The Psychology of Influence
1 Influence – definition, history and a model
Advertising: ad verte > to turn towards/to change. Seek to influence us.
Attitude: evaluative response (positive or negative) to a person, a situation, a
product, an idea or an organization.
Laswell’s model of communication
Who says what in which channel to whom with what effect?
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
Source content medium audience effect
Yale model of persuasion
As soon as a person is motivated to take notice of a message, they will internalize its
content, ultimately shaping their attitude and behavior.
Content Attention ↓
Source → Understanding ↓ Attitudes
Recipient Acceptance → Behavior
Limitation: model only state that motivated people will take in information; it does not
state how exactly that process works.
Inoculation theory (McGuire, 1964)
How people can arm themselves against information intended to influence and
change their opinion. Process of persuasion: presentation, attention,
comprehension, yielding (accepting the arguments), retention and behavior.
These steps were more related and influence each other (a person could be
positively relating to comprehension and retention but negatively to yielding).
→ Inoculation indicates what weak argument can act like a ‘virus’, triggering a
cognitive reaction which protects, reinforces and helps to maintain an existing
attitude.
Cognitive response theory (Greenwald, 1968)
Examines the way in which information is processed and how that affects attitudes.
Information is often coupled and compared with existing attitudes and preferences,
and possibly even integrated into them.
Says that we are better at remembering our thoughts about an argument during the
argument, rather than the actual argument itself. NOT all attitude change is the result
of a conscious process.
AIDA model (Strong, 1925)
Attention, Interest, Desire, Action → Add the S for Satisfaction at the end as a
component to assure customer loyalty and to generate repeat purchases.
, Attention (novelty, surprise, extremity, deviance) → Interest (relevance,
consequences, opportunity, change) → Desire (appeal, uniqueness) → Action
(purchase, order, subscribe)
It does not necessarily follow a sequential order. In practice, the four steps tend to
run in parallel and one or more can be skipped.
2 Attitudes and behavior
Attitudes are evaluative responses (positive or negative) to an attitude object: can
be a person (politician, landlord, yourself), organization (tax authority, social
services), situation (party, lesson at school), product (food, cosmetics) or idea (halting
immigration, raising speed limit).
Even though it seems logical that attitudes directly relate to behavior, this isn’t as
straightforward as it seems.
Latent construct of attitudes
Stimuli representing the attitude object → attitude → evaluative responses (ABC’s)
observable inferable observable
E.g., a bouquet of flowers → positive attitudes → a smile/facial expression
Three components of attitudes
Affect (feelings, emotions) → forms feelings, sentiments or emotions of an attitude object
Behavior (action, conduct) → attitude expression (action tendencies) of the attitude object
Cognitions (beliefs, opinions) → basis of judgement, thoughts aroused by the attitude object
Five characteristics of attitudes
1 Attitudes are focused on an object, person, organization or event
2 Attitudes are evaluative, either positively or negatively
3 Attitudes can be based on cognitive beliefs about attitude object
4 Attitudes can be based on affective responses to attitude object
5 Attitudes have repercussions for behavior towards the attitude object
↗ Cognitive response (consideration) ↘
Attitude object ↕ Attitude → Behavior
↘ Affective response (feeling) ↗
Elaboration likelihood model (ELM) (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986)
Is a dual process model in which there are two ways in which people’s attitudes and
judgments can be formed or modified: with a high or low degree of thought. This high
degree of thought is a more critically, all options considered and actively information
seeking to ensure the right choice (doctor says operation so investigate it) = central
route to persuasion (thorough consideration and analysis of the core characteristics
of the attitude object). The low degree of thought is less critical, more acceptant of
what happens, because of experienced person (doctor says medications so accept it)
= peripheral route to persuasion (drawing on characteristics of attitude object or
situation such as source of information which are only indirectly relevant).
Heuristic-systematic model (HSM)
