective? So let's turn to the first question: whether to acknowledge counter-arguments— that is, arguments against your own position. Political campaigns often operate on the assumption that it's best to stay on the offensive, ignoring rather than refuting opposition charges. Research tends to show, however, that it's better to acknowledge and refute counter-arguments even before presenting your own arguments, under a couple of conditions: First, when counter-arguments have been made salient by familiarity or controversy—that is, you know that the receivers are going to come in contact with the opposition anyway— or second, when the receiver is highly intelligent or initially opposed to your position. In other words, if you know from the start that the receiver is smart or doesn't agree with your position, it's best to begin by acknowledging counter-arguments to your position, to present what's known as a two-sided appeal: "I know that you've heard X, Y, Z, but here's what's wrong with X, Y, Z." The use of counter-arguments can also be effective in building resistance to attitude change when people already hold the position you're advocating—that is, when they're already on your side. Here's how. If you mildly criticize the position people hold, enough so that they defend their position and generate reasons for it, but not so much that they change their mind, it's like immunizing them with a low-dose vaccine. In fact, this technique for building resistance is known in social psychology as "attitude inoculation," and, as covered in one of your readings for this week, it's been used in everything from political campaigns to helping children resist peer pressure when it comes to smoking cigarettes. The difference between a two-sided appeal and attitude inoculation is that in a two-sided appeal, you raise the counter-arguments and then explain why they're not convincing, whereas in attitude inoculation, you raise a mild objection, and it's the receiver who generates the reasons why the objection isn't persuasive. The next question that I want to consider is whether it's better to use a central route to persuasion or a peripheral route to persuasion, and this, too, is a topic that's covered in more detail in this week's assigned reading. A message that uses a central route to persuasion is a message based on facts, statistics, and arguments. This is the kind of message that someone who's highly involved with the issue would find persuasive. In contrast, a message that relies on the peripheral route to persuasion is a message that uses beautiful music, idyllic settings, attractive models, or other cues that are really incidental, or peripheral, to the issue at hand. Peripheral cues are most effective when the audience isn't too involved or critical. Most advertisements use a combination of central arguments and peripheral cues. It's hard to find examples that are 100% one or the other, but here's a car advertisement that certainly focuses on the central route: "A Story in Numbers" that gives the vehicle's torque, safety score, and other details that a highly involved consumer might want to know. In contrast, look at this car ad, which also appeared in a magazine but is probably the most peripheral ad I've ever seen for a car. In fact, there aren't even any words, let alone numbers, and there's no car in sight. It's not even clear what the product or company is until we zoom in on Marilyn Monroe's mole, at which point you can see it's Mercedes-Benz. What's being sold isn't a specific car— it's an association with beauty and glamour, and indeed, the magazine that ran this ad was Glamour magazine. It can also be interesting sometimes to see the central and peripheral routes to persuasion in political advertisements. Here's a TV commercial from the 2012 presidential campaign of Vladimir Putin in Russia. After you watch, I'll ask you a question about whether the approach was mainly central or mainly peripheral. >> The last question that I want to discuss is whether fear appeals tend to be persuasive. As it turns out, the answer is yes. Fear appeals can be pretty effective as long as you give people specific steps they can take to avoid whatever the threat is. If you just scare people silly without saying how to avoid the threat, fear appeals can actually backfire. They can drive people into a state of denial. Returning to the case of political advertisements, the specific thing that viewers can do is usually quite clear—they can vote for a particular candidate or else. That's one reason why so many political ads are based on fear appeals—that if you don't vote for a particular candidate, there'll be nuclear war. Unemployment will double. Taxes will increase. The sky will fall. Wow, that was pretty dramatic! Let me share with you two classic examples of U.S. presidential campaign advertisements that were based on fear appeals—one from a Republican, the other from a Democrat. The first one, courtesy of the Ronald Reagan Foundation and Library, tries to instill fear by presenting Russia, or maybe the Russian military, as a potentially dangerous bear. The advertisement also uses peripheral cues like ominous music and a heartbeat to build tension in the background. Take a look. >> There is a bear in the woods. For some people, the bear is easy to see. Others don't see it at all. Some people say the bear is tame. Others say it's vicious and dangerous. Since no one can really be sure who's right, isn't it smart to be as strong as the bear if there is a bear? >> The next advertisement, courtesy of the Democratic National Committee and the Lyndon Banes Johnson Presidential Library, is one of the most famous TV campaign ads ever shown, which is all the more remarkable because it was only shown once, on September 7, 1964, and it effectively branded the Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater, as a threat to peace. >> One, two, three, four, five, seven, six, six, eight, nine, nine. >> Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero. These are the stakes: to make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die. >> Vote for President Johnson on November 3rd. The stakes are too high for you to stay home. >> One thing these ads show is that televised fear appeals have been part of the political landscape for 50 years or more. And of course, fear appeals and negative campaigning have been around much longer than television. For example, the U.S presidential race in the year 1800 between the incumbent John Adams and the challenger, Thomas Jefferson (who ended up winning) was extremely negative. One can only imagine what a TV commercial attacking Thomas Jefferson would have looked like. Thanks to the Center for New American Media, I'll end this video with a brief glimpse of how modern day persuasion techniques might have been applied if television had been around in the year 1800. >> A nation destroyed. Dwellings in flames. Gray hairs bathed in blood. Female chastity violated. Children writhing on the pike and halberd. It happened in France, but it could happen right here in America if Thomas Jefferson is elected President. Murder, robbery, rape, and incest will be openly taught and practiced. The soil will be soaked in blood, and the nation black with crimes. Great God of compassion and justice, shield our country from destruction. Vote Federalist. >> Paid for by the Adams 1800 Committee, Alexander Hamilton, Treasurer.
