Hovland Persuasion Analysis

Hovland’s research program on persuasion brought a lot of light into how people are able to be persuaded easier. Aristotle may have come up with the general structure of persuasion well before Hovland but Aristotle didn’t have nearly the same amount of scientific data, research, and experiments that Hovland had when attempting to explain the phenomena. Hovland’s findings can be broken down into three sections or categories. The first of these being the source of the persuasion and or message. The two defining characteristics of the source are their likability and their credibility. The source’s credibility can greatly influence the audiences’ opinion over different spans of time. A more credible source will have a great impact early on but …show more content…
One dimension to the effectiveness of the message is using reason or using emotions to present a persuasive message. Highly educated people are more drawn to those messages with logical reasoning. Audiences that are in a good mood will react more positively to persuasion, and one way to get them in a positive mood is to use humor. The problem with humor though is it may get their attention but they tend to forget the actual message. Along with this fear can be used. Too much fear though will result in less than anticipated results. Along with this it’s shown that using tow sided messages is more effective than one sided messages. Repetition is also effective as long as the person is either neutral or positive towards the message before the message is delivered, but even they may eventually get worn out if it is repeated too …show more content…
First off I would make sure that the general public would like me. I’m definitely not attractive enough to win too many people over that way but I think I’m very similar to the average person and that would allow me to gain some following on the basis that I’m just like them. I’d also have reports/flyers out their showing that I’m somehow a credible source. Not sure how I would do this but they may follow me because I went to college and I’m not a lifelong politician. The message I would be delivering would need to be of valid logic but also have some catchy phrasing or some key points that I could outline quickly in order to get the less intelligent people on my team before they lose their attention span. Making sure also to use some repetition on the major items in order for the audience to remember the message. Lastly, if at all possibly I would make sure the audience is filled with mainly younger or older crowd in order to persuade them more easily if it were possible to choose the