Persuasion Ass

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Persuading someone is performing an act (roughly, that of affecting someonesbeliefs or desires)using some form of communication, usually language. It can be pursued in many differentsettings,ranging from face-to-face interaction to mass communication. Mass media persuasiontakes three primary overt forms: commercial advertising (of consumer products andservices),pro-social advertising, and political advertising.Persuasive communication can be targeted at Cognition. Persuasion can be used to change individuals beliefs about an object or an issue, which

includes attributes, interpretation, definition, outcome, etc. Attitude. Persuasion can be used to change individuals attitude toward an object or an issue, which

refers to the categorization of an object or an issue along an evaluative dimension (from negative topositive). Behavior. Persuasion can be used to change individuals behavior, whichis the overt actions

regarding an object or an issue.

MEANS OF PERSUASION Persuasion via rational appeal: The cognitive response tradition of persuasion posits that the

persuasive effectiveness of a message is a function of the individuals cognitive responses to themessage.11,12,13 If the overall cognitive response is positive, there will be persuasion; otherwise, thepersuasive attempt fails or even boomerangs. Generally speaking, the success of a rational appeal

thus depends on the strength and quality of arguments in the message, given that the recipient is ableand motivated to process the message. Factual evidence can be in the form of statistics or personaltestimonies. There is no evidence showing the advantage of one over the other. 14 If either ability ormotivation to process the message is low, recipients are less likely to scrutinize message arguments,but tend to be influenced by non-content features of message, for example, message modality,channel,source credibility, etc. Persuasion via emotional appeal: The most widely applied emotional appeal in persuasion is fear

appeal. The term is sometimes interchangeable with the term threat appeal when the emphasis is on

the informational content of the message, rather than the arousal it activates among the recipients.Meta-analyses have demonstrated strong evidence for the effectiveness of fear appeals.15,16 There isalso evidence that guilt appeal is persuasive.17 Fear appeal: A typical fear appeal message has two components: the threat component and therecommendation component. The threat component should present the risk information: the severity

of the risk and the individuals susceptibility to this particular risk. The recommendation componentpresents the recommended behavior to cope with the risk: the response efficacy, which refers to the

effectiveness of the recommendation in removing the threat, and self-efficacy, which refers to the

individuals capability to enact the recommended behavior. Guilt appeal: A typical guilt appeal message has two components: One presents materials to evoke

guilt through drawing attention to some existing inconsistencies between the recipients standardsand actions, the other describes the recommended behavior or viewpoint, which is meant to offer theprospect of guilt reduction.Resistance to Persuas ion

Psychological reactance: When individuals perceive the messages as a restriction on their freedom

to hold a particular attitude or to engage in certain behavior, they might experience psychologicalreactance and reject the message.18,19 Message features that could lead to reactance include: intentionto persuade, illegitimacy, and language intensity. Inoculation: Resistance to persuasion can also be

strategically induced to guard against counterpersuasion.

There is evidence that a simple forewarning induce resistance to persuasion.20 The inoculationmodel.21 suggests that forewarning of possible future attacks on ones attitude make individualsrecognize the vulnerability of their attitude and motivate them to resist influence. Another componentof inoculation is refutational pre-emption: It identifies possible counter-arguments, suppliesrefutations

against possible attacks, and provides an operational model of attitude defense.Comp liance-ga ining

Persuasion also occurs in interpersonal settings, which is mainly compliance gaining. Wiseman andSchenck-Hamlin22 identified 14 compliance-gaining strategies:1. Ingratiation: Actors offer of goods, sentiments, or services precedes the request for compliance.


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2. Promise: Actor promises goods, sentiments, or services in exchange for compliance.3. Debt: Actor recalls obligations owed to him or her as a way of inducing the target to comply.4. Esteem: Targets compliance will result in automatic increase of self-worth.5. Allurement: Targets reward arises from persons or conditions other than the actor.6. Aversive stimulation: Actor continuously punishes target, making concessions contingent upon

compliance.7. Threat: Actors proposed actions will have negative consequences for the target if she or he does

notcomply.8. Guilt: Targets failure to comply will result in automatic decrease of self-worth.9. Warning: The targets noncompliance could lead to circumstances in which other people become

embarrassed, offended, or hurt.10. Altruism: Actor requests the target to engage in behavior to benefit the actor.11. Direct request: The actor simply asks the target to comply.12. Explanation: offer reasons for asking for the compliance.13. Hinting: Actor represents the situational context in such a way that the target is led to conclude

the desired action or response.14. Deceit: Actor requests compliance by intentionally misrepresenting the characteristics of the

desired response.

THEORIES OF PERSUASION

Theories[edit]

Attribution theory[edit]

Main article:Attribution (psychology)

Humans attempt to explain the actions of others through either dispositional attribution orsituational attribution.

Dispositional attribution, also referred to as internal attribution, attempts to point to a personstraits, abilities, motives, or dispositions as a cause or explanation for their actions. A citizencriticizing a president by saying the nation is lacking economic progress and health because thepresident is either lazy or lacking in economic intuition is utilizing a dispositional attribution.

Situational attribution, also referred to as external attribution, attempts to point to the contextaround the person and factors of his surroundings, particularly things that are completely out ofhis control. A citizen claiming that a lack of economic progress is not a fault of the president butrather the fact that he inherited a poor economy from the previous president is situationalattribution.

Fundamental attribution error occurs when people wrongly attribute either a shortcoming oraccomplishment to internal or external factors, when in fact the inverse is true. In general, peopletend to make dispositional attributions more often than situational attributions when trying toexplain or understand a persons behavior. This happens when we are much more focused on theindividual because we do not know much about their situation or context. When trying topersuade others to like us or another person, we tend to explain positive behaviors and
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accomplishments with dispositional attribution, but our own negative behaviors andshortcomings with situational attributions.[6]

Conditioning theories[edit]

Main article:Classical conditioning

Conditioning plays a huge part in the concept of persuasion. It is more often about leadingsomeone into taking certain actions of their own, rather than giving direct commands. Inadvertisements for example, this is done by attempting to connect a positive emotion to abrand/product logo. This is often done by creating commercials that make people laugh, using asexual undertone, inserting uplifting images and/or music etc. and then ending the commercialwith a brand/product logo. Great examples of this are professional athletes. They are paid toconnect themselves to things that can be directly related to their roles; sport shoes, tennis rackets,golf balls, or completely irrelevant things like soft drinks, popcorn poppers and panty hose. Theimportant thing for the advertiser is to establish a connection to the consumer.[7]

This conditioning is thought to affect how people view certain products, knowing that mostpurchases are made on the basis of emotion. Just like you sometimes recall a memory from acertain smell or sound, the objective of some ads is solely to bring back certain emotions whenyou see their logo in your local store. The hope is that by repeating the message several times itwill cause the consumer to be more likely to purchase the product because he/she alreadyconnects it with a good emotion and a positive experience. Stefano DellaVigna and MatthewGentzkow did a comprehensive study on the effects of persuasion in different domains. Theydiscovered that persuasion has little or no effect on advertisement; however, there was asubstantial effect of persuasion on voting if there was face-to-face contact.[8]

Cognitive dissonance theory[edit]

Main article:Cognitive dissonance

Leon Festingeroriginally proposed the theory of cognitive dissonance in 1956. He theorized thathuman beings constantly strive for mental consistency. Our cognition (thoughts, beliefs, orattitudes) can be in agreement, unrelated, or in disagreement with each other. Our cognition canalso be in agreement or disagreement with our behaviors. When we detect conflicting cognition,or dissonance, it gives us a sense of incompleteness and discomfort. For example, a person whois addicted to smoking cigarettes but also suspects it could be detrimental to his health suffersfrom cognitive dissonance.

Festinger suggests that we are motivated to reduce this dissonance until our cognition is inharmony with itself. We strive for mental consistency. There are four main ways we go aboutreducing or eliminating our dissonance:

1. changing our minds about one of the facets of cognition2. reducing the importance of a cognition3. increasing the overlap between the two, and
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4. re-evaluating the cost/reward ratio.

Revisiting the example of the smoker, he can either quit smoking, reduce the importance of hishealth, convince himself he is not at risk, or evaluate the reward of his smoking to be worth thecost of his health.

Cognitive dissonance is powerful when it relates to competition and self-concept. The mostfamous example of how cognitive dissonance can be used for persuasion comes from Festingerand Carlsmiths 1959 experiment in which participants were asked to complete a very dull taskfor an hour. Some were paid $20, while others were paid $1, and afterwards they were instructedto tell the next waiting participants that the experiment was fun and exciting. Those who werepaid $1 were much more likely to convince the next participants that the experiment really wasenjoyable than those who received $20. This is because $20 is enough reason to participate in adull task for an hour, so there is no dissonance. Those who received $1 experienced greatdissonance, so they had to truly convince themselves that the task actually was enjoyable in orderto avoid feeling like they were taken advantage of, and therefore reduce their dissonance.[9]

Elaboration likelihood model[edit]

Main article:Elaboration likelihood model

Persuasion has traditionally been associated with two routes.[10]

Central route: Whereby an individual evaluates information presented to them based onthe pros and cons of it and how well it supports their values

Peripheral route: Change is mediated by how attractive the source of communication isand by bypassing the deliberation process.[10]

The Elaboration likelihood model (ELM) forms a new facet of the route theory. It holds that theprobability of effective persuasion depends on how successful the communication is at bringingto mind a relevant mental representation, which is the elaboration likelihood. Thus if the target ofthe communication is personally relevant, this increases the elaboration likelihood of theintended outcome and would be more persuasive if it were through the central route.Communication which does not require careful thought would be better suited to the peripheralroute.[11]

Functional theories[edit]

Functional theorists attempt to understand the divergent attitudes individuals have towardspeople, objects or issues in different situations.[12]There are four main functional attitudes:

1. Adjustment function: A main motivation for individuals is to increase positive externalrewards and minimize the costs. Attitudes serve to direct behavior towards the rewardsand away from punishment.

2. Ego Defensive function: The process by which an individual protects their ego frombeing threatened by their own negative impulses or threatening thoughts.
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Media selection is also called media planning. Media plan decides how advertising time and space invarious media will be used to achieve the advertising objectives and marketing objectives of thecompany. The basic goal of media plan is to find out that combination of media which enables theadvertiser to communicate the ad-message in the most effective manner at lower cost. An advertisingplan is decided by the advertiser to achieve advertising objectives. Advertising objectives are decidedkeeping in view the marketing objectives of the company. Media plan is based on advertising plan. Inother words media plan is a part of the overall advertising plan. In media plan following main mediadecisions are taken:

target audience.

-budget.

Media planning helps to control wastage in advertising. It ensures the optimum utilization ofresources spent on advertising.

Definition:

According to Fryburger, Mediaplanning involves selecting appropriate media for carryingadvertising message to target audience and deciding how much to spend on each media andscheduling when the advertisement is to run.

Media-planning is a decision process regarding use of advertising time and space to assist in theachievement of marketing objectives. -- Wells BurnettIn brief, media planning includes the answer to following 5 Ws:

Whom: Whom do we want to reach? i.e., identifying target audience

Where: Where the potential customers located? i.e., identifying geographical area.

What: What type of message is to be communicated? i.e., either the message is informative ordemonstrative in nature.

Which: Which media is to be selected for communicating with our potential consumers?


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When: When is the ad need to be issued? i.e., deciding month, day and time of ad.

Factors affecting Media Selection:

Following are the main considerations in media selection1) Nature of product: product to be advertised can be industrial /technical product or consumerproduct. Industrial and technical products can be better advertised in specific trade journals andmagazines. Consumer products can be better advertised through mass media such as television,newspapers, outdoor advertising etc.

2) Nature of customers: an appropriate media plan must be considered in its type, no. of consumers,for whom the advertising is to be done. Different consumers differ in the age group, sex, incomes,personality, educational level, attitude etc.

3) Distribution of products: if the product is to be distributed locally or regionally then media withlocal coverage and reach should be considered like local newspapers, cable-network. If the product isto be distributed on national level, then media with national coverage will be suitable.

4) Advertising objectives: The main objective of every advertising campaign is to get favorableresponse from customer, but the specific objectives can be different. If the objective of advertisingcampaign is to get immediate results then fast media of communication such as newspapers, banners,pamphlets will be considered.

5) Nature of message: if the message is informative in nature, then newspaper will be suitable. If ad-message is to persuade consumers then they need to be given emotional appeal, rational appeal,demonstration of product, then television is suitable.

6) Size of ad-budget: if amount of advertisement budget is more, then costly media like television,national dailies, and popular magazines can be selected.

7) Media reach and coverage: such media should be selected which has wider reach and can coverout target customers.


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Persuasion Ass