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Summary Persuasive Communication Study Guide
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Week 1 (chapter 1)Persuasive communication: Studies the way we are influenced by messages and the
effectiveness of messages
Ancient history of persuasive communication studies
Ancient Greeks focused a lot on the art of persuasion
Sophists would teach you how to win people over to any point of view (vs Plato who
believed it was a hoax)
Aristotle who is commonly regarded as the founder of argumentation studies, focused
on the use of language to persuade others. Aristotle argued that the power to persuade
is determined by characteristics of the source of information (the persuader), its
recipient and its content
Many of these early insights inspired and influence research later on
AIDA Model of Persuasion (Edward Strong, 1925): Describes the communication process in
four steps
A: Attract Attention
I: Maintain Interest
D: Create Desire
A: Get Action
S: Satisfaction (added later): Necessary addition to assure customer loyalty
Critique: Regards the receiver as passive instead of active
Laswell’s model of communication (1940s): Effectiveness of information is best understood by
asking “who says what, in which channel to whom with what effect?”
1) Who (source)
2) What (message content)
3) Which channel (medium)
4) To whom (receiver/ audience)
5) What effect
Yale Model of Persuasion (Carl Hovland, 1950s)
4 step process model
1) Attention: A person must pay attention to the
information in the message
2) Understanding: Message must be presented
in a way that you can understand
3) Acceptance: Person must accept the message
which leads to developing a more positive
attitude towards the advertised product
4) Retention: Must retain the positive attitude after receiving the message (positive
attitude lasts over time = behavioral change/ buying the product)
,Communication Persuasion Matrix (William McGuire, 1989)
4 Input factors (columns)
Components of a communication campaign which can be constructed or manipulated
1) Source: Sender that conveys the message
Demographics: Age, gender, ethnicity
Celebrity (liked or disliked by consumers)
Expertise (credible or not)
Tone, pitch, accent
Reliability, attractiveness, authority
Ex: Company (brand), government, NGO (for health communication)
2) Message content (what)
Message structure (# and order of arguments, quality, repetition, etc.)
Nature of message (ex: type of frame)
Emotional vs rational appeals
Essentially everything you see or hear in an advertisement
3) Recipient (Person receiving the message)
Demographics: Gender, ethnicity, etc.
Cognitive or affective
Low involvement or high involvement
4) Channel (through which medium)
Radio, TV, print, online, social media, etc.
13 Output factors (rows)
Show the campaigns influence (effects) on the receiver
1) Exposure
2) Attention for the message
3) Attitude towards the ad
4) Interest in content
5) Comprehension
6) Generating own thoughts
7) Attitude towards the message
content
8) Memory storage
9) Memory retrieval
10) Behavioral intention
11) Behavior
12) Evaluation of behavior
13) Permanent behavior change
Alternative causal orders
, Effects do not necessarily follow a sequence
There is no strict hierarchal order that must always be followed
For example it is possible too…
a) Skip steps & take short cuts: Low involved people may jump from liking the ad, towards
liking the brand, to buying the product
b) Loops (enter the same step multiple times): High involved people may need to be
exposed to the message serval times and generate thoughts about it before deciding to
buy
c) Follow the steps in reverse order: Sometimes you will buy a brand first (behavior) and
then form an attitude about the brand
Relevance of the matrix
Makes you aware of the cumulative effects of input factors and how input factors
interact
Makes you aware that behavioral change is a process (there are many steps between
exposure and permanent behavior change)
The input factors might affect each output factors differently
Allows you to systematically overview the scientific knowledge on the effects of each
input factor on output factors (your literature review)
Helps to see the weak spots of some input factors, which other input factors may help
to solve
When designing a communication campaign, the matrix is an extremely helpful tool
The six fallacies/principles (McGuire, 1989)
1) Attenuated-effects fallacy
2) Distant-measure fallacy
3) Neglected mediator fallacy
4) Compensatory principle
5) Golden mean principle
6) Situational-weighting principle
1) Attenuated effects fallacy: The positive effect on each output factor of the McGuire
Matrix is dependent on the level of positive effects on previous output factors
Successful influence in each output step depends on the success of the previous step(s)
Expect small effects, effects get smaller as we go down the matrix
Example: Suppose at each step you successfully influence 50% of the people you reach in each
step
, Imagine your target group included 3,476,525 people, permanent behavior change
would only occur in 849 of them (expect small effects!)
2) Distant-measure fallacy: Happens when the campaign or it components are evaluated
in terms of an early response step in the chain (ex: step 1) which is distant from the
behavior step (step 10)
Match your campaign objectives and evaluation
If your goal is to sell, do not evaluate the effectiveness of a campaign based on high
exposure or an overall positive attitude towards the ad (may not actually contribute to
behavior change)
3) The neglected mediator fallacy: An input may increase your success at one output step
but decrease it at another step
All steps (including the negative ones) must
be taken into account in order to understand
the overall effects of the campaign
Example: High educated people generally
comprehend better but often generate more
negative own thoughts thus can be more difficult to
persuade (= less attitude change)
4) Compensatory Principle: The opposite of
the neglected mediator fallacy
If an input element has a negative effect on an output step this can be compensated by
a more positive effect on another step
Example: Although high educated people tend to
generate more own thoughts (are more critical)
they pay more attention to the message and
comprehend it better. Because of this, a larger % of
higher educated people enter step 5 (generating
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