Chapter Overview

Chapter 11

• In modern society, numerous individuals, groups, and agencies constantly try to influence people's ideas, feelings, or actions. At one time, persuasion was seen as something that one person "did to" another, following the linear magic bullet model. Now we know that influence is determined by both sources and receivers, following the simultaneous transactions model.
• Compliance falls into three categories: coercion, in which people may have little choice but to change their behavior; sociocultural expectations, using persuasive messages; and cognitive reorganization, in which people change the way they think or feel about the topic of persuasive messages.
• The attitudes we hold and the actions we engage in are seldom consistent. Although an attitude can increase the probability that we will act consistently, other more immediate social factors can greatly reduce that probability.
• Human beings are universally resistant to change, making persuasion especially difficult. Psychological reactance to persuasion occurs because of our need to be in control, plus our strong desire for a stable and balanced life. As adults we ex-pect and like the freedom to choose and control most of our own behaviors. Desire for this freedom, and many other closely related issues, motivate us to resist influence.
• There are two types of resistance-destructive and constructive. Extreme destructive resistance is characterized as disagreeable, negative, subversive, or rebellious behavior, clearly illustrating contempt for authority. In contrast, constructive resistance can be positive, especially when the behavior solicited is against ethical norms.
• There are three types of yielding: compliance, identification, and internalization. Compliance refers to yielding publicly to an influence attempt, but without actually changing privately. Identification is yielding to the influence of another due to desire to emulate a particular individual or group. Internalization is yielding because it is personally rewarding or useful.
• All persuasion strategies require knowledge of the receiver, including receiver susceptibility, gender, and other personal characteristics that make people either more or less easily influenced by others.
• Five features of messages have been widely studied as possible keys to persuasion: message sidedness, message ordering, fear appeals, behavior-alteration techniques, and nonverbal cues of immediacy.
• Source credibility refers to whether a receiver believes the originator of the message can be trusted or believed. Researchers define credibility as a combination of five dimensions: competence, trustworthiness, extroversion, composure, and sociability.
• The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) represents an attempt to bring together a complex set of factors and variables that explain how a person may or may not be influenced to change his or her attitude toward a topic or issue. If the topic is relevant, and the appeals effective, such change will take place as a result of "elaboration"-and will presumably be followed by corresponding behavior change. If these factors are different, enduring behavior change is unlikely.