Course set-up
Lectures 2,3,4: Underlying psychological processes of resistance to persuasion
Lectures 5 + 6: receivers’ resistance strategies
Lectures 6, 7, 8, 9: sender strategies to overcome resistance
Lecture 9: helping receivers to resists persuasion
Lecture 1: The importance of resistance to persuasion
Knowles, E. S., & Linn, J. A.
Core of the definition of resistance: reaction against change. Other definitions:
1. “The act of resisting, opposing, withstanding” behavioural
2. “Power or capacity to resist” motivational
3. “Opposition of some force . . . to another or others” motivational
4. “A force that retards, hinders, or opposes motion...” motivational
Resistance as a behavioural outcome, the act of withstanding influence
The outcome of not being moved by pressures to change
Resistance as motivational aspects of resistance, as a power or oppositional force.
The motivation to oppose and counter pressures to change.
Resistance as attitude can be distinguished in three components:
1. Affective component I don’t like it!
2. Cognitive component I don’t believe it!
3. Behavioural component I won’t do it!
An external source of resistance is reactance. Reactance is caused by external threats to
one’s freedom of choice. Two sets of factors determine the amount of reactance:
1. The freedoms that are threatened.
The more numerous and important freedoms, the greater reactance to losing them
2. The nature of the threat.
Direct and demanding requests will create more reactance than subtle and indirect
requests.
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,Four faces of resistance:
Reactance - This face of resistance recognizes the influence attempt as an integral
element of resistance
- Reactance is initiated only when the influence is directly perceived and
when it threatens a person’s choice alternatives.
- This view of resistance also emphasizes the affective (“I don’t like it!”)
and motivational (“I won’t do it!”) sides of resistance.
Distrust - What is the motive behind the proposal is, what are the true facts?
- This face of resistance underlies both affective (“I don’t like it!”) and
cognitive (“I don’t believe it!”)
Scrutiny - general scrutiny (critical observation of examination) that influence,
offers, or requests create.
- When people become aware that they are the target of an influence
attempt, a natural reaction is to attend more carefully and thoughtfully to
every aspect of the situation. This is a form of resistance that puts
emphasis on the proposal itself.
- This face of resistance is primarily on the cognitive element ("I don't
believe it!").
Inertia - This is a face that is not reactant to the proposer or the proposal, and it
doesn’t necessarily lead to greater scrutiny, distrust, or reactance.
- It is a quality that focuses more on staying put than on resisting change
- Attempts to keep the attitude system in balance.
Notes lecture on “what is resistance?”:
- A reaction against change: “I don’t like it”, “I don’t believe it”, “I won’t do it”
- The ability to withstand a persuasive attack are you capable to resist?
- An outcome: not being moved by pressures to change your attitude and
behaviour are not being changed in response to message
- A motivational state: motivation to oppose and counter pressures to change
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,Lecture 2: Self control
Resistance to persuasion as self-regulation: Ego-depletion and its effects on attitude change
processes
Wheeler, S. C., Briñol, P., & Hermann, A. D
Important definitions
Self-regulation
The ability that humans have to actively control our emotions, our thoughts and our
behaviours
Ego-depletion
Refers to a state in which one’s self-regulatory resources are diminished, and this
diminishment is proposed to occur because acts of self-regulation and volition draw upon a
single, limited intrapsychic resource.
After you use your self-control resources on a certain task, the resources will be temporarily
depleted. At that moment, we fall back at more passive, automatic behaviour.
Study aim
- Test the effects of a self-regulation construct (ego-depletion) on individual’s ability to
resist counter attitudinal messages.
- Examine resistance to persuasion as the process of generating more unfavourable
cognitive responses to the weak persuasive messages.
Hypothesis
They predict that the depletion manipulation will inhibit the generation of
counterarguments (eg. unfavourable thoughts), rather than number of thoughts in general.
Method
2 (ego-depletion condition: depleted or not depleted) x 2 (argument quality: strong or weak)
experiment.
Results
Attitudes toward the proposal:
- Depleted participants tended to report more positive attitudes toward the proposal
- Non-depleted participants were more persuaded by strong arguments than by weak
arguments
- Depleted participants did not distinguish between strong and weak arguments.
Cognitive responses
- Non- depleted participants generated relatively more favourable thoughts when they
read strong arguments than when they read weak arguments
- Depleted participants did not distinguish between strong and weak arguments in their
cognitive responses.
Thus:
- Results indicated that prior self-regulation reduced subsequent resistance, primarily
when the message arguments were misleading.
This research supports the notion that self-regulatory resources are involved in resisting
counter attitudinal messages and that such resistance can be hindered by reduced self-
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, regulatory capacity. More specifically, individuals who engaged in a task designed to reduce
their self- regulatory resources reported more positive attitudes toward a counter
attitudinal policy than those not so depleted. These effects occurred primarily among
individuals who received weak messages, and patterns of cognitive responding were
consistent with the notion that depleted individuals generated more favourable cognitive
responses than did individuals who were not depleted.
Implications of the research
- Marketing attempts could become more successful to the extent that individuals have
been using their self-regulatory resources, especially when the appeals lack compelling
support.
- One’s resources may be more depleted at the end of the day, because you need your
willpower to navigate through your social life.
- Failures of mental self-regulation also more likely at the end of the day, making people
more vulnerable to persuasion at night.
- Although your self-regulation is ‘used up’ over time, you can improve ego strength with
practice over the long term. Mental control like yoga were not affected by depletion
manipulation.
- For marketing: people are tired late on the day = self-regulation low
In short
Participants were asked to resist a counter attitudinal persuasive message. Participants
whose self- regulatory resources had been depleted by a previous and unrelated self-
regulation task showed less resistance then non-depleted participants, especially when
message arguments were weak.
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