Summary The Psychology of Influence Pligt & Vliek- The Psychology of Media and Communication (6464EC03Y_2324_S1)

PSYCHOLOGY OF MEDIA & COMMUNICATION – SUMMARY
LECTURE 1: INTRODUCTION AND INFLUENCE

CHAPTER 1: INFLUENCE Definition, history and model
INTRODUCTION
 Advertising: calling attention to something or notify and warn people through public mediums.
- Information in many forms is used to accomplish this  television dominant advertising medium.

BRIEF HISTORY OF INFLUENCE RESEARCH
Attitudes
 Industrial revolution led to availability of more products + services  increasing interest in persuasion.
 Emphasis in research first on linguistics (form + meaning), then on process analysis (process involved in
persuasion)

Lasswell's model of communication (1948), "who says what in which channel to whom, with what effect,"




Hovland's 4-step process model of persuasion
1. ATTENTION: pay attention to information in message
2. UNDERSTANDING: of message
3. ACCEPTANCE: of message by recipient and change their attitude accordingly
4. RETENTION: of new attitude to influence behaviour permanently

 Factors that influence the likelihood of completion of the model are:
- source of information, recipients’ willingness to pay attention, content of the message
 Together these steps and factors form the Yale model of persuasion

Yale model of persuasion
- Characteristics of message source, message content and recipient influenced attitude change




- Limitations: focuses on motivated people but does not delve into the process or its impact  fails to
explain how the recipient processes the information.

Factors Affecting Persuasion
- Recipient's willingness to pay attention
- Relevance of message.
- Existing attitudes  new messages aligning with existing attitudes are more persuasive.

McGuire's Inoculation Theory (1964)
 6 steps in persuasion: 1. Presentation 2. Attention 3. Comprehension 4. Yielding 5. Retention 6. Behavior

Cognitive Response Theory Greenwald (1968)
 How information processing affects attitudes.
- Interim processes determine whether attitudes and behavior will change.

,Advertising and influence
AIDA model by Strong (1925)
 How a recipient can be influenced
 Attention, Interest, Desire, Action
- Extended by adding an 'S' for 'Satisfaction' (AIDAS) to ensure customer loyalty and repeat purchases.
 Non-Sequential Process: 4 steps occur in parallel, and some steps may be skipped.
 Assumes that people allocate time and attention to the information, which may not always be the case.
 Passivity Assumption: views the recipient of advertising as passive, in contrast to most contemporary
psychological models of influence.




CONTENT OF THIS BOOK

, CHAPTER 2: ATTITUDES & BEHAVIOUR
INTRODUCTION
 Influence attempts focus on changing attitudes, hoping this will alter behaviour.
 Attitudes refer to evaluative responses ––positive or negative –– to a stimulus, the attitude object.
- Can be a person, organisation, situation, product or idea.

ATTITUDES, ATTITUDE FORMATION & BEHAVIOUR
 Attitudes are hard to measure, because it is a latent construct: the actual attitude is not directly
observable, and has to be inferred from visible responses induced by the attitude object.

3 components of attitudes
1. Cognitive response: beliefs, opinions  thoughts aroused by characteristics of the attitude object
2. Affective response: feelings, emotions  feelings an object elicits, either expressed or in the form of a
physiological response. They are instinctive and often coincide with cognitions.
3. Behavioural response: actions, conduct  things like consumer buying
 Each of the 3 components – cognition, affect and behaviour – manifests an evaluative response




 Components can contradict each other
 Weight of underlying components can vary: some attitudes are primarily the product of the affective
response, other attitudes are more reasoned.




 Behavior can influence cognitive and affective responses, and vice versa, leading to changes in attitudes.
- Behaviour is often a consequence of the cognitive and affective response (unbroken arrows)
- But behaviour can influence them too (dotted arrows)

REASONED AND INTUITIVE ATTITUDES
Distinction Between Reasoned and Instinctive Attitudes:
- Reasoned attitudes: conscious consideration of costs + benefits, in-depth evaluation of attitude object.
- Instinctive attitudes: less reasoned and involve superficial information processing.

 Dual-process models describe 2 paths for information processing  high or a low degree of thought