1
Q
Resistance
A
Motivational state, in which people have to goal to reduce attitudinal or behavioural change or to retain one’s current attitude
- essential for persuasion
Types of Resistance:
- reactance
- skepticism
- inertia
- ACE
2
Q
Difficulty of Resistance
A
- Resisting an influence attempt can be surprisingly difficult
- we are not always aware of the persuasive intent of a request/message
- or we otherwise lack the ability or motivation to resist a persuasive appeal
3
Q
Reactance
A
Unpleasant motivational arousal
- resistance to the influence attempt, when freedom of choice is taken away
- m&m experiment, experimental condition ate more red (unalloyed) m&ms, control (allowed to eat everything) 50/50 of red & yellow m&ms
4
Q
Skepticism
A
- presented information is not seen as valid (rejection)
- resistance to the proposal (content focused)
- large cognitive aspect
5
Q
Inertia
A
- people don’t like to change from a specific status quo
- any change to status quo needs energy
- resistance to change, attachment to status quo
6
Q
Cognitive Response Approach
A
argues that individual’s idiosyncratic responses to a counter-attitudinal message will determine whether the message is accepted (resulting in persuasion) or rejected (resulting in resistance)
provides a useful tarting point for anticipating some strategies that individuals may report using to resist persuasion
7
Q
Cognitive Responses (Cognitive Response Approach)
A
typically measured by asking individuals to write out whatever they were thinking during the presentation of a counter-attitudinal message
- standard coding scheme classifies responses as favourable, unfavourable or neutral toward the message
8
Q
ACE typology
A
how consumers resist advertisements (resistance strategies)
- such coping is often defensive but consumers may also embrace persuasive attempts as a form of entertainment or valuable source of information about products & services
- Avoidance
- Contesting
- Empowering
9
Q
Avoidance (ACE)
A
Active avoidance:
- people have to be aware that an ad is there, but have to somehow force themselves not to see or hear it
Passive avoidance:
- does not necessarily require such action, and might therefore call for different types of neutralising strategies
Physical: not seeing or hearing the ad
Mechanical: zapping through channels, muting TV/radio, zipping
Cognitive: not paying attention to specific ads contradicting existing beliefs or opinions
> selective exposure & selective attention
10
Q
Contesting (ACE)
A
- more active
- involves actively refuting the ad by challenging it
- Content/Counterarguing
- Source Derogation
- Persuasive Techniques
11
Q
Empowering (ACE)
A
more positive approach
- empowering strategies are related to the recipients themselves, not to the content of the persuasive message
- involve reassuring the self or one’s existing attitude
- Attitude Bolstering
- Social Validation
- Asserting the Self
12
Q
Content/Counterarguing
Contesting ACE
A
- decreases agreement with counter-attitudinal message
- people who engage in counter-arguing scrutinise the arguments presented, and subsequently try to generate reasons to refute them
- mediating variable between persuasive message and outcomes such as attitudes and behaviour
13
Q
Source Derogation
Contesting ACE
A
- Dismiss validity of source (credibility, biased source)
- as a consequence, the message will loose credibility, which reduces its impact
- often used when the source can be constructed as biased
- e.g. consumers may question the source’s expertise, trustworthiness, or motives
14
Q
Persuasive Techniques
Contesting ACE
A
- suspicion of manipulative intent, they resist the advertising message
15
Q
Attitude Bolstering
Empowerment ACE
A
- defend existing attitudes & behaviours
- for this, they generate thoughts that are supportive of those attitudes and behaviours when they are exposed to a persuasive message that challenges them
16
Q
Social Validation
Empowerment ACE
A
- validating one’s attitude with significant others (who share your beliefs)
- social proof
17
Q
Asserting the Self
Empowering ACE
A
- remind themselves that they are confident about their attitudes & behaviours nothing can be sone to change this
boost for self-esteem, reduce social pressure
18
Q
Persuasion Knowledge Model
A
framework for understanding how consumers recognise & evaluate persuasive attempts, and develop & employ those strategies to cope with those attempts
- such coping is often defensive
- but consumers may also embrace persuasive attempts as a form of entertainment to source of info about products and services
19
Q
Persuasion Knowledge
A
- realising that you are being manipulated
- activated by disclosure
Study:
found that pp activate persuasion knowledge in response to disclosure, after which they used cognitive (counter arguing) and affective (Negative affect) resistance strategies to decrease persuasion
20
Q
Counterarguing
A
effective resistance strategy that involves direct rebuttal of message argument s
21
Q
Attitude Bolstering
A
Involves support arguing
- so generating thoughts that are consistent with and supportive of one’s original attitude without directly refuting message arguments
22
Q
Message Distortion
A
Involves selectively processing or understanding a persuasive message in a way that favours one’s original attitude
23
Q
Social Validation
A
- Involves resisting the message by bringing to mind important others who share one’s original attitude
- not a response that deals directly with the informational influence contained in a persuasive message
- thoughts in social validation category reflected desired or perceived social support for the belief or an appeal to support from higher power
24
Q
Source Derogation
A
- Involves insulting the source, dismissing their expertise or trustworthiness, or otherwise rejecting their validity
- includes fault-finding or derogatory towards the source of the threat
25
Negative Affect
- involves reposing to persuasive attempt by getting angry, irritated, upset
- when respondent indicated a negative emotion in response to an attitude threat
26
Selective exposure
involves resisting persuasion by leaving the situation or actively tuning out the persuasive message
- includes ignoring, avoiding, or tuning out the threat
- ppl are motivate to seek information that is consonant with their beliefs and attitudes
27
Assertions of confidence
involves asserting that nothing or no one could ever change one's option
28
Persuasion Theory
Teaches us that the effects of many variables (e.g. whether message is one-sided or two-sided, strong or weak) depends on the audience (e.g. how involved is audience with the issue?)
29
"Know your audience"
guiding principle in marketing research & persuasion theory
30
Attitudes
strong, personally important attitudes are especially difficult to change (highly resistant to change)
- & experience more negative affect in response to a counter attitudinal message compared to low-importance individuals
31
Persuasive arguments
informational influence attempts
- social acceptability: concerns influence communications strategies generally and the perceived use of persuasion strategies in particular
32
Advertising
| Persuasive Strategies
Increase benefits of desired behaviour (alpha) or reduce resistance against desired behaviour (Omega)
33
Alpha strategy
| Persuasion Strategies
strategies that focus on increasing approach towards the attitudinal object
34
Omega strategy
| Persuasion Strategies
Strategies for tactics that are aimed specifically at reducing consumer resistance to persuasion
- explicitly focused on reducing forces
- decreasing motivation to move away from attitudinal object
- aim to neutralize resistance
35
Cognitive depletion
| Persuasion Strategies
- results are varied on effectiveness
| - does it exist?
36
Self- Affirmation
| Persuasion Strategies
The act that demonstrates one's adequacy, it enables people to continually refresh their sense of adequacy
- involved thinking about one's "affirming and sustaining valued self-images"
- is the act of bolstering or restoring a perception of oneself as "adaptively and morally adequate"
- making positive comments to people, supporting them, giving them positive feeling about themselves
- -> then they are easily convinced
- meta analysis: effective strategy to change ppl behaviour
- it leads to more positive intention & more positive behaviour
- found to reduce tendency to resist info that challenges prior beliefs
- found to reduce attitude change following a dissonant act & to undermine tendencies to engage in assuring downwards social comparisons
- counteract ego depletion
- affirmations remind people of psychological resources beyond a particular threat, broaden their perspective
- a threat is seen in the context of an expansive view of the self --> less impact in psychological well being
- affirmations foster approach orientation to threat rather than avoidance
- it can reassure people that they have integrity and that life is okay
Interventions: ppl typically write about personal core values
--> more expansive view of self & its resources weaken the implications of threat for personal integrity
37
Fear appraisals
- don't work
| - issue is that most of the time people cannot do to, lack self-efficacy
38
Self-Affirmation Theory
States that people are motivated to maintain self-integrity
- people are fundamentally motivated to protect their sense of self-integrity, their view of themselves as "adaptively and morally adequate" and it is this motive this tis aroused by threatening material and satisfied when people respond defensively
- affirming the self-concept after engaging in an activity that is discrepant with the self-concept should result in reduced tendencies to justify the discrepancy
Central Assumption:
people are strongly motivated to protect their sense of adaptive and moral adequacy or "self-integrity"
- when it comes to self-defence, people are concerned primarily with their global sense of self-worth and integrity
- -< they can meet a threat to their self in one domain by affirming an aspect of identity in a completely different domain
39
Self-Regulation & Persuasion
- resisting persuasion is frequently costly process, involves active self regulation
- resisting unwanted influence: more successful when self-regulatory resources are high, rather than low
- resource depletion: enhances weight on heuristic processing in consumer judgement and decision making
40
Limited Resource Model of Self-Control
any act of deliberate & regulated response by the self draws limited intrapsxchic resource (overriding impulses, active choice, controlled processing)
- resource becomes depleted with use and recovers slow
- studies showed self-control ability suffers after previous self-control
- in state of self-control depletion, self resorts to more passive & low-effort course of action, thereby more vulnerable to untoward impulses, habits automatic thought processes
- resisting an influence attempt consumes self-regulatory resources, when these are low, attempts at resistance mosre likely fail
- -> weakens resistance
41
Dual Process Models & depletion of self control
State of self-regulatory depletion reduces systematic route processing & enhances heuristic processing in consumer judgement and decision making
--> more difficult to resist unwanted influence attempts
- appears to inhibit generation of counterarguments because hinders processing of message-relevant Information
- increasing peoples awareness of an upcoming influence attempt in advance any encourage more systematic thinking
42
Elaboration Likelihood Model
Central route: similar to model pf persuasion
ideally: participants/target population is motivated & interested (central route)
reality: most people are not motivated or interested (leads to little effects on the whole)
Limitations: Persuasive messages may have influence but it is a long process & only works for some
challenge is how to get people who are uninterested to central route
43
McGuire's model of Persuasion
Six Steps:
1. Exposure/Presentation
2. Attention/Awareness
3. Comprehension/Understanding
4. Acceptance
5. Retention
6. Action
Idea of model:
- need to expose people to your message
- need attention of the target population
- target needs to understand message
- target needs to agree with message
- Target needs to remember it at the right time (Retention)
- only then it might lead to action
--> hard to achieve!
44
Strategies for Building resistance (McGuire)
McGuire reasoned that attitudinal resistive can be similarly induced by forewarning an individual of an impeding attack on an attitude he/she holds and presenting a weakened argument against the attitude (inoculation)
Forewarning: being warned
Inoculation: Becoming Immune
45
Inoculation Theory
addresses how to best intentionally confer resistance
- explains process of creating resistance to persuasion
> people become incoulated against persuasive messages when they receive a warning of the forthcoming persuasive appeal
- theory suggests that individuals can be inoculated against persuasive attacks on their attitudes on a similar manner to the way individuals can be immunised against a virus
46
Psychological Inoculation
attitudinal resistance can be similarly induced by forewarning an attack on attitudes & presenting a weakened argument against the attitude (inoculation)
- -> the weakened argument will, presumably motivate the individual to develop counterarguments consistent with his/her initial attitude, and thus strengthen their current attitudes
- no sig. results
47
4 moderators of inoculation theory (low power in the study)
- the optimal threat used in inoculation messages
> assumed that for the inoculation process to effective, receivers must perceive a threat to motivate them to stregthen their current attitudes (NOT significant)
- effects of inoculation same vs inoculation different messages
> as specific types of passive refutation approaches, refuatational preemption "provide specific content that receivers can employ to strengthen attitudes against subsequent change"
> inoculations do confer resistance even to attacks that were not addresses in inoculation treatment
> the effects of inoculation in research reports using novel and expected attacks are equivalent --> inoculation treatments can produce resistance also to novel attacks
- impact of involvement
> delay was necessary between the inoculation treatment & attack message to provide an aindivual time to generate arguments to defend attitude
> inconsistent results
- influence of delay between inoculation messages & attack messages
> involvement dictates whether inoculation treatments can generate deficient threat
> not supported
48
Forewarning
Ca be a strategy of inoculation that works in building resistance
1. lower argument: can lower & build resistance
2. then forewarning: used to increase resistance
--> Pro-ana website study
1/3 of website visitors decided not to look at weblog after reading warning text
49
Inoculation
Building up resistance through a bit of exposure
Study:
- elementary school children know smoking is bad for them & don't like it
- explain to them that others think differently & give arguments (e.g. think smoking is cool)
- let kids think of counter arguments
- this approach shown to be effective
- -> in high school more likely to be resistant to influence attempts persuading them to start smoking
Important to make sure the arguments for smoking are not too exciting ans that kids come up with good counter arguments
