What is persuasion?
Persuasion is a successful intentional effort at influencing another’s mental state through communication in a circumstance in which the persuade has some measure of freedom.
What kind of documents are there?
- informative documents: provide information
- instructive documents: intend to perform readers certain actions
- persuasive documents: convince readers of particular point of view
What is attitude?
): a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor.
Why are persuasive documetns deisgned?
The aim of influencing readers’ attitude through the transfer of information, with readers having a certain degree of freedom.
Distinctuin between directive communication en non-directive communication.
Directive (persuasive): intent to make target group draw a particular conclusion.
Non-directive (informative): does not have inteion to steer poeple towards a particular conclusion.
What four instrments are available to a government when they want to influence behaviour?
- financial instruments
- private law instruments
- direct regulation
- social regulation
Two dimensions to distinguish between the instruments
- enforcement burden: more risk situations. Adopting laws and regulations.
- personal responsability: social regulation making people aware of their own responsability.
Choosing between direct/social regulation in less urgent situations these dimensions should be taken into account
- measurability of behaviour: ease / difficulty with which government can monitor whether people abide by the rules.
- structure of target group: size and heterogeneity
- costs for the target group: the higher people in target group perceive cots to be, less they will be inclined to adopt the desired behaviour.
Steps for effective communication campaign:
- Conducting formative research: of the target behaviour and the conditions under which this behavior is exhibited.
- Using theory: models etc. can give direction
- Segmenting the target group: divide the group into subgroups
- Using an appropriate message design
- Choosing appropriate channels
- Controlling the process: control if the message have the desired effect
- Conduct good evaluation research
Knowledge in two areas about a good persuasive document
- the way in which readers process a document.
- the influence of document properties on this process under various circumstances.
What is mean by effect size?
Based on difference between two means, mean appreciation of a message in narrative format and in non-narrative format. Often used standardized effect in terms of standard deviation: Cohen’s D
When should communication be considered as a way to influence behaviour?
Bijv. when explaning the rationale behind the measure. Communication can make it easier to implement and enforce the rule and prevent undesirable situations.
