Topic 1
[Lecture notes]
There are three types of resistance:
1. Reactance: Resistance to persuasion when someone feels restricted in their freedom.
o Reactance results in a motivation to restore the violated freedom.
o It is stronger when the influence attempt is more blatant or requests more
resources.
2. Scepticism: Resistance to the message that is related to the content.
o One can scrutinize the message via a cognitively central route (judges on
internal consistency) and via a heuristic route (judges on salient, less
informative information like layout of the message).
3. Inertia: Resistance to change.
There are two types of persuasion strategies:
1. Alpha: Attempts to make an option more attractive (e.g., Cialdini technique,
conditioning, priming, nudging etc.)
2. Omega: Attempts to prevent a negative reaction to a persuasion attempt
[Examples in the lecture]
o Restore the freedom (‘You are free to accept or refuse’). Best used before or
after the message. [Empirically tested example provided]
Restores experienced freedom
Reciprocity (an opportunity to refuse is provided)
Politeness (foot-in-the-mouth effect)
o Acknowledge resistance (‘I know you might not want to…’) [Empirically tested
example provided]
o Self-erasing prediction errors: People are more prone to say yes to a real
situation after saying yes to a hypothetical situation, because: [Empirically
tested example provided]
Commitment and consistency
Activation of an injunctive norm
Cognitive dissonance
Impression management
o Planning fallacy: People are more optimistic about the future and people tend
to focus on ‘why’ instead of ‘how’ they will do things.
o Theory of action identification: Disrupting the script can increase the effect of
persuasion:
Pique technique
Disrupt-then-reframe technique
Fear-then-relief technique
[Book Ch. 3 and 5 by Pratkanis]
How to deal with reactance:
[Lecture notes]
There are three types of resistance:
1. Reactance: Resistance to persuasion when someone feels restricted in their freedom.
o Reactance results in a motivation to restore the violated freedom.
o It is stronger when the influence attempt is more blatant or requests more
resources.
2. Scepticism: Resistance to the message that is related to the content.
o One can scrutinize the message via a cognitively central route (judges on
internal consistency) and via a heuristic route (judges on salient, less
informative information like layout of the message).
3. Inertia: Resistance to change.
There are two types of persuasion strategies:
1. Alpha: Attempts to make an option more attractive (e.g., Cialdini technique,
conditioning, priming, nudging etc.)
2. Omega: Attempts to prevent a negative reaction to a persuasion attempt
[Examples in the lecture]
o Restore the freedom (‘You are free to accept or refuse’). Best used before or
after the message. [Empirically tested example provided]
Restores experienced freedom
Reciprocity (an opportunity to refuse is provided)
Politeness (foot-in-the-mouth effect)
o Acknowledge resistance (‘I know you might not want to…’) [Empirically tested
example provided]
o Self-erasing prediction errors: People are more prone to say yes to a real
situation after saying yes to a hypothetical situation, because: [Empirically
tested example provided]
Commitment and consistency
Activation of an injunctive norm
Cognitive dissonance
Impression management
o Planning fallacy: People are more optimistic about the future and people tend
to focus on ‘why’ instead of ‘how’ they will do things.
o Theory of action identification: Disrupting the script can increase the effect of
persuasion:
Pique technique
Disrupt-then-reframe technique
Fear-then-relief technique
[Book Ch. 3 and 5 by Pratkanis]
How to deal with reactance:
