Psychology2016

Social Psychology 475

• Medium: The form through which a person receives a message is also important.
  For example, seeing and hearing a politician’s speech on television may have a very
  different effect than simply reading about it in the newspaper or online. The visual
  impact of the television coverage is particularly important because it provides an
  opportunity for the source of the message to be seen as attractive, for example.

How easily influenced a person is will also be related to the way people tend to
process information. In the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion (Briñol & Petty,
2015; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), it is assumed that people either elaborate (add details and
information) based on what they hear (the facts of the message), or they do not elaborate
at all, preferring to pay attention to the surface characteristics of the message (length,
who delivers it, how attractive the message deliverer is, etc.). Two types of processing
are hypothesized in this model: central-route processing, in which people attend to the
content of the message; and peripheral-route processing, a style of information process-
ing that relies on peripheral cues (cues outside of the message content itself), such as
the expertise of the message source, the length of the message, and other factors that
have nothing to do with the message content. This style of processing causes people
not to pay attention to the message itself but instead to base their decisions on those
peripheral factors (Briñol & Petty, 2015; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Stiff & Mongeau, 2002).
For example, the author once participated on a jury panel in which one woman voted
“guilty” because the defendant had “shifty eyes” and not because of any of the evidence
presented.

THINKING CRITICALLY

Imagine that you are asked to create a television commercial to sell a new product.
Given what you know of the factors that effectively influence persuasion, how might you
persuade a customer?

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collected by your instructor if he/she requires it.

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Cognitive Dissonance: When Attitudes and Behavior Clash

12.7 Explain how people react when attitudes differ from behavior.

As stated earlier, sometimes what people say and what they do

are very different. I once pointed this out to a friend of mine who

was behaving this way, and he got really upset over it. Why did he

get so upset?

When adults find themselves doing things or saying things that don’t match their
idea of themselves as smart, nice, or moral, for example, they experience an emo-
tional discomfort (and physiological arousal) known as cognitive dissonance (Aron-
son, 1997; Festinger, 1957; Kelly et al., 1997). When people are confronted with the
knowledge that something they have done or said was dumb, immoral, or illogical,
they suffer an inconsistency in cognitions. For example, they may have a cognition
that says “I’m pretty smart” but also the cognition “That was a dumb thing to do,”
which causes a dissonance. (Dissonance is a term referring to an inconsistency or lack
of agreement.)
When people experience cognitive dissonance, the resulting tension and arousal are
unpleasant, and their motivation is to change something so that the unpleasant feelings

peripheral-route processing

type of information processing that

involves attending to factors not

involved in the message, such as

the appearance of the source of the

message, the length of the message,

and other noncontent factors.

elaboration likelihood model

model of persuasion stating that

people will either elaborate on the

persuasive message or fail to elaborate

on it and that the future actions

of those who do elaDorate are more

RredictaDle than those who do not.

central-route processing

type of information processing that

involves attending to the content

of the message itself.

cognitive dissonance

sense of discomfort or distress that

occurs when a person’s behavior

does not correspond to that person’s

attitudes.

How the jurors in this courtroom interpret

and process the information they are given

will determine the outcome of the trial.

Those who listen carefully to what is said

by persons involved in the trial are using

central-route processing. There may be some

jurors, however, who are more affected by

the appearance, dress, attractiveness, or

tone of voice of the lawyers, defendant, and

witnesses. When people are persuaded by

factors other than the message itself, it is

called peripheral-route processing.