Elaboration Likelihood Model, Persuasion, Communication

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Elaboration Likelihood Model

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Attempt to integrate a vast body of persuasion theory and research. Developed by Petty and Cacciopo. Persuasion is a consequence not just of external cues, but also of internal responses to the external cues.

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Central route to persuasion

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Involves greater elaboration of thoughts...people ask themselves probing questions, generate additional arguments, and possibly seek new info. Those who are persuaded through the central route tend to be resistant to counterargument and to remain persuaded for a long time afterward. Attitudes formed or changed via this route are more easily called to mind and are more predictive of behavior. Issue-relevant thinking takes place. Likely to generate thoughts consistent with their initial predispositions and intensify these predispositions and pro-anti arguments. Also leads to greater attention to argument. Persuaders should make arguments personally significant to the persuadee by using you vs. he/she

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Peripheral Processing

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Involves the use of cognitive shorthands or heuristics to generate an opinion. It is relatively mindless, but not entirely so. Respond to heuristics such as a pretty face, free gifts, and the number of arguments rather than the quality of arguments. Persuasive effects tend to be short-lived.

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Who uses the central and who uses the peripheral route

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Most people use a combination of the central and peripheral routes. A person's degree of involvement with the issue is a major determinant of the route (a high degree is more likely to use central and a low degree is more likely to use peripheral

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Elaboration

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Additional information used internally to support an argument. Affected by motivation and ability. Attitudes are developed in times of high elaboration

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Factors affecting motivation

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Receiver involvement: personal relevance to the message (people with personal relevance to the message attended to it more deeply)

Multiple sources and multiple arguments
-multiple justifications from different people made the receiver process the message more deeply (ex: hearing a professor, dean and chancellor all talk about a comprehensive exam)

Receiver need for cognition: Not everyone handles/processes or has the same motivation for engaging in relevant thinking. Ex: A survey was created to assess people's different needs for cognition

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Factors affecting ability

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Distraction:
-Ex: flashing lights, low video quality
-Has different effects in different situations (if the receiver was having positive thoughts the distractions will decrease their likelihood to agree with the message, but if the persuasive argument is weak, the distraction could increase the persuasiveness of the message.)

Prior knowledge:
-The more extensive a person's knowledge on a topic, the more likely they are to engage in issue-relevant thinking by making counter-arguments or adding their own supporting arguments.
-People with less knowledge are influenced less by the strength of a speech

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Irrationality while using issue-relevant thinking

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Conditions of insufficient justification causes people to infer their attitudes from their actions.

Issue-relevant thinking strengthens predispositions, so if the receiver has a misconception, it is strengthened too and distracts from the persuader's argument.

Issue-relevant thinking can include counter-arguing which distracts from the persuader's message