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Persuasion
Now in its sixth edition, Persuasion: Social Influence and Compliance Gaining continues to
boast an accessible voice and vibrant aesthetic that appeals to undergraduate students of
communication, psychology, advertising, and marketing. In addition to presenting established
theories and models, this text encourages students to develop and apply general conclusions
about persuasion in real-world settings. Along the way, students are introduced to the
practice of social influence in an array of contexts (e.g., advertising, marketing, politics,
interpersonal relationships, social media, groups) and across a variety of topics (e.g.,
credibility, personality, deception, motivational appeals, visual persuasion). The new edition
features an expanded treatment of digital and social media, up-to-date research on theory and
practice, and enhanced discussions of topics such as political campaigning, emotional
marketing, olfactory influence, and ethics. Instructors can also use the book’s downloadable
test bank, instructor’s manual, and PowerPoint slides in preparing course material.
Robert H. Gass is Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies at California State
University, Fullerton, USA.
John S. Seiter is Professor in the Department of Languages, Philosophy, and
Communication Studies at Utah State University, USA.
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Persuasion
Social Influence and Compliance Gaining Sixth Edition
Robert H. Gass John S. Seiter
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Sixth edition published 2018
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Taylor & Francis
The right of Robert H. Gass and John S. Seiter to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Pearson Education, Inc. 2002
Fifth edition published by Routledge 2016
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Gass, Robert H., author. | Seiter, John S., author.
Title: Persuasion : social influence, and compliance gaining /
Robert H. Gass, John S. Seiter.
Description: Sixth edition. | New York, NY : Routledge, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017042512| ISBN 9781138630598 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781138630611 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Persuasion (Psychology) | Influence (Psychology) |
Manipulative behavior.
Classification: LCC BF637.P4 G34 2018 | DDC 153.8/52—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042512
ISBN: 978-0-8153-5821-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-63061-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-20930-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK
Visit the eResource: www.routledge.com/9781138630611
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To Banjo and Julep, my two English Setters, who keep me
company when I’m writing at home.
Bob Gass
To Miss Gordon, my second-grade teacher, for knowing that
self-concept is the proper starting place.
John Seiter
To our families—Susan, Jordan, Graham, Debora, Dean,
Andy, and Christian—for doing without us when we were
writing and for putting up with us when we weren’t.
Robert Gass and John Seiter
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1.
Contents
Preface for the Sixth Edition
Acknowledgments
Why Study Persuasion?
Aims and Goals
Persuasion Is Not a Dirty Word
Persuasion Is Our Friend
The Pervasiveness of Persuasion: You Can Run but You Can’t Hide
Tipping Points, Buzz Marketing, and Word of Mouth
Nudges: Sometimes Less Is More
New Persuasion: Digital and Online Influence
eWOM: Digital Buzz
Sponsored Content: The Native Advertisers Are Getting Restless
Opinion Mining and Sentiment Tracking: I Feel You
Gamification: You’ve Got Game
Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding: Lending a Helping Hand
Persuasive Technology: My Heart Says Yes, but My Watch Says No
Persuasion in the Sciences
Persuasion in the Arts
Other Not-So-Obvious Contexts for Persuasion
Weird Persuasion
Persuasion in Interpersonal Settings
Five Benefits of Studying Persuasion
The Instrumental Function: Be All That You Can Be
The Knowledge and Awareness Function: Inquiring Minds Want to Know
The Defensive Function: Duck and Cover
The Debunking Function: Puh-Shaw
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Well-Being and Self-Worth: I Feel Good
Two Criticisms of Persuasion
Does Learning About Persuasion Foster Manipulation?
Are Persuasion Findings Too Inconsistent or Confusing?
Ethical Concerns About the Use of Persuasion
What Constitutes Persuasion?
Pure Versus Borderline Cases of Persuasion
Limiting Criteria for Defining Persuasion
Intentionality
Effects
Free Will and Conscious Awareness
Symbolic Action
Interpersonal Versus Intrapersonal
A Model of the Scope of Persuasion
The Context for Persuasion
A Working Definition of Persuasion
So What Isn’t Persuasion?
Dual Processes of Persuasion
The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion
The Heuristic Systematic Model of Persuasion
The Unimodel of Persuasion
Attitudes and Consistency
What Is an “Attitude” in 20 Words or Less?
So How Do You Measure the Durn Things?
Explicit Measures: Self-Report Scales
Visually Oriented Scales
Pitfalls in Measuring Attitudes
Implicit Measures: What’s Rattling Around Inside Your Brain?
More Roundabout Ways of Measuring Attitudes
Physiological Measures of Attitude
The Reasoned Action Approach (RAA)
Behavioral Beliefs and Attitudes: Believe It or Not
Normative Beliefs: It’s What the Cool Kids Are Doing
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Perceived Behavioral Control: I Got This
The Persistence of Attitudes
Attitudes as Associative Networks: Your Mind Is a Web
Manufacturing Favorable Associations: Jiggling the Web
Brands and Branding: That’s the Life
Who Are You Wearing? Brand Personality
Authenticity: Keeping It Real
Cause-Related Marketing: The Feel-Good Factor
Sloganeering
Sponsorship
Psychological Consistency
The Inner Peace of Consistency
Methods of Maintaining Consistency
Marketing Strategies: How to Have Your Cake and Eat It Too
Brand Loyalty: Accept No Substitute
Write and Tell Us Why You Love This Book in 24 Words or Less
Marketing Inconsistency
Capitalizing on Inconsistency
Cognitive Dissonance Theory (CDT)
Cognitive Dissonance and Buyer’s Remorse
Polarization of Alternatives
Cognitive Dissonance, Self-Image, and Culture
Factors That Affect the Magnitude of Dissonance
Dissonance and Persuasion: Putting It All Together
Forbidden Fruit: Psychological Reactance
Counterattitudinal Advocacy: Playing Devil’s Advocate
I’m All In: Increasing Commitment
Commitments Can “Grow Legs”
Credibility
Celebrity Selling Power: The Answer Is in the Stars
The Match-Up Hypothesis: Why Jonah Hill Should Not Be Revlon’s Spokesperson
Catch a Falling Star
What Is Credibility?
Credibility Is a Receiver-Based Construct
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Credibility Is a Multidimensional Construct
Credibility Is a Situational/Contextual Phenomenon
Credibility Is Dynamic
The Factor Analytic Approach to Credibility
Primary Dimensions of Credibility
Secondary Dimensions of Credibility
The Factor Analytic Approach and the Real World
Credibility as a Peripheral Cue
It’s What’s Up Front That Counts
The Sleeper Effect
Credibility and Image Management
Interpersonal Credibility, Impression Management, Facework, and Accounts
Strategies for Enhancing Credibility: Get Your Mojo Working
Communicator Characteristics and Persuasion
Demographic Variables and Persuasion
Age and Persuasion: Pretty Please With Sugar on Top
Gender Differences and Persuasion: The Times, They Aren’t a-Changin’
Ethnicity, Culture, and Persuasion: “Me” and “We” Perspectives
Intelligence and Persuasion: Dumb and Dumber
Psychological and Communication States and Traits
Self-Esteem and Persuasion: Feelin’ Kinda Low
Anxiety and Persuasion: Living in Fear
Preference for Consistency: I Wouldn’t Change a Thing
Self-Monitoring and Persuasion: Periscope Up
Ego Involvement: Not Budging an Inch
Issue Involvement: What’s This Have to Do With Me?
Dogmatism, Authoritarianism, and Social Vigilantism: You Can’t Teach an Old Dog New Tricks
Narcissism: How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways
Cognitive Complexity and Need for Cognition
Persuasion and Aggression: Sticks and Stones
Analyzing and Adapting to Audiences
Pay Attention to the Situation
Keep Your Audience’s Mind in Mind
Remember the Importance of Audience States and Traits
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Don’t Forget About Audience Demographics
Conformity and Influence in Groups
Conformity as Persuasion: In With the Crowd
In the Beginning: Early Research on Conformity Effects
Variables Related to Conformity
Social Proof: Using the Sheep Factor to Persuade Others
Ostracism: Shuns and Guns
Deindividuation, Social Loafing, and Social Facilitation: Getting Lost in the Crowd
What a Riot: An Examination of Deindividuation
Social Loafing: Not Pulling Your Own Weight
Social Facilitation: Would You Rather Be Alone?
How Groups Affect Decision Making: To Risk or Not to Risk
Language and Persuasion
Symbols, Meaning, and Persuasion: The Power of Babble
Connotative and Denotative Meaning: That’s Not How I See It
Ultimate Terms: Speak of the Devil
Aphorisms and Familiar Phrases: That Rings a Bell
Metaphors: One and the Same
The Power of Labeling
Euphemisms and Doublespeak: Making the Worse Appear the Better and Vice Versa
Language Intensity, Vividness, and Offensiveness
##@!!!!##: Profanity and Persuasion
Political Correctness
The Effects of Vividness: A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words
Language Intensity
Powerless Language and Persuasion: Um’s the Word
Nonverbal Influence
The Direct Effects Model of Immediacy
Types of Nonverbal Communication
Kinesics: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, Knees and Toes
Haptics: Reach Out and Touch Someone
Keep Your Distance? Proxemics and Persuasion
Chronemics: All Good Things to Those Who Wait?
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Artifacts and Physical Features of the Environment: Dress for Success
Physical Appearance: Of Beauties and Beasts
Paralinguistics and Persuasion: Pump Up the Volume?
Structuring and Ordering Persuasive Messages
Implicit and Explicit Conclusions: Let Me Spell It Out for You
Gain-Framed Versus Loss-Framed Messages: Keep on the Sunny Side?
Quantity Versus Quality of Arguments: The More the Merrier?
The Use of Evidence: The Proof’s Not in the Pudding
Repetition and Mere Exposure: You Can Say That Again
Order Effects and Persuasion: First Things First
Primacy and Recency Effects: The First Shall Be Last, and the Last Shall Be First
An Ounce of Prevention: Inoculation, Message-Sidedness, and Forewarning
Inoculation Theory: Of Needles and Arguments
One-Sided Versus Two-Sided Messages: Both Sides Now
Forewarning: You’d Better Watch Out
Compliance Gaining
Actions Speak the Loudest: A Definition of Compliance Gaining
In the Beginning: The Roots of Compliance-Gaining Research
Situation: The “It Depends” of Compliance-Gaining Behavior
Seeking Compliance From Strangers and Intimates
Power, Legitimacy, and Politeness
Who Are You? Individual Characteristics and Compliance-Gaining Behavior
The Study of Compliance-Gaining Goals: Eyes on the Prize
How Goals Bring Meaning to Compliance-Gaining Situations: What’s It All About, Alfie?
Primary and Secondary Goals: Wanting and Eating Your Cake
Problems Facing Compliance Research: Trouble in Paradise
Compliance Gaining in Action: Seeing Is Believing
Sequential Persuasion
Pregiving: The Old “I’ll-Scratch-Your-Back-if-You’ll-Scratch-Mine” Approach
Why Is the Pregiving Tactic Persuasive?
Foot in the Door: The “Give-Me-an-Inch-and-I’ll-Take-a-Mile” Tactic
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Why Is a Foot in the Door So Persuasive?
When Does a Foot in the Door Work?
The Door-in-the-Face Tactic: “Ask for the Stars”
Why Is a Door in the Face So Persuasive?
When Does a Door in the Face Work?
The That’s-Not-All Tactic: Seeking Compliance by Sweetening the Deal
The Low-Ball Tactic: Changing the Deal
Why Lowballing Works
“Sorry, We Don’t Have Any More of Those in Your Size, But…”: The Bait-and-
Switch Tactic
The Disrupt-Then-Reframe and Pique Techniques: I’m So Confused
Legitimizing Paltry Contributions: Even a Penny Will Help
The Evoking Freedom Technique: “…But You Are Free to Accept or Refuse”
Fear-Then-Relief and Happiness-Then-Disappointment Procedures: The Emotional
Roller Coasters of Social Influence
Deception
What Is Deception? Lies and Damn Lies
Telling Lies: The Enactment of Deception
Theoretical Frameworks
What Makes a Liar Persuasive?
Detecting Deception: I Can See Right Through You
Factors That Influence Detection
Motivational Appeals
Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Motivation
Emotion and Persuasion: Oh, What a Feeling!
Emotions and the ELM
Emotional Marketing
Logical and Emotional Appeals: A Fuzzy Distinction
Fear Appeals: If You Don’t Stop Doing That, You’ll Go Blind
The Stage Model: Scared Stiff
The Extended Parallel Process Model: Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself
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Negative Emotions: Woe Is Me, Shame on You
Humorous Appeals: Stop Me if You’ve Heard This One
Humor as an Indirect Form of Influence: All Kidding Aside
Self-Disparaging Humor: LOLing at Yourself
But Is Humor Persuasive?
Maximizing Humor’s Potential
Pride and Patriotism: Turning Red, White, and Blue Into Green
For Mature Audiences: Sex Appeals
How Sex Sells
Caveats and Cautions
Warmth Appeals: Straight From the Heart
Ingratiation: Polishing the Apple
Mixed Emotions: Other Appeals and Combinations of Appeals
Visual Persuasion
Image Is Everything
Overlooked and Under-Appreciated
The Power of Images: A Thousand Words
How Images Persuade
Iconicity: Bearing a Resemblance
Indexicality: Seeing Is Believing
Syntactic Indeterminacy: Don’t Look for Logic in Images
The Art of Persuasion Includes Art as Persuasion
The Paintbrush Is Mightier Than the Sword
Art and Social Change: I Must Protest
Cinematic Persuasion: Sex, Drugs, and Popcorn
Acting Out: How Movies Persuade
Images in Advertising: And Now a Word From Our Sponsors
Visual Extravaganzas: Now You’ve Got My Attention
Anti-Ads: You Can’t Fool Me
Image-Oriented Advertising: Materialism as Happinessv
Shock Ads: Edgy Images as Persuasion
Photojournalism as Persuasion: The Camera Does Lie
Playing Tricks With the Camera: Photographic Deception
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Esoteric Forms of Persuasion
Color as Persuasion: The Grass Is Always Greener
Color Coded at Birth: Dyed in the Wool
Colorful Associations: A Blonde Walks Into a Bar…
Color and Branding: Big Blue, Red Bull, and Pink (Victoria’s Secret)
Color and Emotion: Mood Indigo
Color and Behavior: Hue Made Me Do It
Subliminal Influence: Hidden Messages or Hokum?
The Laboratory Versus the Real World
What Is and Isn’t Subliminal
Subliminal Advertising: Much Ado About Nothing
Subliminal Priming: That Rings a Bell
Not So Fast: Limitations of Subliminal Priming
Subaudible Messages: The Power of Suggestion
Backward Masking and Reverse Speech: Turn Me On, Dead Man
What Advertisers Really Do
Neurolinguistic Programming: The Emperor’s New Clothes
Music as Persuasion
Music as a Central and Peripheral Cue
Music in Advertising and Sales
Background Music: Shop Till You Drop
Music Videos and Persuasion: Is Hip-Hop Harmful?
Weaponizing Music: What a Buzz Kill
Cautions: Face the Music
Aroma and Persuasion
Perfume: Romance in a Bottle
Love Stinks
Ambient Aromas: Something Special in the Air
Caveats and Qualifications
The Ethics of Persuasion
Is Persuasion in General Unethical?
The Motives Color the Means
Ethics, Culture, and the Issue of Central Versus Peripheral Processing
Ethical Questions That Can’t Be Answered Through the Study of Persuasion
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Our Approach: Characteristics of Ethical Influence
Ethics and Our Model of Persuasion
Persuaders as Lovers
Bunglers, Smugglers, and Sleuths
Ethical Issues Arising From Previous Chapters
Ethics and Credibility
Ethics and Communicator Characteristics
Ethics and Deception
Ethics of Using Threats as a Compliance-Gaining Strategy
Ethics and Fear Appeals
Ethics and Emotional Appeals
Ethics and Ingratiation
Ethics and Visual Persuasion
Ethics and Subliminal Influence
Author Index
Subject Index
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Preface for the Sixth Edition
ERSUASION CONTINUES TO OCCUPY the attention of academics and nonacademics alike.
Not only scholars, but practitioners such as advertisers, lawyers, lobbyists, marketing
firms, motivational speakers, politicians, public relations experts, social activists, syndicated
columnists, and others have a vested interest in knowing how persuasion works. Therefore,
students who aspire to careers in any of the “people professions” would be wise to acquire a
basic understanding of how persuasion functions.
With each edition of this text, we marvel at how much persuasion changes over time, yet
still remains the same. For example, controversies over “fake news” have altered the way
people perceive facts and assess source credibility. Even so, credibility remains as central to
the process of persuasion as ever. It is perceived credibility that counts. The credibility of news
sources is in the eye of the beholder.
The observation that “the more persuasion changes, the more it remains the same” applies
to almost every aspect of persuasion. Compliance-gaining strategies such as the “foot in the
door” now occur in online settings. Audience analysis is key to persuasion, but rather than
examining demographic data, persuaders can now use microtargeting to tailor their messages
to niche groups. For example, in the 2016 presidential election, rumors swirled that
Cambridge Analytica, a company that specializes in opinion mining and data analysis,
identified low-information voters in key swing states and bombarded them with highly
targeted messages (Confessore & Hakim, 2017). Product placement, once only found on
television and in movies, is now prevalent in novels, pop music, and virtual environments
such as computer games. Fear appeals, long a staple of persuaders, have moved online. In
addition to being fearful of Ebola, terrorism, and clowns, we can now be worried about
cyberstalking, cyberbullying, and whatever diet and nutrition advice Gwyneth Paltrow is
about to post.
In this edition, we address the increasing importance of digital and online persuasion,
while emphasizing the importance of traditional forms of persuasion as well. Since the last
edition, digital persuasion has come into its own. On social media, pop-up ads and banners
have given way to more sophisticated forms of marketing, such as webtracking (Avergin,
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2016). Using third-party cookies, canvas fingerprinting (Kirk, 2014), and other techniques,
Web marketers can follow users’ activities across websites. “Like” a bluegrass video on
YouTube, “follow” a fiddle player on Facebook, or post some banjo pictures on Instagram,
and you’ll start getting messages about hoedowns and honky-tonks in your area.
Persuasion on the Web also relies on sentiment tracking or opinion mining. For example,
using natural language processing software, millions of tweets can be analyzed to see what
topics, people, or brands are trending and what emotion-laden words or emojis are being used
in connection with those topics or issues. Insights about political preferences, brand images,
and economic trends can be gleaned from the results. As Bannister (2015) noted, “shifts in
sentiment on social media have been shown to correlate with shifts in the stock market”
(para. 3).
The widespread use of mobile technology has also been accompanied by increasing apps
and techniques designed to influence. Texting, tweeting, and other apps disseminate word-
of-mouth (WOM) messages. WOM is perceived by many as more genuine, authentic, and
trustworthy than commercial advertising or expert opinions. Of course, marketers can sneak
into these conversations via sponsored tweets and promoted posts. In many ways, social
media has become a form of mass interpersonal persuasion. Posting a picture on Instagram may
seem interpersonal in nature, but posts can be shared far beyond one’s social network. Just ask
Anthony Weiner.
Despite the advent of digital and social media, most of us still live in a face-to-face world,
too. Traditional forms of influence still matter, and interacting “in person” is by far the most
effective way to persuade other people. A retail salesperson talking to a customer has a much
greater chance of success than a pop-up ad reminding you about the last item you viewed on
Amazon.com. That said, we often underestimate our effectiveness in one-on-one-settings.
For example, Roghanizad and Bohns (2017) found that when people were asked to judge
their influence via email versus in person, they overestimated the former and underestimated
the latter. Groups, too, exert enormous influence over people. Whether within a family, a
classroom, a workplace, at a coffee shop with friends, or some other group setting, the
pressure to conform or risk being isolated is potent. Mass persuasion has greater reach, but
less effectiveness.
As long as humans occupy planet Earth, they will be engaged in persuading one another.
If apes or machines do take over one day, who can say? For now, we believe a solid
understanding of persuasion, social influence, and compliance gaining will be an asset in this
world. With that in mind, we hope you catch our enthusiasm for this field of study and turn
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the pages of this book with a better understanding of how persuasion functions, an improved
knowledge of ways to maximize your own persuasion efforts, and a greater ability to resist
influence attempts, especially unscrupulous influence attempts, by others.
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REFERENCES
Avergin, J. (2016, September 2). Internet tracking has moved beyond cookies. FiveThirtyEight.com. Retrieved on July 26,
2017 from https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/internet-tracking-has-moved-beyond-cookies/
Bannister, K. (2015, January 26). Understanding sentiment analysis: What it is & why it’s used. Brandwatch.com. Retrieved
on July 26, 2017 from www.brandwatch.com/blog/understanding-sentiment-analysis/
Confessore, N., & Hakim, D. (2017, March 6). Data firm says “secret sauce” aided Trump: Many scoff. The New York
Times. Retrieved on July 26, from www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/us/politics/cambridge-analytica.html
Kirk, J. (2014). Three devious ways online trackers shatter your privacy. PCWorld, 32(10), 38–40.
Roghanizad, M. M., & Bohns, V. K. (2017). Ask in person: You’re less persuasive than you think over email. Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology, 69, 223–226. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2016.10.002
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Acknowledgments
We would like to offer our heartfelt thanks to everyone at Routledge/Taylor & Francis for
their support throughout the process of completing this edition of our text. They are a skilled
and talented group. We are especially grateful to Laura Briskman and Nicole Salazar for their
relentless graciousness in answering our many questions and guiding us through the
requirements for completing this project. Their patience is officially legendary. We also want
to thank Josh Curtis and members of his team for painstakingly proofreading and copyediting
the drafts of all the chapters.
We are also extremely grateful to the graduate and undergraduate students who offered
numerous illustrations of real-life examples of persuasion. In particular, we single out Taylor
Halverson for her excellent work. Every time we think we have taught the brightest group of
students ever, another sharp group comes along. We also want to thank the many instructors
using our book who have sent comments and suggestions for this edition, as well as the many
short-course participants who have offered ideas and insights leading up to this edition.
Finally, we are fortunate to be working alongside the best colleagues anyone could ever
hope for. Thank you all for making “work” a fun and rewarding place to be!
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CHAPTER 1
Why Study Persuasion?
Aims and Goals
Persuasion Is Not a Dirty Word
Persuasion Is Our Friend
The Pervasiveness of Persuasion: You Can Run but You Can’t Hide
Tipping Points, Buzz Marketing, and Word of Mouth
Nudges: Sometimes Less Is More
New Persuasion: Digital and Online Influence
eWOM: Digital Buzz
Sponsored Content: The Native Advertisers Are Getting Restless
Opinion Mining and Sentiment Tracking: I Feel You
Gamification: You’ve Got Game
Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding: Lending a Helping Hand
Persuasive Technolog: My Heart Says Yes, but My Watch Says No
Persuasion in the Sciences
Persuasion in the Arts
Other Not-So-Obvious Contexts for Persuasion
Weird Persuasion
Persuasion in Interpersonal Settings
Five Benefits of Studying Persuasion
The Instrumental Function: Be All That You Can Be
The Knowledge and Awareness Function: Inquiring Minds Want to Know
The Defensive Function: Duck and Cover
The Debunking Function: Puh-Shaw
23
O
Well-Being and Self-Worth: I Feel Good
Two Criticisms of Persuasion
Does Learning About Persuasion Foster Manipulation?
Are Persuasion Findings Too Inconsistent or Confusing?
Ethical Concerns About the Use of Persuasion
NE OF THE AUTHORS was enjoying a day at the beach with his family. As he sat in a
folding chair, lost in a good book, he could hear the cries of seagulls overhead and the
pounding of the surf. Nothing was bothering him. He was oblivious to the world around him.
Or so he thought. As he reflected more on the situation, however, he became aware that he
was being bombarded by persuasive messages on all sides. A boom box was playing a few
yards away. During commercial breaks, various ads tried to convince him to choose a new
cellphone provider, switch auto insurance companies, and try a hot, spicy cheeseburger. A
nearby sign warned that no alcohol, glass objects, or smoking were permitted on the beach. A
plastic bag in which a nearby family’s children had brought their beach toys advertised
Walmart on its side. The family picnic cooler proudly displayed its manufacturer, Igloo, as
well.
And that was only the beginning. A plane flew overhead, trailing a banner that advertised
a collect calling service. The lifeguard’s tower displayed a Hurley logo. Their swimsuits were
sponsored by Izod. The lifeguard’s truck, a specially equipped Toyota, announced that it was
the “official emergency vehicle” of “Surf City USA,” a moniker trademarked by the city of
Huntington Beach, California. Oh, the indignity of being rescued by an unofficial vehicle.
There were oral influence attempts, too. His son tried to lure him into the water by saying,
“Come on, it’s not that cold.” But he knew better. His son always said that, no matter how
cold the water was. “Would you mind keeping an eye on our things?” the family next to the
author’s asked. I guess our family looks trustworthy, he thought. His wife asked him, “Do you
want to walk down to the pier? They have frozen bananas.” She knew he would be unable to
resist the temptation.
And those were only the overt persuasive messages. A host of more subtle messages also
competed for the author’s attention. A few yards away, a woman was applying sun block to
her neck and shoulders. The author decided he’d better do the same. Had she nonverbally
influenced him to do likewise? Nearby, a young couple was soaking up the sun. Both were
wearing hats with the Nike “swoosh” logo. Were they “advertising” that brand? A young man
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with a boogie board ran by, headed for the water. His head was shaved and he sported a
goodly amount of body art. Did his appearance advocate a particular set of values or tastes?
Was he a billboard for an “alternative” lifestyle? A half dozen male heads turned in unison as
a trio of bikini-clad women walked by. Were the males “persuaded” to turn their heads or was
this simply an involuntary reflex? Two tan, muscular dudes were tossing a Frisbee back and
forth. Both had six-pack abs. The author made a mental note to do more sit-ups. There
seemed to be as many persuasive messages, or potentially persuasive messages, as there were
shells on the beach.
The preceding examples raise two important issues. First, persuasion and social influence
are pervasive. We are surrounded by influence attempts, both explicit and implicit, no matter
where we are. As Cascio, Scholz, and Falk emphasize (2015):
social influence is omnipresent, occurring through implicit observation of cultural
norms, face-to-face and mediated interpersonal communication, as well as mass
mediated communication. Even though individuals are often unaware of the power of
social influence, research shows its effects on behavior in a wide variety of
circumstances.
(p. 51)
Second, it is difficult to say with any certainty what is and is not “persuasion.” Where
should we draw the line between persuasion and other forms of communication? We address
the first of these issues in this chapter. Here we examine the pervasive nature of persuasion
and offer a rationale for learning more about its workings. In the next chapter, we tackle the
issue of what constitutes persuasion and related terms such as social influence and compliance
gaining.
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AIMS AND GOALS
This is a book about persuasion. Its aims are at once academic and practical. On the academic
side, we examine how and why persuasion functions the way it does. In so doing, we identify
some of the most recent theories and findings by persuasion researchers. On the practical
side, we illustrate these theories and findings with a host of real-life examples. We also offer
useful advice on how to become a more effective persuader and how to resist influence
attempts, especially unethical influence attempts, by others.
If learning how to persuade seems a bit manipulative, remember, we don’t live in a society
populated with unicorns and rainbows. The real world is brimming with persuaders. You can
avoid learning about persuasion, perhaps, but you can’t avoid persuasion itself. Besides, we
can’t tell you everything there is to know about persuasion. Nobody knows all there is to
know about this subject. One of the points we stress throughout this book is that people
aren’t that easy to persuade. Human beings are complex. They can be stubborn,
unpredictable, and intractable, despite the best efforts of persuaders.
Persuasion is still as much an “art” as it is a “science.” Human nature is too complicated,
and our understanding of persuasion too limited, to be certain which influence attempts will
succeed and which will fail. Think how often you flip the channel when a commercial costing
millions of dollars to produce and air appears on television. As one advertising executive put
it, “half the money I spend on advertising is wasted … but I don’t know which half” (cited in
Berger, 2011, p. 1). Think how many candidates for public office have spent fortunes
campaigning, only to lose their elections. Or think how difficult it is for the federal
government to convince people to stop smoking, practice safe sex, or avoid texting while
driving—behaviors that are in their own self-interest.
The science of persuasion is still in its infancy. Despite P. T. Barnum’s axiom that “there’s
a sucker born every minute,” people are uncannily perceptive at times. It is tempting to
believe that if one only knew the right button to push, one could persuade anybody. More
often than not, though, there are multiple buttons to push, in the right sequence, and the
sequence is constantly changing. Even so, persuasion is not entirely a matter of luck. Much is
known about persuasion. Persuasion has been scientifically studied since the 1940s.1 Written
texts on persuasion date back to ancient Greece.2 A host of strategies and techniques have
been identified and their effectiveness or ineffectiveness documented. Persuaders are a long
way from achieving an Orwellian nightmare of thought control, but a good deal is known
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about how to capture people’s hearts and minds. Before proceeding further, we want to
address a common negative stereotype about persuasion.
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PERSUASION IS NOT A DIRTY WORD
The study of persuasion has gotten some bad publicity over the years. Everyone seems to
agree that the subject is fascinating, but some are reluctant to embrace a field of study that
conjures up images of manipulation, deceit, or brainwashing. There is, after all, a sinister side
to persuasion. Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson, Jim Jones, David Koresh, Marshall
Applewhite, and Osama bin Laden were all accomplished persuaders—much to the
detriment of their followers.3 We, however, do not think of persuasion as the ugly stepsister
in the family of human communication. Rather, we find the study of persuasion to be
enormously intriguing. Persuasion is the backbone of many communicative endeavors. We
can’t resist the urge to learn more about how and why it works. Part of our fascination stems
from the fact that persuasion is, on occasion, used for unsavory ends. It is therefore all the
more important that researchers learn as much as they can about the strategies and tactics of
unethical persuaders.
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PERSUASION IS OUR FRIEND
Persuasion isn’t merely a tool used by con artists, chiselers, charlatans, cheats, connivers, and
cult leaders. Nobel Peace Prize recipients and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists are also
persuaders. In fact, most “professional” persuaders are engaged in socially acceptable, if not
downright respectable, careers. They include advertising executives, bloggers, campaign
managers, celebrity endorsers, clergy, congresspersons, diplomats, infomercial spokespersons,
lawyers, lobbyists, mediators, media pundits, motivational speakers, political cartoonists, press
secretaries, public relations experts, radio talk-show hosts, recruiters, salespersons, senators,
social activists, syndicated columnists, and whistleblowers, to name just a few.
Let’s focus on the positive side of persuasion for a moment. Persuasion helps forge peace
agreements between nations. Persuasion helps expose corruption and open up closed
societies. Persuasion is crucial to the fundraising efforts of charities and philanthropic
organizations. Persuasion convinces motorists to buckle up when driving or refrain from
driving when they’ve had a few too many. Persuasion is used to convince a substance-abusing
family member to seek professional help. Persuasion is how the coach of an underdog team
inspires the players to give it their all. Persuasion is a tool used by parents to urge children not
to accept rides from strangers or to allow anyone to touch them inappropriately. In short,
persuasion is the cornerstone of a number of positive, prosocial endeavors. Very little of the
good that we see in the world could be accomplished without persuasion.
Persuasion, then, is a powerful and often prosocial force. Having highlighted the positive
side of persuasion, we address the question of why the study of persuasion is so valuable. The
next section, therefore, offers a justification for the study of social influence.
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THE PERVASIVENESS OF PERSUASION: YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE
We’ve already mentioned one of the primary reasons for learning about this subject:
Persuasion is a central feature of every sphere of human communication. The same is true of
social influence. We can’t avoid it. We can’t make it go away. Like Elvis impersonators in Las
Vegas, persuasion is here to stay. Various estimates suggest that the average person is exposed
to anywhere from 300 to 5,000 messages per day.4 There are more ways to persuade than ever
before. Indeed, traditional persuasion in the form of political speeches, television
commercials, print ads, billboards, and product placements in movies and television is alive
and well. So too are protest marches, demonstrations, sit-ins, and other forms of symbolic
action. In the last two decades, social media has been added to the mix. You can submit
online reviews of products and services, post a YouTube video advocating your message,
engage in hashtag activism, advocate a cause via Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, solicit
funding via crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter or GoFundMe, or promote change
through a website such as www.change.org or www.dosomething.org. Let’s consider one of
these pervasive strategies, known as viral persuasion, more closely.
Tipping Points, Buzz Marketing, and Word of Mouth
Key concepts and principles associated with viral persuasion were laid out by Malcolm
Gladwell in his bestseller, The Tipping Point (2000). Gladwell likens word-of-mouth
(WOM) to a virus through which a message is spread until the whole society is “infected.”
Based on what he calls “the law of the few,” a small number of influential people can generate a
groundswell of support for an idea, brand, or phenomenon. If a message gains sufficient
traction, it reaches a tipping point and becomes “contagious.” In order to reach the tipping
point, however, a number of things have to happen.
Über Influencers
First, the right kinds of people must be involved. Gladwell identifies three types of people
who are essential to the process. Mavens possess specialized expertise. They are in the know.
They may be celebrity chefs, fashionistas, fitness gurus, tech geeks, or wine snobs. Mavens
needn’t be rich or famous, but they must be ahead of the curve. They are the early adopters,
opinion leaders, or what some call alpha consumers, the ones who hear about ideas and try out
gadgets first. “One American in ten,” Keller and Barry (2003) maintain, “tells the other nine
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how to vote, where to eat, and what to buy” (p. 1).
In addition to mavens, Gladwell states that connectors are also essential. Based on the viral
metaphor, they are carriers. They have large social networks. When connectors learn from
mavens what the “next big thing” is, they spread the word. Since social circles tend to be
overlapping, forwarding messages spreads them increasingly outward from their epicenter.
The last type Gladwell identifies is salespeople. They receive the message from a connector
and then talk it up within their own circle of friends. Salespeople tell their friends, “You must
see this movie,” “You’ve got to try this restaurant,” or “You gotta read this book.”
FIGURE 1.1
ALS ice-bucket challenge in New York City.
Source: Saklova/Shutterstock.com
Orchestrating the Next Big Thing
In addition to having the right kinds of people, some additional conditions must be satisfied
for an idea to go viral. Context is critical. The idea must come along at the right time and
place. Twitter, for example, wouldn’t have worked before there was widespread mobile access
to the Internet. An idea also must possess stickiness, which means that it is inherently
attractive. Without some sort of natural appeal, people won’t gravitate toward the idea or pass
it along (Heath & Heath, 2008). For example, in 2014, the ALS water bucket challenge,
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which dared people to dump ice water over their own or other people’s heads, went viral,
raising over $100 million in the USA alone (www.als.org). Its stickiness was based, in part,
on its eye-catching appeal, its urgency (there was a 24-hour deadline to respond), and the fact
that it was for a good cause.
Scalability is another requirement: It must be easy to ramp up production of the idea,
product, or message to meet demand. The ice-bucket challenge met this requirement because
almost everyone can find a bucket and some ice. Finally, effortless transfer is yet another
ingredient in the recipe for an effective viral campaign. A viral campaign has to leverage free
media. Ideas that can be spread by forwarding an email, including an attachment, or
embedding a link are easy to disseminate. The more time, effort, or money it takes to spread
the word, the less likely the idea will go viral. In the ice-bucket campaign, most challenges
were issued from one friend to another via video.
Infectious or Inexplicable?
Although viral marketing holds considerable potential, it is often a hit-or-miss strategy, with
far more misses than hits. What’s more, evidence for the effectiveness of tipping points is
largely anecdotal, and there is no guarantee that an idea will gain traction. If one does, its
shelf life is often limited. The ice-bucket challenge, for example, came and went in a few
months. And flash mobs, another approach to viral marketing, were a flash in the pan.
The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMM) offers advice for conducting viral
campaigns. The very concept of viral marketing, however, is something of an oxymoron. A
viral campaign is planned to appear unplanned. It is contrived to seem genuine. As consumers
grow wise to the strategy, it will become less effective. There are also ethical questions about
using friends as shills. The FTC now requires any online endorsement that involves
compensation to be disclosed (Sprague & Wells, 2010).
Nudges: Sometimes Less Is More
The ubiquitous nature of persuasion is also illustrated by nudge theory, developed by Richard
Thaler and Cass Sunstein (2008). They maintain that subtle changes in the way choices are
presented to people can influence, or “nudge,” them to behave in certain ways. For example,
when men use a public restroom, they aren’t always neat and tidy. They often miss the mark,
to put it mildly, which increases janitorial costs significantly. To address this, folks at
Amsterdam’s Schiphol international airport gave men a target of their own. Specifically,
urinals were installed that included a stenciled image of a housefly near the drain. The result?
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Having a target made all the difference. The men’s aim improved considerably (Thaler &
Sunstein, 2008).
As another example, school cafeterias tried offering apples at lunch. Most of them wound
up in the trash can. However, when kids were given sliced apples, as opposed to whole apples,
they were 73 percent more likely to eat them (Schwartz, 2016). Similarly, when vending
machines listed the calories in snack foods, people were more likely to make healthier choices.
Although some critics have accused nudge theory of being paternalistic (Pasquale, 2015),
others (Sunstein, 2014) argue that people are free to resist nudges if they wish. Kids can still
throw apple slices in the trash. They are simply being provided with options that encourage
healthy behaviors (www.nudges.org). That said, some nudges may be perceived as more like
shoves. To encourage organ donors, for example, some countries have adopted a “presumed
consent” policy, meaning that a person must take the initiative to opt out if she or he does not
want to be an organ donor.
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NEW PERSUASION: DIGITAL AND ONLINE INFLUENCE
Some people seem to spend their every waking moment texting, tweeting, blogging, or
posting their views on all matter of subjects large and small. That said, social media isn’t just
an entertaining diversion, it is an important tool for influence. Whenever someone likes,
follows, posts, shares, tweets or retweets, forwards, or comments on a message, online
influence is taking place. Let’s consider a few forms of digital influence.
FIGURE 1.2
Persuasion is everywhere—even in the womb.
Source: Baby Blues © 2001, Baby Blues Partnership. King Features Syndicate. Reprinted with special permission.
eWOM: Digital Buzz
Earlier, we mentioned the importance of viral persuasion and word-of-mouth (WOM). Like
WOM, electronic word of mouth (eWOM) is all the rage. People actively comment on
brands, companies, political issues, and public figures via all manner of social media. By way
of illustration, Twitter alone accounts for 6,000 tweets per second or 500 million tweets per
day (www.internetlivestats.com). Eighty percent of Twitter users have mentioned brands in
their tweets and 54 percent of users report that they have acted based on tweets (Midha,
2014).
Like WOM, eWOM is most effective when it is perceived as genuine rather than
manufactured and peer driven rather than commercially sponsored. eWOM enjoys several
advantages over traditional advertising and marketing techniques (Erkan & Evans, 2016). It
operates largely through interpersonal channels (cellphone, email, texting), lending it an air of
authenticity. It is inexpensive compared to traditional media. And it is self-perpetuating.
Moreover, eWOM is far more effective than traditional media at reaching younger audiences.
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Sponsored Content: The Native Advertisers Are Getting Restless
The rise of social media has spawned a surge in advertising masquerading as genuine peer-to-
peer influence. For example, sponsored content includes promoted tweets and Instagram posts,
which are essentially paid advertisements. Native advertising involves ads posing as news
stories. Native ads function as “clickbait,” luring in readers with snappy headlines or
provocative photos. Both approaches are effective because many users have difficulty
distinguishing such content from genuine material (Wojdynski, 2016).
Opinion Mining and Sentiment Tracking: I Feel You
The Web is an opinion-rich environment. People constantly share their attitudes, opinions,
and values via social media. And marketers are listening. Many companies, for example, now
specialize in opinion mining and sentiment tracking by monitoring social media to gauge the
public’s mood in nearly real time (Ravi & Ravi, 2015). Sophisticated algorithms can track
how a person, brand, or issue is trending based, not only on the number of tweets generated,
but also on how favorable, neutral, or negative those tweets are (Kennedy & Moss, 2015; Lee,
Yang, Chen, Wang, & Sun, 2016). As an example, after analyzing over 10,000 online
mentions from auto-enthusiast websites, the Ford Motor Company adopted a three-blink
turn signal on all of its vehicles (Rosenbush & Totty, 2013).
As sophisticated as such methods seem, a problem with opinion mining is that the data is
often “squishy”—that is, the people commenting aren’t always articulate or coherent.
Furthermore, the tone of a message—that is, whether it is ironic, satirical, or hyperbolic—can
be hard for artificial intelligence to decipher. Nevertheless, programmers are getting better at
analyzing and interpreting words related to feelings, emotions, and opinions.
Gamification: You’ve Got Game
Parents have known for decades that one way to get infants to eat their vegetables is by
turning mealtime into a game. “Here comes the airplane,” the parent says with each spoonful
of strained peas. A modernized version of this approach, known as gamification, is being used
to stimulate consumer interest and involvement (McGonigal, 2011). Gamification applies
video-game methods to other contexts to increase consumer engagement. People like to play
games. They enjoy the competition. Why else would they spend hours on end playing Angry
Birds or Candy Crush? Games are entertaining, challenging, and rewarding. Transforming a
mundane task into a game can make it more fun and exciting.
Games also can be used to influence. Take exercise, for example. Thanks to a shoe sensor
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that allows runners to post information about their running distance, time, and calories
burned, Nike+ provides customers with a fun way to socialize, compete, and “play” with each
other using downloadable apps (Are you game? 2011). What’s more, through points, badges,
leaderboards, and other incentives, gamification keeps people coming back for more. This
approach has been used to enhance education, improve workplace productivity, increase voter
turnout, and promote awareness and participation in social causes.
Gamification is not without its critics, however. Ian Bogost (2011), a professor and expert
in video games as cultural artifacts, cautioned that “‘exploitationware’ is a more accurate name
for gamification’s true purpose” (para. 12). Critics charge that earning badges and points
trivializes activities such as learning, working, exercising, or participating in social causes.
Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding: Lending a Helping Hand
Moving a heavy object, like a piano, isn’t easy. To accomplish such a task, you might invite
some friends to pitch in. Similarly, crowdsourcing puts out an open call for anyone online to
participate in completing a task or solving a problem. Wikipedia was one of the earliest
crowdsourcing platforms (Lee & Seo, 2016). The online encyclopedia is collaborative.
Content can be contributed and edited by any one. Crowdsourcing is premised on the
assumption that wisdom is not the exclusive province of experts, but is distributed throughout
the commons (Kitter, 2010). As an example, Doritos invited consumers to participate in a
“Crash the Super Bowl” contest by generating their own ideas for a 30-second commercial
(for examples, got to www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vVIUBU1gZs). As another example,
Starbucks’s “White Cup Contest” contest solicited customers’ suggestions for a graphic
design for a limited edition coffee cup. Contestants posted their creations via
#WhiteCupContest.
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FIGURE 1.3
Persuasive messages must struggle to cut through the background of media clutter.
Source: Reprinted with permission: www.andysinger.com
While crowdsourcing has assisted in solving problems in astronomy, legislation, language
translation, and urban planning, among many areas, it is not without its critics. Detractors
complain that crowdsourcing is exploitative; it relies on the unpaid labor and efforts of others.
Another complaint is that the wisdom of the commons isn’t always so wise. For example,
when NASA asked people to submit names for a new section of the International Space
Station, the crowd chose “Colbert” (after the late-night comedian) over names like “Serenity,”
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“Earthrise,” and “Tranquility.” NASA went with the name “Tranquility” anyway.
A related strategy, crowdfunding, involves raising money through online donations.
Websites such as Kickstarter, GoFundMe, and Indiegogo allow people to ask for donations
or start-up funds for a cause or business venture. On the plus side, crowdfunding gives “the
little guy” or a good cause the chance to be noticed. On the downside, some of the requests
are scams (Fredman, 2015) and most start-ups fail. The SEC recently adopted rules
regulating crowdfunding practices online.
Persuasive Technology: My Heart Says Yes, but My Watch Says No
Persuasive technology focuses on devices “aimed at changing users’ attitudes or behaviors
through persuasion and social influence, but not through coercion or deception” (Persuasive
Technology, 2016, para. 1). Smart devices and wearable technology “are not just persuasive
but specifically aimed at forging new habits” (MIT Technology Review, p. 64). Smartwatches,
for example, exhort wearers to take action via taps, vibrations, or other haptic cues (Gilmore,
2016). Got a big date coming up? An app developed by MIT can tell you if you sound
boring, nervous, happy, or sad based on your speech pattern (Lee, 2017). As an alternative,
you could always check to see if your date is asleep.
Fitness trackers not only track your daily step count, they also encourage you to exercise.
For example, Fitbit’s display shows a flower that grows or shrinks based on your activity level.
Taking that concept one step further, Nissan Leaf owners can view an LCD display of a pine
tree that grows as they drive more efficiently.
As part of the Internet of Things, smart pill bottles can remind people when to take their
medicine (Orji & Moffat, 2016). Skip a dose and a light will glow or a chime will sound,
followed by a text or phone-call reminder. For some patients, taking their medicine at the
right time each day is a matter of life and death. As many as 125,000 deaths per year and
$105 billion in medical costs are attributable to patients not taking medicine properly
(Ruggerio & Wick, 2016).
Persuasion will continue to play a major role in traditional contexts, such as advertising
and marketing. It is worth noting, though, that persuasion also plays a key role in a variety of
not-so-obvious contexts. We examine two such contexts next: persuasion in the sciences, and
persuasion in the arts.
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39
PERSUASION IN THE SCIENCES
You may not think of them this way, but scientists are persuaders (Glassner, 2011). The
ongoing debate about climate change illustrates the persuasive challenge facing climatologists.
Despite widespread agreement among evolutionary biologists that evolution is a fact rather
than a theory, there is a continuing social controversy over the teaching of creationism
alongside evolution in public school curriculums. Even in fields such as chemistry,
mathematics, or physics—the so-called hard sciences— persuasion plays a major role.5
Scientists often have to convince others that their research possesses scientific merit and
social value. They also have to argue for the superiority of their theories over rival theories. In
this respect, Thomas Kuhn (1970) argues that all scientists employ “techniques of persuasion
in their efforts to establish the superiority of their own paradigms over those of their rivals”
(p. 151). Similarly, Mitroff (1974) comments that “the notion of the purely objective,
uncommitted scientist [is] naïve. … The best scientist … not only has points of view but also
defends them with gusto” (p. 120). Scientists must do more than conduct experiments and
report their results. They also must persuade other scientists, funding agencies, and the public
at large of the merits of their work.
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PERSUASION IN THE ARTS
Another not-so-obvious context for persuasion is the arts. Not all art is created “for art’s
sake.” Art serves more than an aesthetic or decorative function. Artists have strong opinions
and they lend expression to their opinions in and through their work. Consider film as an art
form, for example. Movies such as 12 Years a Slave, Life Is Beautiful, and Schindler’s List
demonstrate the power of the camera to increase awareness, change attitudes, alter beliefs,
and shape opinions. Other art forms have the capability to persuade as well. Playwrights,
painters, muralists, sculptors, photographers, and dancers give voice to their political and
social views through their art.
Think about painting for a moment. Many of the famous works hanging in museums were
created out of a sense of social conscience. Using images rather than words, artists comment
on social conditions, criticize society, and attempt to transform the social order. We examine
this issue in more detail in Chapter 14, but for now let’s consider one particular work of art,
Pablo Picasso’s Guernica. Through this painting, Picasso offered a moral indictment of war
and man’s inhumanity to man. The painting features people and animals, the victims of the
indiscriminate bombing of a Basque town during the Spanish Civil War, in various states of
agony, torment, and grief. As Von Blum (1976) notes, “the purpose of the painting is frankly
propagandistic. The artist’s intent was to point out the inhuman character of Franco’s fascist
rebellion” (p. 92). Picasso wasn’t trying to paint a “pretty” picture. He was making a moral
statement. The painting has been dubbed by one art historian “the highest achievement in
modernist political painting” (Clark, 1997, p. 39). Not only Picasso, but also many other
artists express persuasive points of view in and through their art.
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OTHER NOT-SO-OBVIOUS CONTEXTS FOR PERSUASION
Persuasion operates in a variety of other contexts, some of which are not so obvious. We
highlight a few here as illustrations. Social scientists have studied bumper stickers as a form of
political expression and as an unobtrusive means of measuring attitudes (Endersby & Towle,
1996; Sechrest & Belew, 1983). Scholars have examined the effects of intercessory prayer
(offered for the benefit of another person) on recovery from illness (Frank & Frank, 1991;
Hodge, 2007). Studies have examined the military’s use of social influence (Cialdini, 2011;
King, 2010). Other researchers have focused on 12-step programs, such as Alcoholics
Anonymous, and other support groups as forms of self-help and group influence (Kassel &
Wagner, 1993). Some studies have investigated terrorism as a form of persuasion by
examining how jihadists are radicalized and recruited and how effective the use of violence is
on the groups who are targeted (Bhui & Ibrahim, 2013; Iyer, Hornsey, Vanman, Esposo, &
Ale, 2015; Kydd & Walter, 2006). As Tuman (2010) observed, “the real goal of the
communicated message in terrorism may be persuasion: to persuade audience members that
chaos and fear will be their lot in life, to persuade them to pay attention to an issue they have
ignored” (p. 37). One scholar has written about compliance-gaining tactics found in dramatic
plays, such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (Kipnis, 2001). One of the
authors investigated various styles and strategies of panhandling to see which ones proved
most effective (Robinson, Seiter, & Acharya, 1992). Research on the study of robotic
persuasion is just beginning to emerge. One study found, for example, that having a robot
whisper instructions to people increased their motivation to perform a boring task
(Nakagawa, Shiomi, Shinozawa, Matsumura, Ishiguro, & Hagita, 2013). Another study
focused on the effect of robot-to-human touch as a method of compliance gaining (Shiomi,
Nakagawa, Shinozawa, Matsumura, Ishiguro, & Hagita, 2017).
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WEIRD PERSUASION
Sometimes persuasion is downright weird. A case in point involved Kensington, Canada,
where the police department threatened that any motorist arrested for drunk driving would be
subjected to Nickelback music while riding in the police cruiser to the station (Zenteno,
2016). When the story went viral, Colin Jost, the news co-host of Saturday Night Live, joked,
“Just make sure the crash kills you.” Ultimately, the policy was rescinded because the
seriousness of the message was obscured by the frivolousness of the strategy.
Yet another example of weird persuasion occurred in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, UK.
The citizens wanted to stop rowdy teens from loitering at an underpass at night. Their
solution was to install street lights with a bright pink hue. Why pink, you ask? Pink light
highlights acne. Teens with blemishes didn’t want to be seen with bright, glowing acne. The
plan worked: The teens moved on (Spotty teens, 2009).
Scholars sometimes investigate quirky aspects of persuasion, too. Did you know that
participants in a study who consumed caffeine were more easily persuaded than participants
who had no caffeine (Martin, Hamilton, McKimmie, Terry, & Martin, 2007)? Now you do.
As long as the participants were motivated to pay attention to the message, caffeine
consumption increased agreement. Here is another strange finding: Washing one’s hands not
only produces cleaner hands, it also reduces a person’s sense of guilt (Kaspa, 2013). The
explanation for this is related to a phenomenon called embodied cognition, wherein physical
behaviors often affect higher mental states.
Other researchers found that mixed-handed people were more persuadable and more
gullible than purely left- or right-handed people (Christman, Henning, Geers, Propper, &
Niebauer, 2008). And Briñol and Petty (2003) discovered that asking people to nod their
heads up and down (as if in agreement) made them more agreeable than shaking their heads
back and forth (as if in disagreement). What is the point of such research, you ask? Such
studies illustrate both the complexities and subtle nuances of persuasion.
Persuasion, then, can be found in obvious and not-so-obvious places. Before concluding
this section, we examine one additional context in which persuasion occurs: the interpersonal
arena.
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PERSUASION IN INTERPERSONAL SETTINGS
The extent of influence exerted in the interpersonal arena should not be underestimated.
Although we may think of Madison Avenue as all-powerful, face-to-face influence is far
more effective. Yet people tend to underestimate the effectiveness of in-person influence
compared to other communication contexts. One study, for example, found that people
making requests underestimated how successful face-to-face requests would be, compared to
email requests (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017). Another study found that people tend to
underestimate their influence on others when it comes to questionable requests. Participants
were asked to estimate how successful they would be at convincing a stranger to commit a
minor act of vandalism (writing the word “pickle” on a page in a library book). Overall, 87
percent of the participants underestimated how persuasive they would be. On average, they
were twice as effective as they thought (Bohns, Roghanizad, & Xu, 2014).
Despite all the money spent on traditional advertising and the increasing amounts being
spent on new media, most influence attempts still take place in face-to-face settings. Some 90
percent of word-of-mouth recommendations, for example, take place offline (Moore, 2011).
On a daily basis we are bombarded with persuasive requests in the interpersonal arena. Your
brother wants you to hurry up and get out of the bathroom. A homeless person asks if you
can spare some change. Your parents try to talk you out of getting a tongue stud. Or worse
yet, your significant other uses the “F” word to redefine your relationship: That’s right; she or
he just wants to be “friends.” Aaahhh! Naturally, we persuade back as well, targeting others
with our own entreaties, pleadings, and requests for favors.
Why is interpersonal influence so much more effective? Because it seems more genuine
and less conspicuous. Consider the following scenario:
The bait: Your friend calls up and says, “Hey, what are you doing Friday night?”
The nibble: Anticipating an invitation to go somewhere, you reply, “Nothing much,
why?”
You’re hooked and reeled in: “Well, I wonder if you could help me move into my new
apartment then?”
At least when you watch a television commercial you know the sponsor is after something
from the outset. In interpersonal encounters, others’ motives may be less transparent. Most
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communication scholars agree that if you have a choice of mediums for persuasion, you
should choose the interpersonal arena. Our advice: Next time you want to turn in a paper
late, talk to your professor in person.
From our discussion thus far, it should be apparent that persuasion functions as a pervasive
force in virtually every facet of human communication. Kenneth Burke (1966), among others,
has written that humans are, by their very nature, symbol-using beings. One vital aspect of
human symbolicity involves the tendency to persuade others. We are symbol users, and one of
the principal functions of symbol usage is persuasion.
The recognition that social influence is an essential, pervasive feature of human symbolic
action provides the strongest possible justification for the study of persuasion. Persuasion is
one of the major underlying impulses for human communication. By way of analogy, one
can’t understand how an automobile works without taking a look under the hood. Similarly,
one can’t understand how human communication functions without examining one of its
primary motives—persuasion.
45
FIVE BENEFITS OF STUDYING PERSUASION
Given that persuasion is an inevitable fact of life, we offer five primary benefits of learning
about persuasion. We refer to these as the instrumental function, the knowledge and
awareness function, the defensive function, the debunking function, and the well-being
function. We examine each of these in turn.
The Instrumental Function: Be All That You Can Be
One good reason for learning about persuasion is so that you can become a more effective
persuader yourself. We refer to this as the instrumental function of persuasion, because
persuasion serves as an instrument, or a means to an end. We view the ability to persuade
others as an important aspect of communication competence. Communication competence
involves acting in ways that are perceived as effective and appropriate (Spitzberg & Cupach,
1984). Competent communicators possess the skills needed to achieve their objectives in
fitting ways for the particular situation.
A competent persuader needs to know how to analyze an audience in order to adapt the
message to the audience’s frame of reference. She or he needs to be able to identify which
strategies are appropriate and which will enjoy the greatest likelihood of success. A competent
persuader also must know how to organize and arrange a persuasive message for maximum
benefit. These are only some of the abilities required for successful persuasion.
But achieving the desired outcome is only one facet of communication competence. How
one goes about persuading also matters. A competent persuader needs to be viewed as
persuading in acceptable, appropriate ways. This means a persuader must be aware of social
and cultural norms governing the persuasive situation. For example, a parent who publicly
berates his or her child during a soccer match may be seen by other parents as engaging in
boorish behavior.
We are confident that by learning more about persuasion you will become a more effective
and appropriate persuader. Of course, not every influence attempt will succeed. By applying
the principles and processes presented in this text, and by adhering to the ethical guidelines
we offer, you should be able to improve your competence as a persuader.
The Knowledge and Awareness Function: Inquiring Minds Want to Know
Another good reason for learning about persuasion is because it will enhance your knowledge
46
and awareness of a variety of persuasive processes. Knowledge is power, as the saying goes.
There is value in learning more about how persuasion operates. You may not plan on going
into advertising for a living, but simply knowing how branding operates is worthwhile in and
of itself. You may not plan on joining a cult (who does?), but learning more about what
makes persons susceptible to cult conversion is worthwhile nonetheless. Simply from the
standpoint of an observer, learning about these topics can be fascinating.
An additional benefit of learning about how persuasion functions concerns overcoming
habitual persuasion. Many people rely on habitual forms of persuasion, regardless of whether
they are effective. They get comfortable with a few strategies and tactics that they use over
and over again. A good deal of our communication behavior is “mindless,” as opposed to
mindful, meaning we don’t pay much attention to how we communicate (Langer, 1978,
1989a, 1989b). Sometimes persuasion operates this way. Just as runners, swimmers, and other
athletes need to learn to adjust their breathing in response to different situations, persuaders
—to maximize their effectiveness—need to learn to adapt their methods to different
audiences and situations. Persuasion isn’t a “one-size-fits-all” form of communication.
47
FIGURE 1.4
A little persuasive acumen just might save you from yourself.
Source: © Lee Lorenz/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
The Defensive Function: Duck and Cover
A third reason for learning about how persuasion operates is vital in our view: The study of
persuasion serves a defensive function. By studying how and why influence attempts succeed or
fail, you can become a more discerning consumer of persuasive messages, unlike the hapless
fellow depicted in Figure 1.4. If you know how persuasion works, you are less likely to be
taken in. It is worth noting that people tend to underestimate the influence of advertising on
themselves and overestimate its effects on others, a phenomenon known as the third-person
effect (Davidson, 1983; Jensen & Collins, 2008). Thus, you may be more defenseless than you
realize.
Throughout this text, we expose a number of persuasive tactics used in retail sales,
advertising, and marketing campaigns. For example, we have found in our classes that after
48
students are given a behind-the-scenes look at how car salespeople are taught to sell, several
students usually acknowledge, “Oh yeah, they did that to me.” Admittedly, a huckster could
also take advantage of the advice we offer in this book. We think it is far more likely,
however, that the typical student reader will use our advice and suggestions as weapons
against unethical influence attempts. Box 1.1, for example, offers advice on how to recognize
various propaganda ploys. In later chapters of this book, we warn you about common ploys
used by all manner of persuaders, from cult leaders to panhandlers to funeral home directors.
The Debunking Function: Puh-Shaw
A fourth reason for studying persuasion is that it serves a debunking function. The study of
human influence can aid in dispelling various “common-sense” assumptions and “homespun”
notions about persuasion. Traditional wisdom isn’t always right, and it’s worth knowing when
it’s wrong. Some individuals cling tenaciously to folk wisdom about persuasive practices that
are known by researchers to be patently false. For example, many people believe that
subliminal messages are highly effective and operate in a manner similar to that of post-
hypnotic suggestion. This belief is pure poppycock, as we point out in Chapter 15.
Of considerable importance, then, are empirical findings that are counterintuitive in nature
—that is, they go against the grain of common sense. By learning about research findings on
persuasion, the reader can learn to ferret out the true from the false, the fact from the fiction.
Well-Being and Self-Worth: I Feel Good
A fifth benefit of learning about persuasion is that the ability to persuade others improves
one’s subjective sense of well-being. There is a sense of satisfaction that comes from
persuading others. Researchers have found that influencing others satisfies five basic needs,
which are accuracy, belonging, self-worth, control, and meaning (Bourgeois, Sommer, &
Bruno, 2009; Sommer & Bourgeois, 2010). The first need, accuracy, refers to the desire to be
right about one’s beliefs and attitudes. One of the author’s spouses likes to joke, “I married
Mr. Right. Mr. always Right.” Winning someone over is one way of validating one’s own
views.
The need for belonging reflects the desire for social inclusion. People value social
connections. Persuading others is one means of establishing and maintaining relationships.
People also strive to maintain a positive self-concept or sense of self-worth. The ability to
persuade others enhances a person’s self-esteem. The need for control, or perceived control,
stems from a desire to shape our environment and exert influence over those with whom we
49
interact. Some people like to be in charge, take over, and have things their way. Others are
content to let someone else take the helm. Yet everyone seeks some degree of self-efficacy or
a sense that she or he is in control of their life. Lastly, people want to believe there is meaning
and purpose in their lives. One way of demonstrating one’s value or importance is by
influencing others.
50
BOX 1.1 | Persuasion Versus Propaganda and Indoctrination
What are propaganda and indoctrination and how do they differ from persuasion? To a
large extent, it is a matter of perspective. People tend to label their own messages as
persuasion and the other guy’s as propaganda. The same applies to indoctrination: We
tend to think that our government educates its citizens, but foreign governments,
especially those we dislike, indoctrinate their citizens. Understood in this way,
propaganda and indoctrination are largely pejorative terms used to describe persuasive
messages or positions with which people disagree. Gun control advocates claim the
NRA uses propaganda to thwart legislation that would place restrictions on gun sales.
Opponents of school prayer think that requiring students to recite a prayer in class
constitutes a form of religious indoctrination. When accused of propagandizing, the
common defense is to state that one was only engaged in an education or information
campaign. Thus, whether a given attempt at influence, such as the D.A.R.E. campaign,
is persuasion, propaganda, or indoctrination is largely in the eye of the beholder.
Definitions of propaganda are many and varied, but we happen to think Pratkanis
and Aronson’s (1991) definition does a good job of capturing the essence of the term:
Propaganda was originally defined as the dissemination of biased ideas and
opinions, often through the use of lies and deception. … The word propaganda
has since evolved to mean mass “suggestion” or influence through the
manipulation of symbols and the psychology of the individual. Propaganda is the
communication of a point of view with the ultimate goal of having the recipient
come to “voluntarily” accept the position as if it were his or her own.
(p. 9)
Different scholars have offered different views on the nature and characteristics of
propaganda (see Ellul, 1973; Jowett & O’Donnell, 1986; Smith, 1989). However, there
are some essential characteristics on which most scholars agree. These are as follows:
Propaganda has a strong ideological bent. Most scholars agree that propaganda
does not serve a purely informational function. Propaganda typically embodies a
strong bias, such as that of a “left-wing” or “right-wing” agenda. The campaign of
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to promote animal rights
51
would fall into this category. Propagandists aren’t trying to be neutral or objective.
They are working a specific agenda.
Propaganda is institutional in nature. Most scholars agree that propaganda is
practiced by organized groups, whether they happen to be government agencies,
political lobbies, private corporations, religious groups, or social movements. For
instance, the Anti-Defamation League is an organization founded to prevent
libeling and slandering of Jewish people. Although individuals might use
propaganda too (a parent might tell a child, “Santa only brings presents for good
girls and boys”), the term usually is associated with institutional efforts to persuade.
Propaganda involves mass persuasion. Most scholars agree that propaganda targets
a mass audience and relies on mass media to persuade. Propaganda is aimed at large
numbers of people and, as such, relies on mass communication (TV, radio, posters,
billboards, email, mass mailings, etc.) to reach its audience. Thus, gossip that was
shared by one office worker with another at the water cooler wouldn’t constitute
propaganda, but a corporate rumor that was circulated via email would.
Propaganda tends to rely on ethically suspect methods of influence. Propagandists
tend to put results first and ethics second. This characteristic is probably the one
that laypersons most closely associate with propaganda and the one that gives it its
negative connotation.
What are some of the questionable tactics used by propagandists? The Institute for
Propaganda Analysis, which was founded in 1937, identified seven basic propaganda
techniques, which still exist today (Miller, 1937). These include the plain folks appeal
(“I’m one of you”), testimonials (“I saw the aliens, sure as I’m standing here”), the
bandwagon effect (everybody’s doing it), card-stacking (presenting only one side of the
story), transfer (positive or negative associations, such as guilt by association), glittering
generalities (idealistic or loaded language, such as “freedom,” “empowering,” “family
values”), and name calling (“racist,” “tree hugger,” “femi-Nazi”).
We hope you’ll agree, based on the foregoing discussion, that there are quite a few good
reasons for studying persuasion. We hope we’ve persuaded you that the study of persuasion
can be a prosocial endeavor. That brings us back to an earlier point, however: Not all
persuaders are scrupulous. At this juncture, then, it seems appropriate that we address two
52
common criticisms related to the study of persuasion.
53
TWO CRITICISMS OF PERSUASION
Does Learning About Persuasion Foster Manipulation?
We’ve already touched on one of the common criticisms of studying persuasion: the notion
that it fosters a manipulative approach to communication. We address ethical concerns
surrounding the study and practice of persuasion more specifically in Chapter 16. For the
time being, however, a few general arguments can be offered in response to this concern.
First, our principal focus in this text is on the means of persuasion (e.g., how persuasion
functions). We view the means of persuasion not so much as moral or immoral, but rather as
amoral, or ethically neutral. In this respect, persuasion can be likened to a tool, such as a
hammer. Like any other tool, persuasion can be put to good or bad use. If this sounds like a
cop-out, read what Aristotle had to say on this same point in his Rhetoric:
If it is urged that an abuse of the rhetorical faculty can work great mischief, the same
charge can be brought against all good things (save virtue itself), and especially
against the most useful things such as strength, health, wealth, and military skill.
Rightly employed, they work the greatest blessings; and wrongly employed, they
work the greatest harm.
(1355b)
Related to this idea is the fact that tools can be used in good or bad ways, depending on
their user. We believe that first and foremost, a persuader’s motives determine whether a given
influence attempt is good or bad, right or wrong, ethical or unethical. We maintain that the
moral quality of a persuasive act is derived primarily from the ends a persuader seeks, and
only secondarily from the means the persuader employs. It isn’t so much what strategies and
tactics a persuader uses as why he or she uses them.
To illustrate, suppose you asked us whether the use of “fear appeals” is ethically justified.
We would have to say, it depends. If a fear appeal were being used to warn sexually active
teens of the risks of HIV infection from unprotected sex, we would tend to say the appeal was
justified. If a fear appeal were being used by a terrorist who threatened to kill a hostage every
hour until his demands were met, we would say the appeal was unjustified. In each case, the
motives of the persuader would “color” the use of the fear appeal. Consistent with our tool
analogy, fear appeals, like other persuasive strategies, can be used for good or bad ends.
54
A second response to this criticism was highlighted earlier. The study of persuasion
performs a defensive function insofar as it educates people to become more discriminating
consumers of persuasive messages. For instance, we believe our “Tips on Buying a New or
Used Car” (see Box 1.2) are useful to any potential car buyer who wants to avoid being
manipulated at a car lot. By increasing your awareness of the ploys of would-be persuaders,
this text performs a watchdog function. You can use the information contained herein to arm
yourself against the tactics of unscrupulous persuaders.
A third response that bears mentioning is that in denouncing the study of persuasion,
antimanipulation types are also attempting to persuade. The message that persuasion is
manipulative or exploitative is itself a persuasive appeal that advocates a position regarding
the “proper” study of communication. When one group claims to know best how human
communication should be studied, they are, in fact, standing on the persuasion soapbox
themselves.
Are Persuasion Findings Too Inconsistent or Confusing?
An additional complaint is that the study of persuasion has led to findings that are overly
qualified, or contradictory in nature. Empirical investigations of persuasion, it is argued, have
not yielded clear and consistent generalizations. There is no “E = mc2,” no “second law of
thermodynamics,” no universal when it comes to persuasion.
First, the complaint that persuasion isn’t worth studying because the findings are often
inconclusive or contradictory makes little sense. Quite the opposite: We believe that
persuasion warrants study precisely because it is so elusive. Underlying this criticism is the
expectation that reality is, or should be, simple and uncomplicated. Like it or not,
understanding reality is hard work. As we’ve already noted, human beings are complex
creatures who rarely respond to messages for one and only one reason. Actually, we find this
to be a redeeming feature of humanity. We rejoice in the fact that we aren’t an altogether
gullible, predictable, or controllable species.
A second response to this criticism is simply that persuasion research has revealed a
number of significant, relevant generalizations. You’ll find many such generalizations
throughout this book. Newer techniques of statistical analysis, such as meta-analysis,6 have
made it possible to reconcile some of the previous inconsistencies in the literature. In this
text, we identify a number of noteworthy, albeit qualified, generalizations that are based on
the most recent meta-analyses available.
55
56
BOX 1.2 |
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Tips on Buying a New or Used Car
Given the current state of the economy and the economic fix in which car dealers find
themselves, buying a car nowadays is easier than before. Car dealers are eager to sell cars.
Nevertheless, car salespersons, especially used car salespersons, have a bad reputation.
We’ve met some honest, upstanding sellers. We’ve also met some shady operators.
Because a car is a major purchase, one would be well advised to err on the side of caution
when negotiating with a car salesperson. Caveat emptor, as the saying goes: Let the
buyer beware.
Be wary. Remember, buying a car is a ritual in which the car dealer has the upper
hand. This is the prototype for high-pressure sales. They are professionals. They
sell cars every day. You are an amateur. Who do you think has more experience
with persuasion in this setting?
Do your homework before you go visit a car dealer. Read up on the makes and
models in which you’re interested. Find out about performance criteria, standard
features, and options before setting foot on a car lot. Consumer Reports compares
used cars on reliability, safety, and other criteria based on data from actual owners.
Research shows that doing your homework can save you money (Seiter & Seiter,
2005).
Keep a poker face. If the salesperson knows you are eager or excited about the car
purchase, he or she will smell blood. Once the salesperson knows you are
emotionally attached to a particular car, you’ll wind up paying more.
Take a calculator with you. Car salespersons like to pretend that the prices of things
are entirely up to the calculator (“Hey, let’s see how the numbers shake out”). The
implication is that the numbers aren’t negotiable or flexible. Everything is
negotiable. Do your own figuring to see if the numbers “shake out” the same way.
If not, ask why.
Once you are on the car lot, dealers will try to keep you there. They may put you in
a cubicle, holding you “hostage” during the negotiations. Their psychological
strategy is to wear you down. After hours of haggling, you’ll become mentally
drained and more likely to give in. They may ask for the keys to your trade-in,
presumably to look it over and determine its value. Once they have your keys, you
57
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
can’t leave.
The car salesperson will want to avoid talking about the total price of the car,
opting instead to discuss the monthly payment you can afford. You, however,
should focus on four things: (a) the total purchase price, (b) the finance period, (c)
the interest rate, and (d) the monthly payment. Don’t discuss the monthly payment
unless you are clear on the finance period involved (a 3-year loan, 4-year loan, 5-
year loan, etc.). If you admit you can afford $300 per month, the salesperson may
simply switch to a longer finance period—say, 4 years, instead of 3, thereby adding
thousands of dollars to the total purchase price.
During the negotiations, the salesperson may leave the room a number of times to
talk with the “sales manager.” This is all choreographed. The salesperson can’t
agree to anything without checking with this mysterious figure, so the person with
whom you are negotiating really can’t commit to anything. You, however, will be
asked to commit to a lot of things. Don’t.
The salesperson will act like he or she is your best friend, even though you just met.
The salesperson will look for ways to identify with you or ingratiate himself or
herself to you to establish camaraderie (“You like fly fishing? That makes two of
us.” “Whaddya-know, my granddaughter is named ‘Fifi’ too!”). During the
negotiations, the salesperson will pretend he or she is on your side and is willing to
go out on a limb for you (“Well, my sales manager may kick my butt for even
taking him this offer, but hey, I like you”). Remember, these two are working as a
team, against you. Don’t be confused for a moment about where the salesperson’s
loyalties reside.
The car salesperson will do all kinds of things to get you to make a commitment to
buy (“What would it take to get you to buy this car? Just tell me, whudda-I-godda-
do to get you in this car?”). Often, the salesperson will ask you to write down any
amount you’re offering on a slip of paper or an offer sheet, even though it isn’t
legally binding (it does increase your psychological commitment, however). The car
dealer wants you to sit in the car, take it for a test spin, smell the upholstery,
because then you will become psychologically committed to owning the car.
If you get close to a deal, or alternatively, if a deal seems to be coming apart, don’t
be surprised if another salesperson comes in to take over the negotiations. Often a
“closer” is sent in (sort of like a relief pitcher in baseball) to complete the sale.
Beware of “loss leaders” (advertised specials at absurdly low prices). These are
58
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
come-ons designed to get you onto the lot. Once there, however, you’ll be subjected
to the “old switcheroo.” You’ll find there is/was only one car at that price. You will
probably be told, “Sorry, it’s already sold … but I can make you a honey of a deal on
…”
The sale isn’t over simply because you’ve agreed on a price. You still have to deal
with the dreaded “finance person.” You’ll be given the impression that you’re simply
seeing the finance person to sign documents and process paperwork. Don’t let
down your guard. The finance person will try to add on thousands of dollars in the
form of extended warranties, antitheft systems, and protective coatings.
The interest rate is just as important as the price of the car. Shop around for a car
loan from a bank or credit union before you shop for a car. The rates may be lower
and you can find out exactly how much you qualify for in advance.
Shop around for prices on options such as stereos before you go to a car dealer.
People often bargain well on the purchase price, then give up everything they’ve
gained by failing to bargain on the price of extras. The price of everything is
negotiable.
Don’t let the salesperson know in advance that you have a trade-in. Any bargaining
gains you make on the purchase price of the new car will just be deducted from the
trade-in value of your used car. Sell the used car on your own, if at all possible. If
that’s not possible, you can always mention your trade-in after you’ve negotiated the
price of the new car.
Don’t get a lemon. Buying a used car can be particularly risky. One of the authors
bought a used sports car on eBay. How did he know from a mere picture and
description whether the car was in good shape? He ran a CARFAX history on the
car, easily available online (see www.carfax.com), which revealed that the car had
had only one previous owner; had never been stolen, totaled, or repossessed; had
correct odometer readings; and had passed a smog check each year when the vehicle
registration was renewed. Since the car was coming from another state, the author
went one step further and hired an independent mechanic to perform a
“prepurchase inspection” on the car, at a cost of about $150. We strongly suggest
you do the same for any used car. After all, how much can the average consumer
tell about a car from looking under the hood and kicking the tires?
59
You’ll notice in this book that we’ve drawn on the people in the trenches themselves to
learn how persuasion works in particular contexts and settings. We’ve talked to used car
salespersons, funeral home operators, retail clothing clerks, advertising firms, former cult
members, door-to-door salespersons, and telemarketers to find out—from the horse’s mouth,
so to speak—how persuasion operates.
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ETHICAL CONCERNS ABOUT THE USE OF PERSUASION
We would be remiss if we concluded this chapter without emphasizing the importance of
ethics in the persuasion process. We wish to underscore the point that the use of persuasion is
fraught with ethical concerns. We raise a number of such concerns in Box 1.3 for you to
ponder. Our position is that in learning how to become a more effective persuader, you
should strive to be an ethical persuader as well. In the final chapter, we address a number of
ethical questions related to various strategies and techniques of persuasion discussed
throughout the text. We wait until the final chapter to fully examine ethical concerns for two
reasons: First, until you’ve learned more about persuasion, you may not fully appreciate all of
the ethical issues that are involved. Second, after you’ve studied the full scope of persuasion as
we present it in this text, you’ll be in a much better position to place these ethical questions in
perspective.
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BOX 1.3 |
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Ethical or Unethical Persuasion? You Decide
Instructions: For each of the following scenarios, indicate how ethical or unethical you
perceive the persuader or the persuasive strategy to be, based on a five-point scale (with
1 being “highly ethical” and 5 being “highly unethical”).
A student pretends to cry in a professor’s office in an attempt to coax the professor
into giving her a makeup exam. Is this ethical persuasion?
A persuader advances an argument he doesn’t believe in, but that he thinks will be
convincing to his listeners. The argument isn’t untrue or invalid; it just happens to
be one with that the persuader himself does not agree. Is this ethical persuasion?
A car salesperson emphasizes that the model of car a customer is considering has
“more horsepower and better mileage than the competition.” The salesperson fails
to mention that the car has worse reliability and a worse safety record than the
competition. Is this ethical persuasion?
A skilled attorney successfully defends a client she knows to be guilty. Is this ethical
persuasion?
A minister tells his congregation that a vote for a particular candidate is “a vote for
the Devil incarnate” and that the scriptures demand that the faithful cast their
ballots for another candidate. Is this ethical persuasion?
A persuader sincerely believes in the arguments she is presenting, but the facts and
information she cites are incorrect and outdated. Is this ethical persuasion?
Parents use a fear appeal to convince their child to clean her room. “Santa doesn’t
bring presents to children with dirty rooms,” they warn. Is this ethical persuasion?
A children’s cereal states on the box, “High in the vitamins kids need” but doesn’t
mention that the cereal is high in sugar, too. Is this ethical persuasion?
A newlywed husband is upset that his wife wants to go to a dance club with some
of her single friends for drinks. “If you go,” he warns, “I’m going to a strip club with
some of my friends.” Is this ethical persuasion?
A political campaign runs a series of negative attack ads against an opponent, not
because the campaign manager prefers to but because voter surveys show that
negative ads will work, whereas ads that take the political “high road” won’t. Is this
ethical persuasion?
62
63
SUMMARY
We hope that we’ve convinced you of the ubiquity of persuasion in human interaction. The
capacity to persuade is one of the defining features of humankind. This fact provides the
strongest possible reason for studying persuasion. Given that learning about persuasion serves
an instrumental function, a knowledge and awareness function, a defensive function, a
debunking function, and a well-being and self-worth function, we believe there is ample
justification for studying this topic. Finally, rejoinders to two current criticisms of the study of
persuasion were offered. Hopefully, a persuasive case has been made for learning about
persuasion.
One other thing: Did we mention that learning about persuasion can also be fun?
64
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
NOTES
The scientific study of persuasion dates back to the 1940s and 1950s, when Carl Hovland founded the Yale Attitude
Research Program as part of the war effort. The government wanted to know how to counter enemy propaganda that
could affect the morale of troops and how susceptible POWs were to brainwashing.
Aristotle’s work Rhetoric is one such text that has survived the test of time. Written in the fourth century BCE,
Aristotle’s work has had a lasting influence on our understanding of persuasion. Many of his insights and observations
are considered valid even today.
Note that with the exception of Hitler, these charismatic leaders enjoyed a limited following. The rest of us weren’t
taken in by their claims, suggesting that people, in general, aren’t that gullible after all.
A New York Times article (Story, 2007) sets daily ad exposure at up to 5,000 ads per day. Rosseli, Skelly, and Mackie
(1995) state, “even by conservative estimates, the average person is exposed to 300–400 persuasive messages a day from
the mass media alone” (p. 163). Jones (2004) pegs the number of advertising messages at 300 to 1,500 every day, but
indicates that some estimates are as high as 3,000 per day—a number Jones labels fanciful (p. 12). Without saying who
says so, Berger (2011) reports that “some estimate that we are exposed to 15,000 commercial messages each day” (p.
101).
We are suspicious of such estimates, however, because they may simply represent “unknowable” statistics. At the
very least, estimates of the number of persuasive messages to which the average person is exposed involve
extrapolations, and the criteria upon which the extrapolations are based aren’t always provided. What’s more, the
estimates often contradict one another. By way of illustration, Berger (2011) maintains that “advertisers spend around
$800 per person in the United States on advertising” (p. 101), whereas Dupont (1999) claims, “In the U.S., close to
$400 for every man, woman, and child are invested in advertising each year” (p. 8). Which, if either, estimate is
correct?
We don’t have sufficient space to devote to this topic here, but suffice it to say that the traditional notion of scientific
realism is under siege from the antirealism camp (see Kourany, 1998). The antirealists argue that science is neither
purely objective nor impartial but heavily value laden (see also Laudan, 1984; Longino, 1990).
Meta-analysis refers to a statistical technique that allows a researcher to combine the results of many separate
investigations and examine them as if they were one big super study. A meta-analysis is capable of revealing trends
across a number of studies and resolving apparent inconsistencies among studies.
65
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W
CHAPTER 2
What Constitutes Persuasion?
Pure Versus Borderline Cases of Persuasion
Limiting Criteria for Defining Persuasion
Intentionality
Effects
Free Will and Conscious Awareness
Symbolic Action
Interpersonal Versus Intrapersonal
A Model of the Scope of Persuasion
The Context for Persuasion
A Working Definition of Persuasion
So What Isn’t Persuasion?
Dual Processes of Persuasion
The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion
The Heuristic Systematic Model of Persuasion
The Unimodel of Persuasion
HAT IS PERSUASION? How broad or narrow is the concept? Is persuasion a subset of
human communication in general, much like baseball is a subset of sports? Or is
persuasion an element found in all human communication in the same way that coordination
plays a role in every sport? Not surprisingly, different authors view the concept of persuasion
in different ways and have adopted different definitions of the term. In this chapter, we
explore some of the ways that persuasion has been defined. We offer our own rather broad-
based, far-reaching conceptualization of persuasion based on five limiting criteria. We also
present our own model of what persuasion is (Gass & Seiter, 1997, 2000, 2004) and examine
three additional models (Chaiken, 1979, 1987; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Petty & Cacioppo,
1986a, 1986b; Kruglanksi & Thompson, 1999a, 1999b) of how persuasion functions.
70
You may have encountered some unusual uses of the term persuasion. For example, we
have a friend in the construction industry who refers to his sledgehammer as his “persuader.”
He tends to err on the side of cutting a 2 × 4 board too long, rather than too short, and then
“persuading” it into place. As another example, you may recall seeing an old gangster movie
in which a mob boss orders his henchman to take somebody out back “for a little gentle
persuasion,” meaning a beating. Although we don’t normally associate persuasion with
pounding lumber or pummeling people, even in ordinary usage the term does have a wide
variety of meanings. Consider each of the hypothetical situations in Box 2.1, “What
Constitutes Persuasion?” Which of these scenarios do you consider to be persuasion?
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BOX 2.1 |
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
What Constitutes Persuasion?
Muffin notices a grubby-looking weirdo in one of the front seats of the bus she is
boarding. She opts for a seat toward the rear of the bus. Did the man “persuade”
her to sit elsewhere?
Benny Bigot is the principal speaker at a park rally to recruit more members to the
American Nazi party. Many of the people who hear Benny are so turned off by his
speech that they are more anti-Nazi than they were before they attended the rally.
Did Benny “persuade” them?
During a dramatic pause in his lecture for his three-hour night class, Professor
Hohum hears a student’s stomach growling. The professor then decides it would be
a good time for the class to take a break. Did the student “persuade” Professor
Hohum?
Babbs is standing at a street corner, watching passersby. The first three people she
sees are wearing sweatshirts with political and/or social slogans emblazoned across
the front. The fourth person to pass by is wearinga plain white T-shirt. Are the first
three people “persuading” Babbs? Is the fourth?
Sheldon makes a new year’s resolution to go on a diet. To remind himself not to
snack, he sticks a picture of a male model with “six pack” abs on his refrigerator.
Later, when he has an ice-cream craving, he sees the picture and decides to have an
apple instead. Did Sheldon “persuade” himself?
Bubba is at the supermarket, pondering which of two brands of beer to purchase.
After studying both brands attentively, he opts for an imported brand. Unbeknown
to him, another shopper observed his deliberations. That shopper then walks over
to the display and selects the same brand. Did “persuasion” take place?
Trudy is an impressionable freshperson who is in a jam. She has just realized a term
paper is due in her philosophy class. Desperate, she asks Rex, who is the captain of
the debate squad, if he will help her. Rex offers to give her an “A” paper he
submitted when he had the same class 2 years prior if Trudy will sleep with him. Is
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Rex using “persuasion”?
Adding to the difficulty of defining persuasion is the fact that persuasion also goes by a
variety of other names. Some of its aliases include terms such as advising, brainwashing,
coercion, compliance gaining, convincing, education, indoctrination, influence, manipulation, and
propaganda. Of course, whether these terms are considered synonyms for persuasion, or
simply related terms, depends on one’s definition of persuasion.
Defining a concept is analogous to building a fence. A fence is designed to keep some
things in and other things out. In the same way, a definition encompasses some elements or
aspects of a concept while excluding others. Which “species” of human communication is to
be found inside the “barnyard” of persuasion depends on the size and shape of the fence a
particular author builds. Fortunately, the differences in various definitions can be clarified, if
not resolved, by focusing on two key considerations. We turn to these next.
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PURE VERSUS BORDERLINE CASES OF PERSUASION
The first consideration is whether one is interested in pure persuasion or borderline cases of
persuasion. By pure persuasion, we mean clear-cut cases of persuasion, on which most people
would agree. Everyone would agree that a presidential debate, or a television commercial, or
an attorney’s closing remarks to a jury are instances of persuasion. Such examples represent
“paradigm cases” (O’Keefe, 2016; Simons, 1986) because they are at the core of what we
think of when we envision persuasion at work. Other instances, though, lie closer to the
boundary or periphery of what we normally think of as persuasion. These instances we refer
to as borderline cases of persuasion. Not everyone would agree that a derelict’s mere appearance
“persuades” passersby to keep their distance. Nor would everyone agree that involuntary
reflexes such as burps, blinking, and pupil dilation constitute “persuasive” phenomena. These
cases are less clear-cut, more “iffy.” Much of the disparity in definitions is rooted in the fact
that some authors are concerned with pure persuasion, whereas other authors are concerned
with borderline cases as well. It isn’t so much a matter of being right or wrong as it is a matter
of how wide a net each author wishes to cast. The preliminary model of the scope of
persuasion (Figure 2.1) illustrates this distinction in approaches.1 As the shading in the
model suggests, the dividing line between pure and borderline persuasion is fuzzy, rather than
distinct.
Although we don’t think there is a single, correct definition of persuasion, we do think
there are some things that a functional, contemporary definition of persuasion ought to do. A
contemporary definition should take into account the rich complex of verbal, nonverbal, and
contextual cues found in interpersonal encounters. A contemporary definition also should
acknowledge the many subtle, implicit cues that accompany face-to-face influence attempts.
By implicit cues, we mean communication that occurs at a very low level of awareness, or
even unconsciously. As an example, cultural factors might influence a person’s choice of
compliance-gaining strategies, without the person even realizing it (Wiseman et al., 1995).
Such implicit communication is, in fact, quite common (Langer, 1978, 1989a, 1989b; Roloff,
1980) and an important ingredient in persuasion. The definition and model of persuasion
that we offer later in this chapter take these features into account.
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FIGURE 2.1
Preliminary model of persuasion.
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LIMITING CRITERIA FOR DEFINING PERSUASION
A second consideration in defining persuasion involves the limiting criteria that form the
basis for a given definition. Different scholars apply different litmus tests when defining
persuasion. Five basic criteria can be gleaned from the various definitions offered in the
literature (Gass & Seiter, 2004). We examine each of these criteria in turn.
Intentionality
Is persuasion necessarily conscious or purposeful? Is there such a thing as “accidental”
persuasion? Many who write about persuasion adopt a source-centered view by focusing on
the sender’s intent as a defining feature of persuasion. Perloff (2013) adopts this view,
stressing that “persuasion does involve a deliberate attempt to influence another person.
Persuaders must intend to change another individual’s attitude or behavior and must be aware
(at least at some level) that they are trying to accomplish this goal” (p. 18). For some authors,
intentionality is the litmus test that distinguishes persuasion from social influence (Gass &
Seiter, 2004).
Certainly, pure persuasion would seem to be intentional. When we think of obvious cases
of persuasion we tend to think of situations in which one person purposefully tries to
influence another. But what about borderline cases of persuasion? We believe that many
influence attempts take place without any conscious awareness on the part of the persuader.
As just one instance, parents quite commonly instill beliefs, impart values, and model
behavior for their children, a phenomenon known as social modeling (Bandura, 1977). Yet
they may not realize how much of what they say and do is absorbed by their young-uns. As
any parent will attest, many of the lessons parents “teach” their children are completely
unintended. Another form of unintentional influence involves socialization processes. From
the moment children are born, they are socialized into their respective gender roles, cultural
customs, religious practices, and socioeconomic habits. Some socialization processes are
mindful, but many are not.
A second way in which an intent criterion is problematic is that people do not always
know what specific outcome they are seeking. Face-to-face encounters, in particular, are
laden with spontaneity. Social influence may arise in and through our interaction with others,
rather than as a result of planning and forethought. Sometimes persuasion just happens.
A third problem with relying on an intent criterion involves situations in which there are
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unintended receivers. Imagine a scenario in which two people are discussing which bets to
place on a horse race. One tells the other about an inside tip on a horse that’s a “sure thing.”
A third party overhears the conversation and places a wager on the horse. In such situations,
persuaders don’t intend for third parties to be influenced, yet they often are. Two studies
(Greenberg & Pyszczynski, 1985; Kirkland, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1987) clearly
demonstrate the operation of the unintended receiver effect. In these studies, the researchers
created a situation in which third parties overheard an ethnic slur directed against an African
American. The results of both studies revealed that the overheard ethnic slur led to lower
evaluations by the third parties of the individual at whom the slur was directed. Notice that a
reliance on an intent standard for defining persuasion tends to make senders less accountable
for the consequences of their unintended communication. If a message has harmful effects,
the source can disavow any responsibility by claiming “that’s not what I intended.”
A fourth limitation lies in the difficulty of ascertaining another’s intent. There can be a
difference between a persuader’s stated intent versus his or her actual intent. Who makes the
determination in such cases? The sender? The receiver? A third party?
Finally, resolving the issue of intent is particularly difficult in interpersonal contexts, in
which both parties may be engaged simultaneously in attempts at influence. When there are
two interactants, whose intent counts? Intent-based definitions, we believe, are ill suited to
modern conceptualizations of human interaction as a two-way venture. The linear view of
persuasion that such definitions imply, from sender to receiver, ignores opportunities for
mutual influence.
Effects
The effects criterion poses the question: Has persuasion taken place if no one is actually
persuaded? Some authors adopt a receiver-oriented definition of persuasion by restricting its
use to situations in which receivers are somehow changed, altered, or affected. Daniel
O’Keefe (2016) underscores this perspective when he writes:
The notion of success is embedded in the concept of persuasion. Notice, for
instance, that it doesn’t make sense to say, “I persuaded him, but failed.” One can
say, “I tried to persuade him, but failed,” but to say simply, “I persuaded him” is to
imply a successful attempt to influence.
(pp. 2–3)
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Although we recognize the attraction of this point of view, we believe there are problems
with limiting the definition of persuasion in this way. We take the position that even if a
person is communicating badly, he or she is still communicating. Similarly, we believe that a
person can be engaged in persuasion even if it is ineffective persuasion. The same can be said
for most other activities. A salesperson might fail to close a deal but would still be engaged in
selling. A dancer might dance badly, stepping on his or her partner’s toes, but would still be
engaged in dancing. In short, a person can be engaged in an activity whether the person is
doing it well or not.
An effects criterion emphasizes persuasion as a product. Such an orientation, however,
bears little fidelity to current conceptualizations of human communication as a process. If we
think of persuasion only as an outcome or a thing, then an effects orientation makes perfectly
good sense. We maintain that persuasion is better understood as an activity in which people
engage. This is more than semantic quibbling. By approaching persuasion as a process,
scholars and researchers are more likely to gain insights into how it functions, or what makes
it tick, because they are focusing on what’s going on, not simply on how things turn out.
A second weakness is the same as that already associated with an intent criterion: An
effects criterion embodies a linear view of persuasion, from source to receiver. In face-to-face
encounters, however, there isn’t simply a source and a receiver. Both parties may be
simultaneously engaged in persuasion. They shape, adapt, and adjust their strategies in
response to one another (Prislin et al., 2011).
A third problem with relying on an effects criterion is that it is often difficult, if not
impossible, to measure persuasive effects. Rotzoll and Haefner (1996), for example,
concluded that only 20 to 40 percent of advertising is effective. The other 60 to 80 percent is
also persuasion—it’s just ineffective persuasion. In fact, the ability to measure persuasive
outcomes may hinge entirely on the sensitivity of one’s measuring instruments (scales,
surveys, sales figures, etc.). Furthermore, what constitutes the threshold for a successful versus
unsuccessful attempt at persuasion? How much attitude or behavior change must take place
to say persuasion has occurred? And what about the occasional odd circumstance in which
persuasion “boomerangs”— that is, a persuader achieves an effect that is contrary to his or her
intended purpose? Such questions, we believe, highlight the many vagaries inherent in relying
on an effects criterion.
We do agree that, as with an intent criterion, pure cases of persuasion can usually be
evaluated by their overall effectiveness. Even then, persuasion is rarely an all-or-nothing
venture. If one also wishes to focus on borderline cases of persuasion, one must accept the fact
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that partial persuasion is more the rule than the exception. Notice, too, that there is some
tension between relying on intent and effects as limiting criteria: What is achieved isn’t
always what is intended, and what is intended isn’t always what is achieved.
Free Will and Conscious Awareness
Many authors endorse the view that there is a distinction between persuasion and coercion.
This view is also receiver based, but it focuses on whether a person is aware that she or he is
being persuaded and how much freedom the person has to accept or reject the message.
Persuasion, these authors suggest, is noncoercive. As Herbert Simons (1986) puts it,
“persuasion is a form of influence that predisposes, but does not impose” (p. 22). Richard
Perloff (2013) also makes this point when he states that persuasion requires “an atmosphere
of free choice” (p. 27).
FIGURE 2.2
“Persuasion” and “coercion” often coexist side by side.
Source: © Robert Mankoff/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
It naturally follows that if a person is unaware that an influence attempt is taking place,
she or he can’t consciously resist it. Thus, mindfulness is a prerequisite for free choice.
Nevertheless, we believe that persuasion can and does occur without the conscious awareness
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of receivers. For example, Ackerman, Nocera, and Bargh (2010) found that evaluations of job
applicants can be shaped in important yet unconscious ways. Participants in an experiment
were asked to evaluate resumes of job applicants. Some participants read resumes attached to
heavier clipboards, while others read resumes attached to lighter clipboards. The results were
intriguing. Applicants whose resumes were attached to heavier clipboards were rated higher
overall and as being more serious than their “lightweight” counterparts. The physical weight
of the clipboards translated into judgments about whether the applicants themselves were
more substantial. Our advice, if you want to be seen as having more “gravitas”: print your
resume on a heavier bond of paper or, better yet, chisel it in stone.
In fact, many influence attempts succeed precisely because they operate at a low level of
awareness. For example, consumers generally may be aware that product planting (placing
products in movies and TV shows) is common, but they may not know how prevalent the
practice is, let alone recognize each and every instance of product planting that occurs.
Persuasion that relies on social networking, such as word of mouth (WOM), is designed to
seem spontaneous rather than planned. A person might receive a link to a funny website from
a friend, not realizing that the site was developed as a marketing tool by a commercial entity.
You may think of persuasion and coercion as being separate and distinct, but in our view,
they aren’t so much polar opposites as close relatives. Powers (2007) agrees when she asks:
Does a coercion claim have to show that another choice was in fact available? Just
how available does the other choice have to be? Is it necessary to present all possible
alternatives in order to avoid a charge of coercion? How equal do the choices have to
be and how aware does the receiver have to be of those choices, and who decides
what available means?
(p. 128)
In fact, we would suggest that most influence attempts we encounter in daily life include
both persuasive and coercive elements. Rarely in life is one free to make a completely
unfettered choice. There are almost always strings attached. This is particularly true of face-
to-face encounters. If a friend asks to borrow 20 bucks, we can say “no,” but there may be
relational consequences for declining.
Rarely, too, are influence attempts completely coercive. For example, holding a gun to
another person’s head would seem to be an obvious example of coercion. We readily admit
that this situation is primarily coercive. But what if the victim doesn’t believe the gun is
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loaded? Or what if the victim thinks the threatener is bluffing? To be successful, a threat—
even a threat of violence—must be perceived as credible. Thus, even in what might seem like
a clear-cut case of coercion there are persuasive elements at work. And conversely, even in
what appear to be cut-and-dried cases of persuasion, there may be coercive features operating.
In our view, the issue isn’t so much whether a situation is persuasive or coercive as how
persuasive or coercive the situation is.
Symbolic Action
A number of authors maintain that persuasion begins and ends with symbolic expression,
which includes language as well as other meaning-laden acts, such as civil disobedience and
protest marches. This approach focuses on the means, or channel, of persuasion as a limiting
criterion. Timothy Borchers (2013) endorses this view, noting that “our definition of
persuasion uses the phrase ‘language strategies and/or other symbols’ to indicate the content
of persuasion” (p. 19). Similarly, Gerald Miller (1980) maintains that “in most instances,
language is an integral aspect of the persuasive transaction” (p. 5). Richard Perloff (2013) also
adheres to this point of view, noting that “Persuasion is a symbolic process” (p. 17).
Authors who limit the scope of persuasion to symbolic action fear that without such a
limitation, all human behavior could be construed as persuasion. Their point is well taken.
However, restricting the medium for persuasion to words or symbols leads to a rather
disjointed view of persuasion. We believe that a definition that limits persuasion to words and
clearly codified symbols leaves out too much. Most magazine ads emphasize pictures rather
than words. In fact, one study suggests that the text of a typical ad is read by fewer than 10
percent of the readers (Starch, cited in Dupont, 1999). The same is true of television
commercials. It seems arbitrary to limit persuasion to the words contained in an ad or a
commercial, without considering the role of the images as well. We think that the whole ad or
the whole commercial persuades.
We also believe that some of the most intriguing aspects of persuasion can be found in
nonverbal behavior, which lies on the periphery of symbolic action. For example, research on
the physiological correlates of deception demonstrates that a variety of involuntary nonverbal
cues (such as blinking, smiling, and pupil dilation) are positive indicators of lying (DePaulo,
Stone, & Lassiter, 1985). We focus on deception as a form of persuasion in Chapter 12.
Research on source credibility reveals that physical attributes, such as height or attractiveness,
influence judgments of source credibility (Chaiken, 1979). We examine such factors in
Chapter 4. We also can think of situations in which pure behavior—for example,
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nonsymbolic actions—are nevertheless persuasive. When a basketball player makes a head
fake to fool a defender, we would maintain that the player is persuading the defender to go the
wrong way. The fake is all behavior, but the player has to sell the fake to get the defender to
“bite” on it.
We believe that restricting the study of persuasion exclusively to symbolic expression leads
to a fragmented understanding of the subject. Persuasion involves more than language usage
or symbol usage. A whole host of factors are at work. Interestingly, many authors who profess
an adherence to symbolic action nevertheless treat a variety of nonsymbolic aspects of
behavior, such as those just mentioned, in their texts.
Interpersonal Versus Intrapersonal
How many actors are required for persuasion to take place? A last limiting criterion that
deserves mention is whether persuasion can involve only one person or whether persuasion
requires the participation of two or more distinct persons. Some scholars adopt the view that
engaging in persuasion is like dancing the tango: it takes two (Bettinghaus & Cody, 1994;
Johnston, 1994). We agree in the case of the tango, but not in the case of persuasion. In fact,
we maintain that attempts at self-persuasion are quite common (Aronson, 1999; Perloff,
2013). A person might search for a rationalization to do something he or she wants to do,
such as blowing the rent money on front-row concert tickets. In such cases, people talk
themselves into whatever they wish to do.
We are sympathetic to the “two or more” perspective but suggest that, once again, the
issue comes down to whether one wishes to focus exclusively on pure cases of persuasion or
borderline cases as well. We heartily agree that when we think of pure cases of persuasion, we
conjure up an image of one person persuading another. When we include borderline cases, we
imagine instances in which individuals sometimes try to convince themselves.
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A MODEL OF THE SCOPE OF PERSUASION
In light of the five limiting criteria just discussed, we can now offer an enhanced model (see
Figure 2.3) that encompasses both pure and borderline cases of persuasion (Gass & Seiter,
2004). As with the preliminary model, the inner circle represents pure persuasion—that is,
what we think of as the core of persuasion. The outer circle represents borderline persuasion.
Superimposed on top of these two circles are five wedges, each representing one of the five
limiting criteria previously discussed. The inner portion of each wedge represents the pure
case for that criterion. The outer portion represents the borderline case. Once again, the
shading between the inner and outer circles reflects the fuzzy dividing line that exists between
pure and borderline persuasion.
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FIGURE 2.3
Enhanced model of persuasion.
Based on this enhanced model, you can appreciate the fact that different definitions
feature different wedges of the inner and outer circles. Source-oriented definitions restrict
persuasion to the inner circle of the “intentional–unintentional” wedge. Receiver-based
definitions limit persuasion to the inner circle of the “effects–no effects” wedge. Other
receiver-based definitions favor the inner circle with respect to the “free choice–coercion”
criterion, and so on.
As you can also see from the enhanced model, some definitions concern themselves with
several wedges at the same time, whereas other definitions are based on a single limiting
criterion. It’s worth noting that all definitions of persuasion— including our own, which we
present shortly—are linguistic constructs. They exist in the world of words. Whether a given
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situation involves persuasion is not a matter of fact but of judgment.
Our own preference is for an expanded view of persuasion that includes borderline cases as
well as pure persuasion. We tend to side with the view that persuasion is sometimes
unintentional; that it sometimes has no discernible effects; that people aren’t always aware of
when it is occurring; that it often includes at least some coercive features; that it needn’t be
conveyed exclusively via symbols; and that humans do, on occasion, engage in self-persuasion.
Many of the topics discussed in later chapters reside in the outer ring of our model. As we’ve
already indicated, we believe that some of the most intriguing aspects of persuasion can be
found there. We firmly believe we must look at both the inner and outer rings to fully
understand the phenomenon of persuasion.
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THE CONTEXT FOR PERSUASION
Consistent with current conceptualizations of persuasion, we view social influence as a
process. Thus far, however, our model has remained relatively static. A final feature must be
incorporated into our model to reflect the nature of persuasion as a process. That feature is
the context for persuasion. The context in which persuasion occurs— for example, within a
small group, via mass media, in an organizational setting, and so forth—is crucial because it is
the context that determines the nature of the communication process. In a face-to-face
setting, for example, influence is a mutual, two-way process. In an advertising setting,
influence tends to be more linear, from the advertiser to the consumer (there may be feedback
from consumers, but it is delayed). Each context imposes its own unique set of constraints on
the options available to persuaders.
By context, we don’t simply mean the number of communicators present, although that is
certainly one key factor. The context for communication also includes how synchronous or
asynchronous communication is. Synchronous communication refers to the simultaneous
sending and receiving of messages. Such is the case in face-to-face interaction. Asynchronous
communication refers to a back-and-forth process that involves some delay, such as email or
texting.
Another contextual factor is the ratio of verbal to nonverbal cues that are present. A print
ad consisting entirely of text would rely exclusively on verbal cues (words) to persuade. A
poster featuring only an image would rely exclusively on nonverbal cues to persuade. Most
persuasive messages involve both verbal and nonverbal cues. The ratio of verbal to nonverbal
cues available in any persuasive situation imposes particular constraints on the persuasion
process.
An additional contextual factor is the nature and type of media used in the persuasion
process. Television commercials, radio ads, magazine ads, and telemarketing are traditional
media for persuasion. New media include blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, among
many others. Face-to-face encounters, such as door-to-door sales and panhandling, are
unmediated. As with the other contextual factors, each medium imposes its own constraints
on the persuasion process.
Yet another contextual factor involves the goals of the participants. Often, but not always,
participants enter into communication encounters with specific objectives in mind (Dillard,
1990, 1993, 2004; Dillard, Segrin, & Harden, 1989). Canary and Cody (1994) break down
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these goals into three types—self-presentational goals, relational goals, and instrumental
goals. Self-presentational goals have to do with identity management. People want to project a
favorable image of themselves to others. Relational goals have to do with what people want
out of their relationships— how to develop them, improve them, change them, and so forth.
Instrumental goals involve attempts at compliance gaining. People’s goals may be thwarted or
may change during a persuasive encounter.
A final contextual variable involves sociocultural factors that affect the persuasion process.
People from different cultures or subcultures may persuade and be persuaded in different
ways (Ma & Chuang, 2001). For example, research suggests that some cultures prefer more
indirect approaches to compliance gaining (hinting, guilt, reliance on group norms), whereas
other cultures prefer more direct approaches to compliance gaining (direct requests,
demanding) (Wiseman et al., 1995). Different cultural traditions can dramatically affect what
is expected or accepted in the way of influence attempts.
Note that all of these contextual factors are operating at once in a given persuasive
situation. Each of the contextual factors constrains the process of persuasion in one way or
another. The context involves the totality of the relationships among all these factors. The
final version of our model, depicted in Figure 2.4, illustrates how persuasion is shaped by
context (Gass & Seiter, 2004). Context, then, is what determines the nature of the process
involved in a given persuasive situation.
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A WORKING DEFINITION OF PERSUASION
At last we arrive at our own definition of persuasion. Our view is that persuasion involves one
or more persons who are engaged in the activity of creating, reinforcing, modifying, or extinguishing
beliefs, attitudes, intentions, motivations, and/or behaviors within the constraints of a given
communication context. The advantage of our definition is that it encompasses the full scope of
persuasion, both pure and borderline cases. Our definition also emphasizes persuasion as an
activity or a process; it is something people do. Our definition encompasses the notion that in
face-to-face encounters, persuasion is a two-way street. Each party has an opportunity to
influence the other. With respect to our definition, we also wish to stress that persuasion
doesn’t involve simply changing one’s own or another’s mind, though that is the most typical
connotation (Miller, 1980). Persuasion also can involve creating new beliefs or attitudes,
where none existed before. It also can involve reinforcing, strengthening, or solidifying
attitudes already held by receivers. And persuasion also can involve attempts to extinguish or
eliminate beliefs and attitudes. The latter approach is exemplified by Alcoholics Anonymous’s
position that alcoholics must abandon the belief that other people are responsible, or
circumstances are to blame, for their dependency.
If our definition seems expansive, it is because we believe the topic of persuasion itself is
rather far ranging. We wish to examine not only the core of persuasion in this text but its
periphery as well. The majority of our examples focus on pure cases of persuasion. However,
from time to time we dabble on the fuzzy outer edges. We find some of the borderline cases
of persuasion quite interesting, and we believe you will too.
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FIGURE 2.4
Completed model of persuasion. This figure illustrates three of many possible persuasive situations.
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SO WHAT ISN’T PERSUASION?
Given the breadth of our definition, you’re probably wondering, “What isn’t persuasion?” We
address this concern now. Our position is that the ingredients for persuasion can be found in
most, if not all, communication transactions. The degree to which these persuasive
ingredients are present is what matters. We think most human communication involves at
least the potential to influence. Of course, one may choose not to focus on the persuasive, or
potentially persuasive, elements in a communication situation. One can concentrate on some
other aspect of communication instead. The potential for persuasion remains nonetheless.
What matters, then, is how persuasive a given communication situation is, not whether a
communication situation is persuasive.
Many other features of communication besides persuasion can command one’s attention.
For example, one can examine the role of self-disclosure and relationship satisfaction without
discussing persuasion. One can study effective listening skills, regardless of whether the
message listened to is persuasive or not. One can study nonverbal cues and liking without
focusing on persuasion. One can look at how people try to save face during conflicts without
involving persuasion. Persuasive elements needn’t comprise the focus of attention even if they
are present. One can focus on other relevant features of human communication to the
exclusion of persuasive processes.
Although we believe that nearly all human communication is potentially persuasive, we
don’t believe the same about all human behavior. The mere act of breathing, in and of itself,
doesn’t seem like persuasion to us—although under the right circumstances it could be (such
as pretending to be out of breath). Tripping over a rock, by itself, doesn’t seem like a
persuasive act to us, although, again, under certain conditions it could be (such as feigning
clumsiness). Biological functions, such as sneezing, coughing, or vomiting don’t strike us as
being persuasive, though, again, a person could fake having allergies, a cold, or a hangover to
influence someone else. A good deal of human behavior, then, we don’t consider to be
persuasion, unless and until some additional conditions are met. We don’t think everything
humans do is persuasive.
There are also some forms of communication that we’ve excluded from consideration in
this text for purely practical reasons. We don’t discuss torture as a form of persuasion,
although some, like Abbott (2016) call it persuasion at its most gruesome. We also don’t
address the possibility of human-to-animal persuasion, or vice versa, though such a case
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probably could be made. Furthermore, we don’t consider a whole range of studies on how
plants, such as willow trees or sugar maples, can warn other trees about insect infestations.
There are biologists, though, who study “talking trees” (McGowan, 2013). We don’t examine
the power of hypnotic suggestion as a form of influence. We don’t examine attempts to
persuade via telepathy, paranormal, or psychic activity either. We’ve heard that some people
with cancerous tumors try to “talk to” their cancer and “persuade” it to go away. We don’t
deal with that topic here, except insofar as it may constitute a form of self-persuasion. We
also don’t address a host of other intriguing topics, such as the role of genetics and
neuropsychology in persuasion. We simply don’t have the space to devote to those topics
here. Thus, as big as the fence that we’ve built is, there is a lot of human communication
we’ve left out.
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DUAL PROCESSES OF PERSUASION
Now that we’ve clarified what we think persuasion is, we want to take a look at how it
functions. To this end, we present a brief explanation of two prevailing models of persuasion.
Both are known as dual process models (Chaiken & Trope, 1999) because they postulate that
persuasion operates via two basic paths. The two models share many similarities and, in our
opinion, both do an excellent job of explaining how persuasive messages are perceived and
processed.
The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion
Richard Petty and John Cacioppo’s (1986a, 1986b) elaboration likelihood model of persuasion
(ELM), is one of the most widely cited models in the persuasion literature.2 Their model
proposes two basic routes to persuasion that operate in tandem. The first of these they call
the central route. The central route, or central processing, as they sometimes refer to it, involves
cognitive elaboration. That means thinking about the content of a message, reflecting on the
ideas and information contained in it, and scrutinizing the evidence and reasoning presented.
The second route to persuasion is known as the peripheral route. The peripheral route, or
peripheral processing, as it is sometimes called, involves focusing on cues that aren’t directly
related to the substance of a message. For example, focusing on a source’s physical
attractiveness, or the sheer quantity of arguments presented, or a catchy jingle as a basis for
decision making would entail peripheral processing. According to the ELM, the two routes
represent the ends, or anchor points, of an elaboration continuum (Petty, Rucker, Bizer, &
Cacioppo, 2004). At one end of the continuum, a person engages in no or low elaboration.
At the other end, a person engages in high elaboration.
To illustrate the two basic routes, imagine that Rex and Trudy are on a date at a
restaurant. Trudy is very health conscious, so she studies the menu carefully. She looks to see
whether certain dishes are fatty or high in calories. When the food server arrives to take their
order, she asks, “What kind of oil is used to prepare the pasta?” She might sound picky, but
Trudy is engaging in central processing. She is actively thinking about what the menu says.
Rex, however, is smitten with Trudy’s good looks. He hardly looks at the menu, and when
the food server asks for his order, he says, “I’ll have what she’s having.” Rex is engaging in
peripheral processing. He’s basing his decision on cues that are unrelated to the items on the
menu.
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Petty and Cacioppo acknowledge the possibility of parallel processing—that is, using both
routes at once (Petty, Kasmer, Haugtvedt, & Cacioppo, 2004). For example, when people
judge the credibility of websites, they consider the look and layout of a website (peripheral
cue) and the content of the website (central processing) (SanJosé-Cabezuo, Gutiérrez-
Arranze, & Gutiérrez-Cillán, 2009). However, Petty and Cacioppo (1986a, 1986b) suggest
that there is usually a trade-off between central and peripheral processing, such that a person
tends to favor one route over the other. Whether a person emphasizes the central or the
peripheral route hinges on two basic factors. The first of these is the individual’s motivation to
engage in central processing. Because central processing requires more mental effort, a person
with greater motivation is more likely to rely on central processing. Typically, this means the
person has high involvement with the topic or issue. That is, the topic or issue matters to him
or her, or affects him or her personally. If a person has low involvement with a topic or issue,
he or she will be less inclined to engage in central processing, and more likely to resort to
peripheral processing. For example, voters with little knowledge are more likely to be swayed
by politicians’ looks than voters who are informed about the candidates’ positions (Lenz &
Lawson, 2011).
The second factor that determines whether a person will rely on central or peripheral
processing is his or her ability to process information. A person must not only be willing but
also able to engage in central processing. Some people are more adept at grasping ideas,
understanding concepts, and making sense of things. Some people also have more knowledge
of or expertise in certain topics or issues than others. Thus, receivers are more likely to
process a persuasive message via the central route if they have the motivation and ability to do
so. If they lack the motivation or the ability, they will tend to rely on peripheral processing
instead.
Aside from ability and motivation, a variety of other factors can tilt the balance in favor of
central or peripheral processing. These include distractions, such as background noise, time
constraints, a person’s mood, or a personality trait called need for cognition. Need for cognition
has to do with how much a person enjoys thinking about things. We discuss this trait in more
detail in Chapter 5.
The type of processing affects the persistence of persuasion. Researchers have found that
persuasion via the central route tends to be more long lasting, whereas persuasion via the
peripheral route tends to be more short-lived (Carpenter, 2015; Petty, Haugtvedt, & Smith,
1995). This seems sensible: When we think about ideas, they are more likely to be absorbed.
Similarly, persuasion that takes place via central processing also tends to be more resistant to
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counterinfluence attempts than persuasion via peripheral processing. This also makes sense: If
you’ve thought through your position, you’re less likely to “waffle.” Researchers also have
found that if receivers disagree with the content of a message, using central processing causes
them to generate more counterarguments. That is, they mentally rehearse their objections to
the message. If receivers disagree with a message and rely on peripheral processing, however,
they will generate fewer counterarguments or other unfavorable thoughts about the message.
A useful generalization when persuading, then, is that to make persuasion last, you’ve got to
make people think.
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FIGURE 2.5
Peripheral processing in action.
Source: © Joe Martin. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with permission.
The Heuristic Systematic Model of Persuasion
Another model of persuasion that bears many similarities to the ELM is Shelley Chaiken and
Alice Eagly’s heuristic systematic model, or HSM (Chaiken, 1987; Chaiken, Liberman, &
Eagly, 1989; Chaiken & Trope, 1999; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). As with the ELM, the
HSM operates on the assumption that individuals rely on two different modes of information
processing. One mode, called systematic processing, is more thoughtful and deliberate.
Systematic processing in the HSM is roughly analogous to central processing in the ELM.
The other mode, called heuristic processing, relies on mental shortcuts. Heuristic processing is
based on the application of decision rules or heuristic cues that help simplify the thought
process. An example of a decision rule would be buying a TV based on its brand name (“Sony
televisions are reliable”). An example of a heuristic cue would be choosing one wine over
another because the bottle is prettier. Heuristic processing in the HSM is roughly equivalent
to peripheral processing in the ELM.
Chaiken and Eagly’s model also maintains that simultaneous processing of messages is
commonplace. Messages travel the heuristic and systematic routes concurrently. As with the
ELM, the HSM states that motivation and ability are two primary determinants of the extent
to which heuristic or systematic processing will be used. A problem for both models is that, to
date, there is limited empirical evidence of simultaneous processing, at least in laboratory
studies of persuasion (Booth-Butterfield et al., 1994; Chaiken et al., 1989).
Another feature of the HSM is the sufficiency principle, which states that people strive to
know as much as they need to when making a decision, but no more or less. On one hand,
people want to devote the time and attention to issues that they deserve. On the other hand,
people can’t afford to spend all their time and mental energy worrying about every little thing.
Therefore, people balance their heuristic and systematic processing to create the best “fit” for
the issue at hand.
By way of illustration, suppose Irwin is thinking of buying a digital camera. If Irwin didn’t
know much about such devices, he could take one of two approaches. He could rely on
systematic processing by reading up on digital cameras. He would likely adopt this route if he
thought he really needed a digital camera (motivation) and he lacked the necessary knowledge
about them (sufficiency principle). He also would need time to gather information and be
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able to understand it (ability). Alternatively, he could opt for heuristic processing. He could
base his decision on a friend’s advice using a simple decision rule (“Lance knows his cameras”)
He could base his decision on a heuristic cue, such as the brand (“Canon is the best brand”).
He would be more likely to resort to heuristic processing if he didn’t really need a digital
camera—it was only an electronic toy (low motivation)—or if he didn’t think he could make
sense of the information about cameras anyway (lack of ability).
FIGURE 2.6
Heuristic processing is more reflexive than reflective.
Source: © Alex Gregory/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
Both the ELM and HSM are useful for explaining and predicting people’s reactions to
persuasive messages. Literally dozens of studies devoted to testing the explanatory and
predictive power of these two models have been conducted. These studies have generally
upheld the models’ utility. Although both models have their critics (see Kruglanski &
Thompson, 1999a, 1999b; Mongeau & Stiff, 1993; Stiff & Boster, 1987), it is safe to say that
they enjoy considerable support in the literature. We develop and amplify principles related to
the ELM and HSM throughout this text. Because we refer to both models repeatedly, it
would be worth your while to familiarize yourself with their basic concepts for later reference.
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THE UNIMODEL OF PERSUASION
An alternative to dual process models of persuasion is the unimodel developed by Arie
Kruglanski and Erik Thompson (Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999a, 1999b). Kruglanski and
Thompson posit that, rather than two distinct modes of information processing, there is a
single route to persuasion. Central processing isn’t qualitatively different from peripheral
processing, according to the unimodel; there is simply more or less of it. Kruglanski maintains
that the alleged differences in processing based on the ELM and HSM merely reflect
differences in the messages themselves. Longer, more complex messages require more
thought, while shorter, simpler messages require less thought (Erb, Pierro, Mannetti, Spiegel,
& Kruglanski, 2007; Kruglanski et al., 2006; Pierro, Mannetti, Erb, Spiegel, & Kruglanski,
2005).
Despite the simplicity of the unimodel, we believe there are cases in which persuasive
messages are processed in fundamentally different ways (Petty, Wheeler, & Bizer, 1999). For
example, a consumer who responded to a fear appeal emotionally or reflexively would be quite
different from a consumer who responded to a fear appeal rationally or reflectively. Even so,
the unimodel raises important questions about whether and how dual processing occurs. Some
scholars have questioned whether dual processing has ever been empirically documented
(Booth-Butterfield et al., 1994).
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SUMMARY
We began this chapter by presenting a preliminary model of persuasion that distinguishes
pure from borderline cases of persuasion. We identified five limiting criteria for defining
persuasion that are reflected in our own model of persuasion. We followed our model with
our own broad-based, far-reaching definition of persuasion. Finally, we provided a brief
explanation of Petty and Cacioppo’s elaboration likelihood model (ELM) of persuasion and
Chaiken and Eagly’s heuristic systematic model (HSM) of persuasion. An alternative to dual-
process models, the unimodel, also was presented.
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1.
2.
NOTES
More than two decades ago, Simons (1986, p. 116) introduced a model of persuasion having concentric circles,
representing pure persuasion, peripheral persuasion, and non-persuasion. Our preliminary model (Figure 2.1) draws on
his work.
Not all scholars are enamored with Petty and Cacioppo’s model. Among others, Mongeau and Stiff (1993) and Stiff
and Boster (1987) have criticized the ELM for its theoretical and empirical limitations. Petty, Wegener, Fabrigar,
Priester, and Cacioppo (1993) and Petty, Kasmer, Haugtvedt, and Cacioppo (2004) have responded to many of the
criticisms directed against their model.
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CHAPTER 3
Attitudes and Consistency
What Is an “Attitude” in 20 Words or Less?
So How Do You Measure the Durn Things?
Explicit Measures: Self-Report Scales
Visually Oriented Scales
Pitfalls in Measuring Attitudes
Implicit Measures: What’s Rattling Around Inside Your Brain?
More Roundabout Ways of Measuring Attitudes
Physiological Measures of Attitude
The Reasoned Action Approach (RAA)
Behavioral Beliefs and Attitudes: Believe It or Not
Normative Beliefs: It’s What the Cool Kids Are Doing
Perceived Behavioral Control: I Got This
The Persistence of Attitudes
Attitudes as Associative Networks: Your Mind Is a Web
Manufacturing Favorable Associations: Jiggling the Web
Brands and Branding: That’s the Life
Who Are You Wearing? Brand Personality
Authenticity: Keeping It Real
Cause-Related Marketing: The Feel-Good Factor
Sloganeering
Sponsorship
Psychological Consistency
The Inner Peace of Consistency
Methods of Maintaining Consistency
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I
Marketing Strategies: How to Have Your Cake and Eat It Too
Brand Loyalty: Accept No Substitute
Write and Tell Us Why You Love This Book in 24 Words or Less
Marketing Inconsistency
Capitalizing on Inconsistency
Cognitive Dissonance Theory (CDT)
Cognitive Dissonance and Buyer’s Remorse
Polarization of Alternatives
Cognitive Dissonance, Self-Image, and Culture
Factors That Affect the Magnitude of Dissonance
Dissonance and Persuasion: Putting It All Together
Forbidden Fruit: Psychological Reactance
Counterattitudinal Advocacy: Playing Devil’s Advocate
I’m All In: Increasing Commitment
Commitments Can “Grow Legs”
F SOMEONE SAID, “Mabel has an attitude,” you might think she was being irritable.
However, the word attitude doesn’t have the same meaning for social scientists that it does
in everyday parlance. Social scientists have long been fascinated with the study of attitudes on
all manner of subjects. Prislin and Crano (2008) went so far as to say that social scientists
have carried on an “unremitting romance with attitudes over the past half-century” (p. 3).
The honeymoon isn’t over. Attitudes remain a vital element in understanding how persuasion
works today.
Just why are attitudes so important to understanding persuasion? The reason is that
attitudes help to predict, explain, and modify behavior. Just as a baker uses yeast as a catalyst
in baking bread, persuaders rely on attitudes as a means of bringing about changes in
receivers. An understanding of attitudes is, therefore, a key ingredient in any recipe for
persuasion. For this reason, this chapter is devoted to a discussion of attitudes. We begin by
considering what an attitude is.
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WHAT IS AN “ATTITUDE” IN 20 WORDS OR LESS?
There is now general agreement among social scientists that an attitude is a “psychological
tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or
disfavor” (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993, p. 1). Let’s examine some key aspects of this definition
more closely. First, attitudes reflect tendencies or predispositions to respond to things in
predictable ways. We don’t have time to reflect on each and every action we take in life, so
attitudes provide us with mental templates that guide our behavior.
This is not to say that there is a one-to-one correspondence between attitudes and
behaviors. A person may have a favorable attitude toward losing weight but may not stay on a
diet. To a large extent, though, our attitudes do correspond with our behaviors. For example,
people who favor gun-control laws are less likely to own guns than people who oppose such
laws. Attitudes have been shown to predict environmental behavior, consumer behavior,
voting behavior, contraceptive use, marijuana use, discrimination based on race, and
numerous other behaviors (Holland, Verplanken, & van Krippenberg, 2002).
A second feature of attitudes is that they represent favorable or unfavorable evaluations of
things. This evaluative dimension is, perhaps, the most central feature of attitudes (Dillard,
1993). If a person says, “I can’t stand Marmite” or “I love Vegemite,” the person is expressing
his or her attitudes toward the two sandwich spreads. Along with their valence, attitudes vary
in degree or intensity. Not all attitudes are equal. Stronger attitudes, whether positive or
negative, tend to be better predictors of behavior and less subject to change.
A third aspect of attitudes is that they are always directed toward an attitude object.
Attitudes may be held in memory or formed on the spot (Argyriou & Melawar, 2011), but
people hold attitudes about things or toward things. The attitude object can be another
person, an idea, a policy, an event, or a situation. Attitudes toward a complex issue may be
composed of multiple attitudes toward a variety of sub-issues.
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SO HOW DO YOU MEASURE THE DURN THINGS?
If you want to know how much you weigh, you can stand on a scale. If you want to know
how tall you are, you can use a tape measure. But what if you want to measure someone’s
attitudes? Attitudes can’t be observed directly. They are inside people’s heads. As such, social
scientists have developed a number of methods—both explicit and implicit—for measuring
attitudes.1 Let’s take a look at each of these approaches.
Explicit Measures: Self-Report Scales
The old saying, “Straight from the horse’s mouth” suggests that whatever is being shared
comes directly from the source. With that in mind, self-report scales might be thought of as
“straight-from-the-horse’s-mouth” measures. That’s because self-report scales measure
attitudes by directly asking people to reveal their attitudes. Because people know their
attitudes are being measured, self-reports are considered to be explicit measures of attitudes
(Petty, Fazio, & Briñol, 2009). Two widely used self-report scales are Likert scales and
semantic differential scales.
Likert Scales
Rensus Likert’s (1932) “equal appearing interval” scales are among the most popular in use
today. You’ve probably already completed a number of them yourself. A Likert scale consists
of a series of statements about some attitude object, followed by a continuum of choices
ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” (see Figure 3.1). A respondent’s attitude
is represented by the average of his or her responses to all the statements in the scale. The
scales are easy to construct and administer and enjoy widespread acceptance in academia,
government, and industry.
Semantic Differential Scales
Although its name may be unfamiliar, you are probably already acquainted with the semantic
differential scale (see Figure 3.2), developed by Osgood, Tannenbaum, and Suci (1957). This
scale is based on the connotative meanings that words have for people. It consists of a series of
bipolar adjective pairs or, more simply, opposites, such as light–dark, fast–slow, happy–sad,
and so on. In completing the scale, a respondent checks the “semantic” space between each
adjective pair that best reflects his or her overall attitude toward the concept in question. The
respondent’s overall attitude is represented by the average of the spaces checked on all of the
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items.
FIGURE 3.1
Examples of Likert-type scale items.
FIGURE 3.2
Examples of semantic differential scale items.
Visually Oriented Scales
Other visually oriented methods of measuring attitudes via self-reports also have been
developed. Visual scales make it easier for respondents to conceptualize their attitudes,
because they can “see” where their attitudes fit on a scale or continuum. The visual analog
scale or VAS (Flynn, van Schaik, & van Wersch, 2004), for example, simply asks respondents
to place a mark along a continuum. A Web tool for creating such a scale can be found at
www.vasgenerator.net (Reips & Funke, 2008). Other visual scales include simple drawings of
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facial expressions. The expressions represent different degrees of favor or disfavor toward the
attitude object, ranging from smiling to frowning (see Figure 3.3).
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FIGURE 3.3
Example of a visually oriented attitude scale.
Source: From Brock, T.C., & Shavitt, S. (1994).
Pitfalls in Measuring Attitudes
Although explicit measures are fairly easy to administer, they have drawbacks. A reliance on
self-reports presumes that people are aware of their attitudes and that they are willing and
able to report them. One limitation of self-reports is known as social desirability bias. When
people know that their words or actions are on display, they may exhibit what they perceive to
be socially acceptable norms of conduct. During a job interview, for example, a person might
express “politically correct” attitudes to win favor with the interviewer.
A second pitfall involves the problem of non-attitudes. People don’t want to appear
uninformed or unintelligent. So quite often, when they are asked for their attitude on a
particular issue, they simply make one up—on the spot! They fear that saying “I don’t know”
or “I don’t care” will make them look uninformed. For example, when late-night host Jimmy
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Kimmel asked passersby who won a “First Lady/Man” debate between Bill Clinton and
Melania Trump, a number of people expressed strong opinions. No such debate ever took
place, however (www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG8lVhyWPmI).
A third drawback has to do with mindfulness. In order for a person to mark the space on
any self-report measure, the person must be aware of what his or her attitude is.
Unfortunately, respondents often, quite literally, don’t know their own minds. For example, a
person could harbor racist, sexist, or homophobic attitudes, without consciously realizing it.
Implicit Measures: What’s Rattling Around Inside Your Brain?
To avoid the pitfalls just described, social scientists utilize implicit measures of attitudes
(Goodall, 2011; Wittenbrink & Schwartz, 2007). Such measures assume that unconscious
attitudes can be accessed, thereby reducing conscious bias on the part of respondents (Petty,
Fazio, & Briñol, 2009). We discuss these measures next.
Implicit Association Test (IAT)
The best known implicit measure is the Implicit Association Test or IAT (Greenwald,
McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). Respondents are asked to press keys on a computer key board
in a series of rapid-fire word-association tasks. The snap judgments reveal their underlying
attitudes. To illustrate, let’s say you wanted to find out whether managers harbor negative
stereotypes toward employees with disabilities. On the IAT, managers with negative attitudes
would be faster at classifying word pairs, such as “disabled/unpleasant” or “able-
bodied/happy” compared to word pairs, like “disabled/pleasant” or “able bodied/sad” (Wilson
& Scior, 2014). The speed at which respondents press the keys signifies the strength of
association for their stereotypes. Variations of the IAT have been developed to measure
implicit attitudes toward gender, age, weight, religion, race, disability, and many other topics.
Other Implicit Measures
A variety of other implicit measures have been developed, including the affect misattribution
procedure or AMP and evaluative priming (Fabrigar, Krosnick, & MacDougall, 2005; Fazio &
Olson, 2003). We don’t have sufficient space to examine them all here. What all these
measures have in common, though, is that they tap into attitudes that people may be unable
or unwilling to divulge. Not surprisingly, implicit measures do not always produce the same
results as explicit measures, prompting some to ask, “So which is the real attitude?”
(Greenwald, Poehlman, Uhlmann, & Banaji, 2009). The answer is both. For judgments that
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are made reflexively or impulsively, implicit measures tend to be more reliable. For judgments
that are made more thoughtfully or deliberately, explicit measures tend to yield better results.
More Roundabout Ways of Measuring Attitudes
In addition to explicit and implicit measures, a variety of other, less scientific means can be
used to infer people’s attitudes. These include inferring attitudes from appearances, from
associations, and from behavior.
Judging a Book by Its Cover—Appearances
Attitudes may be inferred from appearances. In fact, people do this all the time. Take, for
example, the ability to spot homosexuals, known by the slang term gaydar. In controlled
studies, observers were able to judge the sexual orientation of females and males at greater
than chance odds, based on facial cues, posture, gestures, and gait (Rule, Ambady, & Hallett,
2009). As another example, observers correctly guessed which political parties candidates
belonged to, based solely on photographs, at a much higher rate than chance would predict
(Rule & Ambady, 2010; Rule, Ambady, Adams, & Macrae, 2008).
FIGURE 3.4
It is often possible to infer attitudes from clothing and other artifacts.
Source: Heidi Besen/Shutterstock.com
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The danger of relying on such appearance-based cues, however, is that the person may
commit a “sweeping generalization.” Not every black teen wearing a hoodie is a thug, nor is
every white teen with a shaved head a skinhead.
Birds of a Feather—Associations
“You can tell a person,” so the saying goes, “by the company he or she keeps.” A person who
enjoys hunting, for example, may well belong to the NRA. A cancer survivor might
participate in a bike ride for the Livestrong Foundation. It makes sense that people enter
careers, join organizations, and establish affiliations with groups of like-minded people.
Politicians rely on the fact that people who share similar attitudes tend to form memberships.
This enables politicians to curry favor with “voting blocs.”
How does all of this relate to persuasion? By knowing that members of unions,
professional associations, churches, and other organizations tend to share similar attitudes,
politicians can tailor their messages to each group’s frame of reference. Marketers use a
technique called segmentation analysis to target their advertising campaigns to specific groups
of consumers, such as soccer moms, NASCAR dads, or Millennials. We focus more on this
topic in Chapter 5.
Note that the approach of inferring attitudes based on associations is not without
limitations. People may join organizations for all kinds of reasons, some of which have little
or nothing to do with the group’s avowed purpose. We know of a “fun run,” for example, that
was created to celebrate health and individuality. We also know someone planning to run it.
Why? There’s a unicorn medal awarded at the finish line.
You Are What You Do—Behavior
Inferences about other people’s attitudes are often based on brief glimpses or “thin slices” of
their behavior (Ambady, 2010). A person’s overt actions, mannerisms, habits, and nonverbal
cues can be used to infer his or her attitudes. If a person participates in a “Resistance March,”
it’s a pretty good indication that he or she holds anti-Trump attitudes. If a person buys season
tickets to the philharmonic orchestra, it’s a fairly safe bet that he or she likes classical music.
Indeed, concealing one’s attitudes can be difficult, precisely because one’s actions tend to give
one away. Actions speak louder than words, as the saying goes.
Of course, inferring attitudes from behavior can be fraught with difficulties. A meta-
analysis (Kim & Hunter, 1993) of more than 100 attitude–behavior studies sheds some light
on the extent to which attitudes reflect behavior and vice versa. Kim and Hunter found that
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in many cases, researchers made poor choices about which attitudes to examine in relation to
particular behaviors. They found that when the attitude measures employed were truly
relevant to the behaviors in question, attitude–behavior consistency (ABC) was quite high. Past
studies that found weaker ABC may have been looking at the wrong attitudes. The bottom
line is that behavior can be extremely revealing of attitudes, but care must be exercised in
determining which attitudes are germane to which behaviors. Some ways of improving ABC
are identified in Box 3.1.
Physiological Measures of Attitude
Affect or emotion is often accompanied by physiological reactions. To date, however, efforts
to identify biological markers of affect have produced “iffy” results (Fabrigar, Krosnick, &
MacDougall, 2005; Petty & Cacioppo, 1983). Researchers have studied pupil dilation, which
can signify arousal and galvanic skin response (GSR), which measures changes in the
electrical conductivity of the skin. The problem with these measures is that they are bi-
directional indicators of attitude, meaning that they can signal positive or negative responses.
For example, your heart rate might increase upon seeing someone you like, a positive
reaction, or upon seeing someone you dislike, a negative reaction.
Micromomentary facial movements have also been examined as signs of emotion. Such
movements are involuntary and last for only a fraction of a second (Porter & ten Brink,
2008). They are, therefore, hard to detect. Furthermore, although microexpressions indicate
that an emotion is being suppressed, they don’t reveal what emotion or why (Ciolacu, 2014).
More recently, researchers have turned to neuroscience to study attitudes (Cacioppo,
Cacioppo, & Petty, 2017). Through the use of techniques such as functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI), neural activity in different regions of the brain can reveal different
reactions to stimuli (Cacioppo, Berntson, & Decety, 2012; Falk, Berman, Mann, Harrison,
& Lieberman, 2010; McDermott, 2009). While offering considerable promise as a tool for
measuring attitudes, however, fMRI is not there yet (see Jack & Appelbaum, 2010; Tingley,
2006). One neuroimaging study of swing voters, for example, predicted the wrong candidates
as the likely winners in the 2008 presidential election (Iacoboni et al., 2007; Mind Games,
2007).
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BOX 3.1 |
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
When Do Attitudes Coincide With Behavior?
Just because a moviegoer tends to prefer action-adventure movies over comedies doesn’t
mean that he or she will always insist on seeing the former instead of the latter. So when
can we expect attitudes to coincide with behavior? There tends to be greater attitude-
behavior consistency (ABC) when:
Stronger as opposed to weaker attitudes are involved. Stronger attitudes are better
predictors of behavior. When attitudes are weaker, people may use the reverse
approach; they infer their attitudes from their behavior (Holland, Verplanken, &
Van Knippenberg, 2002). If a woman’s last three boyfriends had long hair, she
might decide, “I guess I like shaggy guys.”
Multiple attitudes aren’t confused with single attitudes. A person doesn’t have one
attitude toward “immigrants,” for example. Immigrants from one country might be
preferred over those from another country. ABC is greater when a single attitude is
measured within a specific situation, place, and time.
“Multiple act criteria” are employed. Giving people different opportunities to
manifest their attitudes improves the “fit” between attitudes and behavior. One-
shot measures aren’t as reliable. If you want to assess a person’s attitudes toward
homeless people, for example, you should examine her or his behavior toward more
than one homeless person in more than one setting.
The attitudes are based on personal experience. Attitudes formed as a result of
direct personal experience tend to correspond more closely with actual behavior.
Secondhand attitudes, shaped by the media or based on what others have told us,
do not predict behavior as well.
Attitudes that are central to the belief system are involved. Attitudes that are
central to a person’s core beliefs tend to be better predictors of behavior than
attitudes that are tangential to the person’s belief system. A person’s attitudes about
“marital fidelity” would be more revealing of his or her behavior in relationships
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6.
than his or her preferences regarding pineapple on pizza.
Attitude certainty is high. The more certain a person is about the correctness of an
attitude, the greater the effect on the person’s behavior. As Tormala and Rucker
(2015) note:
people who are certain of their beliefs are more likely to buy, buy sooner,
and spend more. They’re more likely to sign petitions and to vote. They’re
more willing to express their opinions, endorse products, advocate for
causes, and try to persuade others to adopt their views.
(p. 98)
Bear in mind that the more complex the attitudes are, the more difficult the task of
reducing them to purely physiological terms. At present, physiological measures appear to be
less reliable, and more difficult to administer, than other “low-tech” measures of attitude.
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THE REASONED ACTION APPROACH (RAA)
Up to this point, we’ve seen that attitudes often lead to behaviors. That said, there are other
factors involved. To illustrate, consider Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen’s (2010) reasoned
action approach (RAA), which views intention as the best predictor of behaviour. That is, a
person’s intention to perform a behavior is the best indicator of whether or not the person
will actually carry out the behavior. Keep in mind, however, that intentions don’t always
correspond with behavior, as anyone who has set an alarm clock for an early wake up, then hit
the snooze button, well knows. One way to improve the correspondence between intention
and behavior is to be specific about the behavior in question. Thus, rather than asking
whether someone intends to exercise more often, you could ask whether he or she intends to
walk more often. Better yet, you could ask whether he or she intends to walk at least 20
minutes per day, three days per week, starting next Monday, which is more specific still.
Bottom line? The more specific the intention is to a particular behavior, the more accurate
your prediction will be.
Behavioral Beliefs and Attitudes: Believe It or Not
Not only that, your accuracy will improve even more if you can figure out what forms a
person’s intentions. According to the reasoned action approach, three key elements are
involved. The first is a person’s behavioral beliefs and attitudes. Suppose you wanted to
convince your friend, Minnie, to wear a helmet when riding her bicycle. You could start by
discovering her beliefs and attitudes toward wearing a helmet. Is she aware of specific
dangers? Does she believe that helmets can protect her? You may have to convince Minnie
that cyclists are at risk and that wearing a helmet is essential to her safety. “I care more about
your brain than your hair,” you might say. “Besides, if you’re a vegetable, you’ll have bed head
anyway.”
Normative Beliefs: It’s What the Cool Kids Are Doing
Second, normative beliefs, based on what significant others think or do, also shape intentions.
Two types of normative beliefs are involved. Descriptive norms refer to what people generally
or typically do. Does Minnie think helmet wearing is a common practice among her friends,
family, or cyclists in general? Injunctive norms, on the other hand, refer to what people should
or ought to do. Does she face social pressure to wear a helmet, or conversely, social sanctions
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for wearing one? If Minnie perceives that her friends think helmets are dorky, you may have
to convince her otherwise. You might point out that professional cyclists, snowboarders, or
BMX riders, look snazzy when sporting a helmet. “Hey,” you might say, “Matt Damon, an
avid cyclist, always dons a helmet. So do Jake Gyllenhaal and Pink. Daft Punk wear helmets
when they aren’t even riding!”
Perceived Behavioral Control: I Got This
The third element in forming intentions is perceived behavioral control. Behavioral control
involves a person’s confidence that she or he is capable of performing a given behavior.
Wearing a helmet isn’t that difficult, but Minnie may need help picking one out and making
sure it fits. Some behaviors, like riding 100 miles on a bike, are harder to perform. Minnie
might want to do a centennial ride, but she may believe that she is not capable of riding that
far. You might have to convince her that she can build up to a longer ride. You could tell her
“Try a 20 mile ride. As you build up your stamina, you can go for longer rides. All it takes is
willpower.”
In combination, these three elements, behavioral and attitudinal beliefs, normative beliefs,
and perceived behavior control, shape a person’s behavioral intention, which, in turn, guides
his or her behavior (see Figure 3.5). The stronger the intention, the more likely a person is to
perform a given behavior. A few qualifications to the RAA are worth mentioning. First, past
behavior strengthens the intention–behavior correlation. In other words, if a person has
already performed a behavior, like donating to a specific charity, it is more likely that she or
he will perform it again. Second, actual control, not just perceived behavior control, matters
too. A person may overestimate or underestimate her or his ability to perform a behavior.
Despite the best intentions, for example, not every yoga enthusiast can do an Eka Hasta
Vrksasana (one-handed tree pose) or a Pungu Mayurasana (wounded peacock pose). These
caveats notwithstanding, the RAA has proven to be reliable and accurate in predicting
intentions and behaviors (Fishbein, 2008).
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FIGURE 3.5
The reasoned action approach.
Source: Adapted from Fishbein & Ajzen (2010).
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THE PERSISTENCE OF ATTITUDES
A final feature of attitudes we wish to address is their persistence. Attitudes are malleable and
change over time. They aren’t as fleeting as moods or emotions, but neither are they etched in
stone. Sometimes a person’s attitude will change in response to a single, brief exposure to a
persuasive message. Sometimes a person’s attitude will endure for years. What makes some
attitudes so durable and others so transitory?
Petty and Cacioppo’s (1986a, 1986b) elaboration likelihood model (ELM), discussed in the
previous chapter, provides a useful answer to this question. Attitudes formed via central
processing—for example, those involving thought and deliberation—are more persistent and
resistant to change than attitudes formed via peripheral processing, which rely on mental
shortcuts (Petty, Cacioppo, Strathman, & Priester, 2005). The reason is because actively
thinking about an issue seems to “plant” the attitude more firmly. Because peripheral
processing requires little mental effort, attitudes formed as a result of peripheral processing
tend to be more short-lived.2
What does this mean for you as a persuader? If you want a message to have a lasting effect
on receivers’ attitudes, you should design and deliver it in such a way as to promote central
processing (i.e., active thinking). How can you encourage central processing? Increasing
receivers’ involvement is one way of promoting central processing. Explaining why a topic or
issue is relevant to receivers and how it affects them personally will increase their motivation
to use central processing. Adapting your message to the receivers’ levels of understanding will
increase their ability to engage in central processing. In short, if you can get your listeners to
actively think about your message, you are more likely to change their attitudes for the long
term, not just the short term.
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ATTITUDES AS ASSOCIATE NETWORKS: YOUR MIND IS A WEB
Our attitudes are interrelated. In some ways, our attitudes, beliefs, and values can be likened
to a spider’s web. Like the fine silky threads of a spider’s web, they are connected to one
another in a delicate balance. Attitudes, therefore, exist in elaborate associative networks
(Tesser & Shaffer, 1990). An individual may or may not be consciously aware of all these
connections. To a large extent, these associative networks operate implicitly—that is, without
the individual’s conscious awareness. A change in one attitude affects other attitudes, beliefs,
opinions, and values. Like jiggling a spider’s web, a vibration in one attitude can trigger
reverberations in other cognitive structures. These mental reverberations may be quite minor,
or they can be of major consequence to the individual.
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MANUFACTURING FAVORABLE ASSOCIATIONS: JIGGLING THE WEB
Why would anyone buy automobile insurance from a company whose spokesperson is an
animated gecko with an Aussie accent? Or, for that matter, why would anyone buy a laundry
detergent because its logo is emblazoned on a race car? The associative networks in which
attitudes exist are critical to such influence attempts. Persuaders actively seek to create
connections among these networks. They want to link their messages with favorable attitudes
and avoid associations with unfavorable attitudes.
Brands and Branding: That’s the Life
A clear case of manufacturing favorable associations can be found in branding. The point of
branding is to create a distinctive product image that is linked to favorable qualities. These
may be tangible or intangible in nature. Different brands conjure up different images in the
minds of consumers. Walmart’s appeal is based on value or low prices. Nordstrom’s appeal is
based on quality and customer service.
Let’s examine how these associations are created. Consider the energy drink Red Bull.
When you think of Red Bull, what associations come to mind? Do you think of speed,
danger, or risk taking? One study (Brasel & Gips, 2011) found that consumers used
descriptors such as hyper, speed, extreme, and dangerous in relation to the energy drink. A look
at the kinds of events Red Bull sponsors helps explain why. Red Bull sponsors “extreme”
sports, such as adventure racing, mountain biking, cliff diving, and other “gravity” sports. If
downhill “street luging” is your thing, you might want to down a Red Bull beforehand.
Thanks to branding, the drink “goes with” the sport.
As another illustration, consider beer commercials. The spots almost always depict people,
usually males, in pairs or groups (never drinking alone) socializing and having a good time.
What is the image or association the ads are projecting? Beer = fun. It’s a simple formula.
Drinking beer is equated with good times and camaraderie. So strong is the association that
some people might find it hard to imagine a Super Bowl Sunday party, St. Patrick’s Day
gathering, Cinco de Mayo celebration, Labor Day shindig, or Fourth of July revelry that didn’t
include beer. No suds, no buds.
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FIGURE 3.6
Source: BIZARRO © by Dan Piraro. Reprinted with permission. Universal Press Syndicate. All Rights Reserved.
Who Are You Wearing? Brand Personality
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Some brands have their own personality. They are imbued with human qualities with which
consumers identify. Brands may be perceived as honest, fun, exciting, cool, sophisticated,
sexy, or nerdy. Aaker (1997) developed the brand personality scale, which rates brands on the
basis of characteristics such as perceived sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication,
and ruggedness. What’s more, a brand’s personality tends to “rub off” on consumers (Park &
John, 2010). After shopping at Victoria’s Secret, for example, females might see themselves as
more attractive, sexy, or glamorous.
Modern branding includes cultivating brand relationships. Some consumers may regard a
brand as they would a best friend (Fournier, 1998), while others may view brands as
extensions of themselves (Belk, 1998). As Halloran (2014) observes, “we don’t just consume
or interact with brands. We engage in relationships with them. With some brands, we have
wild, short-term flings. Others stay with us for a lifetime” (p. 3). Brands also serve as vehicles
for self-expression (Swaminathan, Stilley, & Ahluwalia, 2009). Some consumers go so far as
to get brands tattooed on their bodies (Orend & Gagné, 2009).
Branding occurs in other ways. Aspirational brands are those that consumers admire and
aspire to own one day. They represent the ideal. Rolex watches, Viking stoves, and Gucci
handbags fall into this category. The Martha Stewart brand is aspirational. Few women will
actually make the complicated recipes featured in her magazine, but they like to think that
they could. Aspirational brands may be so expensive that consumers settle for knock-off
versions instead.
Authenticity: Keeping It Real
Another approach is brand authenticity, which emphasizes genuineness, integrity, and down-
to-earth values. The website Etsy is devoted to such goods. Authentic brands may be hand
crafted, like craft beers and artisanal cheeses. They may be ecofriendly, like “farm-to-table”
restaurants and boutique bicycles. They often have a story to tell. They emphasize the values
of the person or company behind the brand. Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is a case in point.
Authentic brands may try to build a community around the brand. Dove’s “real beauty”
campaign exemplifies this theme.
Cause-Related Marketing: The Feel-Good Factor
Many consumers want to make the world a better place. Corporations want to sell things. So
why not align consumers’ purchases with doing good deeds? Cause-related marketing (CRM)
makes consumers feel good about themselves by feeling good about their purchases. They
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aren’t just shopping. They are contributing to the greater good. The expression “think
globally, shop locally” reflects this trend.
Suppose you are a conscientious consumer seeking an upscale cup of coffee. Why not buy
a Fair Trade cup of joe? It comes with a psychological pat on the back for doing a good deed.
TOMS Shoes, Product (RED), the Livestrong brand, and the Susan G. Komen
Foundation’s pink ribbon products employ this strategy.
Cause-related marketing is part of a larger trend toward corporate social responsibility
(CSR). Corporations want to be seen as good citizens, giving back to communities, and
engaging in philanthropy. Although “shopping as philanthropy” (Einstein, 2012) may seem
like a win–win–win for the consumer, the company, and the charity, there is a downside as
well. A concept called moral licensing suggests that if a person buys a cause-related product,
she or he may be less likely to make an actual donation to that cause (Krishna, 2011a, 2011b).
“I’ve already done a good deed” the person reasons. Yet the amount that actually goes to the
charity may be a few cents on the dollar. Sending even one dollar directly to the charity might
do far more good.
Sloganeering
Another means of fostering favorable associations is through sloganeering. The importance of
slogans in persuasion is underscored by Sharkansky (2002), who observes, “politics would be
poorer without them, advertising could not exist, and religion would be in trouble” (p. 75).
Consider the following advertising taglines. Notice the positive associations they are designed
to instill with respect to each product.
“When you’re here, you’re family.” (Olive Garden)
“Breakfast of champions.” (Wheaties)
“Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.” (State Farm)
“We’ll leave the light on for you.” (Motel 6)
“Because you’re worth it” (L’Oréal)
The slogans imbue the products with positive qualities that, over time, become embedded in
receivers’ minds. If you feel like “eatin’ good in the neighborhood,” where would you go for
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dinner?
Sponsorship
Another way of linking products and services with favorable attitudes is through sponsorship.
Earlier, we mentioned Red Bull’s sponsorship of extreme, gravity sports. Most major sporting
events now have corporate sponsors who provide funding in return for the right to associate
their products with the event. Almost every stadium and ballpark in America now has a
corporate sponsor.
Naturally, advertisers aren’t the only ones who try to tie themselves to favorable
associations. When candidates for political office kiss babies, eat home cooking, and stand
next to the flag, they are trying to link themselves to positive, patriotic values. Negative
political campaigning, or “mudslinging,” serves the same purpose in reverse: A candidate
seeks to link his or her opponent with negative associations.
A major tenet of persuasion thus involves establishing favorable connections between
attitudes and attitude objects. Persuaders try to establish these connections by selling an
image or lifestyle. When you buy a product, you are buying into the image as well (Fournier,
1998). But do you really need to have a relationship with your credit card (“My card, my city”
[American Express])? Do you really want brands to define you (“Do you speak Prada?”)?
Sometimes it is important to break the connections that advertisers are trying to create.
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PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSISTENCY
People strive to be consistent. This simple principle forms the basis for a whole host of
theories, variously known as “cognitive consistency” theories (Festinger, 1957; Heider, 1958;
Osgood & Tannenbaum, 1955). Consistency was originally conceived of as a “drive-
reduction” theory. More current thinking suggests that consistency is also socially motivated
and is as much an attempt to manage face and project a favorable self-image as it is an
internal drive (Greenwald & Ronis, 1978; Matz & Wood, 2005; Scher & Cooper, 1989).
Although the individual theories differ somewhat in their approaches, we’ve integrated the
tenets of several theories here in order to present a more coherent perspective. Though this
principle is fairly basic, the recognition that most people strive to remain consistent in their
thoughts, words, and deeds reveals a good deal about processes of social influence.
The Inner Peace of Consistency
When harmony exists among our attitudes, beliefs, values, and behavior, life is ducky. When
there are inconsistencies in what we think, say, or do, however, we tend to experience
psychological discomfort. A classic example is that, for smokers, the knowledge that they
smoke and that smoking causes cancer is psychologically uncomfortable. Another example
involves children whose parents are undergoing a divorce or separation. The children often
experience psychological conflict because they can’t understand why two people, whom they
love, don’t want to remain married.
The amount of psychological discomfort that results from holding incompatible attitudes
is not the same in all situations. The degree of discomfort depends on the centrality of the
attitudes involved. If the issue is relatively minor (for example, a person prefers plastic grocery
bags but knows paper bags are better for the environment), the amount of psychological
discomfort will be small. If the issue is major, as when attitudes involve core beliefs or values,
then the psychological consequences can be enormous (for example, the mother of a teenage
girl is fervently pro-life but learns that her daughter has just had an abortion).
To understand the nature and effects of psychological consistency, attitude theorists have
developed a means of graphically depicting compatible and incompatible attitude states. For
example, suppose that Muffin thinks of herself as a firm believer in animal rights. However,
while out shopping, she finds a leather jacket that looks “totally cool.” Her attitudes toward
animal rights and owning the jacket are in conflict. Her psychological dilemma is depicted in
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Figure 3.7.
According to consistency theory, Muffin will experience psychological stress no matter
what decision she makes. If she buys the jacket, she’ll sacrifice her principles; if she doesn’t
buy the jacket, she’ll forgo an opportunity to look cool. Muffin’s case is not unique. We are all
confronted with dilemmas involving our attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors on a daily basis.
Because psychological inconsistency is unpleasant we are motivated to avoid it, deny it,
reduce it, or eliminate it when it occurs.
Methods of Maintaining Consistency
How do people go about reconciling incompatible attitudes when they occur? People don’t
necessarily preserve or restore psychological consistency in logical ways. They do so in
psychological ways—that is, ways they find psychologically satisfying or comfortable but that
may or may not be strictly logical. Using the example of Muffin, scholars suggest a number of
possible routes for resolving inconsistency:
Denial: Denying or ignoring any inconsistency. “I really don’t like that jacket after all” or
“I don’t really need a jacket now.”
Bolstering: Rationalizing or making excuses. “That cow is already dead, so what
difference can it make?” or “Sooner or later someone will come along and buy that jacket
anyway.”
Bargaining: Striving to reach a compromise between the conflicting attitudes. “I’ll buy
the jacket and volunteer to work at an animal shelter.”
Differentiation: Separating or distinguishing the attitudes in conflict. “The jacket is
cowhide. Cows aren’t an endangered species. It’s not as if I’m buying a jacket made from
a baby harp seal or a spotted owl.”
Transcendence: Focusing on a larger or higher level. “No one is perfect. We all give in to
temptation every once in a while.”
Modifying one or both attitudes: Altering the attitudes themselves to become more
consistent. “I need to be more practical and keep my concern for animals’ rights in
perspective.”
Communicating: Trying to convince others to change or convince others one did the
right thing. “I’ll just have to convince my friends that I’m not a hypocrite when they see
me in my new jacket.”
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FIGURE 3.7
Muffin’s dilemma: an illustration of consistency theory.
Of course, these are only some of the ways people go about maintaining consistency. In
trying to gauge which approach a person will use, a good rule of thumb is that people follow
an efficiency principle; they tend to reduce dissonance in the most efficient way possible—that
is, they tend to follow the path of least resistance in finding a way to restore consistency.
Changing an inconsequential attitude to restore consistency, for example, is much more likely
than changing a core attitude.
Marketing Strategies: How to Have Your Cake and Eat It Too
Now that you understand the basic nature of consistency theories, let’s look at how neatly
consistency theories apply to persuasion. Imagine that you are at the supermarket. You have a
craving for ice cream, but you’re on a diet. No problem. You can buy a “light” brand with
reduced fat and fewer calories. In fact, thanks to modern technology, you can choose from a
veritable array of frozen desserts including ice milk, frozen yogurt, diabetic ice cream, fruit
sorbet, or a nonfat, nondairy product. Think how many other products at the grocery store
rely on the principle of “having your cake and eating it too.” There are “light,” “fat free,”
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“cholesterol free,” “high fiber,” “low sodium,” “calcium enriched,” and “natural” food products
on every shelf. The marketing strategy behind such products is to allow consumers to make
food purchases that are consistent with their beliefs regarding health and nutrition.
Brand Loyalty: Accept No Substitute
The concept of brand loyalty offers another useful illustration of psychological consistency.
Advertisers want us to experience psychological discomfort if we change brands. By instilling
brand loyalty in us, advertisers hope to discourage product switching. We are trained by
Madison Avenue to remain faithful to one motor oil, be true to one long-distance provider,
stay devoted to one pain reliever, or cherish a particular make of car. Consider the following
slogans:
“Don’t leave home without it.” (American Express)
“Like nothing else.” (Hummer)
“Only in a Jeep.” (Jeep)
“The best, or nothing.” (Mercedes)
“When you care enough to send the very best.” (Hallmark cards)
All of these slogans are designed to foster brand loyalty on the part of the consumer and
feelings of psychological inconsistency if consumers betray their usual brands.
Write and Tell Us Why You Love This Book in 24 Words or Less
Yet another means of reinforcing brand loyalty is through active participation on the part of
the consumer. Viewers can text in their votes on a variety of reality shows. Sometimes a prize
is offered for calling a radio station or writing an essay about a product. Win or lose, the mere
act of calling, writing, or texting is bound to increase one’s allegiance. Active participation
increases commitment.
Brand loyalty can also be encouraged through merchandising. People who wear branded
clothing (a Cubs jersey, a Pink hoodie, a Fender T-shirt) are paying for the right to serve as
walking billboards—and engaging in self-persuasion to boot.
An example of how consumers succumb to merchandising pressure involves one of this
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•
•
•
book’s ever-gullible authors. He liked the Indian maiden logo on Land O’Lakes butter. So
when he learned he could order two Land O’Lakes mugs for only $7.95, plus three proof-of-
purchase seals from any Land O’Lakes product, he couldn’t resist. He switched from
margarine to butter. He bought only Land O’Lakes butter for the next three months (the
amount of time it took to accumulate three proof-of-purchase seals). When he found he’d
lost one of the proof-of-purchase seals he was despondent. Did he give up? Nay, nay! He
went out and bought another package of Land O’Lakes butter he didn’t even need, just to
complete the trio of proof-of-purchase seals. The author is now the proud owner of a pair of
Land O’Lakes mugs, complete with Indian maiden logo, but let’s examine what can be
learned from this lesson:
The merchandising offer got the author actively involved in the process of reinforcing
his own brand loyalty. Because the mugs themselves cost little to manufacture, the
author was paying Land O’Lakes for the privilege of becoming a loyal consumer.
The merchandising offer secured the author’s brand loyalty for a period of 3–4 months.
In fact, the author still buys the Land O’Lakes brand whenever he purchases butter
(after all, he has the mugs to remind him where his loyalty lies).
The author bought and used far more butter than he otherwise would have without the
mug offer. In fact, as he was closing in on that elusive third proof-of-purchase seal, he
was searching high and low for ways to use butter.
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FIGURE 3.8
Source: © Leo Cullum/ The New Yorker. Collection/www.cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
Admittedly, the author got a little carried away, but that’s the beauty of brand loyalty. We
don’t necessarily think or act rationally when our allegiance to a particular brand takes over.
Marketing Inconsistency
Of course, other advertising campaigns, typically those for newer products or products with a
smaller market share, use just the opposite strategy. These ads encourage us to switch brands.
They realize that consumers can be set in their ways. These advertisers try to create
psychological imbalance. They want us to have second thoughts about the products and
services on which we’ve been relying unquestioningly year after year. Consider the following
advertising slogans:
“Think different.” (Macintosh computers)
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“Think outside the bun.” (Taco Bell)
“Switch and play.” (Nintendo)
“I could have had a V8!” (V8 vegetable juice)
Such slogans are based on the recognition that consumers can be set in their ways and seek to
overcome this inertia by encouraging brand switching. Many other types of advertising
campaigns are based on creating a state of psychological inconsistency.
FIGURE 3.9
Merchandising can increase consumer commitment.
Source: Photo by Robert Gass.
Capitalizing on Inconsistency
The use of consistency theory isn’t only for advertisers, marketers, and other “professional”
persuaders. You, too, can incorporate the principles of consistency theory in your own
persuasive messages. One way you can accomplish this is to align your message with your
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audience’s frame of reference. It is much easier to tailor a suit to fit a person than it is to
change a person’s figure to fit a suit. Similarly, successful persuasion isn’t so much a matter of
shifting receivers’ attitudes over to your position as it is a matter of adapting your message to
the attitudes of your audience. A child who suggests to her mother, “Let’s play hooky and go
to the zoo today. Zoos are very educational!” is adapting her message to the mother’s value
system. Such adaptation is key to persuasion, which is why we discuss this strategy in more
detail in Chapter 5.
Another way you can apply principles of consistency theory is to highlight potential
inconsistencies in receivers’ attitudes. If you can demonstrate that some of the attitudes held
by your receivers are incompatible, you may motivate them to change their attitudes in the
direction you are advocating. Be cautious, however, when employing this strategy. If you
attempt to drive too big a psychological wedge between your receivers’ attitudes, they may
simply change their attitudes and come to dislike you.
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COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY (CDT)
Suppose you are a fan of Apple products. You are also aware that Chinese workers who
assemble them work in deplorable conditions. Would you throw away your iPod, iPhone, or
iPad? If you think of yourself as an honest person, would it bother you to download music
illegally, or would you find a way to justify your piracy and disregard for copyright laws?
People often hold contradictory positions on issues. Their talk doesn’t match their walk. For
example, many voters say they are opposed to “Big Government” and federal handouts, even
though they are receiving government assistance. According to a nationwide survey (Mettler,
2011), 44 percent of Social Security recipients and 40 percent of Medicare recipients reported
they did not receive any government assistance!
How can people hold such seemingly contradictory views? Why do they engage in what
appears to be hypocritical behavior? Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory (CDT) does a
nice job of explaining how people rationalize contradictory decisions and behaviors in their
own minds and to other people (Cooper, 2007; Festinger, 1957, 1964; Festinger &
Carlsmith, 2007; Harmon-Jones & Harmon-Jones, 2008). The basic idea is that after making
a decision or performing a behavior, a person worries about whether she or he made the right
decision or did the right thing. The person is therefore motivated to reduce the resulting
dissonance. For this reason, CDT is often referred to as a “post-decision theory.” The
anticipation of having to make a tough choice, however, also can produce dissonance. People
sometimes say it “hurts” or it’s “painful” to make a difficult decision. In fact, researchers found
that taking acetaminophen reduced the pain of decision making (DeWall, Chester, & White,
2015). The researchers concluded that “the pain of decision making is not a mere metaphor”
(p. 119). Cognitive dissonance, it turns out, involves some of the same neural pathways
associated with physical pain.
Aside from popping Tylenol, how else can people reduce cognitive dissonance? An
intriguing aspect of CDT is the variety of ways in which people try to reconcile their angst.
For example, they may employ a “sour grapes” strategy. Like the fox in Aesop’s fable who
tried repeatedly but failed to reach some grapes, they conclude, “They were probably sour
anyway.”
Cognitive Dissonance and Buyer’s Remorse
The theory of cognitive dissonance is closely connected to the phenomenon known as buyer’s
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remorse. Imagine that a consumer shelled out a lot of money for a big, flat-screen TV, only to
find out a few weeks later that a newer, better model was available for less money. To assuage
their lingering doubts, buyers engage in dissonance-reduction strategies. One method, known
as selective exposure, involves seeking out consonant information and avoiding dissonant
information. The TV buyer might reread ads and articles recommending the brand he or she
purchased and avoid ads and articles for other brands. Cognitive dissonance isn’t an all-or-
nothing phenomenon. It occurs in varying degrees. The amount of dissonance one
experiences is known as the magnitude of dissonance. Spending $8,000 on a plasma TV that
wasn’t very reliable would produce more dissonance than spending $8 on a movie that wasn’t
very good.
Polarization of Alternatives
When making a tough decision, a person tends to polarize the attractiveness of the
alternatives once the decision is made. Suppose Lola has to decide between an iPhone and an
Android. It is a close call. Each model has its pros and cons. Once Lola makes her choice, she
will tend to disparage the unchosen brand and value the chosen brand even more. What was
formerly a tough choice becomes a “no brainer.” The tendency to spread the alternatives is a
form of self-justification (Tavris & Aronson, 2007). It is easier to see choices in terms of
“black and white” than shades of gray. This explains why voters who are initially torn between
two candidates solidify their preference once they cast their ballot (Besley & Joslyn, 2001).
Cognitive Dissonance, Self-Image, and Culture
Cognitive dissonance can be largely internal in nature, such as when a person is confronted
with a moral dilemma. Dissonance also can arise when one’s self-image is inconsistent with
one’s beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors. For instance, a person who thinks of himself or herself as
unprejudiced but who laughs at a racist, sexist, or homophobic joke might experience
cognitive dissonance. There is a cultural component to dissonance as well. For Americans and
others from individualistic cultures, dissonance tends to be more internally motivated, while
for Asians and others from more collectivistic cultures, dissonance tends to be more socially
motivated (Hoshino-Browne, Zanna, Spencer, Zanna, Kitayama, & Lackenbauer, 2005;
Kitayama et al., 2004). While some studies suggest that Asians have a greater tolerance for
inconsistency (Aaker & Sengupta, 2000; Nisbett, 2003), others suggest just the opposite (Xie,
Jang, & Cai, 2007). There is also evidence that dissonance is a culturally universal
phenomenon (Egan, Santos, & Bloom, 2007).
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Factors That Affect the Magnitude of Dissonance
Four paradigms that moderate cognitive dissonance have been studied by researchers
(Beauvois & Joule, 1999; Harmon-Jones & Mills, 1999). One of these, known as the free
choice paradigm, states that the greater the choice one has in making a decision, the more
dissonance one will suffer. Cooper (2007) emphasizes that dissonance occurs only if the
negative outcome of a freely chosen decision was foreseeable at the time the person made the
choice. Otherwise the person can say, “How was I to know?” A second paradigm, known as
belief disconfirmation, argues that dissonance is aroused when a person encounters information
contrary to his or her beliefs. The person engages in denial and resorts to selective exposure by
ignoring or distorting information that contradicts his or her belief system. A third paradigm
is called induced compliance. When a person is forced to do something, little dissonance is
aroused because the person can rationalize the action by saying “I had no choice.” The fourth
paradigm, called the effort justification paradigm, centers on the amount of effort or sacrifice
required: the greater the effort, the greater the dissonance.
Dissonance and Persuasion: Putting It All Together
Persuasive messages can be tailored to either increase or decrease dissonance in receivers. A
persuader might want to arouse dissonance in a target audience to get people to rethink their
position on an issue. Or, conversely, a persuader might seek to allay people’s doubts by
reassuring them that their decision or action was justified. In this case, the persuader would
want to convince receivers that they did the right thing and they had no other realistic
alternative. Recent research shows that attitude change brought about by CDT can have
lasting effects (Sénémeaud & Somat, 2009).
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FORBIDDEN FRUIT: PSYCHOLOGICAL REACTANCE
In 2003, Barbra Streisand filed a lawsuit against a photographer for taking aerial photos along
California’s coastline, including her Malibu home, and posting them on the Web. Prior to
the lawsuit, few people had bothered to look at the photos. After the publicity surrounding
the lawsuit, however, people flocked to the website in droves (Arthur, 2009). Half a million
viewers logged on to see what the fuss was about. A judge subsequently dismissed the suit.
Similarly, when the MPAA filed a lawsuit against The Pirate Bay for facilitating illegal
downloading of movies, the website became more popular than ever (Sullivan, 2009).
Attempts to muzzle information on the Web often backfire, a phenomenon Mike Masnick
termed the Streisand effect (2005).
When people believe that their freedom is being threatened, they tend to rebel. Tell a little
kid not to play with a particular toy and the kid won’t be able to keep his grubby little hands
off it. Tell your teenage daughter that you disapprove of her new boyfriend and she’ll like him
even more. The tendency to react defensively to perceived encroachments on our freedom is
called psychological reactance (Brehm, 1966; Brehm & Brehm, 1981). You may also know of it
as “reverse psychology.”
Psychological reactance can help or hinder persuasion. Suppose a mother wants to get her
picky 3-year-old to eat her broccoli. The mother could use a controlling message such as,
“You are going to sit there until you finish your broccoli.” This approach might backfire,
however, if the daughter is willing to sit and pout for an hour. Instead, the mother could use
psychological reactance to her advantage by saying, “Mabel, there is no way you can eat that
broccoli in less than a minute. No way.” Now the daughter may want to prove she’s up to the
challenge.
A wealth of studies on littering behavior reveal that a negative or punitive message (“No
littering!” or “Don’t you dare litter.”) actually increases littering compared to a polite message
(“Please pitch in.”) (Hansmann & Sholz, 2003; Horsley, 1988; Huffman, Grossnickle, Cope,
& Huffman, 1995). Stated simply, asking is a more effective strategy than ordering.
Psychological reactance also has been examined on a variety of other topics, including alcohol
consumption (Dillard & Shen, 2005), condom use (Quick & Stephenson, 2007), drug use
(Burgoon et al., 2002), promotional health messages (Miller, Lane, Deatrick, Young, &
Potts, 2007), and smoking (Miller, Burgoon, Grandpre, & Alvaro, 2006). The tendency to
react negatively to perceived threats varies from person to person. These individual
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differences can be measured with the psychological reactance scale (Hong, 1992; Hong &
Faedda, 1996).
To avoid a boomerang effect, a persuader should be cautious about using controlling
language. A politician who says “You must vote for this proposition. It is the only way” is
practically daring voters to reject the measure. To use psychological reactance to his or her
advantage, a persuader should acknowledge listeners’ personal autonomy. A politician who
says “I favor this measure, but you’ll have to make up your own minds” is less likely to
provoke resistance. A persuader also can use psychological reactance against an opponent. For
example, a candidate might argue “My opponent wants to limit your health care options, but
I want you to be able to choose your own health care provider.” We return to the subject of
psychological reactance in Chapter 8 when we discuss the scarcity principle, and in Chapter 11
when we discuss the evoking freedom technique.
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COUNTERATTITUDINAL ADVOCACY: PLAYING DEVIL’S ADVOCATE
An even better approach to changing people’s attitudes is to get them to persuade themselves.
This can be accomplished by having them engage in what is called counterattitudinal advocacy
(CAA). CAA involves having people create and present (orally or in writing) a message that
is at odds with their existing attitudes—for example, claiming they favor capital punishment
when, in fact, they oppose it. Research demonstrates that after engaging in CAA, people’s
attitudes will tend to shift in the direction of the position advocated (Festinger, 1957;
Kelman, 1953; Preiss & Allen, 1998; Sénémeaud & Somat, 2009). Mind you, their attitudes
won’t undergo a complete reversal. Some degree of attitude change takes place, such that the
initially counterattitudinal position becomes somewhat more favorable in the people’s minds.
The explanation is that CAA causes psychological conflict within people. They are aware
of the inconsistency between their privately held beliefs and attitudes, and their public
behavior. One means of resolving the conflict is to make their private beliefs and attitudes
more consistent with their public behavior—hence, the resultant shift in attitudes. This
suggests an effective way of getting other people to persuade themselves. Simply try to get
them to speak or act in a manner that is contrary to their attitudes. This can be accomplished
by asking them to role-play for a few minutes, or to play devil’s advocate for a while. The
research demonstrates that attitude change should follow in the direction of the
counterattitudinal position. When using this technique, however, it is important that the
other people choose to engage in CAA, as opposed to being forced to do so. A meta-analysis
by Preiss and Allen (1998) revealed that voluntarily engaging in CAA is the key to this
strategy’s effectiveness.
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I’M ALL IN: INCREASING COMMITMENT
Commitment goes hand in hand with persuasion. When people become committed to ideas,
groups, causes, or decisions they find it difficult to change their minds. By way of example,
did you know that once horse-racing fans have bet on a horse, they become even more
convinced their horse will win (Knox & Inkster, 1968)? Individuals who volunteer their time
to work for political campaigns tend to overestimate the prospects of their candidate winning.
The more public the nature of the commitment, the more psychologically entrenched people
become.
Many social customs and rituals are designed to increase a person’s sense of psychological
commitment to an idea, group, cause, or decision. Wedding engagements do so. Fraternity
initiation rituals do so as well. Boot camp in the military serves this purpose. Baptism
achieves this goal. This also explains why people often announce their New Year’s resolutions
publicly. Doing so binds them all the more to their commitments. Political rallies, protest
marches, and demonstrations accomplish this function for the participants. Whenever we
make public statements or engage in public actions, we tend to become bound by our words
or deeds. Yes, we can renege on what we’ve said or done, but we will pay a psychological price
for doing so. The greater the public commitment, the greater the toll paid.
Commitments Can “Grow Legs”
In the movie Tin Cup (1996), Roy McAvoy is a gifted golfer who makes his own bad luck. In
a heroic comeback bid, he finds himself in contention to win the U.S. Open. He refuses to
play it safe, however. On an over-water approach shot to the 18th hole, he goes for the flag.
The ball lands in the water. Rather than cut his losses, he takes the same shot again and
again, each time with the same result. On his 12th try, and down to his last ball, he finally
clears the water and the ball rolls in the cup. He loses the tournament, but proves something
to himself. Let’s face it, we all behave a bit like Roy from time to time. Robert Cialdini
(1993) makes the interesting point that commitments sometimes “grow legs.” By this he
means that once we become committed to a given course of action, we tend to remain
steadfast in our determination, even if the reason for selecting that course of action is
diminished, altered, or eliminated.
Getting Carried Away
141
A story involving one of the authors illustrates this phenomenon. The author wanted to build
a retaining wall in his backyard. He was planning on spending $1,000. Once he got several
bids for the job, he discovered it would cost $3,000 to $4,000 for a stone wall rather than a
block wall. He signed a contract with the lowest bidder for a $3,000 retaining wall made of
river rock. A few days before the work was to begin, the author had another idea. As long as
he was going to all the trouble and expense, why not build in a recessed bench for reading?
And, his wife added, why not add some steps, so it would be easy to get up and down? The
$3,000 wall soon became a $4,000 wall.
But it didn’t end there. Once the wall was completed, the author sprang for sprinklers and
landscaping. After all, the wall looked so good, it was worth a little extra to make it a focal
point of the backyard. In the end, the $1,000 wall became a $4,500 wall. Once the author got
started, his commitment to build the rock wall of his dreams grew legs. He loves the wall, of
course. He has to. It cost him a bundle.
Throwing Good Money After Bad
We all engage in similar behavior from time to time. The owner of an unreliable car keeps
spending money on repairs, hoping this brake job or that muffler repair will finally be the last.
The repair bills keep mounting, until they may eventually exceed the car’s resale value. Does
the owner throw in the towel? Nope. The owner becomes even more resolute the next time
something breaks. “I’ve already poured two grand into that car. I can’t give up now.” A
gambler bets on a football team that loses. The next week, he doubles the bet, feeling
confident that he will win the next time around. He loses again. Does he wise up and cut his
losses? No way. He becomes more determined than ever that the team will win. His resolve
actually increases with each loss.
Once we’ve invested our time and energy or poured our hearts and souls into a cause, a
person, an idea, a project, or a group we find it difficult to let go. We may have second
thoughts, but we repress them. We build up layers of rationalizations for remaining true to
our original convictions.
Keep in mind, a large initial commitment isn’t required in order for persuaders to take
advantage of us. Even relatively simple acts, such as raising your hand, signing a petition, or
filling out a form, can be enough. The fact that commitments can grow legs means that we
are vulnerable to self-persuasion as well. Remember, we manufacture the additional reasons
for bolstering our commitment ourselves. Once we become committed, we may become blind
to alternative ways of seeing, thinking, or acting. Thus, we need to remain on guard, not only
142
from others seeking to extract commitments from us but also from ourselves.
Before concluding this section, we wish to note that several worthwhile lessons can be
learned from our discussion of commitment and consistency. First, don’t allow persuaders to
“box you in” by getting you to commit to something when you really don’t want to. Feel free
to say, “I want to think it over” or “I want to consider some other options first” or “You’re not
trying to rush me into a hasty decision, are you?” Second, don’t paint yourself into a corner by
making public commitments you really don’t want, or intend, to keep. Be willing to say,
“Sorry, I’d rather not” or “I have to say ‘No’ this time.” Third, if you do happen to make an
ill-advised commitment, admit it and see what you can do to correct it. Don’t double-down
on a bad decision. Avoid becoming so preoccupied with saving face that you follow through
on a really bad idea. When buying anything, ask about a return or refund policy in advance.
143
SUMMARY
The concept of attitude is central to the study of persuasion. Attitudes can’t be directly
observed. They can, however, be inferred and measured through a variety of explicit and
implicit means, most commonly via standardized scales. The theory of reasoned action
provides a useful, rational model of how attitudes and intentions guide behavior. People’s
attitudes tend to correlate with their behavior, more so when the attitudes are formed via
central processing than peripheral processing. Attitudes formed via central processing are also
more persistent and resistant to change. We discussed the fact that attitudes exist in
associative networks, and that advertisers use these connections to foster favorable images and
associations with their products and services. People have a tendency to strive for consistency
among their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Persuaders can adapt their messages either to
reinforce consistency or to create inconsistency. Cognitive dissonance, a specialized form of
consistency theory, explains how people go about rationalizing decisions after they have made
them. The phenomenon of psychological reactance can be used to a persuader’s advantage.
Engaging in counterattitudinal advocacy or making commitments, especially public
commitments, are two important means of facilitating influence, based on the theory of
cognitive dissonance.
144
1.
2.
NOTES
The implicit–explicit distinction is not a hard-and-fast distinction. Some explicit attitudes may be activated in a nearly
automatic, spontaneous manner. Some implicit attitudes may not be beyond a person’s conscious awareness.
This explanation is highly consistent with findings based on inoculation theory, which we discuss in Chapter 9.
Inoculating receivers against opposing arguments (e.g., giving them a small dose of the arguments they are likely to
hear, along with answers to those arguments) requires that they actively think about message content. This increased
mental effort makes them more resistant to opposing arguments presented at a later date.
145
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B
CHAPTER 4
Credibility
Celebrity Selling Power: The Answer Is in the Stars
The Match-Up Hypothesis: Why Jonah Hill Should Not Be Revlon’s
Spokesperson
Catch a Falling Star
What Is Credibility?
Credibility Is a Receiver-Based Construct
Credibility Is a Multidimensional Construct
Credibility Is a Situational/Contextual Phenomenon
Credibility Is Dynamic
The Factor Analytic Approach to Credibility
Primary Dimensions of Credibility
Secondary Dimensions of Credibility
The Factor Analytic Approach and the Real World
Credibility as a Peripheral Cue
It’s What’s Up Front That Counts
The Sleeper Effect
Credibility and Image Management
Interpersonal Credibility, Impression Management, Facework, and Accounts
Strategies for Enhancing Credibility: Get Your Mojo Working
ARACK OBAMA AND DONALD TRUMP have it. So do astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson
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and media mogul Oprah Winfrey. John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. and Princess Diana had it. So did Adolf Hitler, unfortunately. Depending on whom
you ask, Dwayne Johnson, Narendra Modi, Ellen DeGeneres, and Sir Richard Branson have
it. What all these people have, or had, is charisma. Charisma is a lay term used to describe
someone who possesses a certain indefinable charm or allure. Such a person may be said to
have a magnetic personality or possess a sense of savoir faire (Riggio, 1987, 2010).
There is a problem with describing people as charismatic, however. The term has no clear,
precise meaning. Because charisma is a fuzzy concept, persuasion researchers tend to rely
instead on a different but related concept called ethos, or source credibility. Ethos bears some
similarity to charisma. However, whereas charisma represents an elusive, ineffable quality,
ethos can be defined and measured with much greater precision. In this chapter, we examine
the concept of ethos, or source credibility, and its relationship to persuasion. First we examine
credibility as it relates to celebrity endorsers and spokespersons. Next we offer a definition,
discuss the basic features, and explore the underlying dimensions that make up credibility.
Then we consider how credibility functions according to Petty and Cacioppo’s (1986a,
1986b) elaboration likelihood model of persuasion, and we examine a phenomenon known as
the sleeper effect. Finally, we discuss credibility as it applies to both institutions and
interpersonal settings.
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CELEBRITY SELLING POWER: THE ANSWER IS IN THE STARS
Did you know that roughly one in four advertisements features a famous person (Elberse &
Verleun, 2012; Spry, Pappu, & Cornwall, 2011)? Were you aware that approximately 10
percent of all advertising expenditures go to pay celebrity endorsers (Agrawal & Kamakura,
1995)? Nike alone spends about $500 million per year on celebrity endorsements (Bruno,
2011). Celebrities and athletes with a high Q-Score (their selling quotient)1 can command
salaries in millions of dollars. No wonder Berger (2011) claims we now live in a celebritocracy.
Considering all the money that is spent on celebrity endorsements, you might be
wondering whether they actually work. When asked, most consumers claim they would never
buy a product based on a celebrity endorser’s say-so (Study finds …, 2000). However,
consumers may be more susceptible than they think. Indeed, a phenomenon known as the
third-person effect reveals that people underestimate the effect advertising has on themselves
and overestimate its effect on others (Jensen & Collins, 2008; Shin & Kim, 2011).
A recent meta-analysis (Knoll & Mathis, 2017) found that celebrity endorsements
improved consumers’ attitudes toward endorsed products, but not necessarily their intentions
to purchase those products. Another study found that endorser credibility has a significant
effect on brand equity, which refers to the value attached to a particular brand (Spry, Pappu,
& Cornwall, 2011). According to one study (Elberse & Verleun, 2012), endorsers boost sales
by about 20 percent on average. Celebrity endorsers appear to be most effective at promoting
new products and services rather than established brands (Djafarova & Rushworth, 2017;
Kumkale, Albarracín, & Seignourel, 2010). If celebrities didn’t yield profits, advertisers
wouldn’t use them.
That said, some people argue that celebrity endorsers are losing their clout. Why?
Consumers are relying more and more on social networks than spokespersons (Weir, 2011).
In fact, some people rate bloggers as more credible than traditional news media (O’Neil &
Eisenmann, 2017). Even so, celebrities with large numbers of followers, such as Kim
Kardashian, Taylor Swift, and Justin Bieber, have considerable online clout.
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FIGURE 4.1
Source: © David Sipress/ The New Yorker Collection www.cartoonbank.com
The Match-Up Hypothesis: Why Jonah Hill Should Not Be Revlon’s Spokesperson
The match-up hypothesis suggests that an endorser must be a good “fit” for the brand being
endorsed (Kamins & Gupta, 1994; Koernig & Boyd, 2009; Till & Busler, 2000). As such,
Usain Bolt, the “world’s fastest man,” is a natural choice for Gatorade. Likewise, Justin
Bieber’s huge fan base of young “Beliebers” makes him a good choice for Proactiv skin-care
products.
One explanation of why celebrities should fit the brands they endorse stems from the
meaning transfer perspective. According to this view, an endorser’s public persona is projected
onto a brand. The brand’s image is then incorporated into the consumer’s self-concept
(McCracken, 1986, 1989). By way of illustration, Ellen DeGeneres danced her way through
one of American Express’s “My Life, My Card” commercials. Independent-minded
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consumers who see themselves as “dancing to their own tune” can identify with DeGeneres,
whom they see as successful while doing her own thing.
Catch a Falling Star
Of course, there can be a downside to relying on well-known celebrities, athletes, or other
famous figures. What happens if a famous person becomes embroiled in a scandal or a legal
proceeding? When former Subway pitchman, Jared Fogle, was charged with distributing
kiddie porn, the company tossed him like wilted lettuce. After it was revealed that celebrity
chef Paula Dean made racist remarks off air, Home Depot and other sponsors dumped her
like a pan of hot grease. Following news reports that Olympian Ryan Lochte falsely claimed
that he was robbed at gunpoint during the 2016 Olympics, the swimmer’s stock with Speedo
and Polo Ralph Lauren sunk like a stone.
As these examples clearly show, if a celebrity, athlete, journalist, or politician is tainted by
scandal, it can rub off on the sponsor’s credibility (Till & Shimp, 1998). To avoid the risk and
expense of actual endorsers, many companies rely on fictional spokespersons. Aunt Jemima
would never engage in insider trading. The Geico gecko will never be arrested for sexual
assault. Mr. Clean won’t ever test positive for steroid use, and the Keebler elves won’t be
charged with child pornography in an undercover sting operation. Having examined the
downside of relying too heavily on credibility as a tool of persuasion, let’s consider more
carefully what it actually is and how it actually works.
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WHAT IS CREDIBILITY?
O’Keefe (2002) defines credibility as “judgments made by a perceiver (e.g., a message
recipient) concerning the believability of a communicator” (p. 181). We suggest that this
definition should be extended to institutions as well. Private companies and governmental
agencies also have images to protect. They want to be viewed favorably, too. In addition, it
should be recognized that in face-to-face encounters there are really two sources whose
credibility is at stake, because each party to the interaction is simultaneously a sender and a
receiver of messages.
Credibility Is a Receiver-Based Construct
An important feature of O’Keefe’s definition is the recognition that credibility is a receiver-
based construct. Credibility exists in the eye of the beholder. For example, Edward Snowden
may be perceived as a heroic whistleblower by some, and as a publicity-seeking traitor by
others. A celebrity who takes a strong political stand may be cheered by some and jeered by
others. In short, if these folks are credible, it is because we bestow credibility on them.
Modifying a time-worn philosophical question, one might ask, “If a source stood in the
middle of a forest and there were no one around to perceive him or her, would there be any
credibility?” Our answer is no. Different sources possess different abilities and attributes, but
the value assigned to these abilities and attributes resides in the receiver, not in the source.
Credibility is a perceptual phenomenon.
Credibility Is a Multidimensional Construct
A second important feature of credibility is that it is not a unidimensional construct —that is,
it is not made up of only one element. Credibility represents a composite of several
characteristics that others perceive in a source. Credibility is a multidimensional construct. An
analogy may serve to clarify. Imagine that you were trying to define athleticism. It would be
difficult to single out only one thing that makes an individual athletic. Athleticism requires
strength, coordination, stamina, and quick reflexes, among other things. Similarly, credibility
isn’t a single characteristic, but a combination of qualities a source is believed to possess. We
discuss these qualities shortly.
Credibility Is a Situational/Contextual Phenomenon
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A third feature of credibility is that it is a situational or contextual phenomenon. A persuader’s
credibility is subject to change from one audience or setting to another. The very qualities
that are admired in a communicator in one setting may be derided in another setting. The
president of the National Rifle Association might be well received when speaking before an
audience of hunting and fishing enthusiasts. The same source might encounter a hostile
reception, however, if he spoke before a group of animal rights advocates. Your own
credibility is subject to such situational changes too. You may enjoy more credibility in one
context—for example, work, family, friends, school—than in another.
Credibility Is Dynamic
Credibility can change over time. For example, in his first 100 days in office, the public’s
disapproval of President Donald Trump increased 11 percent, from 41 to 55 percent (htt‐
ps://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/). It is important to recognize,
then, that credibility is dynamic: It fluctuates over time. A source’s credibility can change even
during the course of a single speech, sales pitch, or boardroom presentation.
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THE FACTOR ANALYTIC APPROACH TO CREDIBILITY
Just as chefs are interested in what ingredients go into award-winning recipes, persuasion
researchers have tried to determine the “ingredients,” or underlying dimensions, of credibility.
In fact, as long ago as 380 BCE, Aristotle proclaimed in The Rhetoric that the ingredients
“which inspire confidence in the orator’s character … that induce us to believe a thing apart
from any proof of it … [are] good sense, good moral character, and good will” (1378).
Aristotle wasn’t far off the mark.
In the 1960s and 1970s researchers began to use a statistical technique known as factor
analysis to uncover the underlying dimensions or ingredients of credibility. Controversy
emerged during this period over how many credibility dimensions there were and what they
should be called (Cronkhite & Liska, 1976; Pornpitakpan, 2004). Subsequent investigations,
though, have clarified the situation considerably, if not completely.
Primary Dimensions of Credibility
There is now fairly solid evidence that there are three primary dimensions of credibility that
almost always apply to the evaluation of sources. There are also multiple secondary
dimensions that are more situation specific. To enhance your own credibility, you should
focus on these primary dimensions. The secondary dimensions may or may not matter
depending on your particular situation. The scale items used to measure these dimensions can
be found in Box 4.1.
Expertise
The first primary dimension of credibility is expertise (McCroskey, 1966; Pornpitakpan,
2004). To be credible, a persuader must know his or her stuff or, at least, appear to know his
or her stuff. Sometimes a title alone, such as MD, PhD, or CPA, can confer credibility on a
source. You have to be careful, though; not all titles mean what they say. For example, a
person who uses the prefix Dr., may not be a medical doctor or an academic. Honorary
doctoral degrees are sometimes awarded by universities, but only as a form of recognition.
Kermit the Frog, for instance, received an honorary doctorate of “amphibious letters” from
South Hampton College. What’s more, it isn’t difficult to buy a doctoral degree online from a
non-accredited institution (Bartlett & Smallwood, 2014). And, of course, some “doctors,”
like Dr. Dre, Doc Rivers, and Doc Marten are simply nicknames.
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159
BOX 4.1 |
–
–
–
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–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Bipolar Adjectives Used to Measure Credibility With a Semantic Differential Scale
PRIMARY DIMENSIONS SECONDARY DIMENSIONS
Expertise
(also called competence or qualification)
experienced/inexperienced
informed/uninformed
trained/untrained
qualified/unqualified
skilled/unskilled
intelligent/unintelligent
expert/inexpert
competent/incompetent
bright/stupid
Extroversion
timid/bold
verbal/quiet
meek/aggressive
talkative/silent
Composure
poised/nervous
relaxed/tense
calm/anxious
excitable/composed
Trustworthiness
(also called character, safety, or personal integrity)
honest/dishonest
trustworthy/untrustworthy
open-minded/close-minded
just/unjust
fair/unfair
unselfish/selfish
moral/immoral
ethical/unethical
genuine/phony
Sociability
good-natured/irritable
cheerful/gloomy
friendly/unfriendly
Goodwill
cares about me/doesn’t care about me
has my interests at heart/doesn’t
have my interests at heart
not self-centered/self-centered
concerned with me/not concerned with me
sensitive/insensitive
understanding/not understanding
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Source: Adapted from McCroskey, J. C, & Young, T. J. (1981). and McCroskey, J. C, & Teven, J. J. (1999).
To be regarded as experts, sources needn’t possess advanced degrees, specialized training,
licenses, or credentials, however. For example, at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting,
members who had been alcoholics for 20 years, and who had been sober for the past 10 years,
would likely be perceived as having expertise. Such members would know what they were
talking about, because they had “been there” (Denzen, 1987; Robertson, 1988). Even
astrologers, fortune-tellers, and psychics make attempts to establish their expertise. “Don’t
pay for advice from phony psychics,” a psychic website proclaims, “We have genuine, certified
psychics waiting to chat with you online.”
Interestingly, a source’s expertise doesn’t always have to be in the field in which he or she
is attempting to persuade. LeBron James and Cristiano Ronaldo, for example, aren’t experts
in electronics. Yet they are effective endorsers for Samsung. Endorsements by famous persons
enjoy a halo effect that allows them to carry their credibility to new, unrelated fields. The halo
effect isn’t limited to famous people. In one study (Rind, 1992), a confederate working with
the experimenter approached shoppers in the food court of a mall and asked them to buy
raffle tickets. In one of the experimental conditions, he amazed the shoppers with his
calculating ability (the confederate used a hidden transmitter, through which he received the
correct answers). In another condition, he made a fool of himself by exhibiting poor
calculating skills. In a third control condition, the confederate didn’t profess to have any
amazing skills. Shoppers bought significantly more raffle tickets when the confederate
demonstrated astonishing calculating skills than in either of the other two conditions. It
mattered not that the purpose of the raffle was unrelated to the confederate’s amazing talent.
Expertise, even unrelated expertise, then, can be an asset in persuasion. Bear in mind,
however, that purchasing a raffle ticket is a fairly trivial act. We suspect that on a more
involving issue, relevant expertise would be valued more highly by receivers.
Although we tend to think of expert sources as being highly confident, this is not always
the case. Sources who already possess high credibility may be more influential when they
express their opinions with less certainty, whereas sources who have lower credibility are more
persuasive when they express their opinions with greater certainty (Karmarkar & Tormala,
2010).
Trustworthiness
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The second primary dimension of credibility is trustworthiness (McCroskey, 1966;
Pornpitakpan, 2004). A source may appear knowledgeable, but what if you don’t think he or
she is being truthful or can be trusted? If your car needs a brake job, you not only want a
qualified mechanic, you want an honest, qualified mechanic. To be successful, persuaders
must, therefore, convey an impression of honesty and integrity.
Perhaps you’ve noticed that some advertisements in magazines or newspapers carry the
logo “As Seen On TV.” The purpose in displaying this logo is to instill trust. Many
consumers unthinkingly presume that only reputable companies can afford television
commercials. The same applies to Yellow Pages ads that feature the ichthys logo, the Christian
sign of the fish. Consumers may assume that an electrician, plumber, or carpenter who is a
Christian is less likely to rip them off. Such “sign reasoning” may have merit. But then again,
couldn’t an unscrupulous tradesperson simply use the ichthys logo to dupe customers into
believing that he or she is trust-worthy? Bernie Madoff, a stockbroker and investment
advisor, seemed trustworthy, until he was exposed for operating a Ponzi scheme. He
defrauded investors out of $65 billion.
Goodwill
The third primary dimension of credibility is goodwill. McCroskey and Teven (1999) suggest
that goodwill is synonymous with perceived caring. That is, a source who seems to care about
and take a genuine interest in the receiver is displaying goodwill. Goodwill can be
demonstrated by displaying understanding for another person’s ideas, feelings, or needs.
Goodwill can also be demonstrated by displaying empathy—that is, identifying with another
person’s feelings or situation. Goodwill can be displayed by responsiveness as well, by being
open and receptive to another’s communication attempts. A source who said, “I hear where
you are coming from” or “I can relate to that” or “I sympathize with how you feel” would be
displaying this quality.
Of the three primary dimensions just discussed, expertise seems to have the greatest effect
on persuasion. Wilson and Sherrell (1993) revealed in a meta-analysis that the effect of
expertise was greater than that of trustworthiness, attraction, or similarity on persuasion. The
importance of the dimensions on persuasive outcomes, however, may depend on the
particular topic or context for persuasion.
Secondary Dimensions of Credibility
Researchers have uncovered several other dimensions of credibility that tend to be more
162
situation specific. One of these, termed dynamism by some (Berlo, Lemert, & Mertz, 1969)
and extroversion by others (Burgoon, 1976; McCroskey & Young, 1981), has to do with how
energetic, animated, or enthusiastic the source appears. Obviously, it wouldn’t do for a fitness
trainer like Jillian Michaels, or a dancer like Julianne Hough, to appear sluggish or lethargic.
Certain situations call for the source to be “peppy” and full of energy. However, a person who
is too bubbly and effervescent, especially at the wrong times, may lose credibility (Burgoon,
1973). The trick is for a source to match his or her level of dynamism to the demands of the
situation.
Another secondary dimension of credibility is composure (Miller & Hewgill, 1964). In
some situations, we expect a source to remain calm, cool, and collected. The character of
James Bond, secret agent 007, exudes this quality. Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who
safely landed US Airways flight 1549 on the Hudson River, retained his composure during
the entire ordeal. The flight recordings released by the FAA revealed that Sully was “the
epitome of composure under life-threatening pressure” (McShane, 2009, p. 12). On the flip-
side of the coin, a source who loses composure, or who seems nervous or ill at ease, may lose
credibility. When Tom Cruise jumped up and down on Oprah’s couch while proclaiming his
love for Katie Holmes, viewers felt he had lost it.
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FIGURE 4.2
Perceived expertise is a prerequisite for credibility.
An additional secondary dimension of credibility has been dubbed sociability. This
dimension refers to a source’s friendliness or outgoingness. To us, Paul Rudd, Emma
Thompson, Rashida Jones, Tom Hanks, Reese Witherspoon, and Magic Johnson possess
this quality, as do others who relate to people easily. Sanders (2006) emphasizes that
friendliness, empathy, and authenticity go a long way in trying to persuade people. Sociability
is particularly important in the “people professions,” such as sales, law, education, social work,
and the like.
164
165
THE FACTOR ANALYTIC APPROACH AND THE REAL WORLD
Given the extraordinary amount of attention devoted to the study of credibility, how do these
dimensions hold up in the real world? The answer is, remarkably well. More than three
decades of research by Kouzes and Posner (2017) involving thousands of people in leadership
positions verify that admired people display competence, exhibit honesty, are inspiring, and
forward-looking. Kouzes and Posner highlight the overlap with several of the dimensions
described above. “For trustworthiness, you can say honest. For expertise, you can say
competent. For dynamism, you can say inspiring. In other words … what has been reaffirmed
… is that above all else, people want leaders who are credible” (2011, p. 16).
166
CREDIBILITY AS A PERIPHERAL CUE
Now that we’ve explained what credibility is, we turn our attention to how and why it
facilitates persuasion. To do so, we return to Petty and Cacioppo’s (1986a, 1986b) elaboration
likelihood model of persuasion (ELM), which was introduced in Chapter 2. According to the
ELM, there are two distinct routes to persuasion; a central route and a peripheral route. The
central route, involves thinking or cognitive elaboration. The peripheral route relies on mental
shortcuts or heuristic cues.
Petty and Cacioppo conceptualize credibility as a peripheral cue to persuasion. When
receivers have little at stake, their motivation to pay attention to a message is lower. They
therefore tend to favor the peripheral route. As a general rule, source credibility exerts more
influence on receivers who aren’t highly involved in an issue. Credibility matters far less if
receiver involvement is already high. Instead, credibility tends to work its magic when
receiver involvement is low (Benoit, 1987). Receivers with low involvement are more likely to
defer to sources, because doing so requires less mental effort than concentrating on the
substance of a message. To put it bluntly, low-involved receivers are cognitively lazy. This
limitation notwithstanding, we mustn’t underestimate the importance of credibility.
Credibility may be conceptualized as a peripheral cue, but it is still a big peripheral cue.
You can use this information to your advantage if you are trying to persuade receivers who
perceive you as having low credibility. You should do everything you can to increase their
involvement in the topic or issue. Explain why the issue is relevant to them. Emphasize how
the topic or issue affects them directly. If you can increase your target audience’s involvement
in the topic or issue, they’ll pay more attention to the message and less attention to your
credibility.
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IT’S WHAT’S UP FRONT THAT COUNTS
When should a source’s expertise be identified—at the beginning or end of a persuasive
message? Research findings strongly suggest that credibility tends to work only if the source is
identified prior to the actual presentation of a persuasive message (Benoit & Strathman, 2004;
Nan, 2009; O’Keefe, 1987). If the source is identified after the fact, credibility has little or no
effect. Several studies, for example, found no differences in the persuasiveness of high- versus
low-credibility sources when the sources were identified after the messages were presented
(O’Keefe, 1987; Ward & McGinnies, 1974). Benoit and Strathman (2004) suggest that this
is because credibility affects the way receivers process a message. For credibility to do any
good, therefore, receivers must consider the source’s credibility as they process a persuasive
message.
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THE SLEEPER EFFECT
The traditional view is that the impact of a persuasive message wanes over time (Hovland,
Lumsdaine, & Sheffield, 1949; Stiff, 1994). Receivers forget what was said or who said it.
Persuasion wears off. The sleeper effect, however, suggests that under the right circumstances,
the delayed impact of a message may be more effective than its initial impact (Kumkale &
Albarracín, 2004)—that is, the message might grow on receivers. Specifically, the sleeper
effect posits that a message from a low-credibility source may increase in persuasiveness as
time passes, compared to a message from a high-credibility source. Sound unlikely? It is, to
some extent. Yet the sleeper effect has been documented by researchers, dating back more
than 50 years (Hovland et al., 1949). How the sleeper effect works requires some explanation.
Imagine that one audience is exposed to a persuasive message from a source with high
credibility. A second audience is exposed to the same persuasive message, but from a source
with low credibility, by means of a discounting cue. A discounting cue consists of a disclaimer
containing negative information about the source, the message, or both. For example, let’s say
the first group heard a message in favor of irradiating fruits and vegetables to kill bacteria
before they are shipped to market. The second group would hear the same message, plus a
disclaimer saying the message was drafted by a lobbyist for the agricultural industry whose
real concern was agricultural profits, not consumer safety. The discounting cue would thus
serve as an impediment to the effectiveness of the second message, a “ball and chain,” so to
speak. Afterward, each group’s attitudes toward irradiated produce would be measured.
Initially, the first group’s attitudes should be much more favorable toward the topic than
the second group’s. After all, the first group heard the message from the high-credibility
source. With the passage of time, however, things might change. The first group’s attitudes
would gradually decay over time. The second group’s attitudes, however, might undergo a
process known as disassociation, whereby the message is separated from its source in the minds
of receivers. The second group might remember the message, but forget the discounting cue.
If you’ve ever heard someone say, “I heard somewhere that …” or “I read somewhere that …”
you’ve observed disassociation in action. Once the message was decoupled from its source, the
ball and chain would be removed. The result would be that as the first group’s attitudes
diminished, the second group’s attitudes would become more positive. Voilà! The sleeper
effect.
Although the sleeper effect has been demonstrated in laboratory studies (Kumkale &
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Albarracín, 2004), it is difficult to produce on a consistent, reliable basis. Only a few studies
have demonstrated an absolute sleeper effect (see Figure 4.3) of the type we’ve been discussing
(Gruder et al., 1978; Watts & Holt, 1979; Watts & McGuire, 1964). An absolute sleeper
effect occurs when a message from a high-credibility source loses favor over time, whereas a
message from a low-credibility source gains favor over time. Other studies have demonstrated
a relative sleeper effect (see Figure 4.3), meaning that both messages lose favor over time, but
the high-credibility message loses more favor than the low-credibility message (see reviews by
Allen & Stiff, 1989, 1998). Some studies have failed to find a sleeper effect at all (see reviews
by Allen & Stiff, 1989, 1998). The sleeper effect, then, can be pretty fickle.
There is evidence, however, that fictional narratives can induce the sleeper effect (Appel &
Richter, 2007). Over time, a person may forget what was fact and what was fiction, and come
to believe a fictional storyline. What implications does this hold for you as a persuader? In
practice, it would be very difficult for an ordinary persuader, as opposed to a laboratory
researcher, to satisfy all of the requirements for obtaining a sleeper effect. We believe there
are far too many “ifs” associated with this strategy to recommend it to an ordinary persuader.
Our advice is that you would be much better off trying to enhance your credibility as much as
possible in the first place.
FIGURE 4.3
Illustration of an absolute and a relative sleeper effect.
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CREDIBILITY AND IMAGE MANAGEMENT
Thus far, we’ve discussed credibility strictly in connection with people. We believe the
concept of credibility can be extended to corporations, organizations, governmental agencies,
social movements, and other institutions as well. Such group entities care about how they are
perceived by the public and other constituencies. They want to project positive images. And
to a large extent, their power and ability to influence are linked to their images and their
reputations. For these reasons, we maintain that the credibility construct applies equally well
to institutional entities and individuals. Britain’s slogan, “keep calm and carry on,” for
example, embodies the dimension of composure for an entire nation.
As further illustration, consider the charitable activities of major corporations. McDonald’s
established Ronald McDonald House to provide assistance to hospital-bound children and
their families. The National Football League donates generously to the United Way. Other
companies contribute to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. In so doing, these corporations are
demonstrating that they are good citizens in their communities. Doing good deeds enhances
public perceptions of goodwill. We aren’t suggesting that corporations are disingenuous when
they sponsor causes or that corporate altruism is based solely on the profit motive. We do
wish to point out, however, that philanthropic acts make for good public relations.
So important is image management for corporations, institutions, government agencies,
and the like that entire departments, divisions, and staffs exist for just this purpose. They may
be called publicists, press agents, mouthpieces, or spin doctors, but their goal is the same: to
generate favorable publicity and avoid unfavorable media coverage. Even the military employs
public relations officers, because good PR is part of good military strategy. Whatever the title
of these types of positions, one of their primary missions is to maintain the credibility of the
host institution.
On occasion, corporations, institutions, and government agencies commit blunders that
damage their credibility. For example, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico made BP the poster
boy for evil oil companies. William Benoit (1995) refers to this process as image restoration
and notes that such efforts are highly persuasive in nature (p. 6). Examples in which
circumstances have forced corporations and other institutions to engage in image restoration
abound. Volkswagen’s credibility took a hit when it admitted that 11 million of its diesel
engine cars were fitted with software designed to defeat emissions tests. Thus far, the
automaker has paid out $20 billion in fines, with more in the offing. VW ran a series of ads
171
apologizing to customers and promising to make things right. Wells Fargo piqued consumers’
ire when it created 3.5 million bogus accounts without their customers’ permission. Soon
after the company launched a “make things right” campaign. United Airlines suffered a public
relations nightmare when airport security forcibly removed a passenger from one of its
airplanes.
Benoit (1995) notes that such defensive campaigns are commonplace. They are
undertaken out of a necessity to restore the credibility of the corporation, institution, or
agency whose image has been tarnished. Benoit highlights a variety of strategies aimed at
image restoration. The specific strategies employed, of course, depend on the nature of the
difficulty in which the institution finds itself and the range of available defenses.
We can see, then, that corporations and other institutions, not only individuals, possess
credibility in varying amounts. We suspect that the same primary dimensions of credibility
that apply to individuals apply equally well to corporations. We suspect that the secondary
dimensions of credibility discussed previously, however, might differ. After all, the secondary
dimensions don’t always appear in studies of individuals’ credibility. This would appear to be
a fruitful topic for future scholarly inquiry.
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INTERPERSONAL CREDIBILITY, IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT, FACEWORK, AND ACCOUNTS
Ordinary folks can’t hire their own public relations firm or employ a publicist to maintain a
positive public image. They do engage in public relations campaigns, nonetheless. Ordinary
persons tend to function as their own PR departments through impression management and
facework.
Impression management theory (Tedeschi & Reiss, 1981) seeks to explain how persons go
about trying to project a positive self-image.2 Individuals want others to form favorable
impressions of them. In short, individuals want to be perceived as credible and likable. The
importance of likability, specifically, is featured in Box 4.2. Individuals attempt to manage
others’ impressions of themselves by trying to say and do the right things. Engaging in
“politically correct” behavior is an example of impression management at work.
Our position is that when an individual is engaging in impression management, he or she
is engaging in persuasion. He or she is attempting to influence others’ impressions of him or
her. At the same time, he or she is vulnerable to influence attempts by others. This is because
persons are highly susceptible to persuasive appeals aimed at enhancing their own self-image.
By way of illustration, a common preoccupation of teenagers, especially younger teens, is
“looking cool.” If one teen can convince another that dressing or acting a certain way will
make him or her look “cool,” the other teen is likely to conform to that style of dress or
behavior. Most of us need look no further than our high school yearbooks to realize that we,
too, were susceptible to the fads, trends, and fashions of our day.
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BOX 4.2 | Icing on the Cake: The Benefits of Likability
Suppose you are choosing which of two tour guides to hire. Both are equally
knowledgeable and experienced. Their tour prices are the same and include the same
itinerary. One guide, however, is more friendly and likable, the other more distant and
aloof. Which one would you choose? If you are like us, you would rather spend your day
with the more likable guide. As Gitomer (2015) observes, “all things being equal, people
prefer to do business with people they like. All things being not so equal, people still
prefer to do business with people they like” (p. 10).
Lovas and Holloway (2009) explain that “likability is a combination of characteristics
including (but not limited to) interest, empathy and genuineness. In a professional
context, likable people tend to be interesting to us, interested in us, empathetic, positive,
non-judgmental, and genuine” (p. 40). Sanders (2006), who refers to likability as the “L-
factor,” defines likability as “an ability to create positive attitudes in other people through
the delivery of emotional and psychological benefits” (p. 33). Interestingly, Donald
Trump and Hillary Clinton were the two most unlikable presidential candidates since
modern polling began (Holyk & Langer, 2016). In contrast, Bernie Sanders was rated
the most likable candidate in 2016. Other likable public figures include Ellen
DeGeneres, Tom Hanks, Chris Pratt, and Taylor Swift.
While important, likability only goes so far. If you were having brain surgery, would
you prefer the best surgeon available or a lesser surgeon with a great bedside manner?
For women in politics or the business world, Cooper (2013) argues that being likable
and competent entails a double standard. Strong, successful women may be labeled as
“aggressive,” “abrasive,” or “difficult.” She suggests that, for women, success and
likability are often negatively correlated.
Sample “Likability scale” items
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Source: Reysen (2005)
Impression management also requires that people engage in facework, a term coined by
Erving Goffman (1967, 1974). A person’s “face” refers to his or her social standing in the
eyes of others. Facework involves negotiating one’s social standing and social worth with
others (Ting-Toomey, 1988, 1994; Ting-Toomey & Kurogi, 1998). For example,
committing a social faux pas could result in the loss of one’s own face. Facework would be
required to restore one’s face. Threatening or challenging another person could cause the
other to lose face. Facework would again be required for the other to regain face.
As with identity management, we suggest that facework is inherently persuasive in nature.
Facework involves goal-oriented communication that seeks particular outcomes or ends—
namely, “satisfying one’s own face wants and the face wants of one’s interlocutor” (Cupach &
Imahori, 1993, p. 117). For example, consider the related social rituals of asking someone out
on a date and declining someone’s invitation for a date. Both rituals, asking and declining, are
persuasive in nature, and both are laden with face-saving implications. Although not
synonymous with credibility, we see the concepts of face and facework as being closely related
to the credibility construct. Maintaining one’s face, we believe, is akin to maintaining one’s
credibility in the eyes of others.
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
STRATEGIES FOR ENHANCING CREDIBILITY: GET YOUR MOJO WORKING
Having gained a better understanding of what credibility is and how it works, what can you
do to enhance your credibility when persuading? A number of general guidelines are offered
for improving your credibility. Keep in mind that because credibility is a receiver-based
construct, what works on one listener or audience may not work on the next.
Heed the Boy Scout motto: “Be prepared.” Before making your case, be as well prepared and
well organized as possible. Think through your position beforehand and anticipate likely
objections to your position. If you don’t seem to know what you are talking about, your
credibility will suffer. Research shows that unorganized messages are far less convincing
than organized ones (McCroskey & Mehrley, 1969; Sharp & McClung, 1966).
Cite evidence for your position and identify the sources of your evidence. In a review of the
effects of evidence usage, Reinard (1988) concluded that in almost all cases, citing
evidence and sources significantly enhanced speaker credibility. This advice applies
especially to low-credibility sources.
Cite your own or your sources’ qualifications and expertise on the topic or issue up front.
Remember, expertise is one of the primary dimensions of credibility. For credibility to
enhance persuasion, however, the source’s credentials must be identified prior to
presenting the message. If you have expertise on a topic or an issue, let your listener(s)
know. If you lack expertise on an issue, don’t dwell on your deficiencies. Instead, explain
how you came to develop an interest in the subject. Also, consider this: If, in fact, you
know little or nothing about a topic, then you have no business trying to persuade others
about that topic in the first place.
Attempt to build trust by demonstrating to your listener that you are honest and sincere. One
approach is to demonstrate that you possess good moral character. Another is to
acknowledge that although compliance would benefit you, it would benefit the other
person as well; compliance would be in both parties’ mutual interest.
Display goodwill toward your audience. Don’t seem aloof or indifferent. Show that you
care about others, that you understand their ideas and their situation, that you empathize
with their feelings and views, and that you are attentive and responsive to their
communication attempts. For example, if a listener asks you a question, begin your
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6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
answer by saying, “If I heard you correctly, you want to know …” and end by asking,
“Does that address what you were asking?”
Improve your likability, or L-factor. Likability affects how you and your message are
received. Some view likability as a form of emotional intelligence (Sanders, 2006). You
can improve your L-factor by conveying warmth and immediacy. Smile often.
Remember people’s names. Listen. Thank people and accept compliments sincerely.
Being genuine and authentic goes a long way.
Adopt a language and delivery style appropriate to the listener(s), topic, and setting. Your style
of speech should be tailored to your particular receiver(s). Different receivers have
different needs. In general, nonfluencies, pauses or gaps, and a choppy style of delivery
hinder credibility (Berger, 1985, 1994; Miller & Hewgill, 1964). A reliance on “uhms,”
“ahs,” and other fillers impairs credibility as well. An overreliance on slang,
colloquialisms, or trite expressions can also compromise credibility.
Avoid a powerless style of communication. Use an assertive style of communication instead. A
powerless communication style involves using tag questions (“That was a good movie,
don’t you think?”), hesitations (“uhm,” “uh”), qualifiers (“kind of,” “sort of,” “perhaps,”
“maybe”), and negative preambles (“This will probably sound really dumb, but …”). A
reliance on powerless language signals to the other party that you perceive yourself as
occupying a lower status position in the relationship. For more about this topic, refer to
Chapter 7, in which we examine the role of language in persuasion.
Emphasize your similarity to another to indirectly enhance your credibility. Listeners find it
easier to identify with sources they perceive as similar to themselves. O’Keefe (2002)
points out two important caveats regarding similarity and influence. First, he
emphasizes, the similarities must be relevant to the topic or issue. Commenting, “Hey,
I’m a Libra, too!” will probably get you nowhere unless the topic happens to center on
astrology, horoscopes, and other similar topics. Second, O’Keefe notes that the perceived
similarities must involve positive, rather than negative, qualities. Stressing, “I was
arrested for shoplifting once, too” may not enamor you to a new acquaintance, even
though he or she may have confessed to a similar mistake.
If you think you are perceived as having low credibility, try to increase receiver
involvement and emphasize the central route to persuasion. Remember, receivers who
are highly involved in a topic place less emphasis on source credibility and more
emphasis on the substance of a message. If you suspect your target audience is skeptical
of your credibility, explain how the topic or issue is directly relevant to them and then
177
11.
focus on the substance of the message. That will tend to encourage central processing on
the part of your audience.
Have another source who is already perceived as highly credible introduce or endorse
you. This is a common strategy used in election campaigns. Salespersons also use this
strategy when they rely on referrals. The technique allows a source to piggyback on the
established credibility of the person making the introduction or endorsement. Acquiring
credibility via endorsements and introductions emphasizes the peripheral route to
persuasion.
178
SUMMARY
As we’ve seen, credibility is a complex construct. Yet there is one overriding generalization
about credibility that persuaders can “take to the bank”: Credibility is a good thing to have if you
are a persuader. As long as we keep in mind that credibility is a perceptual phenomenon, the
generalization that high-credibility sources are more influential than low-credibility sources is
as close as one can come to a universal “law” of persuasion.
In advancing this generalization, however, we believe it is important to underscore the
point that credibility is a complex, multidimensional, situational communication
phenomenon. Credibility can’t be bought in a bottle or purchased out of a vending machine.
In many persuasive settings, a source who has low or no initial credibility can do little or
nothing about it. Low-credibility sources tend to be dismissed out of hand; receivers simply
fail to attend to their messages. There is an old joke about how to become a multimillionaire:
“It’s simple: First, get a million dollars, then …” Much the same advice can be offered for
using credibility to enhance persuasion: “It’s simple: First, get a lot of credibility, then …”
179
1.
2.
NOTES
Q-scores are calculated by Marketing Evaluations, Inc. (www.qscores.com), a company that rates over 1,800
personalities.
Impression management theory also has been referred to as identity management theory (IMT for short) by William
Cupach and Todd Imahori (1993).
180
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CHAPTER 5
Communicator Characteristics and Persuasion
Demographic Variables and Persuasion
Age and Persuasion: Pretty Please With Sugar on Top
Gender Differences and Persuasion: The Times, They Aren’t a-Changin’
Ethnicity, Culture, and Persuasion: “Me” and “We” Perspectives
Intelligence and Persuasion: Dumb and Dumber
Psychological and Communication States and Traits
Self-Esteem and Persuasion: Feelin’ Kinda Low
Anxiety and Persuasion: Living in Fear
Preference for Consistency: I Wouldn’t Change a Thing
Self-Monitoring and Persuasion: Periscope Up
Ego Involvement: Not Budging an Inch
Issue Involvement: What’s This Have to Do With Me?
Dogmatism, Authoritarianism, and Social Vigilantism: You Can’t Teach an Old
Dog New Tricks
Narcissism: How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways
Cognitive Complexity and Need for Cognition
Persuasion and Aggression: Sticks and Stones
Analyzing and Adapting to Audiences
Pay Attention to the Situation
Keep Your Audience’s Mind in Mind
Remember the Importance of Audience States and Traits
Don’t Forget About Audience Demographics
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D
O YOU HAVE A CELEBRITY CRUSH? Have you ever dreamt of Kerry Washington or Zac
Efron? Spent hours on the Internet stalking Harry Styles or Jessica Alba? Retweeted or
liked posts by Scarlett or Channing? Better yet, have you ever wondered whether your
celebrity crush would like you back? Fortunately, for Spencer Morrill of Knoxville,
Tennessee, the answer to that last question was “no!” Indeed, his celebrity crush—the
megastar pop singer, Katy Perry—told him that she loved him … or so he thought. Sadly,
after “dating” Katy online for six years, after making her an engagement ring out of his great-
grandmother’s emerald, and after blowing 25 percent of his savings, Spencer learned that
“Katy” was really a woman named Harriet from England. Spencer, it turns out, had been
duped in what is commonly known as an online “catfish scheme,” in which the scammer
pretends to be someone he or she is not. His ordeal was later featured on the MTV series
Catfish (Delbyck, 2016).
If you’re at all like us, you might be wondering how anyone could fall for such a hoax,
especially for such a long period of time. But then again, when you consider all possible
people, it’s likely that someone would be gullible enough to fall for such a scheme.
However, although it seems that some people are more persuadable than others, the search
for a single underlying trait or characteristic that makes people persuadable has not been
successful. Persuasion is more complicated than that. And so are people. Even so, the
characteristics of the people in a persuasive interaction cannot be ignored. All communicators
are unique in terms of gender, age, personality, and background, and such characteristics are
important to understanding the nature of social influence.
In this chapter, we explore the role communicator characteristics play in the process of
persuasion. Although we don’t have room to cover the immense number of characteristics
that have been studied, we discuss several that past research has identified as being important
to social influence. Then we discuss ways in which a communicator might analyze and adapt
to an audience when trying to be persuasive. Before we begin, however, we note, as we have
in earlier chapters, that persuasion is a two-way street. Thus, when we use the term
communicator characteristics, we are not limiting our discussion to one person. The
characteristics of all the interactants in a persuasive encounter are part of the equation.
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DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES AND PERSUASION
If someone asked you to use 10 words to describe yourself, there is a good chance you would
use demographic information to do so. Demographics include characteristics such as age,
gender, ethnicity, and intelligence, which we discuss in the following sections.
Age and Persuasion: Pretty Please With Sugar on Top
The expression “It’s like taking candy from a baby” suggests that children are easy targets for
persuasion, and research indicates that this is generally true: Children tend to be especially
vulnerable to persuasive trickery because they lack the ability to understand the nature and
intent of persuaders (McAlister & Cornwell, 2009). The implications of such research can be
frightening. Indeed, we’ve all heard stories of children who have been tricked or lured away
by criminals (for more on this issue, see Box 5.1).
What we may be less aware of, however, are other types of messages that may be
persuading our children, or, for that matter, our fetuses! As Lindstrom (2011, p. 15) noted,
because strong tastes and aromas (such as garlic and vanilla) pass through a mother’s amniotic
fluid and are actually “tasted” by a fetus, even unborn kids may be influenced to develop tastes
inside the womb. He reported, for example, that Kopiko, a candy brand in the Philippines,
supplied doctors with coffee-flavored candies to give away to pregnant mothers. Some time
later, Kopiko introduced a new product—coffee—which was phenomenally successful,
particularly among children in the Philippines.
Once outside the womb, it doesn’t take long before kids are bombarded by the world of
advertising. According to Lindstrom (2011), for example, by three months, 40 percent of all
infants watch screen media regularly, and by two years, 90 percent of all children do. What’s
more, in the United States, typical kids are exposed to 40,000 commercials a year (Kunkel,
Wilcox, Cantor, Palmer, Linn, & Dowrick, 2004). These numbers become especially
meaningful when you understand that advertisers do not always have children’s best interests
in mind. According to Lindstrom’s sources (2011, p. 22), for instance, the clothing retailer
Abercrombie & Fitch marketed padded bikini tops to girls as young as eight, and Tesco, a
retailer in the UK, released the “Peekaboo Pole Dancing Kit,” marketed to females under 10,
as something to help them “unleash the sex kitten inside.”
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BOX 5.1 |
1.
“Never Take Candy From Strangers”
I was certain it could never happen. After all, I’m a very street-savvy, New York
City parent. I write articles advising moms and dads on child safety. Needless to
say, I’ve been so conscientious in teaching my own children that my husband
insists I’m paranoid, and my daughter has more than once rolled her eyes
heavenward at my often repeated warnings. Which is why I can hardly describe
the sick feeling in my stomach as I watched my redheaded little boy and his
friend Tahlor march right out of the park one spring afternoon with a total
stranger.
(Rosen, 1994, p. 108)
Fortunately for Margery Rosen, this scene was only part of an informal experiment. To
test how well she had trained her children, she had gotten Kenneth Wooden, an expert
on the ways in which sex offenders lure children, to see if he could persuade her children
to leave the playground with him. He didn’t have much trouble. He told the boys he had
lost a puppy and would give them money if they would help him find it. They went right
with him, and so did several other children involved in the experiment (Rosen, 1994).
Many children aren’t as fortunate as those involved in Rosen’s experiment. Indeed,
it’s been estimated that one in four girls and one in six boys are sexually abused by age 18
(Wooden, 2014). Clearly, children are especially susceptible to persuasion, and
sometimes the results are tragic. For that reason, Kenneth Wooden (1988) argued,
“Teaching your kids about the tricks that molesters use could save them from grievous
harm—even death” (p. 149).
In an effort to prevent children from being molested, Wooden interviewed convicted
molesters, pimps, and murderers and discovered several lures that are commonly used on
children. Of the lures he said, “Knowledge of them is so basic to a child’s safety that they
should be taught—indeed must be taught—by every parent” (Wooden, 1988, p. 149).
With this in mind, if you know, are, or plan to be a parent, here is an abbreviated list of
lures and prevention strategies that Wooden (1995; see also Dickinson, 2002; Rosen,
1994; Wooden, 1988; Wooden, Webb, & Mitchell, 2014) identified:
The assistance lure. The lost puppy example described previously is an example of
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2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
this lure. In it, the pedophile asks kids for directions, for help carrying packages, or
for some other type of assistance. Children should be advised to keep their distance
from strangers in cars. Children should tell the assistance seeker to ask another
adult for help.
The authority and hero lures. Some molesters lure children by posing as police
officers, Santa Claus, or other figures that children trust. Children should be taught
that bad people can play tricks on children and that real heroes won’t do certain
things.
The affection/love lure. Some pedophiles lure children by promising them love and
affection. Parents should know that 75 to 80 percent of sex crimes are committed
by someone a child knows and trusts. Children should beware of anyone who wants
excessive time alone with them and be encouraged to tell their parents about
improper advances. Parents should trust their instincts.
The bribery lure. Children are often offered gifts from molesters. Parents should be
suspicious of any new toys their children have. The age-old saying “Never take
candy from strangers” is still true today.
The ego/fame lure. Youngsters are sometimes lured by modeling jobs or beauty
contests that should be kept secret from mom and dad. For that reason, parents
should accompany kids to such events, encourage openness, and check the
credentials of “would-be” modeling agencies.
The emergency lure. Molesters might trick children by claiming “a house is on fire”
or “mommy had to go to the hospital.” To prevent falling for this, parents and
children should prearrange an emergency plan. Under no circumstance should a
child ride with a stranger.
The fun and games lure. Molesters sometimes turn tickling, wrestling, and other
games into intimate contact. Children need to be taught that there are good and
bad touches. Bad touches (e.g., anywhere under a bathing suit) should be reported.
The pornography lure. Pedophiles have been known to use pornography to destroy
their victims’ inhibitions. Wooden, therefore, advises parents to keep pornography
out of the home so it does not seem legitimate.
The jobs lure. Molesters sometimes lure children by promising high-paying jobs.
When suspicious, parents should accompany children to interviews, especially if the
interview is in a secluded or unusual place, and ask to see a business license.
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Finally, parents and children need to be aware that the Internet has become a vehicle
for strangers who prey on children. Parents should watch for warning signs, including
pornography on a child’s computer (often sent by sexual predators to desensitize victims)
and telephone calls or mail from strangers (“Beware ’Net predators,” 2001).
Although some psychologists have argued that teaching children about a potential
molester only serves to terrify them and prevent the formation of friendships (for a
discussion, see Teaching fear, 1986), Rosen (1994, 2014) and others have argued that
teaching children to be cautious about potential molesters is little different from
vaccinating them against a disease or teaching them to be safe around stoves or electrical
sockets. Education should start at a young age, with the goal of making children
cautious, not paranoid. As Wooden (1988) noted, children should be taught that most
people are good and won’t hurt them but should also realize that some people are bad
and sick.
Unfortunately, until age eight, children do not understand the persuasive nature of
advertising. Instead, kids think that ads are just there to inform them (Oates, Blades, &
Gunter, 2002). Worse yet, children may have an especially difficult time understanding the
persuasive intent behind “gamification,” which promotes brands through fun and interactive
online games (see Vanwesenbeeck, Walrave, & Ponnet, 2016; Panic, Cauberghe, & De
Palsmacker, 2013). Fortunately, however, at least two variables seem to decrease children’s
vulnerability to advertising: adult influence and getting older. First, research shows that if you
interact with children during ads, you can increase their ability to critically examine the ads
and provide them with a better understanding of the nature and purpose of advertising. One
study, for example, found that when adults made factual (e.g., “Those ads aren’t telling the
truth. Those toys look different in real life.”) or evaluative (“These ads are dumb. These toys
aren’t fun.”) comments during advertisements, children were less persuaded by the ads
(Buijzen, 2007). Second, as children become older, they become less susceptible to distorted
claims (Mills & Elashi, 2014). Notice, however, we say less susceptible, not immune. For
example, Morgenstern, Isensee, Sargent, and Harwinkel (2011) found that teenagers who
were exposed to a greater number of alcohol advertisements consumed larger amounts of
alcohol.
So far, we’ve made it clear that young people tend to be highly susceptible to persuasion.
But what about older people? Although earlier studies indicated that elderly people may be
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more “set in their ways,” and, thus, less persuadable than younger folks, a newer generation of
research supports the life-stages hypothesis (Sears, 1981), which suggests that there is a
curvilinear relationship between age and persuadability (for a review, see Eaton, Visser,
Krosnick, & Anand, 2009). In other words, compared to youthful and elderly people, middle-
aged people are less persuadable. Consistent with this hypothesis, Liao and Fu (2014) found
that, compared to younger adults (19–26), older adults (58–80) were less skilled at judging
the credibility of online health information. This is troubling, of course, considering that
older people are frequent users of health information, even though the content of health-
related websites is often rated as unsatisfactory (see Liao & Fu, 2014).
Gender Differences and Persuasion: The Times, They Aren’t a-Changin’
Do men and women differ in their ability to influence others? Before you answer, we should
warn you: This is a trick question. Although the lion’s share of research reveals that men are
more successful than women in their attempts to persuade others (see Carli, 2004), their
success has little to do with ability but rather a double-standard in audiences’ perceptions.
This conclusion is supported by the work of Carli (2004), who demonstrated that gender
stereotypes cause audiences to perceive males as more competent than females and to expect
females to be warmer and more nurturing than males. As a result, women experience a double
bind: They must perform better than men to be considered equally competent, and they are
perceived negatively when they try to be direct, assertive, and forceful. In one study, for
instance, when females adopted aggressive communication behaviors in debates, they were
judged more harshly than males who adopted the same behaviors (Matthews, 2016).
Similarly, a meta-analysis found that women were less persuasive when they used aggressive
and assertive tactics than when they used more role-consistent, communal tactics (Smith,
Watkins, Burke, Christian, Smith, Hall, & Simms, 2013).
Consistent with this finding is Klingle’s (2004) reinforcement expectancy theory, which
applies to persuasive encounters between doctors and patients. According to the theory, once
a doctor has tried to persuade a patient to do something (e.g., take medication), the patient
judges the appropriateness of the doctor’s message. If the message is viewed as inappropriate,
the patient rejects it. If it is viewed as appropriate, it guides the patient’s future behavior.
How does this relate to gender? According to Klingle (2004), because of certain norms,
female doctors can’t get away with using aversive strategies the same way that male doctors
can. When female doctors use such strategies, they violate patients’ expectations about what is
appropriate, and, as a result, patients are less likely to comply. According to the theory, then,
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male doctors can increase compliance by using either positive (e.g., “Regular eating will make
you feel so much better”) or negative (“You have two choices—change your diet or spend the
rest of your life wishing you had”) influence strategies, but female doctors can increase
compliance by using only positive strategies (Klingle, 2004).
In addition to having double standards about the use of various persuasive strategies,
people also hold stereotypes about who seems better suited for selling certain products. In one
study (Rodero, Larrea, & Vázquez, 2013), for example, people listened to various radio
advertisements that featured male or female voices. Results indicated that people perceived
the male voice as more appropriate for selling mechanical products and the female voice as
more appropriate for selling body-hair removal products. No differences were observed for
neutral products.
Up to this point, we’ve seen that men and women differ regarding how successful they are
when trying to persuade other people. But how do men and women compare when it comes
to being persuaded? Early research suggested that women were more easily persuaded than
men (e.g., Chaiken, 1979). Later, however, researchers who examined and summarized large
numbers of studies on the topic questioned the notion of whether women were any different
from men when it came to being persuaded (e.g., Eagly, 1978). As a result, many researchers
abandoned the idea of general gender effects and instead tried to explain when gender
differences could be expected. For instance, in Eagly’s 1978 study, 32 percent of the studies
published before 1970 (generally regarded as the onset of the women’s movement) found that
women were more easily influenced than men, but only 8 percent of the studies published
after 1970 found the same result. Thus, evaporating gender differences might be the result of
changing times and the attitudes of and toward women. However, considering the research
we have discussed on how gender stereotypes affect males’ versus females’ ability to persuade,
we doubt that this explanation is correct.
Even so, there is another possible explanation for the change in research findings before
and after 1970. Specifically, earlier studies used male rather than female sources (Ward,
Seccombe, Bendel, & Carter, 1985), which means that male receivers were being persuaded
by members of the same sex, whereas females were being persuaded by members of the
opposite sex—that is, in the earlier studies, there may have been a cross-sex effect, by which
people were more easily influenced by members of the opposite sex than by members of the
same sex. This effect, however, may be stronger for males persuading females than for
females persuading males (Ward et al., 1985).
From our review so far, it is clear that generalizations about gender and persuasion are
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hard to come by. As Cody, Seiter, and Montagne-Miller (1995) argue, “There is no simple
model that links ‘gender’ or ‘sex’ to influenceability” (p. 312). Instead, these researchers argue
that persuadability is not so much related to one’s gender as it is to one’s goals, plans,
resources, and beliefs (Cody et al., 1995). For instance, imagine that you are in a shopping
mall, looking at clothing. If you don’t intend to buy anything (goal), have decided you will
look now and buy later (plan), have very little money (resources), and think that all
salespersons are dishonest (beliefs), you will probably be more difficult to influence than if
you intend to buy now, have lots of money, and believe salespersons are honest. In other
words, it may not matter so much whether you are male or female; how easy you are to
influence depends on your goals, plans, resources, and beliefs. Gender matters only to the
extent that males and females have different goals, plans, resources, and beliefs. For instance,
Cody and colleagues (1995) found that when shopping for clothes, men and women tend to
have different goals and that such goal differences were related to influenceability and the
effectiveness of certain sales tactics. Likewise, Orji, Mandryk, & Vassileva (2015) found that
males and females differed in their responsiveness to different persuasive strategies.
Ethnicity, Culture, and Persuasion: “Me” and “We” Perspectives
Cultural differences play a major role, both in terms of how people fashion influence attempts
and how they respond to them. Perhaps the most commonly discussed dimension of cultural
variability is known as individualism–collectivism (Hofstede, 1983). Whereas people in
collectivist cultures (e.g., China) tend to value harmony, concern for others, and the goals of
the group over the goals of the individual, people in individualistic cultures (e.g., the United
States) tend to value independence and the goals of the individual over the goals of a
collective.
With that in mind, consider the following list of slogans (see Han & Shavitt, 1994, p.
346) and imagine which you would use to appeal to people in a collectivistic culture and
which you would use to appeal to people in an individualistic culture:
“The art of being unique.”
“She’s got a style all her own.”
“We have a way of bringing people closer together.”
“The dream of prosperity for all of us.”
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A study by Han and Shavitt (1994) found that advertisements, such as the first and second
in the previous list, that appealed to individual benefits, personal success, and independence
were used more in the United States (an individualistic culture) than in Korea (a collectivistic
culture) and were more persuasive in the United States than in Korea. Ads, such as the third
and fourth, that appealed to group benefits, harmony, and family were used more often and
were more persuasive in Korea than in the United States.
Also consistent with the notion that people from collectivistic cultures focus on groups and
relationships, Fu and Yukl (2000) found that Chinese managers rated “emphasizing
coalitions” and “gift-giving” among the most effective influence tactics, whereas managers
from the United States preferred rational persuasion. Similarly, a study by Wiseman and
colleagues (2009) found differences between the persuasive strategies used by people from the
United States, China, and Japan. For example, when trying to persuade roommates to be
more quiet, people from the United States, who tend to be more individualistic and less
concerned with saving face, preferred more direct strategies (e.g., “You are making too much
noise. Please be quiet”) and strategies with individually controlled sanctions (“If you don’t
quiet down, I’ll be as noisy as possible when you are trying to study”). People from China,
who tend to be more collectivistic, preferred indirect strategies (e.g., commenting on how
they like quiet moments) and strategies with group-controlled sanctions (e.g., “Your noisiness
shows a lack of consideration for others”). However, people from Japan hinted less than
people from both the United States and China, leading Wiseman and colleagues (2009) to
conclude that collectivism and individualism may not be opposite orientations. In fact,
Agrawal (2015) suggested that people from individualistic cultures can sometimes be primed
to behave in collectivistic ways and vice versa. For example, someone from an individualistic
culture might be asked to think about family obligations (Agrawal, 2015). As such,
sometimes culturally incongruent messages can be persuasive.
Finally, with regard to individualism–collectivism, Orji (2015) identified several additional
cultural differences. Specifically, people from collectivistic cultures perceived appeals to
authority (e.g., expertise), consensus (e.g., others are doing it, so you should too), liking, and
reciprocity (e.g., you are obligated to give back) as more persuasive than did people from
individualistic cultures.
Although individualism and collectivism are important values affecting cross-cultural
differences in persuasion, they are not the only ones. For example, after conducting interviews
with people from the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan, Ma and Chuang (2001)
identified three influence tactics reflecting additional values of importance. First, anshi, or
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“hinting” (e.g., telling a friend who loaned you money that you’d like to buy something if you
weren’t broke), compared to more direct strategies (e.g., demanding the money a friend
borrowed), not only preserves harmony in a relationship, it is more respectful and seeks to
save another person’s face. Second, yi shen zuo ze, or “setting an example by one’s own action”
(e.g., a manager works exceptionally hard hoping her subordinates will do likewise), reflects
the Chinese culture’s mistrust of words. Third, tou qi suo hao, or “feeding people what they
relish” (e.g., agreeing to do something another person loves before asking a favor), reflects a
preference for indirectness, other-orientedness, and granting people “face” (Ma & Chuang,
2001).
Similarly, a study by Fitch (1994) found that distinctive cultural systems of beliefs, values,
and symbols underlie differences in the influence messages used by people in the United
States and Colombia. A recurring theme in the influence strategies used in the United States
was “empowerment.” For instance, a manager observed in Fitch’s study argued:
A stumbling block to empowerment is the low self-esteem of people who have been
told what to do. If we want them to make their own decisions, we have to build up
their self-esteem. And that starts with asking, not telling people what to do.
(p. 194)
In contrast, Colombians’ influence attempts centered on the concept of confianza (having
trust or closeness in a relationship). For example, Colombians commonly ask intermediaries
who have closer relationships with persuadees to deliver influence messages for them (e.g.,
“You know Dioselina better than I do. Will you ask her to put up the signs?”).
Intelligence and Persuasion: Dumb and Dumber
Imagine you were offered a million dollars to persuade either Forrest Gump (if you haven’t
seen the movie, Forrest isn’t known for his brains) or Albert Einstein to believe or do
something. Who would you choose? Earlier work (e.g., McGuire, 1968) suggested that
neither Forrest nor Albert—but rather someone with moderate intelligence—should be
chosen. The idea was that Forrest would be difficult to persuade because he would be unable
to comprehend a message, while Albert would be difficult because he would be better at
scrutinizing a message. Later work, however, indicated that Forrest should be your choice.
Indeed, a review of research by Rhodes and Wood (1992) indicated that less intelligent
people are easier to persuade than people with a lot of smarts. Even so, we imagine that other
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variables may be important too. More intelligent people may be in a better position to process
complex messages. Recall that when central processing is required, the ability to process a
message is important. Less intelligent people may be more receptive to simpler messages or
messages that encourage peripheral processing.
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PSYCHOLOGICAL AND COMMUNICATION STATES AND TRAITS
Two common explanations for why people differ from one another centers on the notion of
traits and states. A trait is a characteristic of a person presumed to be relatively stable across
situations. A state varies from situation to situation. For instance, if we conceptualize anxiety
as a trait, we would predict that a person possessing the trait would be anxious in practically
all situations. On the other hand, if we conceptualize anxiety as a state, we would predict that
there are certain situations in which a person becomes anxious. For instance, some people
become very anxious when talking with authorities or when meeting members of the opposite
sex. With these definitions in mind, we now turn to a discussion of some specific traits and
states that have been the focus of research in the area of persuasion.
Self-Esteem and Persuasion: Feelin’ Kinda Low
Are individuals with low self-esteem more susceptible to influence attempts than individuals
with high self-esteem? Although this notion seems reasonable, it is not supported by research
(Rhodes & Wood, 1992). This is because to be persuaded, a person must both receive and
yield to a message. People with low self-esteem may be more likely to yield to a message
because they lack confidence in themselves and their opinions. However, they may also be too
concerned about their appearance and behavior to be receptive to a persuasive message. On
the other hand, people with high self-esteem may be more receptive to persuasive messages.
However, because they are more confident in themselves and their own opinions, they may be
less likely to yield. Thus, research indicates that people with moderately high self-esteem are
easier to persuade than people with either high or low self-esteem (Rhodes & Wood, 1992).
Anxiety and Persuasion: Living in Fear
Unless you’ve grown up in a closet, you’ve undoubtedly been exposed to messages about the
dangers of global warming, secondhand cigarette smoke, gang violence, and so forth. How do
you react to such messages? Do they make you overly nervous or tense? If so, you may be
chronically anxious. Research suggests that anxiety, whether chronic or acute, may be related
to persuadability, although the relationship is not clear. For instance, Nunnally and Bobren
(1959) found that anxious people were more persuadable than nonanxious people, whereas
Janis and Feshbach (1965) found just the opposite. Moreover, research by Lehmann (1970)
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indicated that anxiety is related to persuasion as much as self-esteem is. Specifically, anxious
people, compared to the nonanxious, may be more likely to yield to a message. However,
because they may be distracted or overly worried, they may be less likely to receive a message.
On the other hand, nonanxious people, compared to the anxious, may be more likely to
receive a message but less inclined to do something about it (Lehmann, 1970). Finally, Nai,
Schemeil, and Marie (2016) found that anxiety increases people’s motivation to be accurate.
As such, anxious folks, compared to calm ones, are more open to messages that challenge
their opinions, and, as a result, are more persuadable.
Whatever the relationship between anxiety and persuasion, one thing is clear: When trying
to persuade anxious people, be sure to include specific recommendations for avoiding the
harms, along with reassurances that if they follow the recommendations, everything will be
okay. As you’ll see in more detail in Chapter 13, without such reassurances, people who are
anxious may not respond well to fear appeals.
Preference for Consistency: I Wouldn’t Change a Thing
In Chapter 3, we stated that people are generally motivated to be consistent with their
attitudes and behavior. As with most things, however, there are exceptions to this statement.
It turns out that individuals differ in their preference for consistency (PFC). While “high PFCs”
value and strive to be consistent, “low PFCs” have a preference for change, spontaneity, and
unpredictability (see Guadagno & Cialdini, 2010). As such, several studies indicate that high
PFCs are more susceptible to the effects of cognitive dissonance. For example, Sénémeaud,
Mange, Fointiat, and Somat (2014) induced a group of French students to feel hypocritical,
which, presumably, would cause dissonance. Specifically, after listing the dangers of excessive
alcohol consumption, the students were asked to consider previous situations in which they
had consumed too much alcohol. Not surprisingly, compared to students who had not
undergone this procedure, the “hypocritical” students were more willing to spend time
helping young adults avoid alcohol abuse. This was especially true for high PFCs who had
been made aware of their desire for consistency (Sénémeaud et al., 2014) (for more on PFC,
see Chapter 10).
Self-Monitoring and Persuasion: Periscope Up
In high school, a sister of one of the authors dated a guy who was a maniac on the dance
floor. Out of context, you’d never have guessed he was dancing. He used to stomp his feet
and flap his hands wildly and out of rhythm. Some said he looked badly wounded. Others
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simply stared. But whatever went on around him, he seemed oblivious, not caring what others
thought of him.
The account you’ve just read is related to a personality trait called self-monitoring (Snyder,
1974, 1979). The wild dancer in the story is what people who study personality would call a
low self-monitor. If you are a low self-monitor, you tend to be less sensitive than others to
social cues. In addition, you are not that concerned about what others think of your behavior.
You are individualistic and may not always act in ways that are considered socially
appropriate. You honestly express your thoughts and feelings, even though you may not be
conforming to other people’s expectations.
However, if you are a high self-monitor, you tend to be very sensitive to social cues. You pay
close attention to what’s considered appropriate in a given situation and act accordingly. You
watch other people’s behavior and are good at adapting to different audiences because you
have a large repertoire of social skills. You are concerned with appearances and try to “fit in”
with others, even when such behavior may contradict what you believe.
As you might expect, high and low self-monitors are persuaded differently. For instance,
White and Gerstein (1987) conducted a study to investigate how high and low self-monitors
might be persuaded to offer help to people with disabilities. Because they knew that high
self-monitors want to “look good,” these researchers suspected that high self-monitors could
be persuaded to help if they thought a social reward would result. To test this, high and low
self-monitors heard lectures about Kitty Genovese, a woman who was murdered in New York
City while many people watched but did not help. In one version of the lecture, subjects
learned that people who help receive social rewards. In another version, subjects were told
that helping others usually does not result in social rewards. Later, the subjects were phoned
and asked to volunteer to help people who were visually impaired. Of those who’d been told
that helping results in social rewards, 80 percent of the high self-monitors volunteered, but
only 48 percent of the low self-monitors did. When subjects did not expect social rewards, 68
percent of the low self-monitors volunteered, and only 40 percent of the high self-monitors
did. In other words, high self-monitors are influenced by situations that yield social benefits
or enhance their images. Low self-monitors are more internally motivated and less susceptible
to external rewards.
Similarly, several studies in advertising suggest that high self-monitors are more influenced
by “image-based” advertising. In contrast, low self-monitors are more interested in “product-
quality” advertising. For example, Snyder and DeBono (1989) found that high self-monitors
were willing to pay more money for a product that promised to improve their image (e.g., an
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ad shows a bottle of Canadian Club resting on a set of house blueprints and reads, “You’re
not just moving in, you’re moving up”), whereas low self-monitors would pay more for a
product that suggests high quality (e.g., an ad for Canadian Club that reads, “When it comes
to great taste, everyone draws the same conclusion”). Moreover, high self-monitors reported
liking cheese more when they believed it was from France (an image-enhancing country) than
from Kansas (DeBono & Rubin, 1995), liking perfume more when it was in an attractive
rather than an unattractive bottle (DeBono, Leavitt, & Backus, 2003), preferring an energy
drink when it was labeled “Fast Track” rather than “Energy Drink Enhancer” (Smidt &
DeBono, 2011), and preferring champagne that was endorsed by four people rather than one
person (Myers & Sar, 2013). In contrast, low self-monitors based their judgments on the
actual taste of the cheese and smell of the perfume, and preferred the label “Energy Drink
Enhancer.” Finally, Evans and Clark (2012) found that low self-monitors were more
confident in their thoughts about a persuasive appeal when the source of the appeal was
described as being an expert (e.g., a doctor and researcher), while high self-monitors were
more confident when the source was described as having an attractive image (e.g., an honor
student, active in student government).
FIGURE 5.1
High self-monitors: Daffodil Queen contestants eavesdropping on contestant interviews.
Source: Reprinted by permission of Steven G. Smith.
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Ego Involvement: Not Budging an Inch
One of the most important explanations of the process by which people are persuaded,
presented by Muzafer Sherif, Carolyn Sherif, and Robert Nebergall (Sherif & Sherif, 1967;
Sherif, Sherif, & Nebergall, 1965), is known as social judgment theory. We present the theory
here because it focuses on receivers and is particularly relevant to a psychological characteristic
known as ego involvement.
According to the theory, on any topic, whether it be abortion, an advertised product, or a
favorite movie, there are a range of possible opinions that a person can hold. For example,
one topic is what should be done with people who have been found guilty of first-degree
murder. Here are several positions, some extreme, some moderate, which you might embrace
on this topic. Murderers should:
Be pardoned if they have performed other good deeds during their lives.
Be allowed to pay “blood money” to the victim’s family to avoid prison.
Receive a 5-year prison term.
Receive a 20-year prison term.
Receive a life sentence with a chance for parole.
Receive a life sentence with no chance for parole.
Be put to death.
Be tortured to death, along with all other violent criminals.
Persuasion by Degrees
Social judgment theory argues that on this continuum of positions, we each have a most
preferred position, called an anchor. For instance, imagine that two people, Muffy and Mort,
both agree most with position 6, that murderers should spend their lives in prison with no
chance for parole. In Figure 5.2, this anchor point is represented by an “X.” Of course, the
anchor position is not the only position a person might find acceptable. You can see in Figure
5.2, for example, that Muffy also would accept the death penalty as a fitting punishment.
Together, with Muffy’s anchor, these positions represent Muffy’s latitude of acceptance. In
other words, these are positions she finds tolerable. She would not, however, agree with all
positions, for in addition to the latitude of acceptance, social judgment theory describes two
other latitudes. The first, called the latitude of noncommitment, contains positions about which
a person feels neutral or ambivalent. Muffy is neither for nor against murderers receiving life
sentences with the possibility of parole; she is neutral. The second, called the latitude of
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rejection, contains positions that a person would reject. For example, Muffy rejects the idea
that murderers be pardoned for good deeds, be allowed to pay blood money, spend 5 to 20
years in prison, or be tortured to death.
FIGURE 5.2
Illustration of social judgment theory.
Changes in Attitude, Changes in Latitude
Notice in Figure 5.2 that the span of these latitudes is different for different people.
Compared to Mort, Muffy has a larger latitude of rejection and narrower latitudes of
noncommitment and acceptance. For this reason, Muffy is a good example of an ego-
involved person. People are ego involved when an issue has personal significance to them and
their sense of self. Thus, they become strongly committed to their stand on the issue and are
more likely to reject other positions. A person might also be ego involved about one issue and
not another. For instance, Muffy might have strong feelings about what happens to
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murderers, but care less about abortion, gun control, or gasoline prices.
Assimilation–Contrast Phenomenon: The Great Divide
Social judgment theory makes several important predictions about the process of persuasion.
First, because people judge everything according to their anchor position, it is difficult, if not
impossible, to persuade them to accept a position too far away from that anchor. For instance,
if you tried to convince Mort that murderers should be pardoned for performing good deeds,
you’d be wasting your time (see Figure 5.2); messages falling inside a person’s latitude of
rejection are bound to fail. In fact, the theory argues that when a message falls too far away
from a person’s anchor position, the person perceives the message to be farther away from the
anchor than it really is. This is known as the contrast effect. However, the assimilation effect
occurs when a message that falls within a person’s latitude of acceptance is perceived to be
closer to the anchor position than it really is. For example, although Mort would prefer that
murderers be severely punished, if you told Mort that murderers should be moderately
punished, he might decide that you basically agree and accept your position. Thus, whereas
contrast leads to the rejection of a message, assimilation leads to successful persuasion.
You might have guessed by now that the contrast effect is more likely in ego-involved
people than in people who are not ego involved. Indeed, it’s difficult to persuade someone
who is ego involved (e.g., Sherif, Kelly, Rodgers, Sarup, & Tittler, 1973). Because their
latitude of rejection is so large (and their latitude of acceptance is so narrow), obviously, they
will reject most persuasive messages.
Baby Steps: Nudging Someone Along
One of the things we like best about social judgment theory is how it suggests that persuasion is
not a “one-shot deal.” We think the theory does a good job of illustrating that persuasion may
have to occur over time. For example, imagine trying to persuade Muffy that murderers
should merely be pardoned for good deeds (see Figure 5.2). We’ve already seen that trying to
convince her of that will lead to rejection. But aiming messages nearer the anchor point
might meet with more success. You might try to persuade Muffy that life in prison with a
chance for parole is a good position. Then, if she agrees to that, later you could try to
convince her that 20 years in prison is justified; some murderers do repent and reform. Get
the idea? Anchor positions need to be moved gradually.
Issue Involvement: What’s This Have to Do With Me?
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Although we just stated that involvement inhibits persuasion, in reality, things are more
complicated than that. Indeed, the effect of involvement on persuasion depends on the type
of involvement we’re considering. Specifically, Johnson and Eagly (1990) argued that two
types of involvement are ego involvement (a.k.a. value-relevant involvement), which is linked
to enduring values embedded in a person’s self-concept, and outcome-relevant involvement
(a.k.a. issue involvement), which has to do with a person’s current goals or outcomes (e.g., a
cancer patient with the goal of using marijuana to minimize physical pain). Based on this
notion, Johnson and Eagly analyzed a large number of studies and found that, consistent with
social judgment theory, value-relevant involvement inhibited persuasion. Meanwhile,
consistent with the elaboration likelihood model (see Chapter 2), issue involvement caused
people to pay closer attention to arguments in persuasive messages. Issue involvement
facilitated persuasion when arguments were strong but inhibited persuasion when arguments
were weak (Johnson & Eagly, 1990). Another study found that when listening to messages
promoting health, involved people were more persuaded by informational messages, while
noninvolved people were more persuaded by testimonials (Braverman, 2008).
Dogmatism, Authoritarianism, and Social Vigilantism: You Can’t Teach an Old Dog New Tricks
In the classic movie A Few Good Men, Tom Cruise and Demi Moore defend two Marines,
who, while following orders from their superior officers, accidentally killed a fellow soldier.
Their defense? “We were simply following orders.”
History is replete with examples of this excuse. It was used by Nazi defendants at
Nuremberg. It was repeated again during the Vietnam War by soldiers involved in the My
Lai massacre, by Ollie North in the Iran-Contragate scandal, and by U.S. soldiers in charge
of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib. “We were following orders” is a timeworn excuse and a
reflection of a personality trait known as authoritarianism.
Authoritarian people respect authoritative leadership and tend to follow authorities blindly
(Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levenson, & Sanford, 1950; Allport, 1954). They condemn
those who question and deviate from conventional norms, exhibit hostility toward out-group
members, and help cause and inflame intergroup conflict (Altemeyer, 1999). They are less
forgiving and more vengeful toward unrepentant transgressors (Khoury, Struthers, Santelli, &
Marjanovic, 2012), and they raise children who are unaccepting of out-groups and who tend
to associate with bullies (Knafo, 2003). They believe that power and rigid control are
acceptable, and are likely to use physical punishment. Finally, if you are authoritarian, you
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may not have the self-insight to recognize it. According to Altemeyer (1999):
If you tell people about authoritarianism, including the part about authoritarians
being aggressive when backed by authority, and then ask them how willing they
would be to help the federal government eliminate authoritarians, then—you
guessed it—High [authoritarians] will be more willing to volunteer than others, to
hunt themselves down. … And yet, compared with most people, they think their
minds are models of rationality and self-understanding.
(p. 159)
A personality trait that is very much related to authoritarianism is dogmatism (Rokeach,
1960). In fact, according to Christie (1991), dogmatism was introduced as a more general
type of authoritarianism; although some argue that authoritarianism and dogmatism scales
measure the same thing, others claim that the authoritarianism scale tends to identify closed-
minded conservatives, whereas the dogmatism scale identifies closed-minded liberals and
conservatives. Whatever the case, dogmatic people, like authoritarians, tend to be deferential
to authorities. In addition, dogmatics are closed-minded, have difficulty being objective, and
tend to believe there is only one right way to do things (i.e., their way).
With this in mind, you might think that such closed-mindedness makes authoritarian and
dogmatic people difficult to persuade. Interestingly, however, a meta-analysis by Preiss and
Gayle (1999) found just the opposite—that is, compared to their counterparts, dogmatic and
authoritarian people were easier to persuade. The authors suggested that the rigid beliefs of
people with such traits might interfere with the way they scrutinize messages, thereby
resulting in greater agreement with a message.
Note, however, that although Preiss and Gayle’s (1999) analysis is useful in some respects,
we think it’s too soon to conclude that dogmatic and authoritarian people are easy to
persuade. Indeed, we suggest that more research needs to be conducted to determine when
dogmatism/authoritarianism is positively related to persuasion and when it is not. By way of
example, successfully persuading such people might depend on the nature of the source.
Harvey and Beverly (1961), for instance, reported that high authoritarians, compared to low
authoritarians, are more likely to be influenced by a person who is a high-status authority.
Similarly, a study by DeBono and Klein (1993) found that when dogmatic people received
persuasive messages from experts, they did not think much about the messages and,
regardless of the quality of the messages, were more persuaded than people who were not
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dogmatic. However, when they received persuasive messages from nonexperts, dogmatics
were more persuaded by strong arguments than by weak ones. Thus, it may be that
authoritarians and “high dogs,” as people who are highly dogmatic are called by researchers,
are especially vulnerable to messages from authority figures.
A related trait is known as social vigilantism (Saucier & Webster, 2010). Like dogmatics,
social vigilantes think their beliefs are superior to others’ beliefs. Unlike dogmatics, who tend
to dismiss those who disagree with them, social vigilantes try to impress their beliefs onto
others. By way of example, when confronted with a contrary view, a social vigilante in one
study stated, “Everyone does have a right to their own opinions. I just think you should know
how ignorant you sound when you voice them” (Saucier & Webster, 2010, p. 19). Not
surprisingly, research indicates that social vigilantes, compared to people measuring low on
this trait, not only express more belief superiority, they also counterargue more (Saucier &
Webster, 2010), and attempt to dominate conversations (Maki & Raimi, 2017). Finally,
when trying to resist the persuasive attempts of others, social vigilantes use a variety of tactics,
including getting emotionally upset and belittling their conversational partners (Saucier,
Webster, Hoffman, & Strain, 2014).
Narcissism: How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways
In Greek mythology, Narcissus, who scorned those who loved him, saw his reflection in a
pool of water and fell in love with himself. Not only that, he got a personality trait named
after him. According to a review by Kausel and his colleagues (2016), narcissists have
grandiose views of themselves, a lack of concern for others, and use a wide range of persuasive
strategies to increase their self-concept and public image. What’s more, narcissists are
persuaded by messages that fuel their conceit. One study, for example, found that narcissists,
compared to non-narcissists, were more likely to purchase high- versus low-distinctive
merchandise (e.g., a “limited-edition” iPod case with personal name engraving rather than a
$50 gift card) (Lee, Gregg, & Park, 2013). Another found that narcissists were fond of
“virtual mirror,” a popular application that allows consumers to experience products virtually.
Specifically, narcissists, compared to non-narcissists, were more inclined to purchase clothing
when their own images, rather than the images of professional models, were overlaid with the
clothing (Baek, Yoo, & Yoon, 2016). Finally, when it comes to persuading potential sexual
partners, narcissists are more likely to employ coercive tactics, including physical force, the
use of alcohol, and manipulation (Blinkhorn, Lyons, & Almond, 2015). Given that, it’s hard
to see what they see in themselves.
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Cognitive Complexity and Need for Cognition
How would you describe your best friend? Fun or boring? Intelligent or stupid? Superficial or
disclosive? Even-tempered or moody?
According to a theory known as constructivism (Delia, O’Keefe, & O’Keefe, 1982), people
attempt to make sense of their world by using constructs like the ones just mentioned.
Constructs are perceptual categories (e.g., fat/thin, popular/unpopular, strong/weak) that we
use when evaluating everything from professors, to textbooks, to music, to arguments.
Constructs can be compared to eyeglasses: Just as the size, shape, and color of lenses affect
the way you see things, the constructs you use to filter messages influence the way in which
you perceive the world. For instance, someone who evaluates you on the sole basis of whether
you are Christian or non-Christian will see you much differently than someone who uses
more constructs (such as kind or cruel, shy or extroverted, happy or sad, playful or serious,
emotional or stoic) to evaluate you. Obviously, everyone has a unique system of constructs,
and some people clearly use more constructs than others. People who use a large number of
different and abstract constructs that are well integrated are known as cognitively complex,
whereas those who use fewer and less abstract constructs are cognitively simple.
People who are more cognitively complex, compared to those who are not, are better at
seeing the world from their listeners’ perspective. As a general rule, they are better at adapting
their messages to their listeners and are much more persuasive (Waldron & Applegate, 1998).
When it comes to being persuaded, cognitively complex people may also differ from those
who are cognitively simple. For instance, cognitively complex people may be more willing
than people low in cognitive complexity to tolerate messages that are inconsistent with their
cognitions (McGill, Johnson, & Bantel, 1994).
In addition to being different in the degree to which they are cognitively complex, research
shows that people differ in their need for cognition (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982). People who are
high in the need for cognition enjoy effortful thinking more than those low in the need. We
also bet they like playing chess and torturing themselves with logic puzzles. According to
some researchers, need for cognition is one facet of cognitive complexity (McGill et al.,
1994). Whatever the case, compared to people who are low in the need for cognition, those
high in the need for cognition are more tolerant of disagreement (Linvill, Mazer, &
Boatwright, 2016) and are viewed by discussion partners as more effective persuaders who
generate more valid arguments for their views (Shestowsky & Horowitz, 2004). Perhaps that
is why research indicates that people who are high in the need for cognition are more
effective salespeople than those who are low in the need for cognition (Sojka & Deeter-
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Schmelz, 2008).
Research also shows that people high in the need for cognition are persuaded differently
than their brain-relaxing counterparts. Although people high in the need for cognition pay
close attention to messages, evaluating and scrutinizing all the time, people low in the need
for cognition are less motivated to attend to messages and are persuaded by peripheral cues
instead (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982). Thus, if you’re high in the need for cognition, you are
persuaded by quality arguments. If you’re low in the need for cognition, you may be
persuaded by an attractive speaker (see Perlini & Hansen, 2001), a likable source (Reinhard
& Messner, 2009), a celebrity spokesperson (Williams-Piehota, Schneider, Pizarro, Mowad,
& Salovey, 2003), a lot of examples, or a snappy-sounding sales pitch, even if the arguments
used are weak. For example, Kaufman, Stasson, and Hart (1999) found that when reading an
article on evolution theory, the evaluations of people high in the need for cognition were not
affected by the source of the article. In contrast, people low in the need for cognition rated
the article favorably, but only if they thought it came from the Washington Post (a highly
credible source). If they thought the article was from the National Enquirer, they did not rate
it favorably. At least one implication is clear: If the ghost of Elvis Presley really wants a
following, it should seek coverage in a more reputable publication.
Persuasion and Aggression: Sticks and Stones
Persuasion is not always pretty. Spouse abuse is rampant. Parents beating children as a way to
get them to behave is all too common. And who hasn’t been called “chicken,” “wimp,”
“bitch,” or “brat” by someone wanting to see a change in behavior? Clearly, aggression is the
dark side of persuasion. On the other hand, Dominic Infante (1987) argues that aggression is
not always bad; aggressive acts can be either constructive or destructive (or both), depending
on the type of aggression and how it affects a relationship (Infante, 1987; Rancer, 2004).
According to Infante, there are several forms of aggressive communication. We discuss two of
them here.
First, verbal aggressiveness, a destructive form of aggression, involves the tendency to attack
someone by using threats, profanity, insults, and teasing, and by insulting their character,
competence, background, appearance, and so forth (Rancer, 2004). In short, verbal aggression
is aimed at damaging another person’s self-concept. As might be expected, compared to
nonviolent marriages, violent ones are characterized by higher verbal aggressiveness (Infante,
Chandler, & Rudd, 1989). In other contexts, verbally aggressive teachers are perceived as less
credible than their counterparts (Mazer & Stowe, 2016), and verbally aggressive supervisors
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have less satisfied and committed employees (Madlock & Dillow, 2012).
In contrast, argumentativeness, a constructive form of assertiveness, involves the tendency
to defend and refute positions on controversial issues. Argumentative people approach
arguments while nonargumentative people avoid them (Rancer, 2004). Although we
sometimes have negative connotations about the word “argument,” research shows that
argumentativeness is associated with employee satisfaction (Infante & Gordon, 1991) and
success in college (Infante, 1982). Moreover, while students perceive verbally aggressive
instructors as having low credibility, they perceive argumentative instructors as having high
credibility (Edwards & Myers, 2007).
To us, perhaps the most interesting line of research on traits and influence examines the
ways in which people “edit” their persuasive messages before they present them. Perhaps
you’ve caught yourself doing this—you want to use a particular strategy, but something keeps
you from doing it. A study by Hample and Dallinger (1987) explored the reasons people keep
themselves from using certain influence strategies and found that verbal aggressiveness is
associated with these reasons. For example, compared to verbally aggressive people, those
who are not verbally aggressive tend to suppress arguments because the arguments violate
their principles (e.g., threats may be seen as unethical) or for person-centered reasons (e.g.,
using certain strategies may harm a person’s image or a personal relationship). (For more
detail on this topic, see Hample, 2016.)
Finally, although we’ve painted a rather grim picture of verbal aggression, some of our own
work (Seiter & Gass, 2010) argues that such aggression may be acceptable in certain
situations. Take political contests as an example. Unlike many people we’ve heard grumbling
about how negative and nasty political campaigns have become, we welcome political attacks.
Don’t get us wrong; we are not condoning all comments. Foes who labeled John Quincy
Adams a tyrant and pimp, and Abraham Lincoln an ape and butcher were clearly out of line.
On the other hand, we do not mind attacks, even those aimed at a politician’s character, as
long as the attacks are truthful, relevant, and appropriate. Voters should have the information
they need to make tough choices, even if that information comes at a cost to potentially
ineffective or unethical folks who are running for public office.
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•
•
•
ANALYZING AND ADAPTING TO AUDIENCES
To us, the most entertaining part of Super Bowl Sunday is its television advertisements. This,
of course, is not surprising when you consider that businesses spend billions of dollars every
year analyzing their audiences, trying to determine what will pique interests and sell products.
Despite the big bucks, however, when attempting to market products to different cultural
groups, businesses have made some pretty big blunders: Here are some classic examples:
The Swedish furniture company Ikea agreed on the name “Fartfull” for one of its desks
(Cross cultural marketing blunders, 2012).
When Kentucky Fried Chicken opened in China, its famous slogan “Finger lickin’
good” was mistranslated into Chinese characters that meant “eat your fingers off”
(Brooks, 2013).
Imagine how those in the auto industry felt when they learned that, in Spanish, Nova
means “It doesn’t go”; in Portuguese, Pinto is slang for “a small male organ”; and Esso,
pronounced phonetically in Japanese, means “stalled car” (Copeland & Griggs, 1985).
But wait! Corporations can still goof up, even when cultural differences are not involved.
Take Target, for example. The mammoth discount store ran into trouble when a customer
noticed that the same dress was listed as “Manatee Gray” in plus-sizes and “Dark Heather
Gray” in regular sizes (Krupnick, 2013). Whoops!
The lesson here is simple: If you want to be influential, know whom you are talking to and
adapt accordingly. Remember what we said earlier about cognitively complex people?
Research shows that such people are more persuasive because they are able to see the world
from other people’s points of view. As a result, they tend to use person-centered influence
tactics (i.e., tactics tailored specifically to the person they are trying to persuade; Waldron &
Applegate, 1998). This, to us, seems to be what persuasion is all about: adapting a message so
it coincides with the receiver’s frame of reference. To be sure, a persuader doesn’t move the
receiver to the message, the persuader moves the message to the receiver. It’s what’s called
being “market-driven” in business, “audience-centered” in public speaking, and “listener-
oriented” in interpersonal communication. It may also be the most important lesson you can
learn about how to be a successful persuader. To influence other people, you should know as
much as possible about them so you can appeal to their needs and wants, while at the same
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time avoid offending them. Of course, attempting to be too diplomatic can go too far. For
example, we once heard a story of some people who asked a politician where he stood on a
particular issue. So as not to alienate anyone, the politician replied, “Some of my friends are
for it, some of my friends are against it, and I’m for my friends.” If we’d been in the audience,
we would not have been impressed. Thus, it’s important to adapt to an audience without
coming across as insincere, “smooth,” or deceptive.
FIGURE 5.3
Adapting the message to the audience’s frame of reference.
Source: © Arnie Levin/ The New Yorker Collection/ www.cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
Entire books have been written on audience analysis (McQuail, 1997), and we cannot give
full treatment to the topic here. However, to help you understand the types of issues involved,
we discuss segmentation analysis, a special type of audience analysis, in Box 5.2. In addition,
we list a few guidelines that might be useful if you’re ever faced with an audience that needs
to be analyzed.
Pay Attention to the Situation
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Remember what we discussed earlier in the chapter: Communicator characteristics and
situations affect how audiences respond to persuasive messages. Knowing details about some
aspects of a situation can be useful when preparing to persuade someone. For instance, will
you be talking to one person or to a large audience? Will the setting be noisy, hot, colorful?
Will the persuasion occur in the morning or evening? Will you be inside or out, in a church,
or on a football field? Might there be hecklers? Are you expected to talk for five minutes, or
can you blab for hours?
Obviously, the number of possible situations is endless. Even so, knowing something
about the situation can help you adapt. It’s important to try to put yourself in the shoes of
your audience. Try to figure out what would appeal to you if you were in their situation and
then adapt your message accordingly. Of course, remember to be an ethical persuader. In our
opinion, analyzing the situation can help you do this. We’ll have more to say about this topic
in Chapter 16.
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BOX 5.2 | Bull’s-Eye! An Examination of Targeted Micromarketing
When you consider the billions of dollars that advertisers spend each year, it shouldn’t
surprise you to find out how much time they devote to learning “things” about their
audience. But we have to admit— we were surprised, even scared a little, by some of the
things these folks know, or at least claim to know. Did you realize, for example, that
based on your zip code, market researchers claim to know what you eat for breakfast,
what kind of car you drive, what you watch on television, and a whole lot more? They
base these predictions on research showing that people who have the same zip codes
tend to be remarkably similar. Not only that, based on your zip code, marketers have
dubbed you with funny-sounding nicknames like “Blue-Blood Estates,” “Money and
Brains,” and “Single City Blues.” So, for example, if your zip code is 94117 or 15232,
you are a “Bohemian Mix,” you’re probably 18 to 34 years old, you enjoy liberal politics
and classical records, read The New Yorker, and eat frozen waffles (Berger, 2004). See?
Spooky!
Using zip codes to categorize consumers is just one example of what is known as
micromarketing or market segmentation, which involves “breaking a market down to
definable, manageable segments and then tailoring your efforts to just one or two
(Ogden, 2000, p. 29; Schewe & Meredith, 2004). It sounds complicated, but nowadays,
it’s necessary. Clearly, advertising, campaigning, and marketing are not as easy as they
used to be. For example, Penn (2007) argued that a once-universal audience has
fragmented into hundreds of small groups or niches. Examples include “Tech Fatales”
(women prone to buying technological equipment), “30 Winkers” (people getting less
than seven hours of sleep a night), and “Late-Breaking Gays” (gay people who have
come out of the closet later in life due to more social acceptance of homosexuality).
These small groups, if understood correctly, can be adapted and appealed to, thus
starting “microtrends” that can affect business and society in profound ways.
Of course, it’s not only zip codes that help marketers segment audiences. They have a
large list of ways to categorize their consumers. Knowing your age, for instance, may
help them design ads that appeal to you. But wait—it gets more complicated. For
example, it is not enough to know that your main audience is composed of children.
One marketing firm has argued that there are “six species of kids,” each requiring a
different approach (Gertner, 2004, p. 102). According to Debra Phillips (1999), it may
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sound funny, but there’s a big difference between being 10 years old and being 14, and
advertisements aimed at teens are different than those aimed at “the legions of 9- to 12-
year-olds whimsically referred to as ‘’tweens’”(p. 126). Whereas ’tweens may scoff at the
likes of Mickey Mouse and his pals (Phillips, 1999), younger children are still attracted
to such characters.
If your head isn’t spinning yet, just wait. We all know, for instance, that kids like
candy, but different groups of kids (and adults) may have different tastes. If you’re a
marketer, here’s when knowing the ethnicity of your target audience can come in handy.
For example, market research suggests that while African Americans enjoy very sweet,
hard candies in nonchocolate flavors like mint and coconut, Hispanic Americans like
“aggressive” flavors like lollipops coated with chili powder and mixed with tamarind.
Asian Americans, on the other hand, like the texture of chocolate (“Serving ethnic
markets,” 1999). When you consider this, along with the fact that African Americans,
Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans make up a large portion of the U.S.
population, it is clear why marketers are targeting these groups with all sorts of appeals,
including ethnic “aisles” in grocery stores and packaging that attracts certain ethnic
groups (e.g., for many Asian Americans, candy packaged in tins connotes quality)
(“Serving ethnic markets,” 1999).
Of course, by now, we’re sure you see that the number of ways that marketers can
segment consumers is almost limitless. Indeed, in addition to using age, zip codes, and
ethnicity, marketers design messages on the basis of gender, education, economic status,
and career choice, just to name a few. As time goes by, consumer markets only promise
to get smaller. This is especially true on the Internet, which, according to Bianco,
Lowry, Berner, Arndt, and Grover (2004), is an interactive medium that enables
marketers to personalize messages and products for each consumer. One of the authors,
for example, is a member of Netflix, a company that lets you order movies online. After
viewing a movie, you can rate it and, based on your ratings, the company provides you
with personalized recommendations for other movies you might like. If you have ever
purchased a product from Amazon.com, you might have noticed the same feature: Every
time you make a purchase, you may be giving information that can be used to persuade
you in the future. In fact, according to Lindstrom (2011), when you search Google, use
Facebook, swipe your credit card, or download an iTunes song, data-mining companies
are analyzing it and then selling your data to marketers. Even using those innocent-
looking online coupons can help marketers target you. Specifically, those coupon’s bar
216
codes are encoded with information about you, which can be used by marketers later
(Lindstrom, 2011).
Keep Your Audience’s Mind in Mind
In the old movie What Women Want, Mel Gibson played a male chauvinist advertiser who,
after a freak accident, was able to read women’s minds. Not surprisingly, Mel not only
became an expert at attracting the opposite sex but could also design advertisements that
women couldn’t resist. The movie illustrates how much easier persuasion might be if you had
ESP. Indeed, if you could look into people’s minds and know their attitudes, values, and
needs, we imagine that adapting your persuasive messages would be a piece of cake.
Although we can’t teach you to be psychic, we can give you a few tips about “reading”
people’s attitudes, values, and needs. First, as you already know from Chapter 3, there are a
number of ways to measure or make guesses about people’s attitudes (e.g., using scales, simply
asking them, and so on). Once you know a person’s attitudes, it is easier to show him or her
how that attitude may be inconsistent with other attitudes, shifted to be stronger, and so
forth.
Second, it may be possible to make guesses about a person’s values based on other
information. For example, values are often culturally determined. By learning the values of a
culture, there’s a reasonable chance you’ve learned the values held by an individual within the
culture. For instance, earlier in this chapter, we saw that people from the United States tend
to value individuals over collectives and that people from China tend toward the opposite.
With that in mind, persuasive messages that highlight and promote these values in their
respective cultures should be more influential than those that do not. Remember, though,
that stereotypes are not always accurate. Keep in mind that cultural values serve as guidelines
for developing persuasive messages. Even so, such messages might backfire on some
individuals.
Finally, though different individuals’ needs may vary drastically, some needs may be
universal. Knowing about such needs could prove useful for designing persuasive messages.
For example, do you think people who design and advertise smoke alarms know about basic
security needs? You bet they do! If you’ve ever seen one of those advertisements with a family
standing at the curb in their pajamas while their house burns down in the background, you
know what we’re talking about. Advertisers know how to appeal to people’s needs.
To help you get a better handle on the types of needs that may be used to motivate people,
217
consider the now-classic typology presented by the humanistic psychologist Abraham
Maslow (1970). According to Maslow, human needs are hierarchical, with the most basic
biological needs at the lowest level of the hierarchy and more complex needs at the top.
Specifically, Maslow argued that human needs were arranged in the following order, from
most basic to most complex: physiological (e.g., the need for food and water), safety (e.g., the
need for stability and security), belonging (e.g., the need for acceptance and love), esteem
(e.g., the need to feel important and unique), and self-actualization (e.g., the need to grow,
create, and understand). According to Maslow, before people are motivated to satisfy higher-
level needs, their lower-level needs must be met. Thus, a person who is starving to death will
be more interested in obtaining food than in boosting his or her self-esteem.
Remember the Importance of Audience States and Traits
You know by now that communicator traits and states play a large role in persuasion. It’s
something to keep in mind if you’re ever confronted by someone with traits or in the states
we’ve discussed. For example, we noted that anxious people require specific recommendations
and reassurances when using fear appeals and that high self-monitors respond well to
messages that promise to help them “fit in.” Previous research suggests that tailoring your
appeals to the particular traits of your audience will make you more successful in your
persuasive endeavors (Hirsch, Kang, & Bodenhausen, 2012; Kraichy & Chapman, 2014).
Don’t Forget About Audience Demographics
A person who can adapt to people of different ages, genders, cultures, and so forth obviously
will be more successful than a person who can’t. For example, when speaking to small
children, using lots of statistics would probably lead to lots of “ants in the pants.” By the same
token, a group of senior citizens would probably squirm or snooze if forced to listen to a
speech about planning for pregnancy. Moreover, although we noted that there do not appear
to be gender differences in persuadability, it doesn’t mean a speaker can ignore the gender of
her audience. Notice, for example, by using the word her in the previous sentence, we failed
to address males who might be reading this book. In short, we’re sure you get the point:
Whenever possible, know about your audience’s age, gender, socioeconomic status, and so
forth. Then adapt.
218
219
SUMMARY
In this chapter, we discussed several communicator characteristics that affect the process of
persuasion. First, we examined demographic variables, noting that some (e.g., age, ethnicity)
influence the sending and receiving of persuasive messages, whereas others (e.g., gender) do
not appear to be related to influenceability. Second, we showed how several psychological and
communication states and traits (i.e., self-esteem, anxiety, preference for consistency, self-
monitoring, ego involvement, dogmatism, authoritarianism, social vigilantism, narcissism,
cognitive complexity, need for cognition, and aggression) influence persuasive
communication. Finally, we examined the notion of audience analysis, indicating that
persuaders, when possible, should attempt to adapt to the needs, wants, backgrounds, and so
forth of their audiences.
220
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communication: Beyond the canon (pp. 186–212). San Antonio, TX: International Association for Intercultural
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B
CHAPTER 6
Conformity and Influence in Groups
Conformity as Persuasion: In With the Crowd
In the Beginning: Early Research on Conformity Effects
Variables Related to Conformity
Social Proof: Using the Sheep Factor to Persuade Others
Ostracism: Shuns and Guns
Deindividuation, Social Loafing, and Social Facilitation: Getting Lost in the Crowd
What a Riot: An Examination of Deindividuation
Social Loafing: Not Pulling Your Own Weight
Social Facilitation: Would You Rather Be Alone?
How Groups Affect Decision Making: To Risk or Not to Risk
O, PEEP, SHEEP, AND THE HALE–BOPP COMET may sound like the makings
of a good fairytale, but, as the saying goes, truth is stranger than fiction, and,
unfortunately, the story of Bo and Peep’s sheep is a true one. We refer to the people of the
Heaven’s Gate cult as sheep because who else but sheep would believe what these people were
told—that they should commit mass suicide so they might shed their bodies and be whisked
away by an alien spaceship that was flying around in the tail of the Hale–Bopp comet?
Whether they believed it or not, they did what their leaders, Bo and Peep, told them to do.
In 1997, sheriff’s deputies found the corpses of 21 women and 18 men decomposing in a
home in Rancho Santa Fe, California. All of the members of the cult had apparently ingested
a fatal mixture of phenobarbital, applesauce, pudding, and vodka (Gleick, 1997).
As authors who are interested in the process of social influence, we can’t help but wonder
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how and why people like those in the Heaven’s Gate cult can be persuaded to such extremes.
Clearly, several factors must have contributed to the largest mass suicide in U.S. history. The
cult members—though reportedly bright and happy—must have been highly persuadable.
Moreover, the leaders of the cult, Marshall Herff Applewhite and Bonnie Lu Nettles (known
as Bo and Peep), were highly charismatic and trusted by their followers. But beyond the
characteristics of the cult leaders and members, we believe that a strong group dynamic may
have contributed to the suicide. Indeed, although from society’s perspective the members of
the cult were deviants, there seemed to be pressure within the cult to “fit in.” For instance,
the members of the cult reportedly looked the same, so much so that when the corpses were
first discovered, they were believed to be men only. The cult members were described as
having androgynous appearances; the women wore cropped hair, and many of the men,
including the cult’s leader, had been castrated. Finally, the cult members were known to dress
the same, wearing what one person described as black pajamas. When the 39 corpses were
found, each was dressed in black: black pants, black shirt, and brand-new black Nike shoes
(Gleick, 1997).
We imagine that, if nothing else, being a member of a cult satisfies a need to belong. Cults
often attract new members by providing seemingly loving environments for their new
recruits. Along with this, however, comes pressure to fit in. With such pressure, it’s easy to
see how a cult member might have been sucked into the suicide. When you identify so
strongly with people who are carrying out some action, the action not only seems more
“right,” it becomes necessary for you to participate if you want to be part of the group. This is
true not only in cults, a topic we revisit later in this chapter, but in other social collectives as
well. Families, peer groups, workplaces, even classrooms, exert strong pressure on their
members to behave in certain ways. For that reason, this chapter examines the role of groups
in the process of social influence. We begin by discussing the topic of conformity.
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CONFORMITY AS PERSUASION: IN WITH THE CROWD
During a lecture by a sociology professor, in a classroom that held more than 100 people, an
undergraduate student, known by both of your authors, removed his shirt, pants, shoes, and
socks. Then, almost naked, he stood in the aisle, waiting to be noticed. The professor, who
had been looking down at his notes, did not notice our friend until other people in the
classroom began gasping and laughing. When the professor finally did look up, he was
stunned. Undaunted, the nearly naked student looked down at himself and asked, “Does this
count?”
Apparently, just before the student disrobed, the professor had been lecturing on the topic
of norms and conformity. Norms are expectations held by a group of people about what
behaviors or opinions are right or wrong, good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable,
appropriate or inappropriate (Andrews, 1996). Once norms are understood, we feel pressure
to conform to them. Of course, the professor had probably explained to our friend and his
other students that some norms are explicit. Explicit norms are written or spoken openly. For
example, road signs indicate how fast you are permitted to drive and game rules may send you
to jail without collecting $200. Some norms, however, are implicit and not so openly stated.
For example, we imagine that when you’re a guest in someone’s home, you don’t put your feet
on the dinner table even though you’ve never read a rule saying you shouldn’t. Likewise—
and this is what the sociology professor told his class—because we all conform to social
norms, no one would take his or her clothes off in the middle of a classroom lecture. Of
course, our friend, who prides himself on being a nonconformist, couldn’t resist this
challenge. The rest is history, and the professor now has a good story to tell whenever he
lectures about norms and conformity.
In the Beginning: Early Research on Conformity Effects
Not everyone is like our friend, the student-stripper in the sociology class. As we’ve noted, in
most cases, people know the norms and try to go along with the crowd. Perhaps the most
compelling experiment on the effects of conformity was conducted by Solomon Asch (1956).
Here’s how his experiment worked: Asch gathered several (seven to nine) college students
into a classroom and told them that they would be participating in an experiment about visual
judgment. The students were asked to look at two large, white cards. As can be seen in Figure
6.1, a single vertical line appeared on the first card, and three vertical lines, each of different
229
length, appeared on the second card. The students’ task was simple: After observing both
cards, they were asked to match lines—that is, each student was asked to report out loud, to
the rest of the group, which of the three lines on the second card was the same length as the
line on the other card. According to Asch (1966), the experiment began uneventfully but
changed rapidly:
The subjects announce their answers in the order in which they have been seated in
the room, and on the first round every person chooses the same matching line. Then
a second set of cards is exposed: Again the group is unanimous. The members appear
ready to endure politely another boring experiment. On the third trial there is an
unexpected disturbance. One person near the end of the group disagrees with all the
others in his selection of the matching line. He looks surprised, indeed incredulous,
about the disagreement.
FIGURE 6.1
example of Visuals Used in Asch’s experiment. Subjects are asked which of the three lines on the comparison card (right)
match the line on the reference card (left).
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FIGURE 6.2
Source: © Charles Barsotti/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
On the following trial he disagrees again, while the others remain unanimous in
their choice. The dissenter becomes more and more worried and hesitant as the
disagreement continues in succeeding trials; he may pause before announcing his
answer and speak in a low voice, or he may smile in an embarrassed way.
(p. 320)
What the dissenting student in Asch’s study did not know was that all of the other
students in the group were planted by Asch and told beforehand to give the wrong answers.
In other words, Asch was really interested in what a person would do when he or she was
giving correct answers that are contrary to the answers of a near-unanimous group decision.
What he found was that conformity was common; under group pressure, 75 percent of the
subjects gave the wrong answer in at least one of the trials.
In short, then, Asch’s experiment illustrates the tremendous power of groups to exert
influence. Even so, not all of Asch’s subjects behaved in the same way. For instance, about 25
percent remained fairly independent, rarely conforming to the group’s answers. Moreover,
about 10 percent of the subjects agreed with the group on almost every trial. Thus, it is
probably true that some individuals are more prone to conformity than others. In addition,
some situations may produce more conformity than others, a topic we discuss next.
Variables Related to Conformity
Does Group Size Affect Conformity? The More the Scarier?
On the television show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? contestants can make a bundle of
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money if they can answer a series of questions that become progressively more difficult. Of
course, if they get stumped, the rules allow them to “poll the audience,” asking those in the
studio for advice on one, and only one, question. With that in mind, if you were a contestant
on the show and had the choice of an audience with 5 people or 500 people, which audience
would you want? What if your choice were between an audience of 499 and 500 people?
Would the extra person make a very big difference and, if not, at what point does adding
people to the audience become less relevant?
Regardless of whether they watch Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, for some time
researchers have been interested in the role that group size plays in persuasion. Two of many
theories that make different predictions about the relationship between group size and
persuasion are social impact theory (SIT) (Latané, 1981) and the social influence model (SIM)
(Tanford & Penrod, 1984). The first, SIT, argues that the first person you add to a group has
the most influence. Each additional member has some impact, but less than the person added
before him or her. In contrast, SIM argues that the third and fourth people added to a group
have the most impact because no minority is possible with only two people. In other words, it
is easier to disagree with one person than it is to disagree with two or three people. After
three or four people are added, however, the pressure to conform levels off.
Empirical results and meta-analyses on which is the better of these two perspectives are
mixed (see Bond, 2005; Bond & Smith, 1996): Some studies support one perspective, some
the other, and some neither. After reviewing the literature, we suspect that both models have
found support because both may be accurate when you consider an additional variable—that
is, when you are making a decision in a group, you are motivated by two things: You want to
be right and you want to be liked (Campbell & Fairey, 1989; Deutsch & Gerard, 1955).
Specifically, sometimes we conform to a group because the group has informational influence
—that is, we have a desire to be right and we conform to the group because we think the
group may be correct. However, sometimes we conform to a group because it has normative
influence. This means that we conform in order to gain rewards (e.g., be liked) and avoid
punishments (e.g., scorn) that are associated with agreement and disagreement.
What does this have to do with group size? According to Campbell and Fairey (1989),
increasing the number of people in a group affects informational and normative processes
differently. Specifically, when you want to be right, as in the millionaire example, the first
person added has the most impact because each additional person’s judgment is more likely to
be redundant with others in the group. On the other hand, imagine you are just playing an “at
home” version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? with some new neighbors. Your goal is not
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to win money, but just to fit in, be liked, and make some new friends. In this case, agreeing
with the neighbors, especially when the number of them reaches two or three, is more likely,
even if you think they are wrong. According to Bond (2005), normative influence is stronger
when people respond in front of the group, while informational influence is stronger when
people respond in private. That’s not to say that these two forms of influence act
independently. One study (Levitan & Verhulst, 2016), for example, found that both
normative and informational influence can have long-lasting effects on people’s political
attitudes. (For more about group size and conformity, see Box 6.1.)
Security in Numbers: The Effect of More Than One Dissenter
Having an ally helps a person resist conforming to a group. For example, Allen and Levine
(1971) found that a single subject is likely to conform when faced with four other people who
disagree, but if one of those four sides with the subject, the subject continues to dissent.
Interestingly, this seems to be the case even when the supporting partner’s judgments are
questionable. For example, Allen and Levine (1971) found that when trying to make
judgments about visual stimuli, even a supporting partner who seemed visually impaired (e.g.,
wore thick glasses and seemed to have a hard time seeing) prevented subjects from
conforming.
Emotional Reaction of the Majority: Foaming at the Mouth
Since most people are motivated to fit in, it makes sense that getting angry at them when
they disagree should increase their motivation to conform. At least that’s what one group of
researchers thought (Heerdink, van Kleef, Homan, & Fischer, 2015). But they were wrong.
Contrary to their hypothesis, when a majority group of members expressed anger, it led to
anti-conformity, perhaps because the dissenter wanted to harm the group or restore freedom
of choice (reactance). Bottom line? If you’re trying to bring someone back into the fold, keep
your cool.
Moral Conviction: Wrong Is Wrong?
Imagine this scenario: Enemy soldiers are approaching your neighborhood. You and your
neighbors try to hide, but, suddenly, your baby starts crying. The only way to keep from being
discovered is to smother your baby. Is it morally wrong to do so?
So far, we’ve seen that conformity influences the ways in which people answer factual
questions (e.g., which lines are similar lengths?), but what about ethical questions like the one
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above? To find out, Kundu and Cummins (2013) asked research participants to respond,
either alone or in groups of confederates, to the “smother-baby” question and others like it.
Results indicated that participants were swayed by the opinions of others. Stated differently,
moral judgments are vulnerable to group pressure too.
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BOX 6.1 | Majority Rules: How to Influence When You’re Alone in a Group
This chapter discusses the ways in which a majority of people can influence a minority.
As many minority groups have illustrated throughout history, however, sometimes, the
minority can influence the majority. This is especially true when the person in the
minority is believed to have experience and expertise in whatever topic the group is
discussing (Hart, Stasson, & Karau, 1999).
Even when the person in the minority is not an expert, however, it may be possible
for him or her to influence the majority. According to a review of research by Tanford
and Penrod (1984), two strategies that a minority member can try are (1) conforming
with the group and then deviating and (2) consistently disagreeing with the group. The
first tactic involves accumulating what might popularly be known as brownie points.
Specifically, by going along with the group on most issues, you are more favorable in the
group’s eyes when you disagree. As a result, you may convince the group to go along
with your point of view. In contrast, the second tactic involves disagreeing with the
group consistently and competently. By doing this, whoever holds the minority point of
view looks more confident and may get the group’s attention (Moscovici & Faucheux,
1972; Moscovici, Lage, & Naffrechoux, 1969). Of course, these two tactics involve
opposite behaviors, so if you’re in the minority, don’t try both; pick one tactic and stick
to it. If you’re able to convince even one member of the majority to join you, research
suggests that others may follow suit (see Clark, 1999). Finally, recent research indicates
that the majority are more willing to consider minority viewpoints if they expect future
interactions (San Martin, Swaab, Sinaceur, & Vasiljevic, 2015). Considering that, you
could always mention the likelihood of future interaction.
That said, there may be exceptions. Indeed, according to the morality as motivated
resistance hypothesis, people with stronger moral convictions should be more resistant to
majority influence than people with weaker convictions (Aramovich, Lytle, & Skitka, 2012).
Thus far, research supports this hypothesis. For example, Aramovich and colleagues (2012)
found that people with strong (versus weak) convictions against torture were more likely to
express opposition to torturing suspected terrorists, even when their groups expressed support
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for such torture.
Indoctrination: Intense Initiations and Mindless Membership
The only time one of your authors was formally initiated into a group, his high school’s
Varsity Club, he had to wear a dress and sing Christmas carols in a shopping mall (and it
wasn’t even Christmas time). Of course, there are more severe initiations than this. In 2003,
for instance, a group of Chicago high school girls viciously hazed some younger girls by
kicking, strangling, and pelting them with feces, urine, fish entrails, and blood. The same
year, three young football players in Bellmore, New York, were sodomized with broomsticks,
golf balls, and pinecones during a hazing incident. And although previous literature indicates
that 50 percent or more of college athletes and fraternity and sorority members have been
involved in hazing (Waldron, 2015), students are not the only ones participating. In recent
incidents, for example, two U.S. servicemen committed suicide after being repeatedly abused
by fellow soldiers, and four Texas firefighters were suspended after binding a rookie with duct
tape and dousing him with water (Hosansky, 2013).
As brutal as these rituals sound, some argue that such practices build cohesiveness by
encouraging bonding among new recruits and rookies (see Hosansky, 2013). Interestingly
enough, this may be true. Research suggests that we value a group more if our indoctrination
into the group is severe and intense (e.g., Aronson & Mills, 1959). Not only that, once we
value a group, we are likely to conform to it. As the introduction to this chapter illustrated,
religious cults provide a frightening example of the high level of compliance that may result
from intense levels of indoctrination. Indeed, a disturbing number of cult members have died
in mass suicides that were encouraged by their leaders (see Box 6.2).
How do cults lure such people into their trap? Baron (2000) noted that indoctrination into
cults occurs in four stages. First, in the softening-up stage, recruits, often targeted when
vulnerable (e.g., following a divorce or death of a loved one), are befriended by a member and
invited to meetings. There, recruits are showered with attention and praise from cult
members, a technique referred to as “love bombing” (Richmond, 2004). Often, recruits are
“squired” by enthusiastic group members or “messianic” leaders, deprived of sleep, and then
confused. The idea here is to lure, then stress, the recruits. In the second stage, compliance,
the recruits tentatively experiment with some of the behaviors requested by the cult, which
may include changes in diet, sleep, and appearance. Though in this stage recruits may simply
be paying lip service to the demands of the cult, by the third stage, internalization, the
recruits begin to consider some of the demands and beliefs of the cult (e.g., all nonmembers
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are evil) to be more acceptable. Finally, in the consolidation stage, recruits become loyal to the
cult and demonstrate their allegiance with costly behaviors such as abandoning their careers
or academic goals, donating all their personal possessions to the cult, and recruiting new
members.
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BOX 6.2 | Modern-Day Cults: A Sad Chronology
1978: Reverend Jim Jones and 900 followers, including children, commit suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, by
drinking cyanide-laced punch.
1991: A Mexican minister and 29 followers suffocate after he instructs them to keep praying and ignore toxic
fumes filling the church.
1993: At least 80 Branch Davidians, followers of David Koresh, perish in a fire and shoot-out with the BATF
at their compound in Waco, Texas.
1993: Using primitive weapons, 53 Vietnamese tribal villagers commit suicide in the belief that they will go
straight to heaven.
1994: Sixty-seven members of the “Order of the Solar Temple” cult are found burned to death in the French
Alps in Switzerland and in Quebec, Canada.
1997: Thirty-nine members of the “Heaven’s Gate” cult, led by Marshall Applewhite, commit suicide in
California. They die so they can join the Mother Ship following the Hale-Bopp comet.
2000: More than 900 members of a reclusive Christian doomsday cult in Africa are murdered by their leaders.
Many are burned to death and many are buried in mass graves.
2003: Members of the Raelians (a cult founded by Claude Vorilhon), now known as “Rael,” claim that with the
assistance of Clonaid, a human cloning company, they have cloned two or more human infants. The
claims have never been substantiated.
Identification and Conformity: You’re My Kind of People
According to Kenneth Burke (1950), identification occurs when people achieve shared
meaning. Burke argued that humans are motivated to communicate with one another to
create identification. The notion of identification is important here because the more a person
identifies with a group, the more power the group has to influence that person.
A group that has the power to influence us through the process of identification is known
as a reference group. Of course, not all groups are reference groups. For example, you might get
together with several other students to study for a test. It’s unlikely that such a group would
exert much influence on the way you think and behave on a daily basis. However, a group of
people you admire and want to be like might have a strong impact on you, often without your
even knowing it. Because we identify with reference groups, we tend to dress the way they
dress, think the way they think, and act the way they act. With this in mind, it’s not
surprising that a considerable amount of research indicates that we tend to conform more to a
238
group of people who are similar to us than to a group of people who are not (e.g., see Phua,
2013). Previous research, for example, found that university students were more likely to
engage in high-risk sexual activity (i.e., unplanned, inebriated sex) (Holman & Sillars, 2012),
and consume more alcohol (Reed, Lange, Ketchie, & Clapp, 2007) when their peers
approved of such behavior. Similarly, students and police officers reported being less willing
to help a victim of intimate partner violence when they believed their reference group would
avoid doing so also (Baldry & Pagliaro, 2014).
FIGURE 6.3
Cartoon by John Seiter.
Although fitting in and getting along can be a good thing, Seiter (1998) argued that too
much identification can have negative consequences in a variety of contexts. For example, in
intercultural contexts, ethnocentrism, or the belief that one’s culture is the standard by which
all others should be evaluated, occurs when members of a culture identify too strongly with
their own culture. In small group contexts, groupthink (Janis, 1972) occurs when the members
in a group are so concerned with achieving consensus and getting along with each other that
they don’t disagree when they should. In organizational communication contexts, too much
identification can lead to what Tompkins and his colleagues (Bullis & Tompkins, 1989;
Tompkins & Cheney, 1985) call strong culture. Strong cultures exist when employees identify
239
so much with their organization that they conform to the organization’s values and actions.
As you might imagine, ethnocentrism, groupthink, and strong culture can result in some
seriously negative consequences. For instance, ethnocentrism can lead to hatred,
discrimination, and violence toward members of another culture (Gudykunst & Kim, 1997).
Moreover, groups and organizations characterized by groupthink and strong culture are
notorious for bad decision making, because they involve collectives of people who are all
thinking in the same way (Sims & Sauser, 2013). Seiter (1995), for example, showed how a
lumber company with a strong culture had difficulty communicating with people outside the
organization. That’s because inside the company, everyone thought things were rosy, and, as a
result, the organization found itself threatened in the face of environmentalist attacks.
Clearly, organizations and groups need members who will occasionally “rock the boat,” “blow
whistles,” and “play devil’s advocate” (Locke et al., 2001; Redding, 1985). In fact, although
such dissenters can be seen as troublemakers, they can also be admired contributors who
promote innovation, creativity, and better decisions (Jetten & Hornsey, 2014). In short, then,
it is apparent that identification, by enabling us to communicate, organize, and decrease
division, can be a worthwhile goal. However, we must be moderate in promoting it because
too much identification can be “too much of a good thing” (Seiter, 1998).
Communicator Characteristics and Conformity
In Chapter 5, we discussed in some detail the ways in which communicator characteristics are
related to persuasion. Many of the same characteristics examined there have also been studied
by researchers interested in the topic of conformity.
Sex Difference
In an analysis of a large number of studies, Bond and Smith (1996) concluded that females
are more likely to conform than males. This seems to be the case regardless of when the
studies were conducted (i.e., sex differences have not narrowed over time) or whether the
participants in the studies were in the presence of the other group members. At least one
study suggests that such differences may be due to confidence or lack thereof. Specifically,
when performing tasks that favored males, females were less confident and conformed more
than did males. For gender-neutral tasks, however, no differences in conformity were found
(Cross, Brown, Morgan, & Laland, 2016).
Peer-suasion
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The pressure to conform to peers begins early in life. Even preschoolers experience it (Haun
& Tomasello, 2011). Even so, we suspect that most people associate peer pressure with the
teen years, perhaps for good reason. Indeed, Knoll and her colleagues (2015) found that
teens, compared to younger children and adults, were more likely to value the opinions of
other teens than those of adults. According to McCoy (1991), one study conducted on more
than 3,000 teenagers found that more than two-thirds of them felt substantial peer pressure
to have sex, drink, and take drugs. Gordon (1986) found that peer pressure is the most
important factor in determining whether teens begin smoking. Moreover, because teens so
desperately want to be accepted by their peers, for those who do not believe that they fit in
with groups that pressure them, the consequences can be severe. For instance, not fitting in
can lead to depression, the number-one risk factor for teen suicide (Royte, 1994). That being
said, we must keep in mind that peer pressure is not always a bad thing. In her Pulitzer Prize-
winning book, Join the Club, for instance, Tina Rosenberg (2011) argued that peer pressure,
which she calls “the social cure,” can be used to transform the world for the better. As one
example, she showed how groups of young nonsmokers with names such as “Rage Against
the Haze” used peer pressure to cut the rate of teen smoking in half, something that
government-led antismoking campaigns based on fear (e.g., smoking kills) were unable to do.
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FIGURE 6.4
“Gee, Tommy, I’d be lost without your constant peer pressure.”
Source: © Jack Ziegler/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
Personality
Several studies have identified various aspects of personality that are related to conformity.
First, Burger (1987) found that people high in the desire to control events in their lives react
negatively to group pressure and are, therefore, less likely to conform than people with a low
desire for control. Second, high self-monitors, who pay close attention to social cues on
appropriate behavior, are more likely to conform than low self-monitors (Snyder, 1987).
Finally, Rose, Shoham, Kahle, and Batra (1994) found that people who are high in the need
for affiliation and group identification conform more than people without such needs.
Culture
After surveying more than 100,000 people in 40 different cultures, Hofstede (1984) identified
four different dimensions of values along which any culture can be placed. He labeled these
dimensions power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity– femininity, and individualism–
collectivism. Lustig and Cassotta (1996) argued that each of Hofstede’s dimensions can be
applied to the topic of conformity.
First, people from cultures that score high on power distance value hierarchy and
obedience to authority, whereas those who score low on power distance prefer equality and
participative decision making. For that reason, Lustig and Cassotta (1996) argued that people
from cultures with low power-distance scores (e.g., Israel, Australia, western European
countries) are less likely to conform than those from cultures with high power-distance scores
(e.g., the Philippines, Mexico, Venezuela, India, Singapore).
Second, people from some cultures avoid uncertainty and have little tolerance for
ambiguity, whereas people from other cultures are more at ease with the unknown. Because
ambiguous stimuli foster conformity more than unambiguous stimuli, Lustig and Cassotta
(1996) argued that cultures that are uncomfortable with ambiguous situations (e.g., Greece,
Portugal, Japan, Peru, Chile, Spain) should conform more than cultures that are comfortable
with ambiguity (e.g., the United States, Singapore, India, England, Sweden).
Third, some cultures can be characterized as “masculine” because people in them value
competition, strength, assertiveness, and achievement, whereas others can be characterized as
“feminine” because people in them value cooperation, affection, intuition, and nurturance. As
242
such, members from masculine cultures (e.g., Japan, Italy, Austria, Mexico, England,
Venezuela) should conform less than members from feminine cultures (e.g., Scandinavian
countries, Portugal, the Netherlands).
Finally, while people in individualistic cultures value personal goals and self-autonomy,
those in collectivistic cultures emphasize the importance of group goals and harmony. For
that reason, Lustig and Cassotta (1996) argued that individualists (e.g., people from the
United States, England, Australia, Canada, Italy, Denmark) are less conforming than
collectivists (e.g., people from Colombia, Korea, Peru, Taiwan, Pakistan, Chile). A meta-
analysis by Bond and Smith (1996) supports this conclusion, finding conformity to be much
higher among collectivists than individualists. In fact, even when they are encouraged to
dissent, collectivists resist doing so more than individualists do (Curseu & ten Brink, 2016).
That said, although collectivists seem to be especially susceptible to normative influence
(Savani, Wadhwa, Ulchida, Ding, & Naidu, 2015; Oh, 2013), additional research found no
difference between them and individualists when it came to conforming to informational
influence (Oh, 2013).
Social Proof: Using the Sheep Factor to Persuade Others
“But, Mom, everybody’s doing it,” is a familiar childhood refrain. Even so, children are not the
only ones who pattern their behavior after others. Much adult behavior is based on what
Cialdini (1993) has termed social proof. Specifically, social proof is the tendency to view
behaviors as more appropriate or correct when a lot of other people are engaging in such
behaviors. According to Cialdini (1993), however, although using social proof can be a handy
shortcut for deciding how to behave, it can also make us vulnerable to the persuasive attempts
of others. This is because we are more likely to engage in a behavior when persuaders lead us
to believe that a lot of other people are engaging in that behavior.
One of the authors once met a person who makes money by playing a guitar and singing
in subways and on street corners. The person explained that, even before she starts singing,
she throws some of her own money into the open guitar case. Why? When people pass by,
they think others have contributed and are more likely to do the same. Not surprisingly, this
subway minstrel is not the only one who uses the principle of social proof to persuade others.
In fact, the success of “viral marketing” (also discussed in Chapter 1) is largely based on this
principle. In his bestselling book The Tipping Point, for example, Malcolm Gladwell (2002)
argued that in the same way a sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small
group of influential people launch a fashion trend or boost the popularity of a new product.
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The idea is that consumers will see products being used or talked about by others and follow
suit. This strategy of relying on social proof or word of mouth has become known as viral
marketing and is catching on. Did you know, for example, that companies are hiring “real
people” to use their products? These “undercover” consumers are meant to provide proof that
the product is effective or worthwhile. For example, Hebrew National hired “mom squads” to
host hotdog barbeques (Goodman, 2001), and marketers for the energy drink Red Bull
decided they didn’t even need people to spread the word. Instead, they filled sidewalk trash
cans and bar tables with empty cans of the stuff (Eisenberg, 2002).
Once again, the idea is the same; if people see or hear about others using a product, they’re
more likely to try the product themselves. Research supports this notion as well. For example,
a study by Cody, Seiter, and Montagne-Miller (1995) found that when people are buying
gifts for others, social proof is one of the most effective tactics that a salesperson can use. In
fact, when salespersons told their customers that a particular product was “the most popular,”
“the best selling,” or “selling faster than we can bring them in,” customers spent more money
than when the salespersons used other tactics, such as praising the customer, doing favors for
the customer, and trying to demonstrate expertise and trustworthiness (Cody et al., 1995).
Why? It may be that people are less certain about purchases when buying for others than
when buying for themselves.
Not surprisingly, social media is a haven for social proof as well. Would it surprise you to
learn, for example, that some bloggers earn $100,000 or more per year to promote certain
brands? It’s true. Those bloggers may seem ordinary enough, but beware—their brand choices
are not always random (Wolverson, 2013).
From an organization’s point of view, digital marketing can also be tricky. Indeed,
although social media can garner a lot of attention, it can also backfire spectacularly. Consider
what happened when a British government agency tried to drum up support for a $287
million research ship by allowing Internet users to suggest and vote on names. Do you
suppose they ended up with a dignified name like “Shackleton,” “Endeavor,” or “Falcon”?
Not a chance. It turns out that voters went with “Boaty McBoatface” instead. Similarly,
imagine Taylor Swift’s surprise when Internet voters chose a school for the deaf as a concert
location, or Slovakian legislators’ astonishment when the public voted to name a pedestrian
bridge after the celebrity Chuck Norris (Rogers, 2016).1
Another method for sparking word-of-mouth marketing is a selling strategy known as
group buying, which encourages individual customers to make purchases through buying
groups in order to receive a discounted group rate (see Jing & Xie, 2011). For example, a
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company might sell a $100 item for $75 if 20 people sign up to buy the item. As a result,
customers who want the discount spread the word, essentially becoming sales agents for the
company. The Internet, of course, is a ripe environment for this approach, and it is not
surprising that a number of group-buying websites, such as Groupon.com, have emerged.
According to Chen and Lu (2015), group buying is effective for marketing products,
especially when those products are endorsed by members of our reference groups.
That said, online customer reviews of products and services can also operate as social
proof. Take, for example, the following reviews of vacation resorts adapted from Expedia.com
(Book, Tanford, Montgomery, & Love, 2015, p. 13):
“We just got back yesterday and had the time of our lives! The resort was amazing
…”
“We cannot wait to go back!”
“Let me give you the real ‘5 Star review’. If you like old, dirty and run down hotels—
5 stars! If you like hard beds and bring your own air mattress—5 stars! If you like a
cesspool for a swimming pool—5 stars!”
According to a study by Book and her colleagues (2015), reviews such as these function like
traditional word of mouth, yet have the capability of reaching far more customers. If fact,
such reviews can be more influential than prices, especially when they are unanimously
positive or negative (Book et al., 2015). Not surprisingly, online reviews are particularly
persuasive when they contain quality information (Filieri, 2015).
Social proof, of course, has the power to influence more than buying behavior, as
illustrated in a study by Burger and Shelton (2011, p. 74). Specifically, these researchers
posted two signs near elevators. One, using social proof, read, “More than 90 percent of the
time, people in this building use the stairs instead of the elevator.” The other sign said,
“Taking the stairs instead of the elevator is a good way to get some exercise.” Within two
weeks, the number of people using the elevator instead of the stairs dropped 46 percent, but
only in the social proof condition. No change was observed with the sign that merely
encouraged exercise.
Although social proof is probably a universally effective persuasion tactic, it may be more
effective when used in some cultures than others. Recall, for example, our earlier discussion
about the distinction between individualistic and collectivistic cultures. According to Cody
and Seiter (2001), because social proof is rooted in people’s tendency to conform, it should be
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especially effective in collectivistic cultures where conformity is prevalent. This seems to be
the case. For instance, Cialdini, Wosinska, Barrett, Butner, and Gornik-Durose (2001)
conducted a study to see how well social proof worked in the United States (an individualistic
culture) and Poland (a collectivistic culture). In the study, people from both cultures were
asked to indicate how willing they would be to comply with three requests: once while
considering that all their peers had complied with the request (high social proof), once while
considering that half their peers had complied with the request (moderate social proof), and
once while considering that none of their peers had complied (no social proof). Results of the
study indicated that, in both cultures, as the level of social proof increased, so did compliance.
This was especially true in Poland (Cialdini et al., 2001).
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OSTRACISM: SHUNS AND GUNS
In 1976, on the campus where one of the authors teaches, a disturbed man shot and killed six
students and one communication professor. In 1999, at Columbine High School in
Colorado, two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, shot and killed 12 students and a
teacher before committing suicide, and in 2007, Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people on the
Virginia Tech campus before committing suicide. More recently, in 2012, a gunman killed 20
children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Sadly,
such school shootings are all too prevalent. They leave us shaking our heads and asking,
“Why?” What would lead people to do such horrible things? One explanation is ostracism, the
act of excluding and ignoring others (Carter-Sowell, Chen, & Williams, 2008). Indeed,
according to Zadro and Williams’s (2006) sources, the Columbine killers acted out as a form
of retaliation after being shunned by their peers.
Up to this point, we have seen how people’s desire to belong can lead them to conform to
that group, even if they think the group is wrong. The study of ostracism underlines just how
important this need can be and how desperate for attention ostracized people can become. By
way of example, Carter-Sowell and colleagues (2008) noted that the “Bind, Torture, Kill”
serial killer was so desperate for recognition that he wrote about it to the press: “How many
do I have to kill, before I get my name in the paper or some national attention?” (p. 144).
Although the act of ostracism does not always lead to such violent incidents, research
suggests that it can affect behavior in other ways. For instance, in order to gain the
acceptance they seek, ostracized people may behave in more socially acceptable ways
(Feinberg, Willer, & Schultz, 2014). As Carter-Sowell and colleagues (2008) argued,
however, the need to fit in may render ostracized people easy marks for persuaders. To test
this notion, Riva, Williams, Torstrick, and Montali (2014) conducted a study. In it, students
played “Cyberball,” a computer ball-tossing game with two other players, who, unbeknown to
the students, were actually computer generated and programmed to ostracize the students by
hardly ever tossing the ball to them. After about two minutes of virtual shunning, the
students were approached by the experimenter, who handed them a camera and commanded
them to go outside when temperatures were below 30° Fahrenheit to take 39 creative pictures.
As suspected, the students who had been ostracized were significantly more obedient. Judges
rated their pictures to be significantly more creative than those taken by non-ostracized
students.
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DEINDIVIDUATION, SOCIAL LOAFING, AND SOCIAL FACILITATION: GETTING LOST IN THE CROWD
In previous sections, we saw how people can be pressured to conform to a group. This,
however, is not the only way that groups can influence an individual. In this section we
examine how groups can affect a person’s behavior by causing the person to lose his or her
sense of self or by making the person feel less responsible for his or her actions.
What a Riot: An Examination of Deindividuation
Crowds influence people’s behavior; once we get lost in them, we tend to do things that we
would never do alone. If you don’t believe us, ask our friend who was one of the 500,000
people at the Woodstock concert in 1969. She won’t say whether she was one of the people
running around naked, but she admits to doing things she wouldn’t have done if she had not
been lost in the crowd.
This tendency “to get lost in the crowd” was first labeled deindividuation by Festinger,
Pepitone, and Newcomb (1952). Deindividuation is said to occur when being in a group
causes people to become less aware of themselves and less concerned with how others will
evaluate them (Diener, 1980). Because being in a large group makes a person both more
aroused and anonymous, the person focuses less on himself or herself and behaves more
impulsively.
Although running around naked at concerts may sound harmless enough, it is clear that
deindividuation can have much more severe consequences. For example, one of the authors
was a student at the University of Southern California when the Los Angeles riots broke out
in 1992. Seeing firsthand the trashed storefronts and burnt buildings of the riot’s aftermath
made the potentially cruel nature of deindividuation all too real. The riots made it clear to
everyone how powerful mob psychology can be: When one person starts wreaking havoc,
others may be likely to follow. Consider, for example, the comments of a U.S. soldier trying
to explain what caused him to kill innocent children and civilians during the My Lai
massacre:
I just went. My mind just went. And I wasn’t the only one that did it … a lot of
people were doing it, so I just followed suit. I just lost all sense of direction, of
purpose. I just started killing. I just started killing any kinda way I could kill. It just
came. I didn’t know I had it in me.
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(Biton & Sim, cited in Epley & Gilovich, 1999, p. 578)
A classic study by Diener, Fraser, Beaman, and Kelem (1976) illustrates how
deindividuation can lead to such antisocial behavior. The researchers suspected that if any
night of the year would lead to deindividuation, it was Halloween. To be sure, children
usually trick-or-treat in groups and, because they wear costumes, are more anonymous than
usual. To see if deindividuation would affect children’s behavior, these researchers gave 1,352
trick-or-treaters, who were either trick-or-treating alone or in groups, the opportunity to steal
candy or money from 27 homes in Seattle. How did the experiment work? When trick-or-
treaters came to the door, an experimenter greeted them, commenting on their costumes.
The experimenter asked some of the children their names, and other children were allowed to
remain anonymous. The experimenter then left the room after telling the trick-or-treaters
they could take one of the candies that was in a bowl near the door (there was also a bowl full
of nickels and pennies). Unbeknown to the children, a hidden observer watched how much
candy (and money) the children really took, and here’s what the observer saw: When children
were trick-or-treating alone, 7.5 percent of them took more candy than they were supposed
to. When they were in groups, however, the thievery increased substantially; 20.8 percent
stole candy. Moreover, when the children remained anonymous, they stole more candy and
money than they did when the experimenter asked their names. In short, deindividuation led
the trick-or-treaters to a night of petty crime.
Perhaps the most disturbing research on deindividuation focused on violent behaviors
perpetrated in groups. First, in one study, Mann (1981) examined more than 150 newspaper
accounts of what happened when people threatened to kill themselves by jumping from
buildings. Mann found that in some cases, people who had gathered on the streets below
actually baited the potential jumpers, encouraging them to leap to their deaths. Can you guess
what one of the factors was that caused observers to egg on jumpers? According to Mann,
when the crowds contained more than 300 people, baiting was more common than it was in
smaller crowds. This, of course, is consistent with the notion that larger crowds produce more
deindividuation.
Second, in an even more disturbing study, Mullen (1986) examined the relationship
between the size of lynch mobs and the severity of atrocities committed by such mobs. To do
so, he analyzed more than 300 newspaper reports to determine the following: (1) the number
of people in each lynch mob; (2) whether the lynchings included violent acts, such as
hanging, shooting, burning, lacerating, and dismembering the victims; and (3) whether the
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lynchings happened quickly or were prolonged and torturous. Results of the study indicated
that victims suffered more when the lynch mobs were larger. Mullen (1986) concluded that
“these results support the contention that lynchers become less self-attentive, and thereby
more likely to engage in acts of atrocity, as the lynchers become more numerous relative to
the number of victims” (p. 191).
Considering these studies, an important question concerns how deindividuation might be
attenuated. Because deindividuation results from low self-awareness, the answer may lie in
making people more aware of themselves. According to Prentice-Dunn and Rogers (1982),
however, there are two types of self-awareness and only one is related to deindividuation.
First, public self-awareness refers to how we view ourselves as social objects and our concerns
about such things as our appearance and the impression we are making on others. Private self-
awareness refers to our focus on hidden aspects of ourselves such as our thoughts, feelings,
and perceptions (see Buss, 1980). Prentice-Dunn and Rogers (1982) found that
deindividuation is decreased only when a person’s private self-awareness is increased. This
suggests, then, that to attenuate deindividuation, the object is to get people focused on their
own thoughts and feelings. Thus, rather than state that people will get in trouble for their
actions or look bad for doing something, it may be better to have them reflect on their
personal views on what is right and wrong. (For more on deindividuation in a specific
context, see Box 6.3.)
Social Loafing: Not Pulling Your Own Weight
Have you ever had to push a stalled car or move a heavy piece of furniture with several other
people? If so—be honest for a moment—did you give it your all? Or, because there were
others to share the burden, did you slack off a bit? If you’re at all like the average research
participant, you probably did not work as hard as you could have. Indeed, research suggests
that when working in groups, people may not try as hard as they do when working alone
(e.g., Harkins, Latané, & Williams, 1980; Karau & Williams, 1993). In short, like a lot of
other people, you may be a social loafer.
According to Karau and Williams (1993), “social loafing is the reduction in motivation
and effort when individuals work collectively compared with when they work individually or
coactively” (p. 681). What causes such loafing? There are several explanations, although we
only have room to discuss the most prominent perspectives (for a review of others, see
Guerin, 1999; Karau & Williams, 2001; Locke et al., 2001).
First, the collective effort model (Karau & Williams, 2001) argues that we tend to get lazy if
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we don’t expect our efforts to lead to personally valued outcomes or if we don’t think our
effort will be instrumental in obtaining those outcomes. Thus, social loafing occurs because
we don’t think we will get the credit we are due or achieve the results we desire.
Second, the free ride effect suggests that when they can get away with it, people try to
benefit from the efforts of others—that is, they slack off when others are working, when they
are anonymous, and when they don’t think their own efforts will be evaluated. Working in
groups not only allows them to “hide in the crowd” without getting blamed for poor work but
also enables them to reduce their own effort and still enjoy an equal share of the rewards (see
Karau & Williams, 2001; Locke et al., 2001).
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BOX 6.3 | Computer-Mediated Conformity: When Group Members Flame the Same
From what you’ve read so far, you can see that being in the presence of a group can
seriously affect your behavior. With that in mind, what do you suppose might happen if
you were still able to communicate with a group but were removed physically from the
group’s presence? Liberation from social pressure? Freedom to do as you please without
worrying about fitting in?
If that’s what you were thinking, think again. Optimists once figured that email and
the Internet might provide emancipation from group pressure, but empirical research
suggests otherwise. For instance, a study by Williams, Cheung, and Choi (2000) found
that people using Internet chat rooms are likely to conform to the unanimous incorrect
judgments of a group of strangers, especially after being ostracized by a previous group.
Moreover, Postmes, Spears, and Lea (2000) found that the same types of norms and
conformity that occur in face-to-face groups evolve in computer-mediated groups as
well.
With that said, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that communicating via
computer does not make you immune to negative behaviors often evidenced in groups.
In fact, some studies (e.g., Jessup, Connolly, & Tansik, 1990) suggest that the
anonymity afforded to people who communicate via computers makes uninhibited and
inappropriate behavior (e.g., insulting others, using profanity) more likely than it is in
face-to-face conversations. Such “flaming,” as it is called in the world of computer users,
has been blamed on deindividuation, which, as you already know, is fostered by
anonymity.
The good news is that computer-mediated group communication does not necessarily
lead to negative behavior, but rather positive or negative behavior depending on the
norms of the group with which one is communicating (Spears, Lea, & Lee, 1990).
Specifically, the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE; Postmes, Spears,
& Lea, 1998, 2000) argues that immersion in a group prompts greater conformity to the
group’s norms. Thus, if the group’s norms are positive, you are more likely to engage in
prosocial behaviors. If the group’s norms are negative, you are more likely to “flame.”
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Finally, the sucker effect occurs when people suspect that others may be taking a free ride.
Rather than be a “sucker” who does all the work, people slack off in order to match the level
of work done by others (see Locke et al., 2001).
Whatever the reason for social loafing, one thing is clear: It, like deindividuation, can have
disastrous effects. For example, in Richmond, California, in 2009, at least a dozen bystanders
watched as a 15-year-old girl was beaten and gang-raped outside the building where her high
school homecoming dance was being held. The ordeal lasted more than two hours before
anyone summoned help. Likewise, social loafing has been observed in laboratory research.
For instance, in a study by Latané and Darley (1970), subjects were led to believe that they
were having a conversation over an intercom with other subjects in the study. Some believed
they were talking with only one other person; others believed they were talking with five
other people. In reality, there were no other subjects, just tape-recorded messages. At one
point during the conversation, one of the “pretend subjects” began choking and gasping as if
having a seizure. Did the supposed victim receive help? The answer is “it depends.” When
subjects thought they were in groups with five other people, only 30 percent of them helped.
When the subject thought she or he was alone with the victim, 85 percent helped. The larger
the group, the less likely people are to lend a hand.
Considering our discussion so far, you might be wondering how social loafing can be
decreased. According to Karau and Williams (1993), social loafing can be reduced or
overcome by:
providing individuals with feedback about their own performance or the performance
of their work group, monitoring individual performance or making such performance
identifiable, assigning meaningful tasks, making tasks unique such that individuals
feel more responsibility for their work, enhancing the cohesiveness of work groups,
and making individuals feel that their contributions to the task are necessary and not
irrelevant.
(p. 700)
Furthermore, it may be easier to attenuate social loafing if you know the conditions under
which it occurs. For instance, because loafing is more likely in larger groups, limiting the
number of people in a group may be effective (Aggarwal & O’Brien, 2008). Moreover, earlier
in this chapter, we talked about how we are more likely to conform to groups with which we
identify. Knowing this, it’s not surprising to find that people who identify with a group are
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not as likely to loaf as those who do not identify (Barreto & Ellemers, 2000). For those who
do not identify, another approach is to make them accountable for their work. Evidence for
the effectiveness of this approach is mixed, however. For instance, while Aggarwal and
O’Brien (2008) found that university students were less likely to loaf on group projects when
their peers evaluated them, Dommeyer (2007) did not. Lount and Wilk (2014) found that
employees were less likely to loaf when their performance was posted publicly, but argued
that it was because doing so triggered social comparison between workers, which, in turn,
increased their motivation to work hard.
Another variable that influences the potential for loafing is the nature of the people
involved in the task, suggesting that before you join a group, you should know whom you’re
joining. First, research indicates that people who are open to new experiences, conscientious,
agreeable, and high in the need for cognition (see Chapter 5) are less likely to loaf than their
counterparts (Klehe & Anderson, 2007; Smith, Kerr, Markus, & Stasson, 2001; Tan & Tan,
2008). Second, Pieterse and Thompson (2010) noted that diligent isolates, unlike social
loafers, are people who increase their efforts and willingly work alone in an effort to rescue
group projects. However, because they do not know how to delegate or have the social skills
required for group projects, diligent isolates can be just as bad for group projects as social
loafers. In fact, Pieterse and Thompson (2010) observed that the presence of diligent isolates
promoted social loafing in other group members. Finally, the way in which people perceive
themselves might influence the degree to which they loaf. Specifically, a study by Huguet,
Charbonnier, and Monteil (1999) found that people who see themselves as uniquely superior
to others are most likely to loaf when working collectively on an easy task (i.e., imagining
different uses for a knife). This is because they perceive their contribution to such a task as
redundant, dispensable, and unlikely to make others aware of their superior talents. However,
these types of people tend to work extra hard on difficult tasks (i.e., imagining different uses
for a doorknob) (Huguet et al., 1999) or when they perceive their teammates as being
unequipped for handling the task (Plaks & Higgins, 2000). And why not? Such social
compensation, as it is called in the literature, helps them maintain the belief that they are
unique and reap possible rewards if their group does well (Huguet et al., 1999). What can we
learn from such research? Consider this: If you ever ask a group to perform an easy task,
watch out for people who think they’re the cat’s meow. If that sounds simple, consider one
more thing: Most people see themselves as superior to the average person, a phenomenon
known as self-serving bias (see Goethals, Messick, & Allison, 1991). Unfortunately, this
probably means that when tasks are easy, there are a lot of loafers out there.
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Social Facilitation: Would You Rather Be Alone?
The presence of other people does not always lead to loafing. In fact, it can have the opposite
effect. Years ago, for example, when one of the authors was on his high school’s track team,
he ran “practice races” by himself, attempting to beat his best time. No matter how hard he
tried, however, he could never match his performance in real races. He didn’t know it then,
but his faster times in real races were most likely the result of social facilitation, or rather, the
tendency to perform better when other people are around (see Zajonc, 1965). The effect has
been demonstrated time and time again, but before you decide to surround yourself with
spectators the next time you write a research paper, consider this: The presence of others
tends to improve performance on simple or well-rehearsed tasks while impairing performance
on complex or unfamiliar tasks. Not only that, it can affect your health and bankroll. Did you
know, for example, that as the number of diners increases, so does the amount of food
consumed, especially when the people are friends and family (Cavazza, Graziani, & Guidetti,
2011; Herman, 2015)? Moreover, the energizing effects of being around other people might
cause people to take greater risks. To illustrate, Rockloff, Greer, and Fay (2011) observed
people playing computerized slot machines alone or alongside others. Results revealed that
people played faster and longer in the presence of other gamblers than when alone. The
implications, of course, are that large commercial gaming venues might accelerate the pace at
which gamblers part with their dough.
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HOW GROUPS AFFECT DECISION MAKING: TO RISK OR NOT TO RISK
Imagine that you’re the parent of a small child, a daughter, with a serious heart condition.
Because of the condition, your daughter has to refrain from any activity that might put too
much strain on her. Your child’s doctor, however, presents you with some interesting news:
There’s a new surgery your child can have that will make her completely healthy. There’s a
catch, however: The doctor tells you that there is a 1 percent chance your child will die from
the surgery. What choice would you make? Would you allow the doctor to perform the
surgery? If you thought “yes,” imagine that the odds are different; instead of a 1 percent
chance, what if there were a 50 percent chance your child would die?
Interestingly, research has shown that when selecting between alternatives like the
preceding ones, groups and individuals make different decisions. The first study on this
subject was conducted by Stoner (1961, cited in Brauer, Judd, & Gliner, 1995), who found
that individuals made riskier decisions when they were in groups than they did when alone.
In other words, while an individual might decide to allow the surgery when there was a 1
percent chance of death, a group might allow it when there was a 50 percent chance.
Following Stoner’s study, several other researchers confirmed these results, and soon this
effect became known as the risky shift phenomenon. Not all studies, however, confirmed this
phenomenon. In fact, some later studies found just the opposite effect. Sometimes groups
made decisions that were less risky than those made by individuals (e.g., Myers & Arenson,
1972). How might such results be explained? According to Myers and Arenson (1972),
instead of a risky shift phenomenon, what actually occurs is a group polarization phenomenon.
In short, groups cause people to become more extreme in their decisions. Thus, if you are
predisposed to making a slightly risky decision, being in a group may cause you to make a
riskier decision; if you are predisposed to make a conservative decision, being in a group may
cause you to make an even more conservative decision. As you might suspect, as decisions
become more extreme, they might also become less accurate. Indeed, in one study (Palmer &
Loveland, 2008), poor, good, and average lecturers were evaluated by individuals or by people
who engaged in group discussions. Results showed that group discussion led to less accurate
ratings of the lecturers.
Although there are many explanations for why group polarization occurs, two are most
prominent (see Boster, 1990; Brauer et al., 1995; Pavitt, 1994). The first, social comparison
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theory, argues that we learn about ourselves by comparing ourselves to others. Because most
people are average, when they compare their view to the views of others, they don’t find much
difference. Interestingly, however, because most people want to see themselves in a positive
light, they don’t want to be average; they want to be “better than average.” Thus, according to
this theory, when people learn that their position is the same as that of everyone else in the
group, they shift their position so that it is more extreme. Because everyone tends to do this,
group polarization occurs.
A second perspective, persuasive arguments theory, asserts that, before entering a group
discussion, each member has one or more arguments that support his or her own position. If
you consider all these arguments together, there will be more supporting one position than
another (e.g., there may be more support for a risky decision than there is for a conservative
one). Persuasive arguments theory asserts that the position that has the best and largest
number of arguments supporting it is the position toward which members shift.
Several authors have argued that these theories are not contradictory (Boster, 1990;
Isenberg, 1986; Pavitt, 1994). In other words, both social comparison and persuasive
arguments might contribute to group polarization. In addition, Brauer and colleagues (1995)
have argued that a third process might contribute to the extreme decisions made by groups.
They noted that although social comparison and persuasive arguments explanations both
focus on interpersonal processes (e.g., what we hear from other group members),
intrapersonal processes also may affect polarization. Specifically, they argued that when
making decisions in groups, we not only hear from other group members, we state our own
opinion and defend it several times. Such repetition, they argued, also moves us toward
polarization.
FIGURE 6.5
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Source: © Alex Gregory/ The New Yorker Collection/ www.cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
Before concluding this section, we wish to point out that, like the other topics we’ve
discussed in this chapter, group polarization can have disastrous effects. For instance, imagine
being on the front lines in a hopeless battle. Who would you want deciding whether you
should take a hill: one military leader or a group of them? How about if a decision were being
made to start a war or launch a missile? Or imagine an innocent person accused of a crime.
Would he or she be better off with or without a jury deciding on a verdict? You get the idea.
As frequent members of groups, it is important to remember the effects that groups can have
on us. Only then might we hope to be less vulnerable to their influence.
259
SUMMARY
In this chapter we examined several topics related to influence in groups. First, we discussed
early research on conformity and saw that several perspectives explain why people tend to
conform. In addition, several factors (i.e., group size, moral conviction, having an ally, the
intensity of indoctrination, the degree to which we identify with a group, communicator
characteristics, and culture) influence how likely we are to conform. We also saw that social
proof can be a powerful persuasive tactic because it relies on people’s tendency to conform.
We then saw that the presence of others can lead to deindividuation, social loafing, and social
facilitation. Finally, for various reasons, groups tend to make more extreme decisions than do
individuals (group polarization).
260
1
NOTE
In all three cases, the organizations disregarded voters’ wishes. The boat was named “Attenborough,” the bridge was
named “Freedom Cycling Bridge,” and Taylor Swift didn’t play the concert, but she and four other organizations
donated $10,000 each to the school.
261
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W
CHAPTER 7
Language and Persuasion
Symbols, Meaning, and Persuasion: The Power of Babble
Connotative and Denotative Meaning: That’s Not How I See It
Ultimate Terms: Speak of the Devil
Aphorisms and Familiar Phrases: That Rings a Bell
Metaphors: One and the Same
The Power of Labeling
Euphemisms and Doublespeak: Making the Worse Appear the Better and Vice Versa
Language Intensity, Vividness, and Offensiveness
##@!!!!##: Profanity and Persuasion
Political Correctness
The Effects of Vividness: A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words
Language Intensity
Powerless Language and Persuasion: Um’s the Word
HEN WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE WROTE, “A rose by any other name would smell as
sweet,” he found an eloquent way to note that words and the things they represent
have no necessary connection. Indeed, you can’t change a flower’s scent just by renaming it
“armpit” or “manure.” That being said, sometimes the names we give things affect how we
react to those things. For example, because we attach meanings to words and names, we
might react differently to a woman named Rose than we would to a man with the same
name. As another illustration, consider the story of Adolf Hitler Campbell, a 3-year-old from
Hunterdon County, New Jersey, whose parents were unable to get a supermarket to write the
child’s name on his birthday cake, presumably because of the connotations associated with
such an infamous name. After meeting with resistance, the family, including Adolf’s little
sister, Joyce-Lynn Aryan Nation Campbell, hightailed it to Pennsylvania, where a Walmart
employee was willing to produce their cake (“Three-year-old Hitler,” 2008).
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These examples illustrate an interesting property of language that is one of the main
themes of this chapter. Specifically, because we associate meanings with words, words have
the power to influence us. Indeed, the maxim “The pen is mightier than the sword” is correct.
Words are the primary means of persuasion. They not only affect our perceptions, attitudes,
beliefs, and emotions but they also create reality.
Because words are so important in the process of persuasion, the purpose of this chapter is
to examine words and their effects on social influence. We begin by discussing the nature of
symbols and of meaning, which are integral to understanding the relationship between
language and persuasion.
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SYMBOLS, MEANING, AND PERSUASION: THE POWER OF BABBLE
What is a symbol? A very basic definition is that a symbol is something that represents
something else. Names are a good example. Your name represents who you are, just as the
word pig represents an animal with a curly tail and slimy snout.
As noted above, one important characteristic of symbols is that they are arbitrary. In other
words, symbols have no necessary connection to what they represent, although we sometimes
seem to forget this. For example, S. I. Hayakawa (cited in Adler, Rosenfeld, & Towne, 1995)
told the story of a little boy who thought that pigs were called pigs because they are so dirty.
The word pig, however, has no direct connection to the curly-tailed animal, just as your
name, although it may seem to fit, has no necessary connection to you—that is, when your
parents were trying to decide what to call you, there was nothing written in stone that said
you had to be given a certain name. You could just as easily have been called Binky or Unga
Bunga. Don’t laugh—the singer Frank Zappa named his children Moon Unit and Dweezil,
and when tax authorities told a Swedish couple that they had to give their 5-year-old son a
name or pay a fine, the couple named the child
Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclnmckssqlbb11116 (“The best and worst,” 1996). As wrong as
such names might seem, however, they’re not. When it comes to finding representations of
things, there’s not one “right” word or symbol.
Because they are arbitrarily connected to what they represent, a second characteristic of
symbols is that they are conventionalized, which means that if we want to use a symbol to
communicate to someone else, we have to agree on the symbol’s meaning. Without some
measure of agreement on the meanings of words, communication and persuasion would be
difficult, if not impossible. If you’ve ever tried to communicate with someone who speaks a
different language, you know this is true.
Connotative and Denotative Meaning: That’s Not How I See It
Up to this point, we’ve noted how important it is for communicators to agree on the meaning
of the symbols they use. With that said, however, we are certain that, without telepathy, total
agreement on the meaning of symbols is impossible. Of course, the degree to which people
agree may depend on the type of meaning with which we’re concerned. There are at least two
meanings for every word. The first, the denotative meaning, is a word’s direct, explicit
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dictionary definition.
The second type of meaning, connotative, refers to the thoughts and emotions associated
with a word. As you might expect, the connotations associated with words vary widely from
person to person. To illustrate, let’s return to pigs. Although all of us might agree on the
denotative meaning of the word pig (i.e., curly-tailed animal with snout), our attitudes
associated with the word may be quite different. For instance, compared to a farmer’s child
who grew up sloppin’ hogs, a person who grew up reading books or watching movies about
cuddly, talking pigs, such as Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web or Babe from the movie Babe,
would probably have a different view of pigs. In contrast, the members of some religious
groups, Jews and Muslims, are forbidden to eat pork, which is perceived as unclean. Not long
ago, in fact, a woman in Israel was sentenced to 50 years for depicting Allah as a pig.
As persuaders, it is important to recognize that the meanings of words are subjective. As
scholars in the field of communication are fond of saying, “Meanings are in people, not in
words.” Effective persuaders are aware of this and attempt to adapt their messages
accordingly.
Ultimate Terms: Speak of the Devil
Although connotative meanings tend to be more subjective than denotative meanings,
sometimes the connotations associated with certain words are shared by large groups of
people (i.e., societies and cultures). As a result, such words can be powerfully persuasive tools
for motivating people. This is especially true of what Richard Weaver (1953) labeled ultimate
terms, which are words or phrases that are highly revered, widely accepted, and carry special
power in a culture. According to Weaver, there are three types of ultimate terms. The first,
god terms, carry the greatest blessing in a culture and demand sacrifice or obedience (see Foss,
Foss, & Trapp, 1985; Hart, 1997). When Weaver wrote, he used terms such as fact and
progress as examples of god terms. Modern-day god terms include family values, critical
thinking, and teachable moment.
In contrast to god terms, Weaver argued that some terms, which he labeled devil terms, are
perceived by a culture as associated with the absolutely abhorrent and disgusting. Examples of
past devil terms include communism, Nazi, and fascist (Foss et al., 1985). Today, terms such as
dead-beat dad, racist, terrorist, child molester, sweat shop, and hate crime might be considered
devil terms. Because such terms represent what is evil or detestable to a culture, they can also
be extremely persuasive (Hart, 1997).
Finally, Weaver labeled a third type, charismatic terms. Unlike god and devil terms, which
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are associated with something observable, charismatic terms, much like a charismatic person,
have a power that in some ways is mysteriously given (Foss et al., 1985):
“Freedom” and “democracy” are charismatic terms in our culture. We demand
sacrifice in the name of these terms, yet the referents most of us attach to them are
obscure and often contradictory. In fact, Weaver says, we may resist the attempt to
define such terms, perhaps fearing that a term defined explicitly will have its
charisma taken away.
(p. 66)
What becomes clear, then, is that although god, devil, and charismatic terms have power,
their ability to persuade is not stable; the connotations associated with such terms may change
over time. For instance, calling someone a communist today would not have the same impact
as it did in the days of Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Considering the power of ultimate terms, it is not surprising that politicians spend
considerable amounts of money discovering the “right” terms to use in their ads and speeches.
By way of example, Lemann (2000) noted that politicians use focus groups in order to
discover specific words that should and should not be used in campaigns. The people in such
groups watch ads and speeches while moving dials from right to left, indicating when they
like or dislike what they are hearing and seeing. As a result, politicians learn an entirely new
vocabulary of god and devil terms. For example, based on his research with focus groups,
Frank Luntz, a political consultant, advises his candidates to say
“Department of Defense” instead of “Pentagon,” “opportunity scholarships” instead
of “vouchers,” “tax relief” instead of “tax cuts,” and “climate change” instead of
“global warming.” The terms “Washington” and “I.R.S.,” Luntz says, always play as
super-negative and should be attached to a policy you want to turn people against.
“Prosperity” is super-positive. In general, words starting with an “r” or ending with
an “-ity” are good—hence “reform” and “accountability” work and “responsibility”
really works.
(Lemann, 2000, p. 100)
Politicians might also use language to create other images. For instance, following the
September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, George W. Bush used
words such as evil, those people, and demons to characterize people of Arab/ Middle Eastern
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descent. Merskin (2004) argued that Bush’s speeches were carefully constructed and that the
use of such words creates an enemy image by dehumanizing the “other.”
In addition to politicians, people in the business world are fond of using ultimate terms as
persuasion devices. For instance, the word empowerment is a modern-day charismatic term on
which marketers and advertisers have capitalized. Products and services that promise to
empower people have become unavoidable. For instance, as a former suit salesman, one of the
authors was regularly asked by customers where the “power ties” could be found or what was
the “power color” for ties this year. The Hotel del Coronado in Southern California offers its
guests “power walks” in the morning, and one of our colleagues told us about a seminar his
sister attended that teaches its clients how to take “power naps.” Finally, one of the authors
was recently notified that he is a Time magazine “Power Subscriber.” He can now read the
news with gusto.
Other terms that seem to have appeal these days are extreme, alternative, and indie. Indeed,
these words are popular now as “rebel” labels for things. There is, of course, alternative music
and alternative clothes (e.g., baggy pants, visible boxer shorts, tattoos, piercings). There are
also extreme sports, such as snowboarding, bungee jumping, skateboarding, and mountain
biking. But does placing words in front of something necessarily make it cooler, or more
“edgy”? Is “alternative golf” really alternative simply because the people playing it have man
buns and wear tennis shoes (instead of golf shoes)? Does throwing some bacon and Monterey
cheese on a Whopper really make it an “Xtreme burger,” as Burger King claims?
What is clear from this discussion is that words, when widely accepted as representing
what is good or evil in a culture, have incredible persuasive potential. As we’ve noted, being
labeled a communist in the 1950s was hazardous. In the late 1600s, being labeled a witch in
Salem, Massachusetts, was deadly. In the current political climate, labeling one’s opponent as
a socialist or fascist seems to be popular. A little later, we explore more thoroughly the power
of such labeling. But first, we examine a topic related to ultimate terms.
Aphorisms and Familiar Phrases: That Rings a Bell
Aphorisms are sayings, maxims, and adages that offer advice. They may be time honored
(e.g., “look before you leap”) or more contemporary (“love is fleeting, herpes is forever”). They
are found in economics, politics, religion, science, and everyday life. We see them on bumper
stickers, political slogans, and advertising campaigns.
Aphorisms are persuasive because they are succinct, easily remembered, and appear to
contain “truisms.” And because they are pithy, they require far less explanation. For example,
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the political expression “A rising tide lifts all boats” captures the essence of “trickle-down
economics,” whereby economic policies that benefit the rich also benefit everyone else.
Although some aphorisms may offer bad advice, Levine and Bleakley (2012) argue that
aphorisms are undervalued in medicine. For example, simple adages, such as “An ounce of
prevention is worth a pound of cure” and “What you don’t know can hurt you,” are efficient
ways of explaining the value of preventive medicine. In a similar vein, Vernon (2008)
highlighted the importance of aphorisms in modern politics. “In an age when the average
attention span is apparently decreasing,” he noted, “the sagacious sound-bite could yet
become the solution to—rather than a symptom of—the tendency to dumb down” (p. 50).
Texting, tweeting, and other social media seem ripe for persuasion in the form of aphorisms.
When are aphorisms most persuasive? Howard (1997) conducted a study to find out when
familiar phrases are influential. Using the elaboration likelihood model (see Chapter 2) as a
theoretical base, Howard suspected that familiar phrases would be most persuasive when
people weren’t able or motivated to scrutinize a message— that is, familiar phrases, Howard
thought, would act as peripheral cues to persuasion. To test this idea, he had groups of
students listen to radio commercials trying to persuade them to plan for retirement. The
commercials contained either familiar phrases (e.g., “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”)
or literal phrases (e.g., “Don’t risk everything on a single venture”). Half the students were
able to carefully attend to the commercials, but the rest were distracted (i.e., they were asked
to watch and record the nonverbal behavior of another person in the room). Results of the
study indicated that the students who viewed commercials with familiar phrases were more
persuaded than those who had not, but only when they were distracted. Those who were not
distracted were persuaded (by strong arguments), regardless of whether familiar or literal
phrases were used (Howard, 1997).
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FIGURE 7.1
Cartoon from The New Yorker with doctor telling patient, “Good news. The test results show it’s a metaphor.”
Source: © Leo Cullum/ The New Yorker Collection/ www.cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
Metaphors: One and the Same
What is love? It depends, apparently, on whom you ask. Various singers, for instance, have
called it “a losing game” (Amy Winehouse), “a battlefield” (Pat Benatar), “a rose” (Neil
Young), “a tower” (U2), and “a piano dropped from a fourth-story window” (Ani DiFranco).
In each of these cases, love was depicted through the use of metaphors, which are figures of
speech that compare two things. In the process, aspects of one thing are transferred to the
second (Sopory & Dillard, 2002). It turns out that singers are not the only ones who are fond
of using metaphors. Persuaders like them too, perhaps for good reason. Indeed, metaphors
are persuasive (e.g., see Chang & Yen, 2013; Sopory & Dillard, 2002; Thibodeau, 2016).
Thus, when Tropicana calls its orange juice “Your daily ray of sunshine” and Skittles invites
you to “taste the rainbow,” they’re not just being smart, they’re clever foxes.
The Power of Labeling
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Earlier, we stated that names such as Dweezil and Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmn-
prxvclnmckssqlbb11116 are not wrong, but we might have misled you. As arbitrary symbols,
they work just fine, but pragmatically, how would you like to be saddled with such a name?
Perhaps you wouldn’t mind, but, whatever the case, one thing is clear: The name you use
affects the way people respond to you. In fact, we know a person who changes his name every
decade because he says that people respond differently to him depending on whether he’s a
Richard, a Jay, or a Hank. And research supports the idea that our friend is not simply a
kook. For instance, according to the sources of Adler and colleagues (1995), compared to
names like Percival, Elmer, Isadore, and Alfreda, common names such as John, Michael,
Karen, and Wendy are rated as more likable, active, and stronger. Moreover, when such
names were placed on essays and evaluated by teachers, the more common names tended to
receive higher grades than the less common ones. Finally, in a small study, a graduate student
at MIT put 24 photos on the website www.hotornot.com. Interestingly, with different first
names attached, the same photos were judged as more “hot” or more “not” (Strasser, 2005, p.
E22).
It turns out that your name doesn’t just affect how others behave or perceive you; it affects
how you behave and perceive yourself as well. People, it seems, respond favorably to their
own names. Several studies, for example, indicate that diners leave higher tips when food
servers use their names than when they do not (Seiter, Givens, & Weger, 2016; Seiter &
Weger, 2013). In one such study, food servers who had learned their customers’ names (by
reading them on credit cards as customers paid their bills) addressed those customers in one
of several ways. Specifically, they addressed customers (1) by using their first names (e.g.,
“Thank you, Babbs.”); (2) by using their titles plus last names (e.g., “Thank you, Mr. Jones.”);
(3) by being formal yet impersonal (e.g., “Thank you, sir/ma’am.”); or by using no form of
address (i.e., “Thank you.”). Results of the study showed that diners left significantly higher
tips in the first two conditions, with younger customers preferring to be addressed by their
first names and older customers (age 54 and up) preferring to be addressed by their titles plus
last names (Seiter & Weger, 2013). Similarly, research shows that people purchased more
(Howard & Gengler, & Jain, 1995) and complied more quickly (Howard & Gengler, 1995)
when their names were used than when their names were not used.
The power of labels extends far beyond the names that people are given (see Box 7.1). To
be sure, the labels we use to describe people or things reflect our attitudes about them and
affect others’ reactions to the people and things labeled. For example, many years ago,
children with divorced parents came from “broken homes.” Talk about stigmatization!
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Nowadays, we say children belong to “single-parent” or “blended” families.
The notion that the labels we use affect our attitudes about what we label lies at the heart
of criticisms aimed at sexist language. For example, if a professor refers to all of his male
students as “men” or “sirs” and to all of his female students as “girls,” “broads,” or “dears,” it
not only says something about the professor’s attitudes toward men and women but it also has
the power to shape attitudes. Thus, when women are wrongly described in ways that make
them seem inferior to men, people may begin to believe that women truly are inferior.
This is related to an idea that is commonly known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis (Sapir,
1949; Whorf, 1956). The “hard” version of the hypothesis is deterministic, arguing that
language dictates thought. The “soft” version is that language influences or affects thought.
We subscribe to the latter view. For example, some languages assign gender to nouns. In
German, doctor (der Doktor) is masculine, whereas nurse (die Krankenschwester) is feminine. If
a German girl asks, “What can I be when I grow up, mommy?” the mother may be more
likely to say a doctor than a nurse. Meanwhile, although it doesn’t shove, the language
provides a nudge.
The same dynamics are at work when people use racist language, which perpetuates the
illusion that one racial group is superior to another. Ethnic/cultural references carry vastly
different meanings. For example, Americans with an African heritage have been identified by
terms such as African American, black, Negro, colored, and more derogatory terms as well. Such
derogatory terms, whether racist or sexist, have the power to shape perceptions. One study,
for example, found that referring to Mexican immigrants as “illegal aliens” (which connotes
criminality) invoked greater prejudice than referring to them as “undocumented workers”
(Pearson, 2010).
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BOX 7.1 | Just a Spoonful of Sugar (and a Well-Chosen Name) Makes the Medicine Go Down
In this chapter, we’ve shown that names affect how we react to people. As you might
have suspected, they also influence our reaction to products. For example, did you know
that people react more favorably to sweaters and jellybeans that are given ambiguous
color names (e.g., Moody Blue, Alpine Snow, and Monster Green) than less ambiguous
color names (e.g., blueberry blue) (Miller & Kahn, 2005)? Considering this: it’s not
surprising that a lot of attention goes into naming products. This may be especially true
when naming prescription drugs.
Most of us refer to prescription drugs by their brand names. For example, we say
“Prozac” rather than “fluoxetine” and “Valium” rather than “diazepam.” We do this
because we’ve been trained to by pharmaceutical manufacturers. Drug companies engage
in “branding” when they air commercials and print ads urging us to “ask your doctor
about ____________.” Is the Purple Pill right for you? Ask your doctor, but first go to
the company’s website for more online propaganda to offer your doctor.
Naming a drug is extremely important to how the drug is perceived by
consumers/patients and, in turn, to the drug maker’s bottom line (Kirkwood, 2003). The
name has to be short (no more than three syllables), unique, easy to pronounce, easy to
remember, and, importantly, it must convey the essence of what the drug does. But the
name cannot be false or misleading, according to the FDA. Viagra, a pill for erectile
dysfunction sufferers, is a classic case of the power of naming as it applies to drugs. The
name Viagra was conjured up to convey two themes: vigor, virility, or vitality and power
or force, such as the raw power of Niagara Falls. Yes, the Freudian association with a
torrent of powerful water is intentional. Viagra sounds more manly than sildenafil
citrate, its generic name, don’t you think? Celebrex, an arthritis medicine, was so named
because it suggests celebrating—celebrating one’s freedom to move without pain.
Companies such as the Brand Institute and Name Base/Medibrand are paid
$250,000 or more to come up with names for drugs that conjure up idealized
associations. See if you can guess the positive associations pharmaceutical manufacturers
are trying to create for the following drugs.
Alleve: hint—it alleviates something, right? (and that something happens to be
minor arthritis pain).
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Ambien: hint—it creates a soothing ambience (to help you sleep better).
Claritin: hint—it clarifies things, like watery eyes and a runny nose due to allergies.
Levitra: hint—it levitates something (need we say more?).
Prevacid: hint—it prevents something (and that something has to do with the last
four letters of its name. Sounds better than its generic name, lansoprazole, doesn’t
it?).
Propecia: hint—it propagates something (like hair restoration).
The letters X and Z are popular in drug names because people think they sound
scientific, hence names like Nexium, Paxil, Vioxx, Zanex, Zocor, and Zoloft. Now that
you know how drugs are named, see if you can come up with effective names for
hypothetical new drugs that would help Alzheimer’s sufferers, diabetics, or kids with
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Finally, consider these names: “Citizens for the Environment,” “National Wetlands
Coalition,” and “Greening Earth Society.” Which would you say sounds the most
environmentally friendly? Would it surprise you to learn that they’re all names for anti-
environmental think tanks? According to Bricker (2014), those names weren’t accidental
either. They were chosen on purpose to hide the organizations’ true intent: to prevent
environmental regulations. By pretending to be environmentally friendly, they were more
effective at manipulating public opinion (Bricker, 2014). This practice of posing as a
nonprofit group in order to exploit others has been called astroturfing or astroturf activism
(Durkee, 2017).
Euphemisms and Doublespeak: Making the Worse Appear the Better and Vice Versa
In the fifth century BCE, a group of teachers known as Sophists created private schools in
Athens, Greece. Students who wanted to learn from the Sophists were charged fees and were
taught, among other subjects, oratory and persuasion. Soon, however, being a Sophist was so
profitable that the occupation attracted a number of charlatans, who gave the Sophists a bad
reputation (today, sophistry connotes deceitful or fallacious reasoning). In fact, Plato argued
that the Sophists were more interested in lies than truths and more interested in dazzling
279
audiences than in instructing them. Sophists, Plato argued, were skilled at making the “worse
cause appear the better” (Corbett, 1971).
The practice of using words to make the worse appear the better (and vice versa) is still
alive and well. Modern-day Sophists commonly use doublespeak (ambiguous or evasive
language) and euphemisms (inoffensive terms substituted for offensive ones) to create messages
with less sting. For example, in the business world, no one gets fired or laid off any more.
Instead, companies engage in “downsizing,” “right-sizing,” or even “bright-sizing.” Mercedes
no longer sells used cars; it sells “pre-owned automobiles” (try asking the Mercedes dealer,
“Was this car previously used, or simply owned?”). Other companies give their employees job
titles that sound more important or grandiose than they really are. A garbage collector is now
a “sanitation engineer.” And, in Great Britain, legislation was introduced to substitute the
stigmatized word prostitute with the phrase person who sells sex persistently (Stinchfield, 2007).
The use of doublespeak and euphemisms is rampant in other places as well. For example,
the military refers to civilian casualties, killing enemy soldiers, and combat operations as
“collateral damage,” “servicing the target,” and “peacekeeping missions,” respectively. Flight
attendants don’t talk about crashing in the ocean, only “water landings” (Murphy, 2001). In
the medical field, terms such as assisted suicide, transsexual surgery, and cancer might instead be
labeled hastening death (or death with dignity), gender reassignment, and a growth, respectively.
Media reports use words like “terrorism” and “terrorist” less and less often, relying instead on
ambiguous terms such as “assailants,” “militants,” “extremists,” and “attackers” (Matusitz,
2016). Politicians don’t raise taxes or lie, they adopt “revenue enhancing measures” and
“misremember.” And one of our friends is not allowed to have parties in her high school
classes so, instead, has “reinforcement for desirable behavior days.” In the world of
undertakers and funeral directors, people “pass away” rather than die, are “interred” rather
than buried, and are called “cases” or “patients” rather than corpses. Instead of saying “No,”
parents are fond of saying “We’ll see” or “Maybe later.” And finally, in the abortion
controversy, the words you use probably depend on the side you take. For example, pro-life is
more value-laden than anti-abortion or anti-choice. Pro-choice avoids the term abortion
altogether and sounds much nicer than anti-life or anti-anti-abortion.
In the midst of all this word spinning, researchers (McGlone & Batchelor, 2003) have
identified two possible motives people might have for using euphemisms. First, people might
use euphemisms because such words are less threatening and more respectful, therefore saving
the “face” of audience members. Second, people might use euphemisms in order to be
regarded as tasteful and sensitive, thereby saving their own “face.” To test these competing
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explanations, McGlone and Batchelor (2003) asked students communicating with someone
via computer to describe various photographs, including two that depicted the aftermath of a
urinating dog and a defecating parrot. Some students were led to believe that their identity
would later be revealed to the person they were communicating with, while others were not.
Results showed that the first group of students was more prone to using euphemisms,
suggesting that saving their own face seemed to be their priority. It turns out, however, that
when trying to create favorable impressions by spinning words, not just any euphemism will
do. Indeed, a study by McGlone, Beck, and Pfeister (2006) found that because euphemisms
with longer “careers” (e.g., “use the restroom,” “go number two”) are more familiar and draw
less attention, people who use them are perceived more favorably than those who use newer,
less familiar euphemisms (e.g., “make room for tea,” “cast a pellet”) (for more on doublespeak,
see Box 7.2).
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BOX 7.2 | If You Can’t Say Something Nice, Spin It
If you’ve ever been asked to serve as a reference for someone, you know that it can be a
complex business. Because what you say may no longer be confidential, saying
something negative can lead to all kinds of personal and legal tangles. With that in
mind, Robert Thornton (2003) has created the Lexicon of Inconspicuously Ambiguous
Recommendations (LIAR). Here are some examples of what to say about people,
depending on their flaws:
If the person is inept: “I recommend this man with no qualifications
whatsoever.” (p. 33)
If the person is extremely lazy: “In my opinion, you will be very fortunate to get
this person to work for you.” (p. 5)
If the person is chronically absent: “A man like him is hard to find.” (p. 19)
If the person is dishonest: “The man is simply an unbelievable worker.” (p. 33)
If the person is a drunk: “We remember the hours he spent working with us as
happy hours.” (p. 20)
Although we don’t actually recommend using this lexicon, we think it is an entertaining
way to illustrate how tricky language can be.
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LANGUAGE INTENSITY, VIVIDNESS, AND OFFENSIVENESS
So far, we’ve examined the nature of symbols and how they relate to the notion of meaning
and the process of persuasion. We now turn to a discussion of specific variables related to
language and persuasion. Three of these include language intensity, vividness, and
offensiveness. These three variables are closely related. For example, when studying intense
language, some authors include reviews of research on profanity, which, of course, has the
potential to be quite offensive. However, it is possible to use intense language without being
offensive. Moreover, although some definitions imply that vividness is a component or
outcome of intense language (e.g., see Hamilton & Stewart, 1993), others do not (e.g., see
Bowers, 1964). Because these three topics are so closely related, we examine them together in
this section. We then turn to a discussion of several theories that have been used to explain
the relationship between intense language and persuasion.
##@!!!!##: Profanity and Persuasion
Even though profanity, like any symbol, is arbitrary, it clearly plays a role in the process of
persuasion, mostly because such strong connotations are associated with swearing. Perhaps
this is why ancient rhetoricians like Quintilian advised against using profanity (Rothwell,
1971). Because profanity is so common (Cameron, 1969), some authors have asserted that it
merits more attention as a form of persuasion. For instance, J. Dan Rothwell (1971) argued:
283
FIGURE 7.2
DILBERT.
Source: © Scott Adams/Dist. by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
Despite centuries of negative criticism, verbal obscenity has become a more frequent
rhetorical device. It is successful in creating attention, in discrediting an enemy, in
provoking violence, in fostering identification, and in providing catharsis. Its effects
are governed by a variety of circumstances which need to be understood more fully.
It has precipitated a police riot, brutal beatings, and even death. Hoping it will go
away will not make it so. It is time to accept verbal obscenity as a significant
rhetorical device and help discover appropriate responses to its use.
(p. 242)
To explore more thoroughly people’s perceptions of profanity, E. Scott Baudhuin (1973)
gave students “swear word” booklets and asked the students to evaluate several words
according to how offensive they were. Based on the students’ perceptions, he found that the
words could be categorized into one of three categories: religious, excretory, and sexual.
Which type of profanity did students find most offensive? The results of the study indicated
that sexual words received the most negative responses. Religious profanities were perceived
to be the least offensive.
284
If profanity is perceived to be offensive, are people who use it perceived negatively and are
they less persuasive? Several studies have been conducted to test this question and most, but
not all (e.g., see Rassin & Van Der Heijden, 2005), indicate that if you want to be perceived
as attractive, credible, and persuasive, you should clean up your language. For example, a
study by Powell and his colleagues asked students to evaluate applicants who either did or did
not cuss during a job interview. The researchers found that applicants with filthy mouths,
regardless of their gender, were perceived as significantly less attractive than their
counterparts (Powell et al., 1984). Similarly, Bostrom, Baseheart, and Rossiter (1973) found
that, in general, using profanity damages a speaker’s credibility. On the other hand, Scherer
and Sagarin (2006) noted that society’s stance about swearing has become more relaxed since
many of these earlier studies were conducted. As such, they revisited the relationship between
obscenity, credibility, and persuasion by having students listen to speeches in which a male
speaker either did or did not use the word damn. Results showed that cussing had no effect
on perceptions of the speaker’s credibility, but when the speaker cussed, he was more
persuasive than when he did not. Before you decide to become potty-mouthed the next time
you’re speaking, however, consider this: the students in this study were listening to speeches
in favor of lowering tuition, a topic they presumably would be in favor of. In contrast, most of
the classic studies on this topic asked participants to listen to topics they did not favor. In
short, it may be that profanity is persuasive, but only under very specific conditions. Indeed,
two studies found that perceptions of cussing depend on additional variables. Specifically, and
not surprisingly, Johnson and Lewis (2010) found that people who cussed in formal settings
were perceived as significantly less competent than people who cussed in less formal settings.
Similarly, Johnson (2012) found that when cussing violated audience expectations in a
positive way (e.g., people rated themselves as positively surprised by the cussing), ratings of
the speaker’s competence increased. Another study found that college students had mixed
reactions when their instructors cussed. While the majority of students reported neutral to
positive emotions, many reacted negatively (Generous, Houser, & Frei, 2015).
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FIGURE 7.3
DILBERT.
Source: © Scott Adams/Dist. by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
Political Correctness
Obviously, using profanity is not the only way to be verbally offensive. Earlier we discussed
the notion of political correctness, which, in many ways, is all about being nonoffensive.
Indeed, political correctness refers to issues of inclusive speech and advocacy of nonracist,
nonageist, and nonsexist terminology (Hoover & Howard, 1995).
Although political correctness is relevant to a wide range of contexts and topics, including
issues of gender, race, ethnicity, age, socioeconomic status, and so forth, a study by Seiter,
Larsen, and Skinner (1998) focused on political correctness as it related to speaking about
people with disabilities. In the study, college students read one of four hypothetical scenarios,
each involving a person seeking donations who portrayed people with disabilities as “normal”
(e.g., “uses a wheelchair”), “heroic” (e.g., “handicapable”), “disabled” (e.g., “confined to a
wheelchair”), or “pathetic” (e.g., “abnormal”). After reading the scenarios, participants rated
the speakers on scales measuring credibility and persuasiveness. Results of the study showed
that, compared to communicators who portrayed people with disabilities as “pathetic,”
communicators who portrayed such people as “normal,” “heroic,” and “disabled” were
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perceived as significantly more trustworthy and competent (Seiter et al., 1998). However,
only communicators portraying people with disabilities as “heroic” and “disabled” were
perceived as more persuasive than the communicator portraying such people as “pathetic.”
How did the authors interpret these results? Perhaps by trying not to portray people with
disabilities as victims, the communicator using “normal” language also did not demonstrate as
urgent a need to help people with disabilities as the communicators using “disabled” and
“heroic” language did (e.g., a child described as “being confined to a wheelchair,” or one who
is aggrandized, may be perceived as requiring more help than a child described as “using a
wheelchair”). Whatever the case, the results of this study suggest that individuals seeking
donations for people with disabilities face a dilemma: How can a person raise money to help
people with disabilities while at the same time describing people with disabilities in a
politically correct and dignified manner?
FIGURE 7.4
Source: © Robert Mankoff/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com
The Effects of Vividness: A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words
According to Nisbett and Ross (1980), vivid information captures and holds our attention
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and excites our imagination because it is “emotionally interesting, concrete and imagery-
provoking, and proximate in a sensory, temporal, or spatial way” (p. 45). By way of example,
it’s more vivid to say “the glass crashed and shattered into pieces” than it is to say “the glass
broke.” Although previous research is somewhat inconsistent, a meta-analysis of over 40
studies found that vivid messages tend to be more persuasive than pallid ones (Blonde &
Girandola, 2016). This is especially true when vividness helps receivers recall information.
Language Intensity
“You are shockingly stupid” versus “You are not real smart.”
“The lumber industry is raping our forests” versus “The lumber industry is cutting
down a lot of trees.”
In the preceding pairs of phrases, which phrase has the strongest connotative meaning?
Obviously, the first phrase in each pair. The terms shockingly and raping are more intense
than terms found in the other phrases. Language that is intense is emotional, metaphorical,
opinionated, specific, forceful, extreme, and evaluative. For that reason, perhaps, Bowers
(1964) defined language intensity as “the quality of language which indicates the degree to
which the speaker’s attitude deviates from neutrality” (p. 215). Clearly, someone who
compares “cutting down trees” to “rape” is far from neutral in his or her attitudes about the
lumber industry. But is a person who uses such language persuasive? The best answer to that
question may be “it depends.” To be sure, several variables have been found that affect the
persuasiveness of intense language. With that said, let’s examine four different theories that
attempt to explain when and why intense language does or does not persuade.
First, reinforcement theory assumes that people are motivated to avoid pain and seek
pleasure. Bradac, Bowers, and Courtright (1979, 1980) assumed that the same is true when
people are being persuaded. If a person generally agrees with the position advocated by a
source, the person will find it rewarding and evaluate the source positively. The reverse is true
if the person generally disagrees with the position advocated by the source. Language
intensity is believed to enhance this effect. Specifically, if the listener generally agrees with
the speaker, when the speaker throws some forceful language at the listener, the listener is
even more motivated to agree. However, a listener who generally disagrees will react even
more negatively than he or she normally would when the speaker uses intense language
(Bradac et al., 1980).
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A second perspective on language intensity is found in language expectancy theory (see
Burgoon & Siegel, 2004). This theory assumes that we have expectations about what types of
language are normal to use when trying to persuade other people. For example, we may not
think it is normal for a speaker to use intense words such as rape and shockingly. According to
language expectancy theory, when persuaders violate our expectations concerning normal
language, those violations can either help or hurt the effectiveness of the persuasive message,
depending on whether the violations are perceived in a positive or negative way. How
violations are perceived depends on who is using the language. For instance, Burgoon and
Siegel (2004) noted that highly credible sources are granted a “wider bandwidth” of
acceptable communication than those with low credibility. As such, sources with low
credibility are likely to be perceived in a negative way when they use language that is
aggressive and intense. This, in turn, leads them to be less persuasive. The reverse is true for
highly credible sources. For sources with non-established levels of credibility, using intense
language may cause them to be perceived as less credible (Jensen, Averbeck, Zhang, &
Wright, 2013).
Third, Hamilton and Stewart (1993) have extended information processing theory
(McGuire, 1968, 1989) to explain the effects of intensity on persuasion. The theory argues
that to be persuaded, you must first attend to and comprehend a persuasive message. If you
attend to and comprehend the message, you then compare your own position on the message
to the position that’s being argued by the source. Ultimately, you may either accept or reject
the source’s position. According to Hamilton and Stewart (1993; also see Craig &
Blankenship, 2011), language intensity affects this process by making a source’s position on
an issue seem more extreme compared to your own position. This can be good, up to a point.
In general, some discrepancy between a persuader and a receiver’s positions leads to increased
attention and, therefore, more attitude change. However, as we noted in our discussion of
social judgment theory in Chapter 5, too much discrepancy may lead a receiver to reject a
message or to scrutinize a message so much that he or she fails to attend to all of the
message’s content. In addition, intense language tends to be more specific and vivid.
Finally, communication accommodation theory (Giles & Wiemann, 1987; Street & Giles,
1982) argues that when we communicate with others we adjust our style of speaking to their
style in order to gain approval and increase communication efficiency. For example, we may
try to talk the same way others talk so that they will like us better. Aune and Kikuchi (1993)
conducted a study to see if this theory would predict the effectiveness of messages that either
were or were not intense. In the study, speakers delivered intense and nonintense messages to
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people whose language style could be categorized as either intense or nonintense. Results of
the study supported communication accommodation theory. Specifically, speakers using
intense language were most persuasive with people who use intense language, whereas
speakers using nonintense language were most persuasive with people who use nonintense
language. Speakers who “matched” the style of their audience also were perceived as more
credible.
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
POWERLESS LANGUAGE AND PERSUASION: UM’S THE WORD
As a student, one of the authors had two speech professors who did not like the utterance um
too much. One called ums social burps. The other, when listening to speeches, smacked her
pencil on a desk whenever the author said um. It was not fun, but it beat electrical shocks. In
retrospect, the author supposes he should be grateful to these professors, because ums, as well
as a number of other utterances, prevent people who use them from being persuasive. Why?
Because such utterances create the perception of powerlessness. In case you want to avoid using
them when you talk, here is a list of such speech mannerisms with some examples in italics
(also see Bradley, 1981; Erickson, Lind, Johnson, & O’Barr, 1978; Lakoff, 1973, 1975;
Lowenberg, 1982; Newcombe & Arnkoff, 1979; O’Barr, 1982):
Hesitations (signal uncertainty or anxiety): “Well, I, uh, you know, um, would like to
borrow a dollar.”
Hedges (qualify the utterance in which they occur): “I guess I sort of like you and kind of
want to know you.”
Intensifiers (fortify the utterance): “I really believe that and agree with you very much.”
Polite forms (indicate deference and subordination): “Excuse me, if you wouldn’t mind too
much, I’d appreciate it if you’d please shut the door. Thank you.”
Tag questions (lessens the force of a declarative sentence): “This is fun, don’t you think?
Much more fun than yesterday, isn’t it?”
Disclaimers (utterances offered before a statement that anticipate doubts, signal a
problem, or ask for understanding): “I know this is a really dumb question, but … ?”
Deictic phrases (phrases indicating something outside the speaker’s vicinity): “That man
over there is the one who stole my wallet.”
As noted previously, a considerable amount of research indicates that using these
powerless forms of speech can prevent you from being persuasive (Erickson et al., 1978;
Newcombe & Arnkoff, 1979), even when you are using strong arguments (Hosman &
Siltanen, 2011). However, the relationship between power and speech may depend on
additional factors. Two are noteworthy.
First, the type of powerless language a person uses may influence how he or she is
perceived. Specifically, one problem with some research on powerless language is that it has
lumped together all of the powerless forms previously discussed. However, some research
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indicates that this may not be the best idea, because not all the forms may be detrimental to a
speaker. For instance, in one study, Bradac and Mulac (1984) found that using polite forms
actually enhanced speakers’ credibility. Moreover, Durik, Britt, Reynolds, and Storey (2008)
found that the use of colloquial-sounding hedges (e.g., “kind of,” “sort of”) undermined
persuasive attempts, but the use of professional-sounding hedges (e.g., “probably,” “may,”
“seem to”) did not.
Second, the type of language that is most effective may depend on who is using it. For
example, Blankenship and Craig (2007) found that when low credible sources used tag
questions, the sources were less persuasive regardless of whether their messages contained
strong or weak arguments. In contrast, when highly credible sources used tag questions, the
sources were more persuasive, but only when their messages contained strong arguments.
Why? Presumably, if you already believe a source is credible, tag questions get you to think
more carefully about the message being presented. If the message is strong, you will be more
persuaded by it (Blankenship & Craig, 2007).
In addition to sources’ credibility, Carli (1990) found that sources’ and receivers’ sex affects
the persuasiveness of language. Specifically, females were persuasive with men when they
used powerless forms of speech but persuasive with females when using powerful speech. For
male speakers, it did not matter what form of speech was used. This may mean that women,
compared to men, need to be more sensitive about the style of speech they use when trying to
be persuasive. Clearly, along with the topics we discussed earlier, the results of this study
suggest that men have negative stereotypes about women who use powerful speaking styles.
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SUMMARY
In this chapter, we examined the role of language in the process of persuasion. We began
with an examination and definition of the term symbol. Symbols are arbitrary but have the
power to shape perceptions and construct social reality. Symbols also have connotative and
denotative meanings, both of which affect persuasion. For example, we examined ultimate
terms, which, because of their strong connotations, have incredible persuasive power in a
culture. We also examined the power of labels and how, oftentimes, through the use of
euphemisms and doublespeak, persuaders attempt to lessen (or strengthen) the connotative
impact of a word. Finally, we discussed several language variables that affect persuasion. By
making their words more vivid, intense, offensive, and powerless/powerful, persuaders affect
the way audiences respond to their messages.
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S
CHAPTER 8
Nonverbal Influence
The Direct Effects Model of Immediacy
Types of Nonverbal Communication
Kinesics: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, Knees and Toes
Haptics: Reach Out and Touch Someone
Keep Your Distance? Proxemics and Persuasion
Chronemics: All Good Things to Those Who Wait?
Artifacts and Physical Features of the Environment: Dress for Success
Physical Appearance: Of Beauties and Beasts
Paralinguistics and Persuasion: Pump Up the Volume?
HELLEY’S BOYFRIEND WAS PROBABLY frowning as he watched one of this book’s authors
reach out and take Shelley’s hand. At the time, the author was not thinking about
Shelley’s boyfriend, though; he was thinking about how pretty Shelley was. He remembers
leaning toward her and gazing into her eyes. Her lips tightened into a grin as she squeezed
the author’s hand. He’d never talked to her before this and was nervous, but even so, he had
no trouble finding words. They came out smooth and suggestive. “Pass the salt,” he
whispered. And, after swallowing hard and leaning even closer, he repeated those words
—“Pass the salt, pass the salt”—again and again.
Don’t get the wrong idea. Even after writing a book about persuasion, neither author is
even close to Don Juan status. When one of us met Shelley years ago, he was a sophomore in
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college, where he, Shelley, and Shelley’s boyfriend were taking an acting class. As part of an
exercise, the instructor paired each of us students up with a stranger and asked us to convince
the rest of the class that we were deeply and passionately in love. “Pass the salt,” however, was
the only phrase we were allowed to use.
In retrospect, the author is not sure how persuasive an actor he was, but he did learn
something that day: The words “I love you” are not all they are cracked up to be. Sure, it’s
nice to hear those words, but if you can convey the same meaning with “pass the salt,” who
needs them? The point here is that, when we are trying to interpret meaning, there is a lot
more involved than simply words. As the old saying goes, “It’s not what a person says, it’s how
the person says it that’s important,” which is why it is crucial that we understand something
about nonverbal communication— how we say things through the use of gestures, body
movements, touch, spatial behavior, appearance, eye contact, and so forth. In this chapter, we
are interested in focusing on one particular question about nonverbal communication—that
is, in what way does nonverbal communication influence the process of persuasion?
According to Burgoon (1994), nonverbal communication plays an important role in the
process of social influence for several reasons. First, we can use nonverbal behavior to create
certain impressions of ourselves. If we are successful in making ourselves appear powerful,
authoritative, credible, or attractive, we may also be more persuasive. (For a different twist on
nonverbal behavior and impression management, see Box 8.1.) Second, through the use of
nonverbal behaviors, people can establish intimate relationships. In other words, nonverbal
cues, such as touch, can be influential in developing rapport. Third, nonverbal behaviors can
heighten or distract attention from persuasive messages that are likely to reinforce learning.
For example, a teacher can use nonverbal cues to get his or her students to pay more attention
to a message, and a heckler can use such tactics to distract listeners. Fourth, through non-
verbal cues, a person can be reinforced to imitate a model’s behavior. Fifth, nonverbal cues
can be used to signal a person’s expectations and elicit behavior that conforms to those
expectations. For example, a simple frown can inform a child that he or she is not behaving
appropriately. And finally, nonverbal behaviors can be used to violate people’s expectations so
as to distract them. Later in the chapter, for instance, we’ll see that standing too close to
another person can, under some circumstances, make that person more compliant.
Of course, we don’t have the space needed in one chapter to discuss every aspect of
nonverbal communication. We have, therefore, chosen to focus on those areas that we find
the most important and intriguing. We begin by discussing a model that suggests that the
relationship between nonverbal behavior and persuasion is quite simple.
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BOX 8.1 | Smirks and Sneers Behind Your Back: Influencing Impressions of Others
Impression management theory (see Goffman, 1959; Schlenker, 1980; Tedeschi & Reiss,
1981) suggests that people control their behaviors—particularly nonverbal behaviors—in
order to create desired impressions of themselves (Leathers, 1997). If you want to be
liked, for instance, you might smile. If you want to be intimidating, you might frown.
Clearly, however, our nonverbal behavior can affect impressions other than those made
about us. Seiter (2001), for example, argued that impression management theory should
be expanded to include the ways in which we strategically attempt to control impressions
made of others. Although such attempts might be aimed at making others appear better,
Seiter maintained that sometimes our attempts to appear honest and desirable are
undermined by others—that is, sometimes other people may attempt to make us appear
undesirable and dishonest.
One context in which such attempts might occur is a political debate. Indeed, because
candidates’ versions of a story often differ, they may look for opportunities to make their
opponents appear deceptive. For instance, in the last several presidential debates, where
split screens allowed viewers to see both the speaker and nonspeaking debater
simultaneously, candidates were criticized for their silent, yet derogatory, background
behavior.
To see if such background behavior is effective in undermining an opponent, Seiter
and his colleagues (Seiter, 1999, 2001; Seiter, Abraham, & Nakagama, 1998; Seiter &
Weger, 2005; Seiter, Weger, Kinzer, & Jensen, 2009) conducted studies that asked
students to watch one of four versions of a televised debate. One version used a single-
screen presentation showing only the speaker, while the other three versions used a split-
screen presentation in which the speaker’s opponent displayed constant, occasional, or
no nonverbal disbelief regarding the content of the speaker’s message. In other words, in
some versions of the tape, the nonspeaking debater was shown shaking his head, rolling
his eyes, and frowning while his opponent was speaking. After watching the videos,
students rated the debaters. Results indicated that, in general, when any background
disbelief was communicated by the nonspeaking debater, the speaker’s credibility
improved (Seiter et al., 1998). However, when the audience was led to be suspicious of
the debaters’ truthfulness, moderate background behavior on the part of the nonspeaking
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debater made his speaking opponent appear more deceptive (Seiter, 2001). Be warned,
however. If you’re ever in a debate and are thinking about silently deriding your
opponent, you’ll probably hurt your own image in the process. To be sure, the studies
also found that any derogatory background behavior led the nonspeaking debater to be
perceived as more deceptive, less credible, less likable, and inappropriate (Seiter, 1999,
2001; Seiter et al., 2009; Seiter & Weger, 2005). Finally, if an opponent ever confronts
you with such nonverbal behaviors, research generally suggests that you’ll be perceived as
most effective if you politely and directly ask him or her to stop (Weger, Seiter, Jacobs,
& Akbulut, 2010, 2013).
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THE DIRECT EFFECTS MODEL OF IMMEDIACY
People who study nonverbal behavior use the term immediacy to describe actions that
communicate warmth, closeness, friendliness, and involvement with other people (Andersen,
2004). If, for instance, you smile, make a lot of eye contact, nod, and lean forward when
talking to someone else, you are demonstrating some common immediacy cues. According to
the direct effects model of immediacy (see Andersen, 2004; Segrin, 1993), there is a simple
relationship between nonverbal behavior and social influence—that is, warm, involving,
immediate behaviors lead to increased persuasion (Andersen, 2004). As you’ll see in the
remainder of this chapter, a considerable amount of research supports this model and the
effectiveness of immediacy behaviors in a number of different contexts, including intercultural
(Booth-Butterfield & Noguchi, 2000), medical (Kafetsios, Anagnostopoulos, Lempesis, &
Valindra, 2014), educational (Mazer & Stowe, 2016), organizational (Teven, 2007), athletic
(Turman, 2008), and interpersonal settings (e.g., Hinkle, 1999). However, some research
presents a more complicated picture. As we turn now to a discussion of the different types of
nonverbal behavior, you will see that demonstrating immediacy may generally be a good rule
of thumb, but an awareness of other factors may be necessary to sort out the sometimes
complex relationship between nonverbal behaviors and persuasion.
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TYPES OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
Before discussing specific forms of nonverbal behavior, we think it’s important to point out
that such behaviors are interdependent. By way of illustration, we should probably tell you
that the “Shelley story” is not yet over. There’s still the part about Shelley’s boyfriend, Louis,
who responded to the “pass the salt” line by attacking the author after class. With eyes wide
and fists clinched, Louis called the author a “lousy something-or-other” and then slugged
him. In response, the author merely chuckled, because he could see that Louis was only
having fun; Louis was smiling, and the punch was only a playful “tap.”
As it turns out, Louis’s behavior was probably not all that uncommon. Indeed, like us, you
may have seen people (probably men) play-fighting as a means of greeting one another. But
how do we know that they are only playing? We know because we don’t see only their
punches or only their eyes; we see other cues that help us interpret their messages. In other
words, although there are many types of nonverbal communication, they do not occur in
isolation. Nonverbal behaviors occur simultaneously, and how we interpret one behavior can
affect our interpretations of other behaviors. Thus, although we discuss each of the following
codes separately, it is important to realize that each code rarely operates alone.
With that said, we now examine seven types of nonverbal communication that are
important in the process of persuasion: kinesics, haptics, proxemics, chronemics, artifacts,
physical appearance, and paralinguistics.
Kinesics: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, Knees and Toes
The word kinesics was derived from the Greek term kinein, which means “to move” and refers
to the study of eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, and body movements and posture. We
start by taking a look at eye contact.
The Eyes Have It
Several years ago, one of the authors was involved in a study that investigated the influence
strategies used by panhandlers when attempting to get money from strangers (Robinson,
Seiter, & Acharya, 1992). As part of the study, 36 panhandlers were interviewed, and several
claimed that, before even asking for money, the first thing they tried to do was establish eye
contact with whoever was passing by. Without eye contact, the beggars argued, it was easier
for their “targets” to ignore them and walk on by.
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If eye contact helps beggars get more money, does it also help communicators to be more
persuasive? Some evidence seems to support this notion. For example, Murphy (2007) found
that people who looked more at their interaction partners while speaking and listening were
perceived as more intelligent than those who did not. Moreover, in a meta-analysis of several
studies on eye contact, Segrin (1993) found that in all but one study, gazing at listeners
produced more compliance than averting gaze.
Conversely, communicators who do not use eye contact may have problems being
persuasive. Guéguen and Jacob (2002), for example, found that people, especially females,
were less likely to comply when persuaders quickly averted their glance than when they
maintained eye contact. Similarly, three studies by Wirth, Sacco, Hugenberg and Williams
(2010) indicated that people who perceived averted eye gaze from others, compared to those
who did not, felt more ostracized, more negative emotions (e.g., anger and sadness), and
more temptation to perform aggressive behaviors. Finally, a study by Neal and Brodsky
(2008) found that expert witnesses who maintained less eye contact with jurors and attorneys
were perceived as less credible than witnesses who maintained more eye contact. Perhaps this
is why law students are taught to block eye contact between witnesses and jurors during cross-
examination while encouraging their witnesses to make eye contact with jurors during direct
examination (Brodsky, 1991).
Before concluding this section, we should note that more eye contact is not always
associated with greater persuasion. Indeed, some situations call for less eye contact. That’s
because a fixed gaze can be perceived as a challenge or threat. Stare at someone too long on a
New York subway, and you might find someone saying, “Hey, you lookin’ at me?” or
“Whachu lookin’ at?”
Finally, a classic study by Kleinke (1980) illustrates that the effectiveness of eye contact
may depend on other factors, such as the legitimacy of the request you make. In the study,
persuaders were instructed to approach people in an airport and ask them for money. Some of
the targets were told that the money would be used to make an important phone call (a
legitimate request), whereas others were told that the money would be used to pay for a candy
bar or gum (an illegitimate request). It turned out that people who thought the persuader
needed to make a phone call gave more money, but only when the persuader looked at them.
Interestingly, however, eye contact actually decreased compliance when the persuader made
an illegitimate request (see Table 8.1). Perhaps, as the researcher suggested, looking away
while making an illegitimate request makes a person seem more humble or embarrassed,
thereby increasing his or her persuasiveness by winning the sympathy of others (Kleinke,
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1980).
About Face
Of all possible facial expressions, smiling has probably been studied the most. To be sure,
research has shown that by smiling, waitresses earn more tips (Tidd & Lockard, cited in
Guéguen & Fischer-Lokou, 2004), therapists are judged to be warmer and more competent
(Leathers, 1997), job interviewees create positive impressions of themselves (Washburn &
Hakel, 1973) and are more likely to get jobs (Forbes & Jackson, 1980), female hitchhikers get
more rides (Guéguen & Fischer-Lokou, 2004), students accused of cheating are treated with
greater leniency (LaFrance & Hecht, 1995), and teachers inspire students to pay more
attention (Saigh, 1981). One study found that right after being smiled at, people were more
willing to help a third person who dropped some computer disks on the ground (Guéguen &
De Gail, 2003).
TABLE 8.1 Illustration of Kleinke’s (1980) Results
Legitimate Request Illegitimate Request
Eye contact Persuadee complies with request Persuadee does not comply with
request
No eye contact Persuadee does not comply with request Persuadee complies with request
Source: Adapted from Kleinke (1980).
We do not, however, want to give you the impression that influence is always as easy as a
smile. As noted in Chapter 4, persuaders need to come across as trustworthy and sincere. Not
all smiles accomplish this goal, however. One study, for example, found that when smiles
appear quickly, the smiling person is perceived as less trustworthy and attractive than when
smiles have a slower onset (Krumhuber, Manstead, & Kappas, 2007). Besides that, smiling
may not fit the situation. Consider, for instance, advertisements seeking donations for
starving children. One study found that when 4- and 8-year-olds were pictured with sad
facial expressions, they generated more sympathy and donations than when they were
pictured with smiles (Baberini, Coleman, Slovic, & Västfjäll, 2015). Additionally, in
situations where an angry or dominant demeanor would be most persuasive, positive and
likable facial expressions could be counterproductive. For instance, one study found that,
although smiling and nodding were more persuasive when used by people of equal status,
dominant behaviors are more effective in established hierarchies (Mehrabian & Williams,
1969). Another found that while politically conservative audiences prefer leaders with
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dominant faces, politically liberal audiences prefer leaders with non-dominant ones (Laustsen
& Petersen, 2016). And still another found that angry facial expressions led audiences to
scrutinize messages and, consequently, to prefer stronger over weaker arguments (Calanchini,
Moons, & Mackie, 2016).
The situational nature of facial expressions and other nonverbal behaviors is even more
apparent if you consider communication accommodation theory (Giles & Wiemann, 1987),
which we discussed in Chapter 7. According to the theory, rather than using any one type of
nonverbal behavior, a persuader should try to build rapport with others by mirroring or
mimicking their nonverbal cues. In other words, smile when people smile and frown when
people frown. For example, in one study (Guéguen, 2009), 66 males interacted in speed-
dating sessions with women who had been instructed beforehand either to mimic or not
mimic the males’ behavior (e.g., the mimickers stroked their faces or crossed their arms when
the males did). Results indicated that women who mirrored the males’ behavior, compared to
those who did not, were chosen more often to give their contact information and were rated
as being more sexually attractive. Another study found that negotiators who mirrored others’
behavior were more likely to reach a deal than those who did not (Maddux, Mullen, &
Galinsky, 2008).
Interestingly, it may also be the case that mimicking another person’s behavior makes us
more susceptible to that person’s persuasive attempts. In one study, for example, people who
mimicked the movements of a person presenting a product had more intention to buy the
product than people who did not mimic the person (Stel, Mastop, & Strick, 2011). Another
study showed that people who had been mimicked were more helpful and generous than
those who had not been (van Baaren, Holland, Kawakami, & van Knippenberg, 2004).
From the Neck Down: Persuasion and Body Language
Some of the principles of persuasion that we discussed in relation to the eyes and the face also
apply to communication with the body. For example, just as you can mirror a person’s facial
expressions, you can mirror his or her gestures and body movements. Moreover, consistent
with the direct effects model of immediacy (discussed previously), people who lean forward
when communicating tend to be more persuasive than those who do not. In addition to these
findings, research shows that people are more persuasive when they are pictured using open
body positions (i.e., when their arms and legs are positioned away from their bodies) rather
than neutral or closed positions (McGinley, LeFevre, & McGinley, 1975). (Did you know
that the way you move your body may also make you safer? See Box 8.2.)
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Perhaps most of the research on body movement and persuasion, however, has focused on
the use of gestures. Although various researchers have discussed a number of different
gestures, Argyle (1988) argued that it is most useful to focus on three: emblems, illustrators,
and self-touching.
Emblems
According to Ekman and Friesen (1969), emblems are nonverbal behaviors, usually hand
movements, that have precise verbal meaning. Thus, emblems can substitute for words.
Traffic cops, referees, baseball catchers, and scuba divers are well-known emblem users, but
we all use them. Think of all the words for which we have gestures: hello, good-bye, come
here, crazy, quiet or shush, peace, I don’t know, good luck, think, and shame on you, not to
mention the ever-popular middle finger gesture.
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BOX 8.2 | Walk This Way: Are You Vulnerable to Attack?
From an early age, you were probably instructed to use crosswalks, to look both ways
before crossing the street, and to walk rather than run around swimming pools. But did
you know that walking safely might also depend on how you carry yourself? According
to Gunns, Johnston, and Hudson (2002), victims of attack are not chosen randomly.
These researchers suggest that, in the same way that vulnerable sheep in a herd are
identified, isolated, and pounced on by wolves, some people, by virtue of their gait, may
appear more vulnerable to would-be attackers. Consistent with this notion, a study by
Wheeler, Book, and Costello (2009) found that males with higher psychopathic scores
were better able to distinguish people who had been victimized from those who had not
after viewing short video clips of those people walking. To shed light on the
characteristics of different walking styles, Gunns and colleagues (2002) asked 30 males
and 30 females to watch videotapes of more than 100 male and female walkers while
rating how vulnerable to attack the walkers seemed. Analysis of the ratings and
videotapes revealed that the typical “hard to attack” walker was characterized by a longer
stride, a larger range of arm swing, higher energy, lower constraint, and a faster walk.
Before concluding this segment, we want to be clear, as Wheeler and colleagues (2009)
were, that people are not responsible for victimization because of how they walk. The
attacker is always to blame. That said, knowing what perpetrators look for is a weapon
you can use to defend yourself. In short, to appear less vulnerable, put some pep in your
step!!!
FIGURE 8.1
DILBERT.
Source: © Scott Adams. Reprinted with permission, United Media. All Rights Reserved.
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Emblems are an important part of communication and serve many functions, persuasion
included. But what part do emblems play in social influence? Several scholars have argued
that a prerequisite for persuasion is attention to and retention of a message (e.g., McGuire,
1968; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), and it seems that by providing more visual information,
emblems play a large role in fostering attention and retention in persuadees. Woodall and
Folger (1981), for example, found that people recalled 34 percent of a verbal message when it
was accompanied by an emblem compared to only 11 percent when other types of gestures
were used.
Illustrators
Although emblems have meaning independent of verbal communication, illustrators, a second
type of gesture, accompany speech (Ekman & Friesen, 1969). Like their name implies,
illustrators illustrate, emphasize, or repeat what is being said. A child saying she loves you
“this much” while spreading her arms wide is using an illustrator. Likewise, we can use
illustrators to give directions, show our excitement, follow a rhythm, demonstrate a shape,
and so forth.
Several studies indicate that the use of illustrators increases a speaker’s persuasiveness. In
one study, for instance, actors who used more forceful and rhythmic gestures were more
persuasive than those who did not (Maslow, Yoselson, & London, 1971). In addition, some
illustrators make speakers appear more effective and composed (Maricchiolo, Gnisci,
Bonaiuto, & Ficca, 2009), which doesn’t hurt when you are trying to be persuasive.
Self-Touching Behaviors (Adaptors)
Although emblems and illustrators seem to increase people’s persuasiveness, the jury is still
out on the effect of self-touching behaviors (e.g., scratching your arm, rubbing your cheek,
picking your nose, stroking your hair), also known as adaptors (Ekman & Friesen, 1969). For
example, while some research suggests that the use of adaptors was associated with less
persuasion (Maslow et al., 1971; Mehrabian & Williams, 1969), other research shows the
opposite (Maricchiolo et al., 2009). Even so, most research agrees that self-touching
behaviors are often seen as a sign of anxiety and lack of composure (unless, perhaps, you are
Britney Spears or Madonna). With that in mind, our best advice at this point is to avoid
using adaptors if you want to be persuasive.
Haptics: Reach Out and Touch Someone
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If touching yourself makes you less persuasive, does touching other people have the same
effect? Many years ago, three researchers interested in the topic of haptics (or touch)
conducted a simple yet classic study to explore this question. In the study, library clerks did
one of two things when they handed library cards back to university students who were
checking out books: Either they did not touch the students or they made light physical
contact by placing a hand over the students’ palms. After their cards were returned, students
were asked to rate the quality of the library, and, interestingly, those who were touched
evaluated the library much more favorably than those who were not (Fisher, Rytting, &
Heslin, 1976).
The persuasive impact of touch has been demonstrated in other contexts as well. For
example, touch has been found to increase the number of people who volunteered to score
papers (Patterson, Powell, & Lenihan, 1986), sign petitions (Willis & Hamm, 1980),
complete questionnaires (Vaidis & Halimi-Falkowicz, 2008), return money that had been left
in a telephone booth (Kleinke, 1977), accept invitations to dance in nightclubs (Guéguen,
2007), provide phone numbers to prospective dating partners (Guéguen, 2007), and help
someone pick up items that had been dropped (Guéguen & Fischer-Lokou, 2003). Similarly,
when food servers touch diners appropriately, the servers earn higher tips (Hornick, 1992),
and the diners are more likely to take servers’ recommendations about what to order
(Guéguen, Jacob, & Boulbry, 2007). Hornick (1992) found that touching bookstore
customers on the arm caused them to shop longer (22.11 minutes versus 13.56 minutes),
purchase more ($15.03 versus $12.23), and evaluate the store more positively than customers
who had not been touched. Hornick (1992) also found that supermarket customers who had
been touched were more likely to taste and purchase food samples than untouched customers.
One common way of touching people is through handshakes, and, as it turns out, the way
you shake hands may influence the impressions people form of you. For instance, Bernieri
and Petty (2011) found that people make judgments about whether others are conscientious
and extroverted on the basis of handshakes. Not only that, the way you shake hands might
help you get a job. Specifically, in one study, men and women who used desirable handshakes
(i.e., firm clasps with a full grip while looking the other person in the eye) received higher
ratings of employment suitability from interviewers than did men and women with less
desirable, limp-fishy types of handshakes (Stewart, Dustin, Barrick, & Darnold, 2008).
Considering this research, it seems, then, that all the stuff we learned as kids about “the
Midas touch” may not be such a fairytale. Touching people, when done appropriately, seems
to be persuasive. Touch may put people in a good mood, making them more likely to comply
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with requests (Hornick, 1992). Another explanation is that people who touch create more
favorable impressions of themselves and, therefore, are more persuasive (Hornick, 1992).
Finally, people who touch may be more persuasive because, through touch, they augment
their image of power (Patterson et al., 1986).
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BOX 8.3 | If It Feels Good, Buy It: The Role of Touching Merchandise on Persuasion
When you are shopping, do you find yourself picking things up, feeling the texture of
fabrics, and running your fingers over merchandise? If so, you may be what researchers
have called high in the need for touch (NFT) (Peck & Childers, 2003a, 2003b; Peck &
Wiggins, 2005). High NFTs get frustrated while shopping if they cannot touch things.
Not all NFTs are the same, however. Some, called instrumental NFTs, use touch to
evaluate products, while others, called autotelic NFTs, touch things because it is fun and
pleasurable for them. With that in mind, autotelic NFTs are persuaded when there are
pleasurable things to touch, even when those things are not relevant to what is being
marketed (e.g., soft swatches of fabric on a pamphlet seeking donations for a nature
center) (Peck & Wiggins, 2005) and regardless of whether they are involved in the issue
being considered or not (Peck & Johnson, 2011). Instrumental NFTs, however, are
persuaded only when what is being touched is relevant to what is being marketed (e.g.,
feathers and tree bark samples on a pamphlet seeking donations for a nature center)
(Peck & Wiggins, 2005), and when their involvement in the issue is low (Peck &
Johnson, 2011).
Whatever the reason for the persuasive impact of touch, one thing is clear: The use of
touch for persuasive purposes is tricky because touch is so ambiguous. What one person may
see as “warm,” for example, another may view as a “power play.” In fact, one study found that
in competitive contexts, touching another person led to decreased cooperation, perhaps
because it is perceived as an attempt to dominate (Camps, Tuteleers, Stouten, & Nelissen,
2013). What’s more, what one person might interpret as “friendly,” another may see as
“flirtatious.” The “brushing” of one employee against another could be interpreted as
accidental or as a form of sexual harassment. Clearly, interpretations of touch depend on a
vast array of factors, including context, gender, and culture. In most of the studies we’ve just
discussed, touching generally occurred on the hands or arms. We suspect that too much
touching or touching other parts of a person might actually backfire, making persuasion less
likely. As potential persuadees, it is important to realize that even touches, such as those
enacted in most of the studies we discussed, wield tremendous persuasive power. Such
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touches may be so subtle that we might not even be aware that they are being used for
persuasive purposes. But do not be fooled. Touch is persuasive, as is the use of space—our
next topic. (For more on the persuasive effects of touch, see Box 8.3.)
Keep Your Distance? Proxemics and Persuasion
The study of proxemics, or how we use space to communicate, covers a variety of topics, such
as territoriality and dominance. In this chapter, however, we are less concerned with those
topics and, instead, focus our discussion on the concept of personal space, which refers to what
might be considered an invisible bubble that surrounds us. An obvious case in point is that a
door-to-door salesperson should not stick his or her nose in a potential customer’s face.
However, there is some evidence that indicates that the opposite is the case: That is, violating
a person’s space may be more persuasive.
In a study by Baron and Bell (1976), for instance, diners in a cafeteria were approached by
an experimenter and asked to volunteer for a survey for a period of 30 minutes to 2 hours and
30 minutes. The experimenter stood close to some diners (12–18 in.) and farther away from
others (3–4 ft). Results of the study showed that diners volunteered to participate for longer
periods of time when they were approached at closer distances.
How can we explain this finding? First, because people tend to stand closer to people they
like (Argyle, 1988), persuadees may simply be reciprocating the liking by complying with the
violator’s requests (Baron & Bell, 1976). In addition, because people find spatial invasion
uncomfortable, those invaded may perceive persuaders as more demanding, desperate, and
needful (Baron & Bell, 1976).
As with other forms of nonverbal communication, some caution is advised when making
generalizations about the role of proxemics in persuasion. Indeed, at least two studies indicate
that closer distances may not encourage compliance. For instance, Smith and Knowles (1979)
found that pedestrians who had their space invaded without justification were less likely to
return a lost object than those who had not had their space invaded. Moreover, a study by
Albert and Dabbs (1970) found that speakers were more persuasive the farther they were
from other people (i.e., speakers were more persuasive when standing 4–5 or 14–15 ft from
their audiences than they were when standing 1–2 ft from their audiences).
If the conflicting results of these studies seem confusing, you might be interested in a
theory presented by Judee Burgoon (1978, 1992, 1994). It is called expectancy violations theory,
and we think it provides a strong and elegant explanation for the ways in which space
violations affect the process of social influence.
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According to the theory, we all have expectations about how close other people should
stand to us. When people violate those expectations and get either too close or too far away,
we experience arousal and may become distracted. How we react to the violation, however,
depends on several factors, perhaps the most important being the “reward value” of the
violator. If he or she is attractive, has the power to reward or punish us, or is just plain likable,
the violation is perceived as a pleasant surprise, and we are more likely to be persuaded.
However, if the violator has low reward value, the violation will be perceived as negative, and
compliance will be less likely. In addition, the theory states that if violations are so extreme
that they are perceived as threatening, they also will decrease compliance.
The theory has received a considerable amount of support and implies several practical
suggestions for those interested in persuading others. First, if you think the person you are
trying to persuade sees you as attractive, powerful, or credible, it is best to stand a little farther
or a little closer to that person than would be expected. Second, if you think you are perceived
by someone as powerless and icky, you should maintain appropriate distances. Finally, never
overdo it. If you stand too close or too far away, you will probably not be persuasive.
Chronemics: All Good Things to Those Who Wait?
In science, the concepts of space and time are often discussed together. However, in the study
of persuasion, although considerable research has examined the topic of proxemics, little
attention has been paid to chronemics, or the study of how time is used to communicate. Even
so, we know that time can be an important commodity, especially in a culture like the United
States.
A common expression in the military, especially among soldiers with lower ranks, is “hurry
up and wait.” Oftentimes, it seems that such soldiers are expected to be on time although
their superiors can show up whenever they want to. The point is, the higher your status, the
more power you have over other people’s time.
This is true in other contexts as well. For instance, how much time have you spent waiting
in doctors’ offices? Do you have to make appointments to see some professors or to get
interviewed for a job? And don’t be fooled: If you are a subordinate and show up more than a
few minutes late to a business meeting, do you think you’ll be very persuasive? We suspect
not.
Practically speaking, then, you might be wondering whether it is okay to be late if you
have a lot of status. Our suggestion is “be careful.” Indeed, a study mentioned in the work of
Burgoon and colleagues (1996) found that people who arrive 15 minutes late are considered
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dynamic, but much less competent, composed, and sociable than people who arrive on time.
Plus, we think making people wait is rude.
Time not only affects perceptions of people but it also can be used as a persuasive ploy. For
instance, for people in a hurry, drive-through banking or fast-food restaurants may have
appeal, as may establishments such as Jiffy Lube, LensCrafters, and 1-Hour Photo. When
such services save you time, it’s terrific. But beware. Just because an exercise video promises to
transform your buns into steel in only three minutes a day, or a flyer claims you can earn
$60,000 a year working at home in your spare time, or an audiotape claims it will teach you
how to play guitar in two weeks doesn’t mean that will really happen. Too often, people seek
quick solutions to complicated problems. We want to buy a product, take a pill, or push a
button, and make a problem go away. Persuaders prey on this quick-fix mentality.
In addition to ploys offering to save time, sometimes strategies are based on what Cialdini
(1993) calls the principle of scarcity. According to Cialdini and others (e.g., Brehm, 1966;
Brehm & Brehm, 1981), people love freedom, and when that freedom is threatened or
limited, people experience something called psychological reactance, a concept we introduced in
Chapter 3. For example, a shopper in a store may decide she likes a certain dress. If a
salesperson explains to the customer that there is only one more dress like that in her size
(i.e., the dress is scarce), the woman, who might have thought that she was free to buy the
dress at any time, may now react psychologically by wanting the dress more than she did in the
first place (Cialdini, 1993). As you well know, persuaders also attempt to use psychological
reactance in their favor by making time scarce. For instance, by telling us that we must “act
now” or that there is a “limited time offer,” advertisers are relying on the principle of scarcity.
By limiting our time, they hope to make us more likely to purchase their product or service.
The notion that “time is running out” has the potential to nudge us in other ways as well.
For example, one of our favorite vintage studies (Pennebaker et al., 1979) tested country
singer Mickey Gilley’s (1975) prediction that “the girls get prettier at closing time” by asking
bar patrons to rate the attractiveness of other patrons during various times in the evening.
Results indicated that ratings of opposite-sex patrons increased near closing time, suggesting
that people’s standards change as the pickin’s get slim (i.e., as time and potential partners
become scarce). A recent replication of this study (Johnco, Wheeler, & Taylor, 2010)
suggests that, although these results are due, in part, to alcohol consumption (known in
popular culture as the “beer goggles” effect), scarcity remains a viable explanation for why
people’s standards for attractiveness change over time. Of course, if you haven’t hooked up
with a “10” by last call, you can always settle for two “5’s.”
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Interestingly, perhaps because the psychological pressure created by scarcity is so
uncomfortable, some persuaders have found that a “nonurgency” tactic is preferable. In other
words, because people don’t want to be rushed and pressured, sometimes coming across as if
time is not an issue can be very persuasive. Starbucks and other coffee houses that offer free
Wi-Fi encourage customers to stay. “No, no, no” sales also use this approach: A consumer
buys a mattress, a big-screen TV, or an appliance and pays no money down, no interest, and
no monthly payments until anywhere from 90 days to a year later. Products or services that
advertise a “free 30-day trial offer” also facilitate sales by removing time pressures.
Finally, if customers get tired of waiting, there might be a creative solution. Consider, for
example, how executives at a Houston airport responded when they got swamped with
complaints about the long waits at baggage claim. Instead of reducing wait times, the
executives routed flights to distant arrival gates, thereby forcing passengers to walk longer
distances. As a result of keeping passengers busy, complaints virtually disappeared (Stone,
2012).
Artifacts and Physical Features of the Environment: Dress for Success
While talking about the notion of time, did we mention that an expensive watch with a gold
wristband couldn’t hurt your image much? Obviously, the clothes and makeup we wear, the
cars we drive, the furniture we own, and other physical objects, also known as artifacts, can
communicate a great deal about our credibility and status. In our society, material goods are
viewed as an extension of oneself. Why else would color analysts be getting rich by telling
people whether to wear summer, autumn, winter, or spring colored makeup? And why else
would someone pay thousands of dollars for an Armani suit?
Speaking of suits, we know a good story about how artifacts can affect people’s
perceptions. Many years ago, one of the authors sold men’s suits for commission. Because he
obviously did not earn anything unless he sold merchandise, when given a choice, the author
tried to help customers who appeared as if they would spend a lot of money. One day a
customer entered the store wearing a greasy T-shirt, jeans, no socks, and filthy tennis shoes.
Because at the time there were plenty of other people shopping, the author decided to pick a
more “profitable-looking” customer on whom to wait. One of the new employees, however,
decided to help the “greaseball.” Much to the author’s surprise, however, that greaseball
ended up buying six very expensive suits. It turned out he was not a greaseball at all; he was a
high-paid executive who had just lost all of his suits in a fire. He was restocking his wardrobe.
Of course, the old saying “you can’t judge a book by its cover” took on a whole new meaning
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that day.
FIGURE 8.2
Source: © Peter Steiner/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
Apparently, when it comes to making quick judgments like this, the author is not alone.
Indeed, previous literature suggests that first impressions are not only powerful and enduring,
they are often based on seemingly trivial appearance cues (see Burgoon, Buller, & Woodall,
1996). Research indicates, for example, that cues such as clothing (e.g., Gorham, Cohen, &
Morris, 1999; Seiter & Dunn, 2000), grooming (e.g., Atkins & Kent, 1988), cosmetics
(Johnson & Workman, 1991), hair length (Atkins & Kent, 1988), tattooing (Seiter & Hatch,
2005; Swami & Furnham, 2007), and body piercing (Seiter & Sandry, 2003) influence
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judgments about credibility, attractiveness, and whether or not to hire someone. In other
words, if anything, such research indicates that such cues are not trivial at all and, in some
contexts (e.g., when interviewing), may be more important than verbal cues (Goldberg &
Cohen, 2004).
In addition to those discussed, other artifacts and features of the environment can be
influential. For instance, power and status might be communicated through the size and
location of a person’s office. Large offices in corner spaces, for example, are often considered
prestigious (Andersen, 1999). Not only that, one of our favorite studies (Teven & Comadena,
1996) illustrates that an office’s appearance may be important as well. In the study, 97
students went one at a time to meet a professor in his office. On arriving for the meeting,
however, they found no professor and were asked to wait 5 minutes for him. Some of the
students waited in a disorganized and untidy office, whereas others waited in a clean and
neatly arranged office. After the 5 minutes were up, the students were told that the professor
could not make the meeting. Later, however, they saw the professor lecture and rated him on
several scales. The results of the study showed that the professor’s office had a significant
influence on students’ perceptions. Specifically, compared to students who visited the tidy
office, those who visited the untidy one perceived the professor as less authoritative, less
trustworthy, less open, less relaxed, less concerned about making a good impression, less
animated, and less friendly. Interestingly, however, the “untidy” professor was seen as the
most dynamic, perhaps because the disheveled office created the impression of a busy and
energetic person (Teven & Comadena, 1996). Whatever the case, after reading this study,
we’ll be straightening up.
And apparently, we’re not the only ones. Other people know about the importance of
structuring the environment. For example, if you’re thinking of buying a house, before you
do, remember that those dandy model homes may not look the same once you’re living in
them. Why not? The furniture is downsized to make the rooms look larger (Martin, 2000).
Plus, empty closets, refrigerators without kiddie art, and the absence of other household
necessities make such homes look tidy and ever so inviting. The practice of “staging” homes
by using decluttering and inexpensive improvements is now a big business.
Supermarkets are another example of how environments are arranged strategically (e.g.,
see Field, 1996; Meyer, 1997; Tandingan, 2001). Next time you’re shopping, for instance,
take a look around. You might notice that staples such as dairy, meat, and produce are in the
back or on opposite sides of the store. Why? It forces shoppers to meander through the aisles
where they’ll be tempted to buy all kinds of other goodies. You’ll also notice that chips, dips,
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and other products that “go together” are intentionally placed side by side, encouraging
additional purchases. And it’s no accident that children’s products (e.g., Cap’n Crunch) are
often placed on middle shelves so that they are at eye level to little precious who is seated in
the shopping cart, whereas adult products (e.g., Grape Nuts) are at higher elevations. What’s
more, snack foods, which appeal to impulsive shoppers, are often located in checkout areas
and at the ends of aisles where they’re more likely to be snatched up. Clearly, such placement
is adapted to particular audiences and aimed at making products noticeable to consumers.
In addition to the studies and tactics we’ve mentioned so far, considerable evidence shows
that artifacts and physical features of the environment can not only make products more
noticeable and people appear more (or less) credible, they can also lead to persuasion. Most of
this research has focused on the impact of clothing. Lawrence and Watson (1991), for
example, found that individuals asking for contributions to law enforcement and health-care
campaigns earned more money when wearing sheriffs’ and nurses’ uniforms than when they
did not. In another classic study, Bickman (1974) had young men dressed as either civilians
or uniformed guards, approach pedestrians on the streets of New York and ask them to do
one of three things. In one situation, pedestrians were shown a bag lying on the ground and
were told, “Pick up this bag for me!” In another condition, the experimenter pointed at a man
standing near a parked car and said, “This fellow is over-parked at the meter but doesn’t have
any change. Give him a dime!” In the final condition, a person standing at a bus stop was
told, “Don’t you know you have to stand on the other side of the pole? The sign says, ‘No
Standing.’” Results of the study showed that, in all three conditions, people complied more
with the guard than they did with the civilians. In other words, something about a uniform
tends to make us obedient.
Although meta-analyses indicate that fancy suits, uniforms, and high-status clothing are
related to higher rates of compliance (Segrin, 1993), such apparel might not always be
necessary for persuasion. In some cases, it may also be possible to influence people by wearing
clothing that makes them identify with a persuader. Hensley (1981), for instance, found that
well-dressed people were more persuasive in airports, but casually dressed people were more
persuasive at bus stops.
In short, it appears that artifacts, particularly clothing, make a difference when trying to
seek compliance. Of course, artifacts can also affect your appearance or attractiveness, which,
in turn, can affect your persuasiveness. We now turn our discussion to this topic.
Physical Appearance: Of Beauties and Beasts
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Beauty may only be skin deep, but it is persuasive. And the people out there trying to
influence us know this. Beauty sells. For example, if Gisele Bündchen had a big nose and
warts with hair growing out of them, do you think you’d have seen her face spread across the
pages of makeup and lingerie ads? It seems, in fact, that the products being endorsed by
attractive spokespersons do not even have to be connected with making us more attractive.
Indeed, beautiful people are trying to sell us everything from milk, to law firms, to dog food.
Not surprisingly, plenty of research indicates that physical attractiveness is persuasive in
contexts other than advertising (see Box 8.4). For instance, compared to their less-attractive
counterparts, attractive people are judged to be happier, more intelligent, friendlier, stronger,
and kinder and are thought to have better personalities, better jobs, and greater marital
competence (Knapp, 1992). Seiter and Dunn (2000) found that it did not matter whether a
woman was made to appear attractive in a pristine way (e.g., conservative clothing, makeup,
and jewelry) or attractive in a sexy way (e.g., revealing clothes, heavy makeup). In both cases,
she was believed more when claiming to have been sexually harassed than when she was made
to appear unattractive (e.g., blotchy skin, greasy hair, no makeup). Finally, Palmer and
Peterson (2016) found that, when talking politics, attractive people (particularly poorly
informed ones), are more likely than unattractive people to try persuading others. Not only
that, they’re perceived as better informed and more persuasive than unattractive people.
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BOX 8.4 | Hot by Association: How Facebook Friends Affect Your Attractiveness
If you are one of the millions of people who use the social networking website Facebook,
you might be interested to know that people may be judging you by the company you
keep. It has been known for some time that judgments of attractiveness are relative. For
example, when photos of average-looking people are shown beside photos of attractive
and unattractive people, a contrast effect occurs: Average people are seen as more
attractive when seen alongside unattractive people and less attractive when seen
alongside attractive people. If, however, the people judging attractiveness are told that a
relationship exists between the people in the photos, the opposite effect (assimilation)
occurs: Average people are now seen as less attractive when paired with unattractive
people and more attractive when paired with attractive people (Melamed & Moss,
1975). Knowing this, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that, if you want to appear
“hotter,” it helps to have attractive friends on Facebook. Indeed, two studies found that
Facebook users were perceived as more physically and socially attractive when they were
associated with good-looking pals (Jaschinski & Kommers, 2012; Walther, Van Der
Heide, Kim, Westerman, & Tong, 2008).
According to Palmer and Peterson (2016), these results may be due to a “halo effect,” in
which one positive characteristic of a person causes us to see everything about the person in a
positive light. In other words, if the person is attractive, he or she must also be trustworthy,
well informed, and so forth. Whatever the case, given the preceding findings, perhaps you are
wondering what physical characteristics are related to attractiveness. Although we know that
standards for beauty change over time (e.g., did you know that, in medieval times, pale and
plump people were perceived as the most attractive?) and that beauty is supposedly in the eye
of the beholder, research tells us that some of the following characteristics are related to
perceptions and/or persuasiveness:
1. Body shape: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Taylor Swift, and Jonah Hill represent the three
basic body shapes. The first, a mesomorph, is muscular; the second, an ectomorph is thin; and
the third, an endomorph, is round. Findings summarized by Argyle (1988) show that whereas
mesomorphs are rated as, among other things, strong and adventurous, ectomorphs are seen
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as tense, pessimistic, and quiet, and endomorphs are seen as warm, sympathetic, agreeable,
and dependent. Because of negative stereotypes, endomorphs tend to be perceived as less
powerful, successful, attractive, and enthusiastic than those with different body shapes
(Breseman, Lennon, & Schulz, 1999; Wade, Fuller, Bresnan, Schaefer, & Mlynarski, 2007).
Moreover, endomorphs are less likely to get jobs, less likely to earn high salaries, and less
likely to be accepted into colleges than thinner people with the same IQs (Argyle, 1988).
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FIGURES 8.3, 8.4, 8.5
Celebrities sporting different body shapes: Can you spot the mesomorph, ectomorph, and endomorph?
Sources: DFree/Shutterstock.com; KathyHutchins/Sutterstock.com; s_buckley/Shutterstock.com
Even so, one study (Martins, Pliner, & Lee, 2004) indicated that perceptions based on
body shape depend on other factors, specifically meal size. In the study, Canadian students
reported their impressions of normal or overweight males and females who were portrayed as
eating small or large meals. Overweight males eating large meals were perceived by all
students as the least socially attractive, perhaps because they are thought to lack self-control
(Martins et al., 2004). Interestingly, however, while female students perceived normal-weight
females who ate small meals as the most socially attractive, male students rated normal-
weight females who ate large meals as the most socially attractive. Why? The researchers
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suggested that males may perceive normal-weight females who eat heartily as more
comfortable with themselves, more confident, and more honest (Martins et al., 2004). That
being said, women may face a double standard when it comes to weight. A study by Judge
and Cable (2011), for example, found that thin women earned significantly higher salaries
than middleweight women, while thin men earned lower salaries than middleweight men.
Being obese negatively affected the salaries of both men and women (Judge & Cable, 2011).
2. Facial appearance: According to Argyle (1988), faces are perceived as more attractive when
they have wide cheekbones, narrow cheeks, high eyebrows, wide pupils, large smiles, noses
that are not too long or too short, and eyes not too far apart or too close together. Baby-faced
women are perceived as more attractive but immature by men (Berry & McArthur, 1986)
and, whereas baby-faced people are cast into commercials that want to portray
trustworthiness, mature-faced people are cast into commercials that want to emphasize
expertise (Brownlow & Zebrowitz, 1990). Interestingly, because baby-faced speakers may
look more honest (Masip, Garrido, & Herrero, 2004), they are more persuasive when their
trustworthiness is questioned, while mature-faced speakers are more persuasive when their
expertise is questioned (Brownlow, 1992). In addition, while being baby-faced seems to
benefit female politicians, it works to male politicians’ disadvantage (Lee, 2013).
That said, the most persuasive faces, perhaps, are ones that remind us of ourselves. Indeed,
in one of our favorite studies (Richards & Hample, 2016), research participants saw
photographs of a speaker. Unbeknown to the participants, the speaker’s face was actually a
composite of two faces that had been digitally morphed together. What’s more, while some
participants saw photos that merged the faces of two strangers, others saw photos that
merged their own face with a stranger’s. Compared to the first group of participants, those in
the second group perceived the speaker to be more likable, credible, and persuasive. Why?
According to the researchers, evolution benefits people who give preferential treatment to
their kin. See the connection? People who look like us may be genetically similar. As such,
we’re prone to prefer them over dissimilar others, a concept known nepotistic altruism
(Hamilton, 1964).
3. Hair: Do blondes, as the old saying goes, “have more fun?” We’re not sure about that, but
when it comes to another old saying—“Gentlemen prefer blondes”— research seems to agree.
Indeed, in several studies the same women sported different hair colors, and, generally
speaking, were favored by males when posing as blondes. By way of example, blonde
hitchhikers (Guéguen & Lamy, 2009), waitresses (Guéguen, 2012b), and night clubbers
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(Guéguen, 2012a) received more rides, tips, and attention (Swami & Barrett, 2011, Study 1),
respectively. On the other hand, although blondes received more help (Guéguen, 2012c) and
were rated as more attractive (Sorokowski, 2008), they were also perceived as more needy and
less competent than brunettes (Swami & Barrett, Study 2).
That said, research shows that hair of any color may be better than no hair at all. For
instance, a study comparing hair loss among male governors and members of Congress to the
general public found that elected politicians are more likely to have a full head of hair than
would be expected of men their age (Sigelman, Dawson, Nitz, & Whicker, 1990). Before you
conclude that more hair means more persuasion, however, consider a study by Guido, Peluso,
and Moffa (2011), which examined the persuasive effects of beards. Based on research
suggesting that men with beards tend to be perceived as less attractive but more trustworthy
and competent than men with no facial hair (De Souza, Baião, & Otta, 2003), these
researchers found that cleanshaven men were more persuasive when endorsing products
related to attractiveness (i.e., underwear), while bearded guys were more persuasive when
endorsing products related to trustworthiness and expertise (i.e., cellphones and toothpaste).
Such research supports the match-up hypothesis (Kamins, 1990), which argues that persuasion
is increased when endorsers are paired with products that emphasize characteristics of the
endorsers.
4. Height: According to a meta-analysis of 45 studies (Judge & Cable, 2004), when it comes
to a person’s height, size matters. The analysis found that being taller, especially if you are
male, is positively associated with ratings of leadership, performance, and social esteem. Not
only that, the study reported that taller people earn significantly more money in their careers
than do their shorter counterparts (Judge & Cable, 2004).
Paralinguistics and Persuasion: Pump Up the Volume?
Paralinguistics, or vocalics, is the study of vocal stimuli aside from spoken words. It includes
such elements as pitch, rate, pauses, volume, tone of voice, silences, laughs, screams, sighs,
and so forth. We know from prior research that the way in which persons speak affects how
they are perceived as well as their ability to persuade. In one study, for instance, people who
listened to high-pitched voices perceived the speaker as more attractive and extroverted than
those who listened to low-pitched voices (Imhof, 2010). Similarly, Hinkle (2001) found that
when managers spoke clearly and varied their tone, employees tended to like them better.
More recently, researchers have identified a quality of voice known as vocal fry or “creaky
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voice,” which is characterized by drawing out the end of sentences with a low, croaking growl
in the back of the throat (to hear it, Google “vocal fry” or think Britney Spears, Kim
Kardashian, or Matthew McConaughey). According to Anderson and her colleagues (2014),
vocal fry is increasingly common among young American females, and leads them, more so
than males, to be perceived as less competent, less trustworthy, less attractive, and less hirable.
Such findings suggest that women’s voices may be subject to more criticism than men’s, a
double standard if you ask us.
In addition to pitch and quality, researchers have examined the effects of speaking rate.
Previous studies, for example, indicate that faster speakers are perceived as more credible
(Simonds, Meyer, Quinlan, & Hunt, 2006) and persuasive (Miller, Maruyama, Beaber, &
Valone, 1976) than those who speak slower, perhaps because they appear more competent
and knowledgeable. On the other hand, Buller and Aune (1988) found that for persuasion to
occur, the optimal rate of speech may depend on both the encoding ability of the sender and
the decoding ability of the receiver. Specifically, although good decoders were more likely to
comply with speeches delivered at fast rates, poor decoders preferred slower rates. In a related
study, Smith and Shaffer (1995) found that speeches delivered at faster rates hinder people’s
ability to scrutinize messages. Thus, consistent with the elaboration likelihood model (see
Chapter 2), people who heard a speech delivered at a normal speed were persuaded when the
speech contained strong arguments, whereas those who heard accelerated speeches were
persuaded equally by strong and weak messages. That said, if you’re at all like us, you’ve
undoubtedly heard that old stereotype about “fasttalking” salespeople. You can’t trust them,
right? We’re not sure about that, but one study found that those end-of-commercial
disclaimers are less persuasive when delivered at fast-paced rather than normal-paced speeds
(Herbst, Finkel, Allan, & Fitzsimons, 2012). If you ask us, they’re also pretty irritating.
Finally, you might be interested to know that not all studies on vocalics focus exclusively
on human speech. Indeed, for those of you who’ve been unfortunate enough to answer your
telephone and find one of those eerie computer-synthesized voices selling some product on
the other end, here’s an interesting study. The study asked people to listen to persuasive
messages spoken by either a natural human voice or a synthetic computerized voice and then
measured how persuaded the people were. Surprisingly, the results indicated that the
synthetic voice was just as persuasive as the human voice (Stern, Mullennix, Dyson, &
Wilson, 1999). Even so, in real life, we bet those computers are easier to hang up on.
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SUMMARY
In this chapter, we learned that persuasion is not as simple as what you say. How you say
something may be just as, if not more, important. We also learned that there are many
categories of nonverbal communication that affect the process of persuasion. In our
examination of kinesics, for instance, we saw that people are generally more persuasive when
they (1) make eye contact, (2) use facial expressions and body movements that signal
relaxation and sociability, and (3) use more emblems and illustrators but fewer adaptors.
Similarly, we noted that people tend to be more compliant when they are touched or
approached at distances that violate their expectations, as long as the touch and distances are
not perceived as being too inappropriate. Moreover, people can make themselves appear more
credible, dominant, or powerful, and, in turn, affect their persuasiveness through the use of
time, artifacts, or physical appearance. Those who control others’ time, wear the right
clothing at the right time, and are attractive tend to be more persuasive than their
counterparts. Finally, various features of the voice, particularly its rate, influence how
persuasive one tends to be.
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T
CHAPTER 9
Structuring and Ordering Persuasive Messages
Implicit and Explicit Conclusions: Let Me Spell It Out for You
Gain-Framed Versus Loss-Framed Messages: Keep on the Sunny Side?
Quantity Versus Quality of Arguments: The More the Merrier?
The Use of Evidence: The Proof’s Not in the Pudding
Repetition and Mere Exposure: You Can Say That Again
Order Effects and Persuasion: First Things First
Primacy and Recency Effects: The First Shall Be Last, and the Last Shall Be First
An Ounce of Prevention: Inoculation. Message-Sidedness, and Forewarning
Inoculation Theory: Of Needles and Arguments
One-Sided Versus Two-Sided Messages: Both Sides Now
Forewarning: You’d Better Watch Out
HE STUDY OF PERSUASION and the study of rhetoric, if not one and the same, are closely
related. Aristotle, for instance, defined rhetoric as “the faculty of discovering all the
available means of persuasion.” Although, in everyday parlance the term “rhetoric” is often
used in conjunction with words such as “empty” or “meaningless,” the connotations
surrounding the term were not always so negative. The ancient Greeks and Romans, for
example, considered rhetoric an essential ingredient in a good education. By the time the
great Roman orator Cicero wrote about rhetoric, its study was divided into five parts. Four
were called inventio, elocutio, memoria, and pronuntiatio, which focused on finding and
inventing arguments, speaking with style, remembering arguments, and delivering speeches
effectively. The last part, dispositio, focused on selecting the most important arguments and
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ideas and on the effective and orderly arrangements of those ideas and arguments (Corbett,
1971). Quintilian, another Roman rhetorician, noted the significance of strategically planning
and organizing a persuasive message. As Corbett (1971) wrote:
Quintilian hints at the more important concern of disposition when he says that it is
to oratory what generalship is to war. It would be folly to hold a general to a fixed,
predetermined disposition of his forces. He must be left free to distribute his troops
in the order and proportion best suited to cope with the situation in which he may
find himself at any particular moment. So he will mass some of his troops at one
point on the battle line, thin them out at other points, keep other troops in reserve,
and perhaps concentrate his crack troops at the most crucial area. Guided by
judgment and imagination, the general stands ready to make whatever adjustments in
strategy eventualities may dictate.
(pp. 299–300)
When planning a persuasive message, we are often confronted with questions of strategy
such as “What should I leave in, and what should I leave out?” “How should I arrange my
arguments?” and “Should my strongest arguments come first or last?” However, in addition to
questions concerning the order of arguments within persuasive messages, there is the issue of
the sequencing of messages when more than one persuader is involved. For example, imagine
that you are about to speak to a large audience and want to convince that audience to lower
tuition at your school. You know that after you’ve spoken, another person will argue just the
opposite: Tuition should be raised. Is there anything you can do to make your opponent’s
arguments less powerful? In this chapter we examine these issues.
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IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT CONCLUSIONS: LET ME SPELL IT OUT FOR YOU
According to Lee (2014), one of the most common approaches to advertising is based on the
hope that consumers will draw their own inferences, which, in turn, will lead them to hold
favorable attitudes toward a specific product. Consider, for example, the following ad:
A commercial … begins when a perky young woman comes on the screen and says,
“I’ve got a question. Pay attention, there will be a quiz later. People prefer their
hamburgers at home and flame-broiled. Now, if McDonald’s and Wendy’s fry their
hamburgers and Burger King flame-broils theirs … where do you think people should
go for a hamburger?”
(Sawyer, 1988, p. 159)
Because this advertisement relies on customers to draw their own inferences (in this case,
“People should go to Burger King”), it uses what persuasion scholars refer to as an implicit
conclusions approach. Had the spokesperson said, “People should go to Burger King,” the ad
would have used an explicit conclusion approach, in which case claims are directly stated by the
person sending the message (e.g., “You should buy our product,” or “Our product is simply
the best”).
One possible advantage of an implicit approach is that receivers may prefer their own
conclusions (Kardes, Kim, & Lim, 1994). On the other hand, there are risks. For example,
what if receivers are unable to draw the desired conclusions? Perhaps the content of the
message is too complex. Or what if the situation doesn’t lend itself to “filling in the blanks”?
Some forms of entertainment are meant to be persuasive. When people are reading literature
or watching television shows, for instance, can they be expected to actively draw conclusions?
Or are they simply caught up in the drama, lost in a good book, and better off having
conclusions drawn for them?
To find out, one study (Moyer-Guse, Jain, & Chung, 2012) aired an episode of a prime-
time television drama (Law & Order: SVU) that focused on the issue of drunk driving. After
viewing it, one group of participants watched an epilogue, featuring an actress from the show,
who explicitly emphasized the dangers of drunk driving. Other participants watched the show
or the epilogue, but not both. Results indicated that a combination of episode and epilogue
was most persuasive. In other words, explicit messages worked best. This seems to be the case
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not only when it comes to narrative-based materials (e.g., literature and television), but also
with persuasive speeches and arguments as well. Indeed, according to one review (Dillard,
2014), explicit messages are most persuasive because they provide clear directions to receivers.
That’s not to say that implicit messages should be abandoned altogether. Indeed, given the
right conditions, they can be especially effective. For instance, when messages are personally
relevant to the receiver (e.g., Bubba is in the market for a new car when a Volkswagen ad
pops up), implicit conclusions are more persuasive than explicit ones (Sawyer & Howard,
1991). Similarly, because people who are “high in the need for cognition” (see Chapter 6) are
more likely to “fill in the blanks,” they prefer implicit approaches to explicit ones (Martin,
Lang, and Wong (2003/2004). Finally, when people are suspicious of persuaders’ intentions,
they tend to view an explicit-conclusion approach as pushy, rendering it less effective than an
implicit approach (Martin & Strong, 2016).
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Action 1:
Action 2:
Action 1:
Action 2:
GAIN-FRAMED VERSUS LOSS-FRAMED MESSAGES: KEEP ON THE SUNNY SIDE?
Imagine for a moment that one of those deadly swine or avian flu viruses has swept into your
neighborhood and is predicted to kill 600 people unless immediate action is taken. If you
were in charge and given the following choices, which action would you choose?
guarantees that 200 of the 600 people will be saved.
gives a 33.3 percent chance that all 600 people will be saved and a 66.6
percent chance that no one will be saved.
Got your answer?
If you are like the majority of people in a classic study conducted by Amos Tversky and
Daniel Kahneman (1981), you picked Action 1. Interestingly, however, another group of
people were presented with exactly the same scenario, with the options worded in a slightly
different way:
guarantees that 400 of the 600 people will die.
gives a 33.3 percent chance that no one will die and a 66.6 percent chance
that everyone will die.
Notice the difference? The first pair of actions looks on the brighter side by focusing on how
many lives will be saved, while the second pair of actions portrays the glass half empty by
focusing on how many will die. Persuasion scholars refer to messages like the first pair as
gain-framed and messages like the second pair as loss-framed. And it turns out that such
framing of messages can make a big difference. Indeed, the majority of people in the second
group chose Action 2. This, then, led early researchers to conclude that, people are risk averse;
they fear losses more than they prefer gains. As such, they are willing to take greater risks in
order to avoid or recoup their losses (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981).
Subsequent research, however, suggests that, overall, there are no noticeable differences
between the persuasiveness of loss-framed and gain-framed messages (see Dillard, 2014).
That said, some conditions may favor one approach over the other. For instance, Nan (2012)
found that present-minded people, who tend to focus on the short-term consequences of their
decisions, responded more favorably to loss-framed messages. However, future-minded people,
who consider long-term consequences of their decisions, were equally persuaded by loss- and
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gain-framed messages. Similarly, Hull and Hong (2016) found that people who are high
sensation seekers (think bungee jumpers and skydivers) are more persuaded by loss-framed
messages, while low sensation seekers are more persuaded by gain-framed messages. Another
study found that, when people are in a good mood, loss-framed messages are most persuasive.
This might be because positive moods help people cope with aversive, yet useful, information
(Wirtz, Sar, & Ghuge, 2015). Finally, because people may perceive disease-detecting
behaviors (e.g., mammography, HIV screening) as risky in the sense that such behaviors
might reveal something that is feared, using loss-framed messages may be a more effective
way to motivate people to follow through on preventive medical check-ups. A doctor, for
instance, might tell a patient, “if you don’t detect cancer early, you narrow your options for
treatment.” In contrast, because people may perceive disease-preventing behaviors (e.g.,
wearing sunscreen, exercising) as less risky, using gain-framed messages may be more
effective. For instance, a doctor might offer a health-affirming message such as, “Eating a lot
of veggies will help you maintain your good health.” Recent research using meta-analysis
suggests that, while gain-framed appeals are indeed more effective than loss-framed appeals
when trying to promote dental hygiene (O’Keefe & Jensen, 2007), loss-framed appeals were
more effective than gain-framed appeals for promoting breast cancer-detection behaviors
(O’Keefe & Jensen, 2009).
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QUANTITY VERSUS QUALITY OF ARGUMENTS: THE MORE THE MERRIER?
What are you going to have for your next dinner? If given the choice between an all-you-can-
eat buffet and a fancy French restaurant, which would you pick? We imagine your answer
depends on whether you like to fill your belly or reward your palate. Indeed, buffets usually
offer lots of mediocre food, while a good French restaurant typically promises small portions
of fine cuisine. What appeals to you more than likely depends on your priorities.
The same is probably true of persuasive messages. For some people, it is the quantity of
arguments presented that counts. For them, a “kitchen sink” approach in which an advocate
throws in every available argument works best. For other people, it is the quality of arguments
that counts. For such people, the number of arguments is inconsequential. They require
“gourmet” arguments. To illustrate this notion, we return briefly to Petty and Cacioppo’s
(1986) elaboration likelihood model (ELM), which we discussed in more detail in Chapter 2.
Recall that, according to the ELM, there are two routes to persuasion: the peripheral route
and the central route. First, when people are persuaded by a message that they have carefully
scrutinized, they are being persuaded via the central route (of course, after scrutinizing a
message, they may also remain unpersuaded). Often, however, people do not scrutinize the
persuasive messages. Instead, they rely on the peripheral route, which involves mental
shortcuts and simple decision rules.
According to Petty and Cacioppo (1984), one type of peripheral cue may be the number of
arguments that a persuader presents. These researchers reasoned that some people might
decide that a persuasive message containing a lot of arguments must be a lot better than one
that does not (“It must be a good argument! Look at all those reasons!”). Of course, not all
people would be persuaded by a lot of weak arguments. People who carefully scrutinized the
arguments, they hypothesized, would not be fooled. Results of one study (Petty & Cacioppo,
1984) supported this hypothesis. Specifically, when people were not involved in a topic, the
quality of the arguments they heard did not matter. Quantity did, however. They tended to
be persuaded by a lot of arguments, even if the arguments were weak. In contrast, when
people were involved in the topic they were not taken in by a lot of weak arguments. They
were persuaded only when strong arguments were used, especially when there were a lot of
strong arguments (Petty & Cacioppo, 1984). The moral of this line of research, then, is the
following: If you think your audience will scrutinize your message, use strong arguments, but
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if your audience does not seem involved in the topic, a smorgasbord of arguments may be
quite effective.
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THE USE OF EVIDENCE: THE PROOF’S NOT IN THE PUDDING
Different persuasive claims require different types of proof. One common form of proof is
evidence. Evidence comes in many forms including narratives, personal anecdotes, statistics,
quotations, testimonials, graphs and charts, and more. Physical evidence may be offered as
well (e.g., lipstick on a collar, a “smoking gun” memo). As a general rule, evidence facilitates
persuasion. A meta-analysis by Reinard (1988) demonstrates that as long as the evidence is
relevant to the claim being made, evidence is almost always persuasive. As is the case with the
quantity versus quality of arguments discussed above, the quantity of evidence matters more
when receivers have low involvement, whereas the quality of evidence matters more when
receivers have high involvement.
Evidence sometimes functions as a peripheral cue. For example, a prosecutor might pile up
a “mountain” of evidence against a defendant. The sheer quantity of evidence may seem so
great that jurors infer that the defendant must be guilty. However, evidence is put to best use
when receivers rely on central processing (Reynolds & Reynolds, 2002). A meta-analysis by
Stiff (1986) revealed a significant positive correlation between evidence use and attitude
change, especially when receivers were involved in the topic or issue.
Another benefit of using evidence is that it tends to increase a source’s perceived credibility
(O’Keefe, 1998). Reinard (1988) found a ceiling effect for the persuasiveness of evidence. If a
source already has very high credibility, evidence won’t help. Most everyday persuaders,
however, need all the help they can get. Unless you are the foremost expert in the world on an
issue, go ahead and include high-quality evidence, and lots of it, in your persuasive message.
One question that has been raised is whether some types of evidence are more persuasive
than others. For instance, two meta-analyses have shown that using statistical proof is more
effective than using anecdotal or narrative proof (Allen & Preiss, 1997; Kim et al., 2012).
Other studies (e.g., Braverman, 2008; Han & Fink, 2012; Hoeken & Hustinx, 2009) suggest
that statistical evidence works best under some conditions (e.g., when making generalizations,
when there is a lot of evidence, or when receiver involvement is high) while narrative proof
works best in others (e.g., when narratives are vivid or when receiver involvement is low) (for
additional considerations, see Box 9.1).
Although such studies are fascinating for academic reasons, Braddock and Dillard (2016)
argued that they are only meaningful if we assume that narrative and statistical evidence are
naturally opposed to one other, which they are not. Indeed, not only are narratives persuasive
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in and of themselves, “sometimes, characters in narratives speak in statistical arguments”
(Braddock & Dillard, 2016, p. 448). As such, we think it’s better to view different types of
evidence as teammates rather than competitors. Specifically, if each type of evidence
contributes to the persuasiveness of a message, why not include all of them in your message?
Previous literature supports this approach. Reinard (1988), for instance, argued that a
persuader might combine narrative and statistical evidence for maximum effect. He
recommends starting with a narrative example and then following up with statistics to show
that the example is not atypical. Moreover, a recent meta-analysis indicated that the
persuasive effects of different types of evidence (i.e., assertive evidence, statistical evidence,
and evidence source qualification) were additive, meaning that each contributed to the
persuasiveness of a message (Kim et al., 2012). Go team!
FIGURE 9.1
A butcher and a dog are in court.
Source: Cartoon by John Seiter and Robert Gass.
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BOX 9.1 | The Identifiable Victim Effect
A short time ago, in a small community where one of the authors lives, a 14-year-old
girl was found lying in a dry canal, shot in the back of her head. The suspects, two
teenage boys, had allegedly lured her to the secluded location with plans to murder her.
And yet, she survived. As the girl clung to life, people hurried to raise money. The
author was moved to contribute, partly because of the incident’s proximity, but mostly
because the girl became more than just a statistic. Her name, photo, and story not only
appeared on TV and newspapers, it was posted in banks, grocery stores, and other places
the author frequently visited.
Beyond its horrible nature, the ordeal illustrates a phenomenon known as the
identifiable victim effect (IVE), which suggests that people are more willing to help
specific, recognizable victims than anonymous, statistical victims (Jenni & Loewenstein,
1997; Schelling, 1968; Small, Lowenstein, & Slovic, 2007). Why? According to Lee and
Feeley (2017), an identifiable victim evokes stronger emotional reactions than a
statistical victim. According to a meta-analysis of over 40 studies, this is especially true
when the victim is a photographed child suffering from poverty and/or bearing little
responsibility for the need (Lee & Feeley, 2016).
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REPETITION AND MERE EXPOSURE: YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN
Although earlier we saw that using a lot of arguments in a message can sometimes make you
more persuasive, what happens if you use the same argument or message repeatedly? Stated
differently, can repeating your message make you more persuasive? Several researchers have
argued that message repetition can be an effective tactic, although there is some disagreement
concerning why. One perspective that has received considerable attention by persuasion
scholars is known as the mere exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968). According to Sawyer (1981),
“This theory hypothesizes that familiar objects are more liked than less familiar ones, and that
by merely being repetitively exposed, something initially unfamiliar will be looked upon more
favorably” (p. 238). In other words, mere exposure theory suggests that we really do “acquire
tastes,” that things can “grow on us,” and that “familiarity does not breed contempt.” By way
of example, previous research has found that people’s faces are rated as more likable (Rhodes,
Halberstadt, & Brajkovich, 2001) and attractive (Peskin & Newell, 2004) after repeated
viewing, suggesting that the old saying “love at first sight” should be reconsidered. Research
also suggests that the effect might generalize to other, similar faces. For instance, one study
found that, compared to White participants who had not been exposed to images of Black
and Asian people’s faces, those who had been exposed reported greater liking for a different
set of Black and Asian faces (Zebrowitz, White, & Wieneke, 2008).
In one of our favorite classic studies, Zajonc (1968) found that repeated exposure even
made the Chinese language more likable to people who didn’t know how to read or speak it.
In the study, subjects saw pictures of Chinese characters anywhere from 1 to 25 times.
Afterward, the subjects were asked to guess the meanings of the characters. Interestingly, the
characters that were seen most often were “defined” in much more positive ways than were
the characters that were seen less often. With this in mind, it’s not surprising to us that
politicians pepper front yards, telephone poles, bumpers, and just about anything they can get
their hands on with their names and faces.
Although research has shown that mere and repeated exposure to songs, people,
languages, and posters may increase likability, there has been some disagreement about
whether repeating longer or more complex messages is persuasive. Several studies, for
example, have found evidence for an inverted U-curve in which repetition is persuasive up to
a point (about three repetitions), but after that, excessive repetition decreases a message’s
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persuasiveness (e.g., see Reinhard, Schindler, Raabe, Stahlberg, & Messner, 2014). Why?
Some researchers suggest that excessive repetition damages perceptions of source credibility
(Reinhard et al., 2014). Others suggest that it leads to boredom or irritation (Petty &
Cacioppo, 1979), which may depend, of course, on how creative the message is (Lehnert,
Till, & Carlson, 2013). The authors, for example, are so tired of that tedious Energizer
bunny that they wish it would “keep going and going” and never come back!!! And as long as
we’re complaining, is anybody else as tired as we are of those advertisements repeatedly
popping up on their mobile devices? If so, they’ve apparently got company. Indeed, one study
found that businesses can get away with sending two SMS advertisements a day. After that,
the ads cease to be persuasive, perhaps because they’re perceived as irritating (Rau, Zhou,
Chen, & Lu, 2014).
Finally, some research (Claypool, Mackie, Garcia-Marques, McIntosh, & Udall, 2004)
suggests that the way people respond to repetition depends on how personally relevant the
message is to the audience. Earlier, for example, we discussed a study involving messages
about comprehensive exams. For students who thought they might have to take the exams,
the messages were personally relevant. The opposite was true of those who thought they
would never take the exams.
Claypool and her colleagues found that when people were presented with a familiar
message that was not personally relevant to them, they were likely to respond to the message
nonanalytically (analogous to peripheral processing in the ELM). In other words, rather than
actively think about the message, the people responded to it merely on the basis of previously
stored information. As a result, repetition did not increase the persuasiveness of strong over
weak arguments.
On the other hand, when the people were presented with a familiar message that was
personally relevant to them, they were likely to process the message analytically (this is
analogous to ELM’s central route to persuasion). Because repetition provided them with
more opportunities to scrutinize the message, strong messages were more persuasive than
weak ones when they were repeated (Claypool et al., 2004). In short, like other studies we
have seen so far, the research on repetition illustrates the importance of knowing your
audience before trying to persuade it.
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ORDER EFFECTS AND PERSUASION: FIRST THINGS FIRST
In the preceding sections, we’ve seen that strong arguments are not always the most
persuasive and that people are generally more willing to hear a strong argument repeated
rather than a weak one. Sometimes, however, it is not so easy to separate strong from weak
arguments. In other words, persuasive messages often contain many arguments, some
stronger than others. When that happens, whoever is delivering the persuasive message must
decide how he or she should arrange the arguments. For example, imagine you’re planning to
give a persuasive speech. Should you begin with your strongest argument to create a favorable
first impression? Or would it be better to dazzle your audience at the end of your speech so
that the audience leaves feeling motivated? Of course, there’s always a third option: You
could compromise and put your strongest argument in the middle of your speech.
When strong arguments come first, a message is said to have an anticlimax order. When
they come last, a message has a climax order. A message with a pyramidal order has strong
arguments in the middle. But which order works best? Most research on this subject suggests
that putting your strongest argument either first or last is the best strategy (e.g., Sikkink,
1956). Both seem to work better than sandwiching strong arguments in the middle of a
speech, but beyond that, strong arguments seem effective at either the beginning or end of a
message.
Of course, other variables may determine whether strong or weak arguments should go
first or last. For example, Unnaba, Burnkrant, and Erevelles (1994) argued that the medium,
or channel, by which a message is transmitted should determine whether strong arguments go
first or last. Their study found that when groups were visually exposed to information about
the characteristics of a book bag, their attitudes about the bag were the same whether they
were exposed first to strong or weak arguments about the bag’s quality. However, if they
received auditory messages about the bag, they had more favorable attitudes when strong
arguments came before weak arguments. Thus, when information is presented for people to
hear, order is important.
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PRIMACY AND RECENCY EFFECTS: THE FIRST SHALL BE LAST, AND THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST
Up to this point, we’ve been looking at how arguments should be selected and organized
within a single speech. The issue of what goes first and what goes last extends beyond single
speeches, however. It is also possible to consider whether who goes first and who goes last
affects the process of persuasion. Nowadays, it is quite common for political candidates to be
involved in debates that are not very interactive. A coin is flipped, one candidate speaks, and
then the other takes a turn. When that happens, is there any advantage to speaking first, or
do all good things come to those who wait? As with research on climax and anticlimax,
results in this area are mixed; some studies support a primacy effect (i.e., the first arguments
presented have an advantage) but others support a recency effect (i.e., the later arguments
presented have an advantage). However, several studies have investigated whether some
circumstances favor primacy whereas others favor recency. We consider two such
circumstances now.
FIGURE 9.2
Primacy versus recency effects in persuasion.
First, a classic study by Miller and Campbell (1959) demonstrated that the passage of time
determines whether primacy or recency prevails. Primacy, they found, works best when you
hear two opposing messages, back to back, and then have to wait a while before deciding
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what to do about the messages. For instance, a primacy effect is likely when you hear one
candidate speak right after another and then wait a week before voting for one of the
candidates. Why should this scenario work to the advantage of the candidate who speaks
first? According to Miller and Campbell (1959), with time we tend to remember information
we receive first. In other words, first impressions may be lasting impressions.
However, Miller and Campbell (1959) found that the recency effect is more likely when
you hear one message, wait some time before hearing the opposing message, and then decide
immediately after the second message what you are going to do. For instance, a recency effect
is likely if you hear one candidate give a speech and then, just before voting, hear the
opposing candidate give a speech. Why, in this situation, should the second candidate
prevail? The researchers argued that because we tend to forget information rapidly, we’ll have
forgotten most of the first message by the time we vote. However, voting immediately after
hearing the second message should enable us to remember most of the candidate’s message,
giving him or her an advantage (see Figure 9.2).1
In addition to time delay, the content of a message may determine whether first messages
are more persuasive than second messages or vice versa. For instance, some research indicates
that material that is relatively unsalient, noncontroversial, uninteresting, and unfamiliar to the
audience tends to produce a recency effect. However, salient, interesting, controversial, and
familiar material tends to produce a primacy effect, perhaps because an audience starts with a
high level of interest that decreases over time (see Furnham, 1986). Thus, if given the choice
to speak first or last, you may want to base your decision on the nature of your material.
So far, we’ve seen that the order in which we are exposed to messages affects how we
respond to such messages, but does the same hold true when we are sampling products?
Nowadays, it’s common for marketers to spend billions of dollars each year (Wadhwa, Shiv,
& Nowlis, 2008) beckoning consumers with samples of products such as cheese, music, wine,
and perfume. While some folks might sample one item, others, including a couple authors we
know (ahem!), make meals through the process of “researching” multiple items. If you, too,
are a multiple sampler, you might be interested in a series of studies conducted by Biswas,
Grewal, and Roggeveen (2010). These researchers examined what would happen if people
sampled and evaluated more than one product. Results of their initial studies found evidence
for a recency effect. Specifically, when people sampled two equally desirable music clips, they
preferred the clip they sampled second, but when they sampled two equally undesirable music
clips, they preferred the one they had sampled first. The same results were found for beverage
samplers. This, the authors argued, is because people have better recall for what they sampled
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last. As such, if whatever they sampled last seemed icky, they preferred the alternative. In
contrast, if whatever they sampled last seemed delightful, they stuck with it.
Interestingly, however, the pattern of results changed depending on the product being
sampled. Specifically, in one of their later studies, Biswas and colleagues (2010) found, as
they had before, that people who sampled two equally desirable music clips preferred the
second clip. Conversely, people who sampled two equally desirable scissors preferred the first
pair of scissors. How can these results be explained? According to Biswas et al.,
nonexperiential products, such as scissors, are different from experiential products, such as food
and music. This is because evaluations of experiential products depend on sensory reactions
rather than informational components. Such sensory reactions are more immediate, thereby
giving recently sampled products an advantage. In contrast, evaluations of nonexperiential
products depend on informational components (e.g., the scissors’ blade sharpness, material,
shape). As such, when sampling them, consumers’ short-term working memory can become
crowded, making people less likely to notice the desirable qualities of the follow-up product.
As a consequence, they tend to prefer the first product.
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AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION: INOCULATION, MESSAGE- SIDEDNESS, AND FOREWARNING
Parents sometimes admonish their children by saying “and if your friends told you to jump
off a cliff, would you do that, too?” Scolding kids for something they’ve already done,
however, may just make them feel dumb. We’re sure that parents would much rather prevent
their children from doing “dumb stuff” in the first place. Likewise, governments have and still
wish to prevent their citizens from adopting certain political viewpoints. For instance, did you
know that citizens of the former Soviet Union were not supposed to play Monopoly, a clearly
capitalistic game? Moreover, after World War II, there was widespread paranoia in the
United States that Americans would be brainwashed by Communist propaganda. In short,
although most of this book has been devoted to examining how people persuade other people,
oftentimes a more immediate concern centers on how to prevent people from being
persuaded. This section discusses research and theory on such preventive attempts. Because
the term “prevention” often implies something happening before something else, we hope it’s
clear why we’ve included this topic in a chapter on order effects in persuasion. We begin by
examining inoculation theory, a classic perspective developed by William McGuire (1964).
Inoculation Theory: Of Needles and Arguments
Inoculation theory might best be understood by using a biological analogy. Specifically, if you
want to keep your body healthy, what should you do? One strategy is to eat your Wheaties
and Flintstones vitamins, avoid fats and sugars, stay rested, and exercise. This is what is
known as a supportive strategy or treatment. The rationale here is that a stronger body will be
more effective at fending off diseases and viruses. A second way to stay healthy is through
inoculation. Perhaps your rear end has forgotten all of those needles it encountered in your
youth (e.g., DPT immunizations), but if you’ve ever had a flu shot or treated your dog or cat
to a rabies booster, you’re familiar with the reasoning behind such injections. The idea is that
if you or Fido are exposed to a small dose of a disease virus, your bodies are better able to
defend themselves against the virus later. This is because a dose that is too small to give you
the disease often stimulates your body’s defenses. Thus, if exposed to a stronger dose of the
virus later, your body can overpower it.
According to McGuire (1964), this metaphor can also be applied to situations involving
persuasion. For example, imagine you are a lawyer hired to defend someone who is accused of
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murder but who is innocent. You realize that after you have a chance to present your case,
another lawyer will argue against you, presenting evidence that he or she hopes will help
convict your client. With that in mind, what might you do? First, you could use a supportive
strategy, making the jury’s belief in your client’s innocence as “healthy” as possible by
spending a lot of time discussing reasons why the client is not guilty. On the other hand, you
could use an inoculation strategy, which consists of two parts. The first, threat, warns jurors
that a challenging argument is approaching. The second, refutational preemption, exposes
jurors to weak doses of the approaching arguments and shows how such arguments might be
refuted. The hope is that jurors exposed to weak doses of the opposition’s argument will be
less persuaded.
In a classic test of inoculation theory, McGuire and Papageorgis (1961) focused on the
support and refutation of cultural truisms. A cultural truism is a belief whose truth is taken for
granted. For example, the idea that “it is good to brush your teeth after every meal, if
possible” is a cultural truism because it is generally accepted in our culture. According to
McGuire and Papageorgis, however, cultural truisms should also be especially vulnerable
when attacked. This is most likely because they have never been questioned. Returning to the
biological metaphor for a moment, imagine that you were raised in a plastic bubble all your
life, breathing only pure, germ-free air. What would happen if you stepped out of the bubble?
Your body, having never been exposed to germs, would be especially vulnerable to them.
Indeed, huge numbers of Native Americans died when missionaries exposed them to
smallpox and other unfamiliar European viruses. According to McGuire and Papageorgis, the
same thing can happen with cultural truisms. Unlike beliefs on such topics as capital
punishment and the legalization of drugs, which may be challenged frequently, cultural
truisms exist in what amounts to hermetically sealed bubbles; they’ve never been questioned,
they’ve never required defense, and, therefore, they are sitting ducks when attacked. Even so,
McGuire and Papageorgis (1961) argued that inoculation could help defend such beliefs.
To test this notion, these researchers exposed participants in their study to several
messages that attacked cultural truisms (e.g., brushing your teeth too much damages the
teeth’s protective enamel). Two days before hearing the attacking messages, however, the
participants were provided with one of two defenses against the attacks. One group of
participants was equipped with a supportive defense—that is, they were presented with several
arguments that supported the cultural truisms. A second group of participants received an
inoculation defense against the attacking message; they heard weak messages attacking a
cultural truism in addition to arguments that refuted the attacks. A third group of
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participants was not provided with any defense. After hearing the attacking messages, the
participants rated the degree to which they believed the cultural truisms were true or false.
Results of the study supported the researchers’ expectations. Specifically, both the supportive
and inoculation defenses were better than no defense at all at making participants more
resistant to persuasion. Moreover, the group that had been inoculated was the most resistant
to the attacking messages. A recent meta-analysis of more than 40 studies arrived at the same
conclusion: Inoculation treatments are more effective than supportive treatments and
nontreatments at conferring resistance to persuasion (Banas & Rains, 2010).
Research also suggests that inoculating people against one particular argument may make
them resistant to other, different arguments (Papageorgis & McGuire, 1961; Parker, Rains,
& Ivanov, 2016). This “blanket of protection,” as it has been called (Pfau, 1997), is analogous
to getting penicillin for pneumonia, but, as a result, also being protected against strep throat,
scarlet fever, and rheumatic fever. For example, imagine you hold the belief that a person
should drink eight glasses of water a day. A counterargument might be that too much water
neutralizes acids that you need for proper digestion. To get you to resist such a
counterargument, we might inoculate you by providing weak doses and refutations of the
“neutralize acid” argument. In doing so, the research shows that you will become more
resistant to other, new arguments to which you weren’t originally exposed. For instance, you
will be more resistant to a message that says drinking too much water now can wear out your
bladder and lead to incontinence in old age.
Why would such generalized immunization work? According to Papageorgis and
McGuire (1961), inoculation causes people to think of more arguments that support their
beliefs, thereby making subsequent attacking arguments less credible. Thus, once a cultural
truism has been defended, it is easier to defend against a later attack, even if the arguments
attacking it are different from the original arguments.
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BOX 9.2 | When Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Inoculation Theory Applied
It’s clear from our discussion of inoculation theory that inoculation works effectively
with messages that attack cultural truisms in laboratory settings. But how does the
theory pan out when tested in “real-life” settings? First, Pfau, Van Bockern, and Kang
(1992) argued that inoculation might be a good approach to use if you want to prevent
young adolescents from smoking cigarettes. According to these researchers’ sources,
more than 3,000 teenagers become smokers each day and, as a result, millions die of
smoke-related diseases later in life. Because more than half of all smokers become
“regulars” before high school, Pfau and colleagues (1992) conducted their study using
seventh graders. The students were shown videos that (1) warned them that peer
pressure might cause them to change their minds about smoking and (2) presented and
refuted arguments that challenged the students’ attitudes about smoking (e.g., smoking
is cool). Results showed that inoculation helped students resist smoking, but only if the
students had low self-esteem. Interestingly, however, a follow-up study two years later
found just the opposite: Inoculation worked for students with high self-esteem but not
for those with low self-esteem (Pfau & Van Bockern, 1994). Thus, inoculation may
wear off for those with low self-esteem, but there may be a sleeper effect for those with
high self-esteem. Whatever the case, the authors argue that inoculating children against
smoking must occur between elementary school and high school. After that, resistance
strategies do not seem to work (Pfau & Van Bockern, 1994).
Second, Pfau, Kenski, Nitz, and Sorenson (1990) examined inoculation in political
campaigns. These researchers noted that negative advertisements, in which one
politician attacks another, are becoming more common and that one-third to one-half of
all political ads may be negative. With that in mind, what should politicians do? One
possibility is to inoculate voters; another is to wait until they are attacked and then refute
the attacks. To test which strategy works best, Pfau and colleagues sent messages to
voters during the 1988 presidential campaign. Voters received messages attacking their
preferred candidate. Some of the voters were inoculated before being exposed to the
attack message. Other voters, after being exposed to the attack message, received a
message that refuted it. Results of the study found that an inoculation strategy worked
the best. Those voters who had been inoculated were the least affected by the attack
message.
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In short, research has shown inoculation theory to be robust in applied contexts. Of
course, given our space, we have only been able to scratch the surface here, but we hope
you can imagine the wide array of contexts where an inoculation approach shows
promise. For instance, recent research has detailed the ways in which inoculation might
be used to defend people against conspiracy propaganda (Banas & Miller, 2013),
deceptive advertising (Mason & Miller, 2016), and inoculation itself (Banas & Miller,
2013).
Over time, inoculation theory has been refined. Researchers have discovered a number of
variables that influence resistance to persuasion, including the audience’s level of involvement
with a topic (Pfau et al., 2004), and the degree to which psychological reactance (e.g., telling
people that their freedom to hold a current attitude will be challenged) can give a boost to
inoculation effects (Miller, Ivanov, Sims, Compton, Harrison, Parker, Parker, & Averbeck,
2013). Although we do not have space enough to discuss such research here, if you are
hungry for more on inoculation theory, check out Box 9.2.
One-Sided Versus Two-Sided Messages: Both Sides Now
In the previous section, we saw that either supportive or inoculation treatments can be
effective at making people resistant to persuasion. With that in mind, you might be
wondering if a combination of supportive and inoculation treatments might work even better.
A considerable amount of past research has examined this issue by trying to determine
whether a one-sided message, presenting arguments in favor of a single proposition, is more or
less persuasive than a two-sided message, which presents arguments in favor of one proposition
and considers opposing arguments as well. In other words, when trying to persuade an
audience to accept your arguments and reject your opponent’s arguments, is it best to address
your opposition or ignore them?
The first empirical study to investigate this issue was conducted by Hovland, Lumsdaine,
and Sheffield (1949), at the request of the War Department during World War II. The
study’s purpose was to determine the best way to convince U.S. soldiers that the war in Japan
would last a considerable amount of time. The researchers asked their subjects to listen to one
of two messages. One presented arguments that supported the war with Japan and argued
that the war would be a long one. The other message included the same arguments as the
first, in addition to a brief description of opposing arguments. Results of the study found that
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the effectiveness of one- or two-sided arguments depended on two factors: education level
and initial attitude. First, the one-sided message was more effective for persuading subjects
with little education, whereas the two-sided message was more effective for persuading
subjects who had at least a high school education. Second, when the subjects initially agreed
with the argument presented, they were more persuaded by the one-sided argument. Just the
opposite was true of subjects who initially disagreed with the argument presented.
Although the large number of studies examining the effects of one- and two-sided
messages has produced some contradictory findings, work by Daniel O’Keefe (1999) and
Mike Allen (1998) has demonstrated that such findings are not contradictory when you
consider the type of two-sided messages that have been used in past studies. Specifically, they
argue that some studies have used two-sided messages that are nonrefutational. In these
messages, opposing arguments are mentioned but not argued against. However, some studies
have used two-sided messages that are refutational, such as those used in the inoculation
studies discussed earlier. In these messages, opposing arguments are not only mentioned but
also shown to be inferior to the position advocated by the speaker.
These researchers suspected that two-sided messages that are refutational would be much
more persuasive than those that merely mention opposing arguments. In fact, they suspected
that two-sided arguments that did not refute opposing arguments might make a speaker less
persuasive than would one-sided arguments. Hence, the contradictions of past research.
To test their idea, these researchers (Allen, 1998; Allen et al., 1990; O’Keefe, 1999)
examined a large number of previous studies on message-sidedness, this time taking into
account both types of two-sided messages. What they found confirmed their hypothesis:
Two-sided messages were more persuasive than one-sided messages, as long as the two-sided
messages were refutational. When they were not refutational, they were less persuasive than
one-sided messages (see Table 9.1). Moreover, speakers who used two-sided refutational
messages were more credible than those who used one-sided messages (O’Keefe, 1999),
which makes sense. Indeed, such speakers may not only seem more informed, they may seem
more trustworthy because they are sharing the opposing side’s point of view. Consistent with
this notion, Eisend (2010) found that speakers boosted their credibility when they presented
two-sided messages, as long as they were perceived to be doing so voluntarily. This, of course,
makes sense. If a spokesperson for a cigarette company disclosed all the negative side effects
that might result from smoking, and we knew the spokesperson was required to do so by law,
why should we trust him or her? Whatever the case, the practical implications of this research
are clear: When delivering a message, present the opponent’s perspective, but make sure you
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“go all the way” by refuting your opponent’s position. It will make you appear more credible
and help you be more persuasive. This is particularly true when your audience is ambivalent
about the issue (Cornelis, Cauberghe, & De Pelsmacker, 2013).
TABLE 9.1 Hierarchy of Effectiveness for Message-Sidedness
Type of Message Effectiveness
Two-sided refutational message Most effective (20% more effective than a one-sided
message)
One-sided message Second most effective (20% more effective than a two-sided
nonrefutational message)
Two-sided nonrefutational message Least effective
Forewarning: You’d Better Watch Out
In the classic film A Few Good Men, Kevin Bacon and Tom Cruise play lawyers who are
prosecuting and defending two Marines accused of murder. At the beginning of the trial,
Bacon’s character, the prosecutor, tells the jury to beware; the defense attorney, he warns,
“will try a little misdirection. He’s going to astonish you with stories of rituals and dazzle you
with official-sounding terms like ‘Code Red.’” A similar tactic was used in the 2000
presidential campaign, when Al Gore warned voters that George W. Bush would try to scare
them about issues such as Medicare. In each of these cases, the warnings were not effective
(both Bacon and Gore lost), but considerable research indicates that forewarning an audience
of a persuasive message can be an effective way of making the audience resistant to that
message. Of course, this line of research is related to inoculation, although the two tactics are
distinct; whereas inoculation refutes and exposes people to a weakened dose of the attacking
message, forewarning only makes people aware of a possible counterattitudinal attack.
According to Papageorgis (1968), there are two types of forewarning messages. First, you
can simply warn people that they will hear a message intended to persuade them. Second, you
can warn people by telling them about the topic and position taken in the persuasive message.
Research indicates that both tactics are moderately effective at inducing resistance to
persuasion (see Benoit, 1998). Even so, the process by which each tactic works may be
different. For instance, when people are warned about a topic and position, it permits them to
arm themselves with counterarguments before the attack. If forewarning about a persuasive
topic and position works by making people counterargue, Freedman and Sears (1965) thought
that the amount of time between the warning and the persuasive speech might be an
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important variable moderating the effect of forewarning. They hypothesized that people who
were given more time between the warning and the persuasive message would be able to
think of more counterarguments and should, therefore, be more resistant to persuasion than
those who were given little time. To test this hypothesis, the researchers told high school
students that they would hear a message arguing that teenagers were a menace on the road
and should not be allowed to drive. After being warned, some of the students were exposed to
the message immediately, while others did not hear the message for 2 or 10 minutes. Results
of the study confirmed the hypothesis; the high schoolers who waited 10 minutes were most
resistant to the message. Those who were exposed to the message immediately were least
resistant.
Despite these findings, some scholars have questioned the notion that forewarning leads to
counterarguing and then resistance. Meta-analyses by Benoit (1998), Quinn and Wood
(2004), and Wood and Quinn (2003), for instance, found that the presence of a delay
between a warning and a message did not matter. Thus, there is some question as to whether
counterarguing is really necessary for developing resistance.
To examine this issue further, Romero, Agnew, and Insko (1996) conducted a study.
These researchers argued that if forewarning leads people to counterargue, then we should
notice two things. First, people who are more motivated to counterargue should be more
affected by forewarning than those who are not. Second, people who have the ability to
counterargue should be more affected by forewarning than those who do not have the ability.
To test this notion, Romero and colleagues (1996) forewarned college students who either
did or did not have the motivation or ability to counterargue with a persuasive message. The
researchers motivated some of the students to counterargue by making the topic of the
message more personally relevant to them. Specifically, they told some of the students that
the message they were about to be exposed to argued that they all should be required to take
comprehensive exams before graduation. The remaining students were told that the
comprehensive exams would not be required for 10 years, long after they had left the
university. Thus, this second group of students was not that motivated to counterargue. In
addition, the researchers hindered some students’ ability to counterargue by distracting them.
Specifically, after they were warned, some students simply waited 3 minutes before being
exposed to the message about comprehensive exams. Other students, however, were
distracted during the 3 minutes with difficult letter and number puzzles. Thus, their ability to
counterargue was hampered. Results of the study confirmed the researchers’ suspicions;
compared to students without the motivation and ability to counterargue, the students who
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found the topic personally relevant and who were not distracted by puzzles were more
resistant to the persuasive message (for more on distraction and persuasion, see Box 9.3). In
short, it seems that forewarning of topic and position made people more resistant by
encouraging counterarguing.
That said, while 3 minutes without distraction helped people who had been forewarned,
some evidence suggests that the effects of forewarning can wear off over longer periods of
time. One study, for example, warned a group of older adults to be wary of a particular
telephone scam. Later, these same adults were contacted via telephone with the same mock
scam. Interestingly, those who were contacted 2 weeks after being warned were generally able
to defend themselves, but those who were contacted 4 weeks later were not (Scheibe et al.,
2014).
An additional line of forewarning research is based on the strength model of self-control (see
Baumeister, Vohs, & Tice, 2007). According to this model, in the same way that our muscles
get tired from exertion, our mental resources become depleted when we work hard to regulate
our behavior. As a result of such depletion, our willpower suffers. If you’ve ever been to a
dinner party while trying to diet, you may understand just how exhausting self-control can be.
And if you’re at all like us, by the end of such meals, you’ve been spotted shoveling dessert
into your face by the handful. But what if you’d been warned before arriving to the party that
your favorite dessert was on the menu? Would you be better able to resist it? According to
Janssen, Fennis and Pruyn (2010), such warnings are effective because, when exposed to
them, we conserve our mental resources so we can mobilize them when needed later. To
illustrate, these researchers conducted several studies. In them, some participants were
mentally tuckered out (e.g., they gave speeches about themselves but were not allowed to use
the word “I”), while others were not. In addition, some participants were warned that they
would eventually be exposed to persuasive messages asking them to volunteer their time or
money for charitable causes. Results showed that mentally depleted participants, compared to
nondepleted participants, were more persuadable unless they had been forewarned.
Apparently, the forewarned participants conserved their mental energy, enabling them to
counterargue effectively and, in turn, to resist influence.
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BOX 9.3 | Distraction and Persuasion
Did you know that it is not unheard of for people working on political campaigns to
send hecklers to their opponents’ speeches? The practice is known as bracketing
(Pinocchio index, 1996). It almost certainly is designed to fluster the heckled candidate.
What bracketers may not be aware of, however, is that heckling may actually benefit the
heckled speaker. Indeed, a study by Beatty and Kruger (1978) found that when an
audience identifies with a heckled speaker, the speaker is more persuasive and is
perceived as more credible. But how is it possible that the effects of heckling can be
exactly opposite to those intended? According to one perspective, distraction, whether
caused by hecklers, flashing lights, eating, static, loud noises, or other things, prevents
people from scrutinizing a counterattitudinal message. And if they cannot scrutinize the
message, people are more likely to be persuaded by it.
Although considerable research supports this explanation (e.g., Festinger & Maccoby,
1964; Keating & Brock, 1974; Osterhouse & Brock, 1970), Buller (1986) and Buller
and Hall (1998) examined several studies and found more support for a different
perspective. Specifically, learning theory (McGuire, 1969) argues that to be persuaded,
people must first comprehend a message. Because distraction hinders comprehension,
distraction also should decrease the persuasiveness of a message. Buller and Hall’s work
supports this notion by indicating that distraction generally reduces the effectiveness of a
persuasive message. This may depend, however, on the type of distraction being
examined. For instance, in addition to distraction that is external to a communicator
(such as hecklers and loud noises), a second type of distraction can be initiated by the
communicator. For example, you might be distracted by someone who stands too close
or who uses intense language. According to Buller and Hall, when a distraction is
initiated by a communicator, our reaction depends not so much on comprehension or
counterarguments as on the communicator’s credibility. Specifically, when distracted by
a highly credible source, we tend to be more persuaded; when distracted by a less
credible source, we tend to be less persuaded. Thus, if you are a highly credible source
and want to be persuasive, feel free to distract your audience.
It may be the case, however, that counterarguing is not the only factor mediating the
365
effectiveness of forewarning. To be sure, a study by Jacks and Devine (2000) found that, for
some people, forewarning heightened not only counterarguing but also irritation—that is,
some people, when warned that specific attitudes they held would be attacked, became more
agitated and angry. This, in turn, led them to be more resistant to attacks (Jacks & Devine,
2000).
Although warning people about a topic and position provides them with an opportunity to
think of and rehearse counterarguments, it is clear that the other type of warning—a warning
about persuasive intent—does not. Indeed, if people don’t know what the topic will be, how
can they think of counterarguments? But if counterarguing is not responsible for the
effectiveness of this type of warning, what is? As noted in Chapter 8, Brehm (1966) and
Brehm and Brehm (1981) argued that when people feel that their freedom to behave or think
in a certain way is restricted, they experience psychological reactance and attempt to restore
their freedom. If you’ve ever tried reverse psychology on a child, you are familiar with how
psychological reactance works. For instance, some time ago, one of the authors was having
trouble getting his preschooler to pack up his toys, leave his pals, and get in the car to go
home. The child, of course, thought he had the freedom to choose: stay with his pals or get in
the car. However, when dad pretended he was leaving without his son, the child gathered his
toys and hurried into the car. Why? His freedom to choose the ride home was being taken
away. He was reacting to the loss of freedom.
According to some writers (see Fukada, 1986; Hass & Grady, 1975), this phenomenon
occurs when you are warned that someone intends to persuade you. It’s like a comedian who
tells you that he or she will make you laugh before telling a joke. We like to feel free to laugh
or to be persuaded, and if we feel that freedom is in jeopardy, we experience psychological
reactance; we don’t laugh or we resist persuasion. To illustrate this principle, Fukada told one
group of people that they would be exposed to a message intended to make them afraid and
to change their attitude. Another group did not receive the warning. Later, both groups
received a message that tried to persuade them to be tested for syphilis. Results indicated that
the warned group not only experienced more psychological reactance, it was also less
persuaded than the unwarned group.
Before concluding this section, we should note that not all research indicates that
forewarning increases resistance to persuasion. Indeed, a meta-analysis by Wood and Quinn
(2003; see also Quinn & Wood, 2004) found that, in some cases, forewarning shifts attitudes
toward the impending message. It all depends on the motives of the audience. Specifically, as
we have seen, when people want to defend their existing attitudes, forewarning is effective at
366
increasing resistance. On the other hand, sometimes warnings threaten people’s self-concepts
by suggesting that they may be gullible or vulnerable to influence. Rather than resist, people
may shift their attitude toward the future appeal in order to reduce its impact. In other cases,
people may be concerned about the impressions they are leaving on others. For instance, they
may not want to appear pigheaded to their peers. In these cases, warnings may move them to
a more neutral, easily defensible position that helps them leave a good impression (Quinn &
Wood, 2004).
Whatever the case, because forewarning has the potential to make people more resistant to
persuasion, you might be wondering what you should do if you ever want to persuade an
audience that has been warned or is aware of your intent to persuade them. With that
question in mind, Benoit (1998) offered the following advice:
In these cases, the persuader may wish to attempt to compensate for the inhibiting
effects of forewarning. The persuader could stress a lack of bias, emphasize that the
audience’s best interests were considered (and not just the persuader’s own selfish
interests), explain that both sides of the issue were carefully considered before a
position was taken, or simply ask the audience to keep an open mind. At the very
least, persuaders should moderate their expectations for success, keeping in mind that
their persuasive task is more difficult when the audience is forewarned.
(pp. 147–148)
367
SUMMARY
In this chapter, we examined the topic of message selection and organization. First, we saw
that, depending on the characteristics of the audience, it’s sometimes better for a persuader to
tell the audience what to believe, but at other times it’s best to let the audience members draw
their own conclusions. Second, we saw that the ways in which messages are framed affect
how they are reacted to. Third, we saw that when selecting arguments to use for persuasion,
quality arguments matter with audiences that will scrutinize the message, but quantity works
for less discerning audiences. Fourth, we discussed the role of evidence in the process of
persuasion. Fifth, we examined message repetition and noted the conditions under which it
increases and decreases persuasion. Sixth, we looked at the ways in which arguments might
be ordered or arranged in a speech and indicated that the most effective order depends on
several variables. Similarly, our examination of primacy and recency effects showed that when
two people are giving opposing speeches, under some circumstances the first speaker may
have the advantage, while under others the last speaker may have the advantage. Finally, we
explored the ways in which people may be more resistant to persuasion, either by being
inoculated with a weak dose of an opposing argument, by presenting two-sided refutational
messages, or by being warned about the possibility of an attacking argument.
368
1.
NOTE
Miller and Campbell (1959) also found that if there is a time delay between both messages, and between the second
message and the measurement of attitude, neither primacy nor recency works better. Moreover, if there are no time
delays between messages and the measurement of attitudes, neither primacy nor recency works better.
369
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A
CHAPTER 10
Compliance Gaining
Actions Speak the Loudest: A Definition of Compliance Gaining
In the Beginning: The Roots of Compliance-Gaining Research
Situation: The “It Depends” of Compliance-Gaining Behavior
Seeking Compliance From Strangers and Intimates
Power, Legitimacy, and Politeness
Who Are You? Individual Characteristics and Compliance-Gaining Behavior
The Study of Compliance-Gaining Goals: Eyes on the Prize
How Goals Bring Meaning to Compliance-Gaining Situations: What’s It All About, Alfie?
Primary and Secondary Goals: Wanting and Eating Your Cake
Problems Facing Compliance Research: Trouble in Paradise
Compliance Gaining in Action: Seeing Is Believing
POLICE OFFICER pulls a driver to the side of the road and says, “Sir, your car was
swerving all over the place. I’d like you to blow into this breathalyzer, please.”
“I apologize,” the driver replies, “but I’m asthmatic and can’t blow into anything without
having an asthma attack.”
“Alright. Let’s head down to the station for a urine sample.”
“I don’t think so, officer. Given my diabetes, who knows what that might do to my blood
sugar?”
“You’ll have no choice but to take a blood test, then.”
“Afraid not,” the driver says. “You see, I’m a hemophiliac and even the slightest prick of a
needle could make me bleed to death.”
“Fine! Step out of your car, close your eyes, and walk in a straight line.”
“Sorry, officer.”
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“What now?”
“I’m too drunk to do that.”
We like this old joke not just because we think it’s funny, but also because it illustrates one
of the main themes in this chapter. Specifically, when faced with a situation involving
persuasion, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Indeed, just as the police officer uses a
variety of approaches—some more polite than others—to influence the driver, and just as the
driver resists the officer in an assortment of ways, real-life persuaders often come up with any
number of different approaches for persuading or thwarting the persuasive attempts of others.
What types of strategies are available to people who are seeking or resisting compliance?
What specific approaches are people most likely to use? Do the approaches people use vary
across situations?
All of these issues have been explored by researchers who study what is often labeled
compliance gaining, the topic of this chapter. Before we discuss how this important subject has
been investigated and what has been found, let’s begin with a few definitions.
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ACTIONS SPEAK THE LOUDEST: A DEFINITION OF COMPLIANCE GAINING
We once knew a guy who liked to say, “I don’t care if you hate me, as long as you’re nice to
me.” We think that this maxim is a fine illustration of the distinction between thoughts and
actions that undergirds the primary difference between compliance and other forms of
persuasion. As we mentioned in Chapter 2, it is useful to distinguish between the terms
persuasion and compliance. Persuasion, an umbrella term, is concerned with changing beliefs,
attitudes, intentions, motivations, and behaviors. Compliance is more restrictive, typically
referring to changes in a person’s overt behavior. For example, a mother might tell her 10-
year-old son, “Take out the trash.” If the child says, “I don’t want to,” the mother might
respond, “I don’t care what you want. Take out the trash!” In this case the mother is not
concerned with belief or attitude change. She doesn’t care if the child likes taking out the
trash, believes in recycling, and so on. She just wants compliance, or behavior change (i.e., the
trash emptied). In short, research examining compliance gaining generally focuses on
persuasion aimed at getting others to do something or to act in a particular way.
We should also note that compliance gaining differs from more traditional notions of
persuasion in other important ways. First, for the most part, studies of compliance gaining
have concentrated on influence in interpersonal and/or face-to-face contexts rather than in
one-to-many contexts. Beyond that, two lines of compliance-gaining research can be
identified. The first has concerned itself with determining which strategies are most effective
at persuading receivers, a topic we’ll get to in Chapter 11. The second line has focused more
on “senders” rather than “receivers.” Specifically, such research has attempted to identify the
broad array of strategies available to people who want to influence others. What’s more, such
studies have examined which strategies people are most likely to select and use when trying to
persuade others. As such, a better title for this chapter might be “compliance seeking,” even
though we’ll stick with the more traditional term “compliance gaining.” We start by
discussing how this type of research got started.
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IN THE BEGINNING: THE ROOTS OF COMPLIANCE-GAINING RESEARCH
Imagine you are a parent with a son whose room is a pigsty. What would you do to get him
to clean up? Can you think of several different approaches? If not, consider the work of two
sociologists, Gerald Marwell and David Schmitt (1976), who might help add a few tactics to
your repertoire. Specifically, after examining past research and theory in the areas of power
and influence, these two researchers developed a taxonomy of 16 different tactics that might
be used to gain compliance (these tactics are presented in Table 10.1). Afterward, they told
people to imagine themselves in four scenarios (i.e., requesting a tutor, doing more studying,
making a purchase, and seeking a promotion) and asked the people how likely they would be
to use each of the 16 tactics in each of the scenarios. Finally, based on their responses,
Marwell and Schmitt grouped the tactics in terms of their commonalities, ultimately
identifying five basic types of compliance-gaining strategies:
Rewarding activity: involves seeking compliance in an active and positive way (e.g.,
making promises).
Punishing activity: involves seeking compliance in an explicitly negative way (e.g.,
making threats).
Expertise: involves attempts to make a person think that the persuader has some special
knowledge (e.g., trying to appear credible).
Activation of impersonal commitments: involves attempts to appeal to a person’s
internalized commitments (e.g., telling the person he or she will feel bad about
him/herself if he/she does not comply).
Activation of personal commitments: relies on appeals to a person’s commitment to others
(e.g., pointing out that the person is indebted and should, therefore, comply to repay the
favor).
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TABLE 10.1
FIGURE 10.1
Source: Calvin and Hobbes © (1995) Watterson. Disttributed by Universal Press Syndicate. Reprinted with permission. All
Rights Reserved.
Marwell and Schmitt’s Compliance-Gaining Tactics, with Examples of How You Might Get Your Son,
Beaufort, to Clean His Room
1. Promising a reward: You tell a person you will reward him/her if he/she complies with your request. For example,
you offer to buy Beaufort an ice-cream cone if he cleans his room.
2. Threatening a punishment: You tell a person you will punish him/her if he/she does not comply with your request.
For example, you threaten to give away Beaufort’s Wii system if he doesn’t tidy up.
3. Using positive expertise: Because you know what’s best or “how things are,” you tell a person that he/she will benefit
by complying with your request. For example, you tell Beaufort that, based on your experience, you know that clean,
organized people are those who succeed in life.
4. Using negative expertise: Because you know what’s best or “how things are,” you tell a person that he/she will be
negatively affected if he/she does not comply with your request. For example, you tell Beaufort that, based on your
experience, you know that people who are slobs do not succeed in life.
5. Promoting liking: You get a person to like you before asking him/her to comply with your request. For example, you
act cheerful and give Beaufort a lot of attention before asking him to clean his room.
6. Using reciprocity: Before seeking compliance, you give a person something he/she wants or needs. For example, you
buy Beaufort a video game he’s always wanted and then ask him to clean his room.
7. Administering punishment: You keep punishing a person and don’t stop until he/she complies with your request.
For example, you forbid Beaufort to use his Wii system and explain that he won’t be allowed to use it until he keeps
his room clean for a month.
8. Creating indebtedness: You tell a person that he/she owes you compliance because of something you previously did
for him/her. For example, you tell Beaufort that you are a good parent who bends over backward to provide the
things he wants and needs, so he owes it to you to keep his room clean.
9. Generating moral obligation: You tell a person that it would be immoral for him/her not to comply with your
request. You tell Beaufort that people who are disorganized and dirty are morally bad.
10. Promoting positive esteem: You tell a person that complying will improve his/her self-esteem. For example, you tell
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Beaufort that having a clean room will make him feel good about himself.
11. Promoting negative esteem: You tell a person that not complying will hurt his/her self-esteem. For example, you tell
Beaufort that having a filthy and untidy room will make him feel bad about himself.
12. Using positive altercasting: You note that admirable people would comply with your request, and suggest that, to be
like such people, this person should comply with your request. For example, you tell Beaufort that good boys like him
naturally want to keep their rooms clean and tidy (for more on this strategy, see Box 10.1).
13. Using negative altercasting: You note that people with negative qualities would not comply with your request, and
suggest that, to avoid being like such people, this person should comply with your request. For example, you tell
Beaufort that only bratty little boys have dirty rooms, so he should clean his room.
14. Being altruistic: You tell the person how much his/her assistance would help you. For example, you tell Beaufort that
you are overwhelmed with work and that he could help you a great deal if he kept his room clean so you didn’t have
to do it for him.
15. Using positive admiration: You tell the person that people he/she admires will hold him/her in higher regard if
he/she complies. For example, you tell Beaufort that his older brother, Timmy (who Beaufort idolizes), will be proud
of him if he keeps his room clean.
16. Using negative admiration: You tell the person that people he/she admires will hold him/her in lower regard if
he/she doesn’t comply. For example, you tell Beaufort that his older brother, Timmy (who Beaufort idolizes), will be
ashamed of him if he keeps his room messy.
Based upon Marwell & Schmitt (1967). (Note: Marwell and Schmitt’s terminology differs somewhat from our own.)
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BOX 10.1 | Only a Jerk Would Refuse: An Examination of the Altercasting Tactic
As noted in Table 10.1, negative altercasting, when used as a compliance-gaining tactic,
involves projecting a person into an unflattering role and then expecting the person to
comply in order to avoid fitting into that role. For example, if someone collecting
donations said, “Only a heartless person would refuse to feed hungry children,” he or she
would be using negative altercasting. Before you decide to try the tactic on your own,
consider this: Research suggests that people who use it are perceived as less competent
than people who use more prosocial tactics, such as liking (Johnson, 1992). Not only
that, they may be less persuasive. In one study (Turner, Banas, Rains, Jang, Moore, &
Morrison, 2010), for instance, researchers tucked unmailed, stamped letters under the
windshield wipers of several thousand parked vehicles. Along with the letters were
messages employing one of three compliance-gaining techniques: (1) positive
altercasting (“I found this next to your car. A good person would mail it [that is, if it’s
not yours.]”), (2) negative altercasting (“I found this next to your car. Only a bad person
wouldn’t mail it [that is, if it’s not yours].”); and direct request (“I found this next to your
car. Mail it [that is, if it’s not yours].”). Results showed that negative altercasting did not
work well. To be sure, significantly more letters were returned in the direct request and
positive altercasting conditions than in the negative altercasting condition (Turner et al.,
2010). Perhaps that’s because people believe that only a jerk would use the negative
altercasting tactic.
Marwell and Schmitt’s (1967) study showed that there are a wide range of tactics available
to persuaders. The study was important because it became the springboard for compliance-
gaining research that followed. Even so, as is often the case with research on human
communication, the study made compliance gaining appear simpler than it really is. We will
see later in this chapter the ways in which this study was criticized and improved on. First,
however, we turn to a discussion of some of the factors that affect the selection of
compliance-gaining strategies.
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SITUATION: THE “IT DEPENDS” OF COMPLIANCE-GAINING BEHAVIOR
Long before this chapter was written, one of the authors was faced with two different
situations requiring persuasion. In the first, the author’s then 2-year-old son tried to provoke
a food fight at the dinner table by throwing a chunk of roast beef, gravy and all at his older
brother. There was quite a splat. The 2-year-old then proceeded to reach for a second chunk,
at which point the author intervened, explanining that any more “beef bombs” would result in
a time-out (i.e., 2 minutes of sitting alone in the bedroom). Fortunately, the next hunk of
beef found its way into the kid’s mouth.
In the second situation, the same author needed to ask his boss to hurry up and look over
some paperwork that needed the boss’s signature. The deadline for the paperwork was
nearing. Although threatening the boss with something like a time-out had appeal, quite
obviously, doing so would have been inappropriate. Instead, the author tapped lightly on the
boss’s door, smiled, and asked ever so politely whether the boss had “had a chance to look
over that paperwork yet?”
The point is that even though we can isolate a specific number of compliance-gaining
strategies, not all strategies are appropriate in all situations. To be sure, even when trying to
persuade the same person, different contexts require different strategies. For instance, trying
to keep a 2-year-old from repeatedly playing near electrical outlets may require a different
strategy than trying to get the same child to eat asparagus. Obviously, selecting a compliance-
gaining strategy depends a lot on the situation.
For quite some time now, communication scholars have argued that compliance-gaining
behavior can vary greatly from one situation to the next. By way of example, research by
Cody, Woelfel, and Jordan (1983) showed that, when trying to decide which compliance-
gaining strategy to use, there are seven situational dimensions that affect those decisions:
Dominance: The level of control or power in a relationship. For example, because a boss
generally has more power to influence a subordinate than vice versa, a boss’s strategies
may differ from a subordinate’s.
Intimacy: The level of emotional attachment or knowledge one has of a partner’s affect.
For example, because they are more intimate and more concerned with the relationship,
spouses may use different strategies than strangers.
Resistance: The degree to which the persuader thinks a strategy will be resisted. For
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•
•
example, strategies that are more likely to be resisted will probably not be used as readily
as those that are less likely to be resisted. (For more information on resisting
compliance, see Box 10.2.)
Personal benefits: The extent to which the self or the other is benefited by compliance.
For example, strategies that are perceived to produce the greatest benefits are most likely
to be used.
Rights: The extent to which a persuader thinks a request is warranted. For example, a
persuader may believe that complaining about a barking dog and losing sleep is justified,
but complaining about someone else’s hairstyle is not.
Relational consequences: The degree to which a strategy will have long-term or short-term
effects on the persuader’s relationship with the persuadee. For example, a threat that
may lead to divorce may be less likely than one that merely leads to an argument.
Apprehension: The degree to which a persuader perceives nervousness in the situation.
For example, situations filled with anxiety may lead to different strategies than those
without anxiety.
It is clear, then, that compliance-gaining behavior depends a great deal on the situation in
which it is used. In fact, research shows that these situational dimensions not only affect
decisions to use strategies but also decisions to avoid them (Hample & Dallinger, 2002). In
the following sections, we discuss some research findings on several of these situational
dimensions.
Seeking Compliance From Strangers and Intimates
In what is now considered a classic study, Gerald Miller, Frank Boster, Michael Roloff, and
David Seibold (1977) examined the effects of intimacy on compliance-gaining behavior.
These researchers imagined that compliance gaining in interpersonal relationships differ from
compliance gaining in noninterpersonal relationships. Specifically, because people in
interpersonal relationships know their partners well, they can tailor their messages to appeal
to their partners’ specific wants, needs, interests, and so forth. The same is not true in
noninterpersonal relationships, where little is known about the other person. In addition,
Miller and colleagues (1977) thought that the type of compliance-gaining strategy a person
decided to use would depend on whether a situation had short-term or long-term
consequences.
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385
BOX 10.2 |
1.
2.
3.
4.
Just Say No? A Look at Strategies for Resisting Compliance and Resisting Resistance
In our opinion, a lot of advertising makes persuasion seem pretty simple. For example,
Nike’s classic “Just do it” campaign suggested that we should forget all about reasoning
and weighing pros and cons. On the other side of the coin, you might be familiar with
the once popular slogan for keeping kids off of drugs; “Just say ‘no,’” it advised. But is
resisting compliance really all that easy? Whatever the case, some research shows that
just saying “no” is not the only option available to us when trying to resist the
compliance-gaining attempts of others. For instance, a study by McLaughlin, Cody, and
Robey (1980) identified four possible strategies you might use to resist persuasion:
Nonnegotiation: You overtly refuse to comply (you say, “No”).
Identity management: You resist by manipulating images of the other person (you
say, “I would never make such an awful request”).
Justifying: You justify noncompliance by pointing to negative outcomes (you say,
“If I comply with your request I might lose my job”).
Negotiation: You engage in an alternative behavior that you propose (rather than
turn off the stereo, you offer to turn it down).
Rather than look at resistance strategies, perhaps a more important issue centers on
situations in which people find themselves wanting to resist compliance. One prevalent
example occurs when people are pressured into having sex. Indeed, according to Impett
and Peplau’s (2003) sources, between 26 and 40 percent of men and 50 and 65 percent
of women report that they’ve agreed to have sex even though they did not want to. With
this in mind, and considering contemporary issues associated with the spread of HIV
and the prevalence of date rape, researchers have examined strategies that can be used to
resist sexual advances. An interesting study by Byers and Wilson (1985) examined men’s
and women’s perceptions of the different ways in which women refuse sexual advances
by men. In the study, subjects watched a videotape of a man and woman engaged in
romantic physical behavior. At some point in the tape, the woman refuses to go any
further by (1) simply saying, “No”; (2) saying “No” and offering an excuse (i.e.,
“someone’s coming over”); or (3) saying “No” and offering an explanation (i.e., “we don’t
386
know each other well enough”). Results of the study showed that most of the males in
the study would comply with all of the requests, but several said they would be reluctant
to do so. Moreover, both male and female subjects interpreted the simple “No” and the
“No, with explanation” as meaning the man should stop his advances but interpreted the
“No” with an excuse as meaning that the man should try making more advances later
that day.
One possible problem with messages meant to resist sexual advances centers on the
stereotype that “when women say ‘no,’ they really mean ‘yes.’” Muehlenhard and
Hollanbaugh (1988), for example, found that nearly 40 percent of women in their study
claimed to have said “no” when they meant “yes” because they did not want to appear
promiscuous, wanted to show concern for religious issues, and so forth. Perper and Weis
(1987) argued that such token resistance can cause problems by encouraging males not
to take “no” for an answer. With this in mind, when faced with such situations, it is
important to say what you mean. Indeed, research shows that direct, verbal messages,
compared to indirect messages, are the best for avoiding sexual advances (Christopher &
Frandsen, 1990). A possible problem, however, is that sexual rejection messages that are
moderately direct are perceived to be more comfortable and “face saving” than very direct
messages (Metts, Cupach, & Imahori, 1992).
It is apparent from this discussion so far that resistance strategies, in and of
themselves, may not be as important as how people respond to those resistance
strategies. For instance, research indicates that people who have met with
noncompliance tend to follow up with more direct strategies than they did initially
(Harris, Monahan, & Hovick, 2014). Moreover, in some situations, noncompliance is
likely to be met with physical aggression (deTurck, 1987). So, what happens if your
resistance meets with resistance? If you ever find yourself confronted by a person who
wants you to comply when you don’t want to, it might help to know this: Research
suggests that forceful verbal and physical resistance is related to the decreased likelihood
of being raped (Senn, Eliasziw, Hobden, Newby-Clark, Barata, Radtke, & Thurston,
2017; Tark & Kleck, 2014). What’s more, although some scholars have suggested that
resistance may be dangerous because it might provoke rapists to become more violent,
Tark and Kleck (2014) found that additional injuries besides rape following resistance
are rare.
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1.
2.
3.
4.
To test their hypotheses, these researchers asked people how likely they would be to use
each of Marwell and Schmitt’s (1967) strategies to persuade others in four different
situations:
Noninterpersonal; short-term consequences: You want to get a car dealer, whom you barely
know, to give you a $1,000 trade-in on your old car.
Noninterpersonal; long-term consequences: You want your new neighbors, who are
planning to cut down a shade tree that adds value to your home, to leave the tree
standing.
Interpersonal; short-term consequences: You have a close relationship with a man or woman
and want to cancel a date with him or her in order to visit an old acquaintance who is
passing through town.
Interpersonal; long-term consequences: You have a close relationship with a man or woman
and want to persuade him or her to move to another geographical location so you can
take a better job.
Results of this study showed that the situation strongly affected strategy choice. In general,
people preferred “friendly,” socially acceptable strategies (e.g., liking) in all the situations but
said they were more likely to use different tactics in different situations. For instance, threat
tactics were more likely in short-term, non-interpersonal contexts. Finally, in
noninterpersonal situations, people picked a greater variety of strategies, perhaps because,
without knowing much about the person they were trying to persuade, more trial and error
was necessary (Miller et al., 1977).
Previous research suggests that intimates, compared to strangers, are perceived to be more
effective in their compliance-gaining attempts. Dennis (2006), for example, found that
people expected intimates, rather than non-intimates, to be more effective when trying to
persuade them to engage in healthy behaviors, especially when their intimate others used
strategies showing that they cared (e.g., “I don’t want your weight to bother you. You should
eat better.”). For some types of health-related behavior, other strategies were perceived to be
effective as well. For instance, when trying to get their romantic partners to stop smoking,
intimate others were perceived to be effective when using threat (e.g., “I don’t know if I can
handle being with you when you smoke.”) and liking (e.g., “I’d like kissing you more if your
mouth didn’t taste like an ashtray”) strategies (Dennis, 2006).
Thus, the choice and perceived effectiveness of compliance-gaining strategies may differ
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depending on whether a relationship is interpersonal or noninterpersonal. But are all
interpersonal relationships the same? One of our favorite studies shows that they are not.
Specifically, Witteman and Fitzpatrick (1986) argued that husbands and wives can be
categorized into three different couple-types: Traditionals, Separates, and Independents. They
explained that:
Traditionals hold conventional values about the relationship. These values emphasize
stability as opposed to spontaneity. Traditionals exhibit interdependence, both
physically and psychologically, and tend not to avoid conflict. Separates hold
ambivalent views on the nature of relationships, report having the least
interdependence, and avoid open marital conflict. Independents hold fairly non-
conventional relational values and maintain some interdependence, yet not with
respect to some of the physical and temporal aspects of their lives. Also
Independents report some assertiveness and tend to engage in conflict.
(p. 132)
Because couples differed in the ways they interacted, Witteman and Fitzpatrick suspected
that couples also would differ in the ways they sought compliance. Results of a study
confirmed these expectations. First, Traditionals sought compliance by discussing what they
expected to be the positive and negative outcomes of a proposed course of action. They
tended to be open and used their relationship as a basis of power. Separates, however, did not
attempt to identify with their partners or to use their relationship to seek compliance.
Instead, Separates focused on the negative consequences of noncompliance and tried to
constrain the behavior of their spouses. Finally, Independents, compared to other couple
types, used a wider variety of power bases when seeking compliance. They also tended to
discount and refute their partners more than other couple types, indicating that Independent
couples debate one another relatively intensely.
While it is clear, then, that our use of compliance-gaining strategies depends on the type
and degree of intimate relationship in which we are involved, research also suggests that our
compliance-seeking behaviors are affected by the particular circumstances we face in our
relationships. As one example, if the person with whom you are involved starts thinking
about leaving you, are there particular strategies you might use to save the relationship?
Research by Buchanan, O’Hair, and Becker (2006) identified four overall strategies that
people reported using while attempting to hang on to their spouses. Commitment, the most
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
common strategy, includes tactics such as being more loving and caring, being submissive
(“I’ll do anything to save this relationship.”), and asking your partner to commit to the
relationship. Alignment, the second most common strategy, includes tactics like
demonstrating to other people that your partner is taken (e.g., by holding hands), punishing
your partner’s threats of infidelity, and trying to make your partner want you sexually.
Negativity, the third strategy, includes tactics such as degrading your partner, making your
partner jealous (e.g., by threatening to be unfaithful), and concealing your partner from
others. Harm, the last and least frequent strategy, includes tactics such as threatening or being
violent toward someone who might come between you and your partner (Buchanan et al.,
2006).
Power, Legitimacy, and Politeness
Our earlier illustration about trying to influence a child versus a boss makes it clear that
power plays a large role in the selection of compliance-gaining strategies. In what is now
considered a seminal work, French and Raven (1960) argued that there are five bases of
power that people can draw upon to influence others:
A person with reward power has control over some valued resource (e.g., promotions and
raises).
A person with coercive power has the ability to inflict punishments (e.g., fire you).
Expert power is based on what a person knows (e.g., you may do what a doctor tells you
to do because he or she knows more about medicine than you do).
Legitimate power is based on formal rank or position (e.g., you obey someone’s
commands because he or she is the vice president in the company for which you work).
People have referent power when the person they are trying to influence wants to be like
them (e.g., a mentor often has this type of power).
Regardless of the type of power that’s at work, one thing remains clear: Power affects
compliance-gaining behavior. For example, although managers are more successful when
using consultation, inspirational appeals, rational persuasion, and nonpressure tactics (Yukl,
Kim, & Falbe, 1996), because they often believe that their power adds legitimacy to their
requests, they may not provide justifications or explanations when seeking compliance. Their
influence strategies, therefore, may tend to be more direct than the influence strategies used
by their less powerful subordinates (see Hirokawa & Wagner, 2004). Moreover, regardless of
390
the messages they use when seeking compliance, research has shown that people with power
tend to be more persuasive than those without it (Levine & Boster, 2001).
With that said, is there any hope for people who possess little power? To address this
question, several researchers (e.g., Baxter, 1984; Craig, Tracy, & Spisak, 1986; Wilson &
Kunkel, 2000) have applied Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory to the study of
compliance-gaining behavior.
FIGURE 10.2
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The use of coercive power in the workplace.
Source: BIZARRO © by Dan Piraro. Reprinted by permission.
According to politeness theory, all people are motivated to maintain two kinds of face:
positive and negative. We maintain positive face when others like, respect, and approve of us.
We maintain negative face when we do not feel constrained or impeded by others. According
to Brown and Levinson (1987), when making a request of someone else, both types of faces
may be challenged. First, the request may constrain the other person’s freedom, thereby
challenging his or her negative face. By way of illustration, asking someone to pick you up at
the airport is challenging because it keeps a person from doing something else that he or she
might rather be doing. Second, the request may imply that the other person is being taken
advantage of, thereby challenging his or her positive face. For example, in our opinion, the
stereotypical sports slob who shouts to his wife, “Bring me another beer!” does not convey
much respect.
So, how does the issue of power fit into the picture? According to Brown and Levinson
(1987), a person is less likely to comply if his or her face is threatened. Thus, to keep from
threatening a person’s positive or negative face, we try to be polite when making requests.
Moreover, when trying to persuade someone who is more powerful than us, we may be extra
polite because it is not as likely that our requests will be perceived as legitimate. Research so
far has supported this conclusion. For example, in one study, Leslie Baxter (1984) found that
compared to less powerful others (i.e., group members), more powerful others (i.e., group
leaders) were less polite when making requests. Similarly, two studies found that when
students tried to persuade their instructors to change grades or paper deadlines, their
compliance-gaining strategies were overwhelmingly positive (Golish, 1999; Golish & Olson,
2000). Not only that, Levine and Boster (2001) found that when people with little power
tried to persuade others, positively framed messages were the only ones that met with much
success. Finally, Jenkins and Dragojevic (2013) found that face-threatening messages caused
people to derogate both the message and the source, leading to less persuasion.
Considering the preceding studies, you might be wondering which types of strategies are
polite and which are not. Most would agree that threats are not as polite as hints. However,
threats may be more efficient than hints. To test this notion, Kellermann and Shea (1996)
asked people to rate how polite and efficient they perceived several different strategies to be.
Interestingly, threats, although impolite, were not considered efficient, and hints, although
inefficient, were not considered polite. Perhaps the best way to get compliance is by using
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direct requests (i.e., explicitly ask for what you want); such requests were among the most
efficient strategies and were not considered impolite (Kellermann & Shea, 1996). Consistent
with this notion, one study found that speaking debaters who were confronted with nonverbal
disparagement from their opponents were perceived as most effective and appropriate when
they politely and directly requested that their opponents stop displaying such disparaging
behaviors (Weger, Seiter, Jacobs, & Akbulut, 2010).
While considering the topic of politeness, keep in mind that persuasion is a two-way
street. As such, people not only threaten others’ face when making requests, they do so when
refusing others’ requests as well (see Johnson, 2007). By way of example, it would be one
thing for Olga to tell Xenia, “I can’t take you to the airport because my driver’s license was
revoked when I was arrested for drunk driving” (a threat to Olga’s positive face) and quite
another to tell Xenia, “Yeah, right. You’re not worth the time, gas, or wear and tear on my
vehicle” (a threat to Xenia’s positive face). Johnson (2007) has shown that the nature of
refusals (i.e., do they threaten the requester’s, the target’s, or both the requester’s and target’s
positive and/or negative face) affect perceptions about whether the refusal is effective or
appropriate.
It is apparent from our discussion so far that behavior designed to gain or resist
compliance depends, to a large extent, on several contextual and relational dimensions. (To
learn about compliance-gaining behavior in a specific context, see Box 10.3.) The context,
however, is not the only factor that affects compliance-gaining behavior. In the next section
we explore the impact of individual differences on interpersonal influence.
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WHO ARE YOU? INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS AND COMPLIANCE-GAINING BEHAVIOR
Up to this point we’ve talked about the whats and whens of compliance gaining. We’ve
shown that past research has pointed to a number of situational dimensions (e.g.,
interpersonal/noninterpersonal, short-term/long-term consequences) that influence strategy
choice. According to Hunter and Boster (1987), however, there is but one factor that
determines what types of compliance-gaining strategies will be used in a given situation.
These researchers argued that when trying to decide what strategy we will use, we try to
determine what the emotional impact of the message will be. For example, if you tried to
persuade your friend to study more, the friend might become angry and resentful. However,
the friend could be grateful that you cared enough to say something. According to Hunter
and Boster, we prefer using strategies that have a positive emotional impact.
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BOX 10.3 | Take Two Aspirin and Call Me in the Morning: Compliance Gaining Between Doctors and Patients
One of the authors attended a dinner party at which the conversation turned to health-
related matters. Several of the guests explained how they fooled their physicians to make
it appear that their blood pressure was normal. One said she raised her arms above her
head for five minutes beforehand. Another said he made sure he was dehydrated when
visiting his doctor. “But why would you want to deceive your doctor about your blood
pressure?” the author asked. “Why wouldn’t you want to?” one of them replied.
This story illustrates how attitudes can pose serious concerns for people in the
medical profession. Indeed, physicians not only face patients who shade the truth about
their health, they are also confronted with the task of persuading patients to comply with
requests to take medication, return for regular checkups, modify their behaviors, and so
forth. When one considers the personal and economic costs of not complying with
doctors’ requests, the study of persuasion in medical contexts is of obvious significance.
According to Burgoon and Burgoon (1990), compliance gaining in medical contexts
is unique because, unlike most other compliance-gaining situations, patients visit
physicians voluntarily, pay for physicians’ compliance-gaining directives, perceive
physicians as experts, and believe that compliance will benefit themselves rather than the
physician. Unfortunately, however, Klingle’s (2004) and Burgoon, Birk, and Hall’s
(1991) sources indicate that patient noncompliance is the most significant problem
facing medicine today and that patient noncompliance is as high as 62 percent with
prescribed drug regimens, 50 percent with medical appointment keeping, and 92 percent
with health promotion and lifestyle changes.
For these reasons, researchers have attempted to determine not only what types of
compliance-gaining strategies physicians use but also what types of strategies are the
most effective. For example, a review of literature by Burgoon and Burgoon (1990)
found that physicians prefer to use strategies that appeal to authority, knowledge, and
expertise, and tend to avoid threatening and antisocial strategies. Indeed, Schneider and
Beaubien (1996) found that positive expertise, legitimacy, and liking (see strategies
discussed earlier) accounted for 83.5 percent of all the compliance-gaining strategies
used by doctors on patients. Physicians report that their strategies tend to become more
verbally aggressive, however, when patients have not complied with previous requests
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and have more severe medical problems (Burgoon & Burgoon, 1990).
In addition to issues about strategy use, researchers have also tried to determine what
types of strategies are most effective. Some research, for instance, has found that patients
are more likely to comply with doctors who express similarity (i.e., indicate that they
share things in common with the patient) and are more satisfied with doctors who
communicate a willingness to listen, express affection, are composed, are similar, formal,
and nondomineering (Burgoon, Pfau, Parrott, Birk, Coker, & Burgoon, 1987). Some
research suggests that there are gender differences in strategy effectiveness (Klingle,
2004). Male doctors can get away with using more negative strategies than can female
doctors. In addition, research indicates that both female and male doctors who vary their
strategies are more effective than doctors who employ the same strategy repeatedly.
Finally, in situations involving terminal illness, family members are more likely to
consent to donating the patient’s organs when compliance-gaining messages
communicate additional emotional support to the family (Anker & Feeley, 2011).
But how do we decide which strategies will have a positive emotional impact and which
will have a negative emotional impact? Hunter and Boster (1987) argued that each of us has a
perceptual “threshold” that helps us make decisions about what strategies are acceptable and
what strategies are not. Threatening someone, for example, may exceed the threshold,
whereas promising something may not. Strategies that do not cross the threshold are more
likely to be used.
A major implication of this model, of course, is that these thresholds are idiosyncratic,
varying from one person to the next. Biff, for example, may be perfectly comfortable
threatening others, whereas Babbs may not. Obviously, then, individual differences are
important in determining the types of compliance-gaining messages that are used. For that
reason, considerable research has examined several “sender” characteristics that affect strategy
choice. Some of these characteristics include Machiavellianism (O’Hair & Cody, 1987),
dogmatism (Roloff & Barnicott, 1979), self-monitoring (Smith, Cody, Lovette, & Canary,
1990; Snyder, 1979), type A personality (Lamude & Scudder, 1993), verbal aggressiveness
and argumentativeness (Boster, Levine, & Kazoleas, 1993; Infante, Trebing, Shepard, &
Seeds, 1984; Infante & Wigley, 1986), gender (Dallinger & Hample, 1994; deTurck &
Miller, 1982; Fitzpatrick & Winke, 1979; Harris et al., 2014), culture (Burgoon, Dillard,
Doran, & Miller, 1982; Hirokawa & Mirahara, 1986; Lu, 1997; Sellnow, Liu, & Venette,
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1.
2.
3.
2006), and age (Haslett, 1983). Because many of these characteristics were detailed in
Chapter 5, we use the rest of this section to discuss the work of O’Keefe (1988, 1990), who
argued that people produce different compliance-gaining messages because they think
differently about communication. O’Keefe called these different beliefs about communication
design logics and argued that they are threefold:
Expressive design logic: A person with this design logic believes that communication is a
process by which people merely express what they think and feel. Such people fail to
realize that communication can be used to achieve other goals and, therefore, “speak
from the gut,” dumping whatever they think and feel without any regard for what might
be appropriate in a given situation. For that reason, such people’s messages tend to be
“primitive.” For instance, a person with an expressive design logic might say something
like the following: “You **##*$*@ jerk. You’ve had it. I’m going to get you fired for this!”
Conventional design logic: A person with this design logic believes that communication is
a game played cooperatively, according to social conventions and procedures. Thus,
people using this logic express their thoughts and feelings, but believe that they also
must follow rules for appropriate social behavior in a given situation. For instance, a
person with a conventional design logic might say something like the following: “You
missed our meeting today and I don’t appreciate this irresponsibility. If you miss one
more meeting, you’re fired.”
Rhetorical design logic: A person with a rhetorical design logic believes that
communication’s purpose is to negotiate character, attitude, selves, and situations. The
process involves repeatedly solving and coordinating problems, consensus, and harmony.
Thus, someone with this logic pursues multiple goals, tends to be proactive, and uses
rational arguments. Here’s an example:
You have been coming back late from lunch and we need to reach some kind of
understanding about this. I don’t want to have to force you to follow the rules,
but I will if I have to. But surely you can appreciate why we have rules and what
function they serve. I know if you just think about the situation you will see how
your behavior could be creating a problem in this office.
(O’Keefe, 1988, p. 103)
Research has found that messages reflecting a rhetorical design logic are rated as more
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competent, favorable, and persuasive than messages reflecting the other design logics
(Bingham & Burleson, 1989; O’Keefe & McCornack, 1987; Scott, Caughlin, Donovan-
Kicken, & Mikucki-Enyart, 2013). What’s more, compared to people with expressive design
logics, those with rhetorical design logics feel more effective in their persuasive attempts. One
study, for example, found that people with rhetorical design logics felt more confident that
they could do or say something to intervene when they see others engaged in high-risk
behavior (e.g., “a guy–girl hookup” in which a drunk and reluctant female is heading toward a
possible sexual encounter with a male (White & Malkowski, 2014)).
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THE STUDY OF COMPLIANCE-GAINING GOALS: EYES ON THE PRIZE
In addition to creating typologies of compliance-gaining strategies, researchers have also
examined the ways in which people’s goals influence how they seek compliance. Simply
defined, goals are states of affairs we want to attain or maintain often through persuasion (see
Wilson, 1997). The following sections examine the ways in which goals are important when
trying to understand compliance gaining.
How Goals Bring Meaning to Compliance-Gaining Situations: What’s It All About, Alfie?
Years ago, one of the authors heard a story about two men scooping mud and straw into
wooden molds.
A passerby asked one of the men what he was doing.
“Scooping mud and straw into this mold,” the man told him.
“What are you doing?” the passerby asked the second man, who seemed much happier
than the first.
“I’m part of a team making a beautiful cathedral,” came the reply.
We like this story because it illustrates how goals can help people define situations.
Clearly, the first man’s goal (scooping mud) makes his situation seem dismal compared to the
second man’s. Our point here is that goals give meaning to situations, including situations
that involve compliance gaining. According to Wilson and Kunkel (2000), “Individuals
interpret compliance gaining episodes based on their understanding of specific influence
goals” (p. 197). In a summary of literature, Kellermann (2004) identified several common
compliance-gaining goals that appear meaningful to people. These included goals to provide
guidance; get advice, a favor, permission, or information; share time; initiate, escalate, or end
a relationship; fulfill an obligation; get a date; change an opinion; and stop an annoying habit
(Kellermann, 2004).
How might these different influence goals affect perceptions of a situation and, in turn,
the ways in which compliance is sought? By way of example, imagine that you have two
different influence goals. One is to ask someone a favor. The other is to get someone who
owes you a favor to repay you in some way. According to Cai and Wilson (2000), requests
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such as these create entirely different situations for persuaders and, as a result, may lead to
different compliance-seeking behavior. Clearly, this notion relates to our earlier discussion of
politeness and compliance gaining. For instance, because asking favors may impose on
another person, when asking favors, you may be less direct, provide the target with a “way
out,” and provide a lot of reasons for your imposition. However, if you’re seeking compliance
from someone who owes you a favor, you might be more direct and less polite in your
compliance attempts, perhaps even making the target feel guilty if he or she does not comply.
Research by Cai and Wilson (2000) suggests that different types of requests, such as these,
present similar concerns for persuaders in all cultures, though cultural differences may occur
when making such requests. For instance, on one hand, asking a favor may lead you to feel
indebted, regardless of your cultural background. On the other hand, because they are more
concerned with saving face, people from Japan, compared to those from the United States,
may worry more about imposing on others. As a result, the Japanese may be less direct and
especially polite when seeking favors (Cai & Wilson, 2000). Moreover, because in-group
favoritism is more prevalent in collectivistic, compared to individualistic cultures, managers
from collectivistic cultures (e.g., China) may be more likely to use less polite tactics (e.g.,
threat) when influencing subordinates they perceive to be different from themselves (i.e., out-
group members), and more likely to use pro-social tactics (e.g., ingratiation) when
influencing in-group members (Sheer, 2012).
Primary and Secondary Goals: Wanting and Eating Your Cake
If we told you that the most effective strategy for getting something was to make threats,
would you start threatening people every time you wanted something?
“Loan me 20 bucks, or I’ll break your nose!”
“If you want to keep your job, get me some coffee!”
“Keep it up, and you can stand in the corner for the next hour.”
“Let me get a tattoo, or I’ll run away from home!”
We suspect that, for most of you, the answer to this question would be “no.” But why? If
threats really were so effective, why not throw them around a little? Because, you might be
thinking to yourself, if I made threats every time I wanted something, I might not have many
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friends. Plus, you probably wouldn’t like yourself too much. And if the other party still
refused, you might be forced to follow through with the threat.
In the previous section, we discussed several different types of influence goals. In this
section, we note that influence goals are not the only ones affecting compliance gaining.
Indeed, most of the time we are concerned with pursuing multiple goals at the same time.
Kellermann (1992), for example, argued that when seeking compliance, people are
constrained by concerns for both efficiency (achieving their goal without wasting time and
other resources) and appropriateness (accomplishing their goal in a socially acceptable and
respectful way). Similarly, in his goals–plans–action theory, James Dillard (2004, 2008) argues
that people pursue different types of goals when they are trying to influence someone. These
goals are important because they determine the types of strategies that people plan to use
when trying to gain compliance. To identify these goals, Dillard and colleagues (Dillard,
Segrin, & Harden, 1989) asked students to imagine themselves in a compliance-gaining
situation and to state why they would or wouldn’t use particular influence strategies in that
situation. Results of the study indicated that one primary goal, to influence the other person,
is the most important in determining the type of strategy that a person uses. For example, a
person may decide not to use a strategy because he or she thinks it won’t work or because it is
irrelevant.
In addition, Dillard (2008) identifies several secondary goals that influence people’s
choices in compliance-gaining situations. First, identity goals are concerned with maintaining
one’s moral standards and principles for living. Thus, people might decide to ignore a strategy
that seems immoral. Second, interaction goals are concerned with creating a good impression
and behaving in appropriate ways. For instance, people motivated by this goal might refuse to
use a strategy that would make them look bad. Third, resource goals are concerned with
maintaining a relationship and increasing personal rewards. Thus, using a strategy that would
end a friendship would not be likely. Finally, arousal goals are concerned with maintaining
levels of arousal (e.g., nervousness) within an acceptable range. Thus, people with this goal
would not use a strategy that would make them too anxious (Dillard, 2008; Dillard et al.,
1989).
According to the goals–plans–action theory (Dillard, 2008), then, primary and secondary
goals have different degrees of compatibility. Based on the relationships among all the goals
involved, a person develops plans, which are possible methods or approaches for dealing with
the complex structure of goals. In order to generate and then put plans into action, people
seeking compliance must consider possible strategies and tactics, which can be a complicated
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business. One study, for example, examined how people create messages aimed at persuading
loved ones suffering from depression to seek professional help. Results indicated that,
oftentimes, a focus on secondary goals (e.g., saving both parties’ face) led to the design of
non-optimal messages (Wilson, Dorrance Hall, Gettings, & Pastor, 2015).
Of course, a number of variables might affect goals, plans, and actions in the process of
seeking compliance. Consider, for example, relational certainty. It turns out that some people
are far more certain than others when it comes to knowing whether they or their partners
want to pursue a relationship. Given this, Knobloch (2006) surmised that, when asking
someone for a date, things would go more smoothly for people who experienced little
relational ambiguity than for those who experienced a lot of it. Specifically, those with less
certainty are more likely to worry about competing goals such as damaging a friendship. Not
only that, when planning and using their compliance-gaining messages, uncertainty may
make people less sure about what to say. It might also get in the way of them saying it
effectively. To test these ideas, research participants were observed requesting hypothetical
dates from people they were attracted to in real life. The participants were asked to leave
phone messages, requesting dates from people they knew and were attracted to. Some were
more certain about their relationships than others. Results of the study confirmed the
researcher’s suspicions: Relational certainty was associated with requests for dates that were
judged to be more fluent, affiliative, and effective. Here are two examples of requests from
the study (Knobloch, 2006, p. 273). We hope it is obvious which was produced by the person
with more relational certainty:
“Hey babe, it’s Kevin. I was just calling to see if you had any plans tonight, ’cause I
wondered if I could take you out to dinner or something. So, just give me a call
whenever you get the message. Bye.”
“Hey, Emily, uh, this is Bob. Um, yeah, just wondering what you were up to tonight.
Uh, haven’t talked to you in … in a little while, so, uh, yeah, I think there’s some
stuff we need to talk about. So, um, if I don’t end up talking to you, I guess I’ll talk
to you on the Internet later. We’ll see ya.”
In short, then, compliance-gaining situations are not as simple as they may seem. People
not only generate and select tactics that they think will help them gain compliance but do so
in the face of multiple constraints, including competing goals and other factors.
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PROBLEMS FACING COMPLIANCE RESEARCH: TROUBLE IN PARADISE
Up to this point, the things we have said about compliance gaining probably seem fairly
simple; when trying to persuade people, we have a number of strategies at our disposal, and
the strategies we use are determined in part by the situation, our personal characteristics, and
our goals. Despite this rather straightforward description, however, there has been a lot of
confusion and argument about research methods that have been used to draw such
conclusions. Without straying too far into the weeds, we believe it is important to mention at
least a couple of concerns here.
To illustrate one issue, imagine that you could listen to any song right now. What would it
be? Can you think of three songs? Your choice of songs is open ended. Depending on how
much music you listen to, coming up with your three favorites off the top of your head might
not be all that easy. Now imagine you are on iTunes and looking at a list of the top 20 songs,
from which you must pick 3. Your choice of songs is limited.
What does all of this have to do with compliance-gaining research? If you stop to think
about it, the Marwell and Schmitt (1967) study we discussed earlier is not entirely different
from our iTunes example. Only, instead of asking their research participants to select from a
list of song titles, Marwell and Schmitt asked people to select from a list of pre-established
compliance-seeking strategies. The problems with such an approach, however, have been
pointed out by numerous researchers (e.g., Cody, McLaughlin, & Jordan, 1980; Wiseman &
Schenck-Hamlin, 1981). First, by way of illustration, let’s return to the iTunes example. Let’s
say your favorite Beyoncé song did not appear on the list, so you settle for a song by Rihanna
instead. Obviously, your choice has been constrained by the songs that are on the top 20 list.
You can’t pick a song that’s not available. Researchers who provide their subjects with lists of
compliance-gaining strategies constrain their subjects’ choices in the same way. You can’t
pick a strategy if it isn’t on the list.
Second, imagine you notice a song that you hadn’t remembered but would have selected
had it come to mind. In other words, seeing the song title made you more likely to choose it.
In the same way, strategies selected from a list can artificially “cue” participants. When
participating in a study, it’s possible that we see a strategy on a list and think, “Oh yeah, that
seems like a good one.” But in real life, the strategy would not have occurred to us. Thus, the
list makes some strategies seem more popular than they truly are.
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Finally, imagine you hate country music but are with a group of friends who love the stuff.
To fit in, you download some Carrie Underwood tunes. Researchers have argued that the
same type of thing can happen when participating in research. Specifically, in order to “fit in”
or “look good,” we may not report what we would do in real life but rather what makes us
look the most socially desirable. Thus, although Astrid may go around threatening people in
real life, she may tell researchers that she uses more prosocial compliance-gaining tactics.
Having a list of tactics to choose from may make this social desirability bias more likely to
occur.
In an attempt to overcome these problems, some researchers have scrapped “selection” in
favor of “construction” procedures (e.g., Wiseman & Schenck-Hamlin, 1981). The argument
goes like this: If people are presented with a situation requiring persuasion and are asked to
describe the strategy they would use (i.e., construct the strategy from scratch rather than
select it from a list), the strategy will better reflect true behavior, not misrepresent strategies
that are not typically used, and be less prone to social desirability bias.
As neat as this sounds, research indicates little difference in the results of studies using
these two techniques (Boster, 1988; Plax, Kearney, & Sorensen, 1990). What may be of even
greater importance, though, are the findings of a study by Dillard (1988). To determine
which of several methods for assessing compliance-gaining behavior was the best,1 Dillard
asked people to rate, on paper, how likely they would be to use 16 different compliance-
gaining messages in persuasive situations. He then observed these people in actual
compliance-gaining situations but found that, regardless of the method he used to assess
compliance-gaining behavior, there was no correspondence between the paper–pencil
measures and actual behavior. In other words, what people said they would do was not the
same as what they actually did.
When we consider the implications of this study, it reminds us of a story we once heard
about a man who exits a cab late at night and sees a drunk on his hands and knees, snooping
around a street light. The man asks, “Is anything wrong?” to which the drunk replies, “Yeah,
I lost my keys.” The man says, “Did you lose them here?” The drunk answers, “Naw, I lost
them over there in the dark, but the light is much better here.” In the same vein, Dillard’s
(1988) study illustrates that investigators have been looking very hard at compliance gaining,
but perhaps not in the right way. Rather than examining compliance gaining in artificial
laboratory settings using hypothetical situations or paper–pencil measures, investigators
should look for compliance gaining as it occurs in more naturalistic contexts, a topic we
discuss next.
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1.
2.
3.
4.&
COMPLIANCE GAINING IN ACTION: SEEING IS BELIEVING
Robert Cialdini (2016), one of our favorite persuasion researchers, describes himself this way:
As a kind of secret agent, I once infiltrated the training programs of a broad range of
professions dedicated to getting us to say yes. For almost three years, I recorded the
lessons taught to aspiring automobile salespeople, direct marketers, TV advertisers,
frontline managers, charity fund-raisers, public relations specialists, and corporate
recruiters. My intent was to find out which practices worked time after time. So I
answered the organizations’ ads for trainees or otherwise arranged to be present in
their classrooms, notebook in hand, ready to absorb the wisdom born of long-
standing experience in the business of persuasion.
(p. 3)
In other words, Cialdini observed compliance gaining as it occurs in “real life,” and as a result,
developed a “typology” of seven underlying principles of social influence that professional
persuaders rely on to be effective (Cialdini, 1993, 2016). Because other chapters have or will
discuss these principles, here we provide quick glimpses of each one.
The principle of reciprocity suggests that we should repay, in some form or another, what
other people have given us. As such, when people do us a favor, give us a gift, or provide
advice, we feel indebted. As a result, we’re more likely to comply with their requests
(also see Chapter 11).
The principle of scarcity states that when objects or opportunities are in short supply, we
value them more (think gold versus dirt here). As such, when something is a “limited
edition” or on sale for a “limited time,” you might be persuaded to buy it (also see
Chapter 8).
The principle of consistency/commitment says that the more you become committed to an
idea, the more likely you’ll be to behave consistently with it. For instance, after
committing weeks and weeks to shopping for a particular car, you’ll probably feel more
committed to buying it (also see Chapter 3).
5. The principles of authority and liking suggest that we are more likely to be persuaded
by people when we perceive them to be credible and likable. We may also defer to
authorities when we should not (also see Chapter 4).
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6.
7.
The principle of social proof says that other people’s behavior guides our choices. As such,
we’re more likely to visit “popular” restaurants and read “best sellers” (also see Chapter
6).
The principle of unity says that when we share identities with people (i.e., we feel “at
one” with them based on groups such as family, ethnicity, religious affiliation), we are
more easily influenced by them (also see Chapter 6).
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SUMMARY
In this chapter, we focused on the study of compliance gaining. Early research in this area
attempted to discover the different types of strategies that people use to get others to behave
in certain ways. Research also focused on the ways in which situations, individual
characteristics, and goals affect the use and selection of compliance-gaining strategies. We
also discussed how compliance-gaining research has been plagued by several problems.
Finally, we examined several underlying principles of compliance that were identified through
observing compliance in “real-life” interactions.
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1.
NOTE
Three prior methods have been used to assess compliance-gaining behavior, each using a different dependent variable.
First, the technique approach treats each individual compliance-gaining tactic as a separate, dependent variable and
assumes that the correspondence between selected tactics (selected from a checklist) and used tactics will be high.
Second, the strategy approach treats groups of tactics as dependent variables and assumes that correspondence between
strategy choice and use will be high. Finally, the summed-tactic approach argues that a single, dependent variable is
indicative of some global compliance-gaining attempt and assumes that the summed-tactic-selection score will
correspond to the frequency of compliance-gaining messages (see Dillard, 1988).
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I
CHAPTER 11
Sequential Persuasion
Pregiving: The Old “I ’ll-Scratch-Your-Back-if-You ’ll-Scratch-Mine ” Approach
Why Is the Pregiving Tactic Persuasive?
Foot in the Door: The “Give-Me-an-Inch-and-I’ll-Take-a-Mile” Tactic
Why Is a Foot in the Door So Persuasive?
When Does a Foot in the Door Work?
The Door-in-the-Face Tactic: “Ask for the Stars”
Why Is a Door in the Face So Persuasive?
When Does a Door in the Face Work?
The That’s-Not-All Tactic: Seeking Compliance by Sweetening the Deal
The Low-Ball Tactic: Changing the Deal
Why Lowballing Works
“Sorry, We Don’t Have Any More of Those in Your Size, But … ”: The Bait-and-
Switch Tactic
The Disrupt-Then-Reframe and Pique Techniques: I’m So Confused
Legitimizing Paltry Contributions: Even a Penny Will Help
The Evoking Freedom Technique: “… But You Are Free to Accept or Refuse”
Fear-Then-Relief and Happiness-Then-Disappointment Procedures: The Emotional
Roller Coasters of Social Influence
“F YOU’RE A DOOR-TO-DOOR salesperson,” we’re told by a friend who once made his living
selling encyclopedias, “half your job is getting into people’s houses. Once you’re inside,” he
informed us, “they’re yours, all yours.”
According to our friend, most door-to-door salespeople have sneaky ways of getting their
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feet into your doorway. Some mention your neighbors by name. Some ask for a glass of
water. Our pal had a whole spiel based largely on deception. He’s not proud of it now, he
admitted, but when he greeted customers, he was trained to look like anything but a
salesperson.
“After introducing myself,” he told us, “I promised I was not going to try to sell them
anything. I was just in the neighborhood conducting surveys. I asked them if they would give
me their opinions about their family’s educational needs and told them that, if they did, I
would repay them with ‘educational materials.’ That usually got me inside.”
Once our friend was in the door, he asked his customers to respond to a phony “opinion
survey” (e.g., “Do your kids use the library?” “Do your kids go to the library after dark?”) and
then showed them a set of encyclopedias that he was “willing to give them, for promotional
reasons, if they promised to keep the set up to date.” How could they do that? Simply by
purchasing one yearbook per year for the next 10 years.
Many of the customers agreed to this seemingly unbelievable offer. What they did not
realize was that the amount of money they paid for the yearbooks actually covered the cost of
the encyclopedias and then some. They’d been “schmoozed” into buying something they
thought they were getting for free.
This example, together with the strategies discussed in Chapter 9, shows that oftentimes
persuasion is not as simple as making a single request or giving one speech. Persuasion, quite
frequently, is a process that requires a number of steps. Indeed, before making his pitch, our
friend had to get himself into the customer’s house. And for reasons we discuss later, by
getting customers to agree to the survey, our friend probably increased his chances of making
a sale.
In this chapter, we extend concepts from Chapter 9 by discussing the topic of “sequential
persuasion,” which examines social influence as a “multi-step” process. Similarly, this chapter
extends concepts from Chapter 10 because sequential persuasion, for the most part,
encompasses a number of tactics that are aimed at gaining compliance (i.e., getting people to
behave in a particular way). We explore research that shows how people increase their
persuasiveness, often at the expense of others, by saying or doing something before, or
sometimes after, making their request. We begin with a strategy known as pregiving.
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PREGIVING: THE OLD “I’LL-SCRATCH-YOUR-BACK-IF- YOU’LL-SCRATCH-MINE” APPROACH
Many years ago, when most cameras still used film, one of the authors received a package in
the mail. The package contained two unused rolls of film and a letter explaining that the film
was a gift. The letter went on to explain how, after using the film, the author could mail it to
the company to be processed. And the funny thing is, the author did, even though the cost of
the processing was more expensive than taking the film to a local developer. Why was the
author persuaded to spend more money? Because the ploy used by the processing company is
a well-known and effective tactic of persuasion known as pregiving. Pregiving entails trying to
get someone to comply by doing favors or giving gifts in advance. When supermarkets offer
free samples of foods to taste, they are employing this strategy. And when service personnel
are especially helpful (e.g., a food server boxes leftovers for you), they are using this approach
(Seiter & Weger, in press).
A classic study done by Dennis Regan (1971) showed how effective the pregiving strategy
can be. In the study, first-year students at Stanford University who had been asked to
participate in an experiment on “aesthetics” were seated in a room with another student.
What the students had not been told was that the other student was a confederate who had
been planted there by the researcher. After a few minutes, the confederate left the room.
When he returned, he was either empty-handed or was carrying two Coca-Colas. If he was
empty-handed, he simply sat back down. But if he had sodas, he offered one to the research
subject and said, “I bought one for you too.”
Seems nice enough, but there’s a catch; later, the plant informed the subject that he was
selling raffle tickets for a new high school gym and would appreciate it if the subject would do
him a favor by buying some tickets. Not surprisingly, the results of the study revealed that
subjects who had been given a soda ahead of time bought almost twice as many raffle tickets
as those who had been given nothing.
Real-world persuaders are also known to put the pregiving tactic to use. For example, in
touristy areas of big cities (the Louvre in Paris, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the
Alamo in San Antonio, the Parthenon in Athens), panhandlers have figured out a tricky way
to get donations from unsuspecting tourists. The panhandlers wait a block or two from a
well-known tourist attraction. When tourists walk by, clearly headed for the attraction, the
panhandlers catch up with them, walk in stride, and proceed to “guide” the tourists to their
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destination. Once there, the panhandlers ask for a donation for the unrequested and
unneeded service rendered.
The pregiving tactic works in other contexts as well. For instance, as a suit salesperson,
one of the authors was trained to ask customers if they would like to have their jackets pressed
while they were shopping. Very few refused the favor, and even those who did were cheerfully
surprised at the offer. What they did not understand was that there was a hidden rationale
behind the gesture; not only was it an effective means of getting customers to spend more
time shopping, but when it came to purchasing a suit, who better to buy from than the nice
salesperson who had already done them a favor?
Two final examples of the pregiving strategy are, to us, perhaps the most disturbing. First,
the next time a man asks if he can buy you a drink, women beware; a study by George,
Gournic, and McAfee (1988) found that if women allow men to buy them drinks, both men
and women perceive the women to be more sexually available than if the drinks are refused.1
Second, in another study (Happ, Melzer, & Steffgen, 2016), experimenters posing as
interviewers gave passersby a free package of chocolates before asking them to divulge
confidential information such as computer passwords. Remarkably, 47.9 percent of
participants revealed their passwords to complete strangers. That’s compared to the (still
remarkable) 29.8 percent who did the same without the incentive. Bottom line? That old
warning—“never take candy from strangers”—is worth paying attention to.
Why Is the Pregiving Tactic Persuasive?
Common explanations for why pregiving works or doesn’t work include liking, physical
attraction, perceived ulterior motives, gratitude, impression management, and internalized
social norms (see Burger, Sanchez, Imberi, & Grande, 2009; Goei, Roberto, Meyer, &
Carlyle, 2007; Hendrickson & Goei, 2009). The liking explanation suggests that people who
do or give something are perceived as kind and good. As a result, they are well liked, and, in
turn, more persuasive. Similarly, the physical attraction explanation suggests that doing favors
leads people to be seen as more attractive, which, in turn, leads them to be more persuasive.
The perceived ulterior motives explanation suggests that when a favor is seen as a tool of
manipulation, it is less likely to lead to compliance. Indeed, Groves, Cialdini, and Couper
(1992) argued that pregiving actually decreases compliance when it is perceived as a bribe or a
pressure tactic. The gratitude explanation suggests that receiving a favor leads to positive
emotional states (i.e., feelings of gratitude) that motivate benevolent behavior. In other
words, people comply because the favor creates a spirit of thankfulness and benevolence. The
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last two explanations, impression management and internalized social norm, are based on the
norm of reciprocity (or indebtedness), which, if you recall from Chapter 10, states that it is
desirable to repay what another person has provided us (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004). More
specifically, the impression management explanation suggests that repaying favors is desirable
because it keeps you from looking like an ungrateful freeloader. The internalized social norm
explanation suggests that repaying favors is desirable because it makes people feel good about
themselves when they do the right thing.
Although all of these explanations have received support, the studies that test them side by
side favor some explanations over others. For example, in a study by Burger and colleagues
(2009), after receiving or not receiving a favor (an unexpected bottled water), research
participants were asked to complete and return a survey. Half the participants were told that
the person who had done them the favor would be collecting the surveys personally, while the
other half were told that they could leave the surveys in a clearly labeled drop-off box. Results
indicated that participants who had received the favor were more likely to complete the
surveys regardless of how they returned the surveys. This, of course, supported the
internalized social norm explanation over the impression management explanation. To be
sure, who cares about impressing a drop-off box?
A second study conducted by Goei and his colleagues (Goei et al., 2007) tested the liking,
gratitude, and indebtedness explanations. Support was found for the liking and gratitude
explanations but depended on whether the person seeking compliance benefited from gaining
compliance. Specifically, when the person doing a favor was seeking compliance for
something that would personally benefit him or her (e.g., the person could win $50 by selling
a lot of raffle tickets), the gratitude explanation was superior. If, however, the person doing
the favor did not personally benefit from compliance (e.g., he or she was selling raffle tickets
for a good cause), the liking explanation was superior.
Finally, a study by Hendrickson and Goei (2009) found support for the gratitude, liking,
and physical attraction explanations, at least when a favor was done by a person of low status.
Regardless of which explanation holds true in a given situation, pregiving is a robust strategy
that works well across cultures and persuasive contexts.
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FOOT IN THE DOOR: THE “GIVE-ME-AN-INCH-AND-I’LL- TAKE-A-MILE” TACTIC
Some time ago, one of the authors and a friend were leaving a shopping mall when they were
approached by a woman. She was about 30 years old, nicely dressed, and had a small child
with her.
“Excuse me,” she said to the author, “would you please tell me what time it is?” The author
obliged.
“I was wondering if you could also spare a few dollars?” the woman added. She claimed
that her car had run out of gas, she had forgotten her purse, and, if the author would give her
his address, she would be happy to return the money to him.
Once again, the author obliged, giving her three or four dollars. He never heard from the
woman again. The author’s friend, however, saw the same woman several weeks later, using
the same scam but at a different mall.
In retrospect, there were probably several things that made the woman successful in her
attempt to gain compliance. The fact that she was well dressed made her story seem more
believable. She gave a plausible reason for needing the money. And having a small child with
her probably created more sympathy. Interestingly, however, having nice clothes, good
reasons, and a small child may not have been the only keys to her success. A considerable
amount of research shows that the woman might have increased her chances of compliance
by asking for the time before she asked for money (hmm, maybe there is a good reason then
for not giving a stranger “the time of day”).
The tactic we have just described is often referred to as the foot-in-the-door strategy,
hereafter called FITD. The tactic involves making a small request first and then making a
second, larger request. Of course, it is the second, larger request that most interests the
persuader. The first, small request is merely a setup. For instance, the encyclopedia
salesperson we talked about earlier used this tactic when he asked people if they would answer
a short survey before he asked for a sale. He didn’t really care about their responses to the
survey; he simply wanted to soften them up. For reasons we discuss later, when people
comply with a smaller request, it often makes them more likely to comply with a second,
larger request.
The first study to demonstrate the effectiveness of the FITD strategy was conducted by
Jonathan Freedman and Scott Fraser (1966) at Stanford University. These researchers were
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interested in finding out if they could get housewives to agree to a very large request.
Specifically, they asked housewives to allow a team of five or six men into their homes for two
hours. The men, they were told, would have complete freedom in the house to go through
the cupboards and storage spaces in order to classify all of the household products that were
there. Before being approached with this request, however, some of the women were set up
with a smaller initial request. That is, three days before making the large request, the
researchers called some of the housewives and asked if they would participate in a survey
about household products (e.g., “What brand of soap do you use?”). Surprisingly, about 50
percent of the housewives who agreed to answer the survey also agreed to let complete
strangers rifle through their houses. However, when the researchers had not approached
housewives with a smaller request first, only about 25 percent of the housewives agreed to the
subsequent larger request (Freedman & Fraser, 1966).
Why Is a Foot in the Door So Persuasive?
The FITD tactic appears to be a robust tactic that is effective given the right conditions
(Burger, 1999). But what makes it so persuasive? The most common explanation for the
effectiveness of the FITD tactic is based on Bem’s (1972) self-perception theory (see DeJong,
1979; Freedman & Fraser, 1966). According to this theory, people come to know about their
attitudes, emotions, and other internal states by inferring them from their own behavior
(Bem, 1972). For example, if you notice yourself eating a lot of Nutrageous candy bars, you
are likely to come to the conclusion that you have a favorable attitude toward chocolate. In
other words, you use your behavior to infer your attitude.
As an explanation for the FITD effect, self-perception theory says this: When you agree to
comply with a small request, you see yourself as an altruistic person who is likely to help.
Once you form that impression, you are motivated to behave in a manner consistent with that
impression. Thus, when a larger request is made, you are more likely to comply.
Although some research points to the viability of self-perception theory as an explanation
for the effectiveness of the FITD tactic, other evidence is not so optimistic. For example,
Gorassini and Olson (1995) conducted a study that measured how helpful people perceived
themselves to be after complying with a first, small request. They found that although
people’s self-ratings of helpfulness were affected by compliance with the small request, those
changes did not always predict people’s compliance with a second, larger request. Moreover,
compliance with a second, larger request often occurred without people perceiving themselves
as being more helpful. Dillard (1990) argued that results of studies such as these show that
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more theorizing about the FITD tactic is necessary.
A meta-analysis by Burger (1999), however, suggests that self-perception does affect how
much people comply with FITD requests. All research may not indicate this, however,
because self-perception is probably not the only process involved. Specifically, Burger noted
that other psychological processes operating in an FITD situation may overwhelm whatever
impact self-perception has. As a result, not all studies will support a self-perception account
of the FITD’s effectiveness. By way of example, people may be less willing to comply with a
request if they think most other people would reject the request. Thus, as Burger (1999)
notes, “it appears that whatever push self-perception gives toward agreement with the target
request can be overwhelmed by telling the individual that few people go along with such
requests” (p. 323). In short, self-perception probably plays a role in the FITD’s effectiveness,
but the tactic’s success depends on a lot of other factors (see Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004). We
discuss some of these next.
When Does a Foot in the Door Work?
Research tells us that some of the following conditions play an important role in determining
the effectiveness of the FITD tactic:
Size of the initial request. Is getting a person to comply with any request enough to get
the person to comply with later requests? Research shows that the initial request should
be neither too large nor too small. Seligman, Bush, and Kirsch (1976) argued that “the
first request must be of sufficient size for the foot in the door technique to work” (p.
519). However, the initial request cannot be so large that it is rejected. Thus, the
persuader must strike a balance between making a large enough initial request to trigger
the FITD effect but not so large that it is declined. For instance, asking for a penny so
you might later get a larger donation probably would not work because the penny might
be perceived as inconsequential. However, asking the average person for $1,000 to begin
with might be a reach. In short, the persuader wants to use the largest possible request
that will be accepted.
Prosocialness of the request. In a review of several studies, Dillard, Hunter, and Burgoon
(1984) found that the FITD tactic is more effective when used for prosocial causes than
it is when used for self-serving reasons. With this in mind, the FITD tactic would
probably be more useful to social workers trying to raise money to help the homeless
than it would be for commissioned salespeople.
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External incentives to comply. Meta-analyses by Burger (1999) and Dillard and colleagues
(1984) indicated that people are less susceptible to the FITD tactic if they are offered
external incentives for complying with the first request. Most researchers use self-
perception theory to explain these effects. For example, if you received a gift for agreeing
to listen to a timeshare sales pitch, you would not form an impression of yourself as
someone who is willing to comply readily with requests. You are only complying because
you have a material reason for doing so. Thus, because the pregiving strategy (discussed
earlier) uses external incentives, it may not be a good idea to use it and the FITD
strategies together (see Bell, Cholerton, Fraczek, Rohlfs, & Smith, 1994; Weyant,
1996).
Who makes the requests. For the FITD strategy to work, the same person needn’t make
both the initial and the follow-up requests. Indeed, it is often the case that a person who
complies with a request by one person will also comply with a second request, even when
the second request is made by a different person. In fact, research by Chartrand,
Pinckert, and Burger (1999) found that when a different person made the second
request, compliance was more likely than when the same person made both requests.
This was especially true when there was no time delay between the first and second
requests (Chartrand et al., 1999).
Labeling. Imagine that just after you donated blood to the Red Cross, a nurse tells you
how generous you are and thanks you. Or better yet, imagine that the nurse gives you a
pin or bumper sticker that says, “I Care Enough to Donate Blood.” A review of studies
by Burger (1999) reported that this type of labeling increases the odds that you will
comply with larger follow-up requests (e.g., to donate blood every month for a year).
This finding, of course, is consistent with self-perception theory—that is, if someone
labels you as someone who is helpful, you may begin to see yourself that way and, as a
result, act in accordance with your self-perception. (For a different spin on social
labeling, see Box 11.1.)
Preference for consistency. You may remember from Chapter 3 that most people strive for
consistency in their behaviors and attitudes. How does this relate to the FITD tactic? If
you agree to an initial request, you should be motivated to behave consistently by also
agreeing to a second request. This is especially true if the two requests are similar (see
Burger, 1999). According to Cialdini, Trost, and Newsom (1995), some people have a
greater need for such consistency than others. As might be expected, those with a higher
need for consistency are more influenced by the FITD tactic than are those who are not
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(Cialdini et al., 1995). This is especially true when people with a higher need for
consistency are reminded of how important consistency is (Guadagno, Asher, Demaine,
& Cialdini, 2001).
Self-concept clarity. Did you know that some people have a clearer picture of their self-
concept than others? These folks are said to have “high self-concept clarity.”
Interestingly, research shows that these folks are more susceptible to the FITD tactic
than are people with a fuzzier idea of self (Burger & Guadagno, 2003). Why? It turns
out that people with high self-concept clarity are more likely to change their self-
concepts. As such, after complying with an initial request, they are more likely than
people with low self-concept clarity to see themselves as helpful and, in turn, comply
with a second request (Burger & Guadagno, 2003).
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BOX 11.1 | I’m So Hungry I Could Eat a Horse: The Darker Side of Labeling
Up to now, we’ve seen that labeling people in a positive way (“you’re so helpful!”) may
lead them to perceive themselves in a positive way, which, in turn, may make them more
likely to comply with requests for help. But what do you suppose would happen if people
were labeled in a negative way? Is it possible that they would be more likely to comply
with requests for help in order to restore their damaged self-esteem? A study by Nicolas
Guéguen (2001) tested this possibility in a devilish way. More than 100 pedestrians on a
busy street in France were approached individually by three women who were part of the
study. The first woman asked each unsuspecting target, “Excuse me …, my bag is heavy
and I would like to buy a magazine. … Would you mind keeping an eye on my bag
while I go and get it?” (p. 745). If the pedestrians agreed, they were left with a bag,
which contained a package on top labeled “Horse meat.” Twenty seconds later, half of
the pedestrians were approached by the second woman, who looked at the bag and said,
“It is really appalling to eat horse meat. When I think that it is thanks to the horse that
we have evolved so much. You should be ashamed.” (p. 745). Without waiting, the
second woman left, the first woman returned with her magazine, thanked the
pedestrians, and left with her bag of meat. Finally, the third woman approached the
pedestrians and asked one of two things. Half of the pedestrians were asked to sign a
petition favoring the proper treatment by the government of abandoned animals. The
other half were asked to sign a petition favoring the limitation of traffic in the city
center. Results of the study showed that pedestrians who received the negative label were
significantly more likely to sign the petition, but only if asked to sign the petition about
the treatment of animals. This, of course, makes sense: Having been shamed for eating
pony parts, the second petition allowed pedestrians to buck the negative label and
declare their unbridled love for horses.
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THE DOOR-IN-THE-FACE TACTIC: “ASK FOR THE STARS”
One of our students used to work selling jewelry in a large department store. She tells us that
her approach to sales was very different from that of the other salespeople with whom she
worked. Most of them, she tells us, started by showing their customers the “bottom of the
line” merchandise. To increase their sales, they then moved to more expensive merchandise,
demonstrating that “more money” meant “higher quality.” However, our student started by
showing her customers the most expensive merchandise first. Typically, they did not purchase
what they were first shown but, even so, our student claims that while she worked at that
store, her sales were always higher than anyone else’s.
Actually, we are not surprised by our student’s success as a salesperson. Whether she knew
it or not, she was using a tactic of persuasion that researchers have known to be effective for
many years. Often called the door-in-the-face technique, or DITF, this tactic is just the
opposite of the FITD strategy. It works by first making a request so large that it is turned
down, then following it up with a second, smaller request. Of course, just as with the FITD
tactic, compliance with the second request is what the persuader has been aiming for all
along.
The first empirical study of the DITF tactic was conducted by Robert Cialdini and his
colleagues (Cialdini et al., 1975). To visualize the study, imagine what you would do if
someone approached you, identified herself as a representative of a youth-counseling
program, and asked if you’d be willing to chaperone a group of juvenile delinquents on a one
day visit to the zoo. If you were like most of the people in the study (83 percent), you would
refuse the request. It turns out, however, that people were much more responsive to the
request if something happened beforehand. Specifically, when people were asked to volunteer
two hours per week counseling juvenile delinquents for a minimum of two years, and then
asked to chaperone the delinquents on the zoo trip, they were three times more likely to serve
as chaperons. In other words, people were more likely to do a smaller favor (zoo chaperon)
after refusing to do a large favor (counseling twice a week for up to two years) first.
Since the 1975 study of Cialdini and colleagues, the effectiveness of the DITF tactic has
been demonstrated again and again (see reviews by Cialdini & Guadagno, 2004; Dillard et
al., 1984; Feeley, Anker, & Aloe, 2012; Feeley, Fico, Shaw, Lee, & Griffin, 2017; Fern,
Monroe, & Avila, 1986; O’Keefe & Hale, 1998, 2001). But rather than examine those
studies, we turn now to a discussion of why the DITF tactic is thought to be so effective.
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Why Is a Door in the Face So Persuasive?
A number of explanations for the persuasiveness of the DITF tactic have been proposed and
tested, with some faring better than others.
The perceptual contrast effect (Cialdini, 1993) suggests that people are likely to comply
with a second, smaller request because, compared to the initial, larger request, the
second request seems much smaller than it normally would have (e.g., a $500 diamond
ring seems inexpensive compared to the $3,000 rings but expensive compared to the
$100 rings).
The self-presentation explanation (Pendleton & Batson, 1979) suggests that when people
reject an initial request, they become concerned that they will be perceived negatively
and thus comply with a second request in order to make themselves look better.
Reciprocal concessions (Cialdini et al., 1975) suggests that, when a persuader employing
the DITF tactic makes a concession by following up with a smaller request, we may be
motivated to reciprocate the favor by complying with the second request.
The legitimacy explanation (see Feeley et al., 2017) suggests that making concessions can
signal that a persuader has a greater need for compliance (i.e., the persuader is making a
genuine request), which, in turn, engenders a greater obligation to help the persuader.
The guilt-based account (O’Keefe & Figgé, 1997) argues that refusing an initial, prosocial
request leads persuadees to experience guilt, which they attempt to reduce by agreeing to
a second request.
The social responsibility position (Tusing & Dillard, 2000) suggests that we think it is
socially responsible to help people who deserve it. As such, we’re more likely to comply
when follow-up messages ask for our help.
FIGURE 11.1
The door in the face tactic gone awry.
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3.
4.
Source: Calvin and Hobbes © (1985) Watterson. Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate. Reprinted with permission. All
Rights Reserved.
Based on analyses of multiple experiments, the social responsibility (Feeley et al., 2012)
and reciprocal concessions (Feeley et al., 2017) explanations have found the most support.
That said, according to Feeley and his colleagues (2017), perceptual contrast, guilt, and the
legitimacy of requests probably contribute to the tactic’s effectiveness.
When Does a Door in the Face Work?
Research tells us that some of the following conditions play an important role in determining
the effectiveness of the DITF tactic:
Size of the initial request. For the DITF strategy to work, the first request must be large
enough to guarantee rejection by the persuadee but not so large as to appear incredible
(Cialdini et al., 1975). But is there a right size for the initial request? A study by Even-
Chen, Yinon, and Bizman (1978) addressed this question and concluded that the initial
request must be large for the door in the face to work. However, they noted that the
request must not be so large that it evokes anger, resentment, or incredulity in the
persuadee (Even-Chen et al., 1978).
Type of compliance sought. A meta-analysis by Feeley and colleagues (2012) found that the
DITF tactic is not effective when used for self-serving reasons but can increase
compliance when used for altruistic purposes. Moreover, the tactic works better when
seeking volunteers (e.g., to participate in research) than when seeking monetary
donations, and for obtaining verbal, rather than behavioral, compliance. Finally, the
DITF tactic is more effective than a single request when compliance is more difficult to
achieve (Feeley et al., 2012).
Elapsed time between first and second requests. Several reviews of studies on the DITF
(Dillard et al., 1984; Feeley et al., 2012; Fern et al., 1986) argue that compliance is
increased when the delay between the two requests is short. By way of example,
Guéguen, Jacob, and Meineri (2011) found that restaurant patrons who had refused
invitations to order dessert were likely to accept invitations to order tea or coffee,
especially when the follow-up invitation occurred immediately after the refusal rather
than three minutes later.
Can a different person make the second request? Researchers who support the reciprocal
concessions explanation (discussed earlier) like to point out that the DITF strategy does
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not work if the first and second requests are made by different people. Indeed, if a door-
to-door salesperson offers you a vacuum cleaner for $500, and a different salesperson
offers you the appliance for $300, you might perceive a contrast but not a concession.
However, if the same salesperson made both offers, you might be more likely to
reciprocate the concession and comply with the second offer.
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THE THAT’S-NOT-ALL TACTIC: SEEKING COMPLIANCE BY SWEETENING THE DEAL
Remember our friend who sold encyclopedias? We began the chapter by telling you how he
used to weasel his way into houses with the foot-in-the-door tactic. But that’s not all he did
to sell his books. He also used what he calls the “but wait, that’s-not-all” strategy. Here’s how
it worked: After presenting the books and before asking for the sale, he showed his customers
several other items they could receive for free (an atlas, a dictionary, a thesaurus) if they
agreed to buy the encyclopedias. Perhaps you’ve observed this strategy used in other contexts.
For instance, haven’t we all seen those commercials for food and vegetable slicers and dicers?
Typically, after a demonstration, you’re asked, “How much would you pay for this?” Then
you’re presented with an add-on knife. How much would you pay now? How about if a carrot
cleaner were added? Well, you get the idea, so “call now!”
To see whether this tactic was effective, Jerry Burger (1896) conducted several studies. In
one, the tactic was used on customers at a bake sale. When customers asked about the price of
a cupcake, they were told one of two things. Some customers were told that a cupcake and
two cookies sold for 75 cents. Other customers, however, were not told about the cookies
right away—a few seconds after they’d been told that the cupcakes sold for 75 cents each, it
was explained that the price included the cost of two cookies. Results of the study showed
that the “that’s-not-all” tactic sold more cupcakes. Specifically, although only 40 percent of
the customers who had been presented cookies and cupcakes at the same time made a
purchase, 73 percent of the “that’s-not-all” customers made a purchase.
Why does this tactic work so well? According to Burger (1986), the “that’s-not-all” tactic’s
effectiveness may be because of the norm of reciprocity and contrast effect (discussed earlier
in this chapter). First, because the seller has sweetened the deal by adding on items, the
customer may feel obligated to buy the product, thereby reciprocating the seller’s action.
Second, in contrast to the original deal, the revised deal may seem much better than it would
have without the comparison.
But wait, there’s more: Before concluding this discussion, we should note that the “that’s-
not-all” tactic can include more than adding on items to make a deal look better; it can also
involve lowering the price of an item. For example, Burger (1986) found that more people
bought cupcakes when the price was dropped from $1 to 75 cents than when the price was
simply stated as 75 cents. You might have noticed that, in this form, the “that’s-not-all” tactic
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is a lot like the door in the face approach. The difference is that, when using the door in the
face approach, the persuader waits for the initial request to be rejected before following up
with a lesser request. Persuaders using the “that’s-not-all” tactic do not wait for the initial
request to be rejected before sweetening the deal. Some evidence indicates that of the two
techniques, the “that’s-not-all” tactic is the more persuasive (Burger, 1986). (For a look at
how these two tactics and others might be used together, see Box 11.2.) Even so, salespeople
or others wishing to use this tactic need to be careful. Some evidence suggests that it might
backfire if the salesperson’s initial request is too large (Burger, Reed, DeCesare, Rauner, &
Rozolis, 1999). It’s not difficult to imagine why. For example, if a salesperson asked you to
buy a chocolate chip cookie for $5 and then lowered the price to 75 cents, you’d probably be
suspicious that the initial price was purposely inflated and that the salesperson was trying to
pull a fast one. (For more drawbacks on a related influence approach, see Box 11.3.)
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BOX 11.2 | Doors and Feet: An Extension and Combination of Tactics
If given a choice of sequential request techniques to use, which works best? Some
research has addressed this question. For instance, Chan and Au (2011) found that
Chinese children completed more academic work when teachers used the door-in-the-
face technique (e.g., “Complete 100 questions,” then “Just complete 20 questions.”) than
when they used the foot-in-the-door technique (e.g., “Complete 5 questions,” then
“Complete 20 questions.”). However, rather than pitting techniques against one another,
perhaps a better approach, when possible, is to use them together. Indeed, research has
found that combinations of sequential tactics can be effective (Goldman & Creason,
1981; Goldman, Creason, & McCall, 1981; Goldman, Gier, & Smith, 1981; Souchet &
Girandola, 2013). For example, two doors in the face or two feet in the door made
people more compliant than a single door or foot. Further research by Goldman (1986)
found that the door-in-the-face and foot-in-the-door techniques also can be combined.
Here’s how it works: First, people are presented with a very large request that they are
almost sure to reject (e.g., “Would you call 150 people and ask them questions about the
zoo?”). Second, people are presented with a moderate request that serves as a foot in the
door. Because this request follows the very large request, however, it can be more
difficult than the initial request that is typically used in the foot-in-the-door approach
(e.g., “Would you participate in a 25-minute survey about the zoo?” versus “Would you
answer three or four questions about the zoo?”). Finally, people are asked to comply with
the request that the persuaders wanted them to comply with all along (e.g., “Would you
stuff and address 75 envelopes with information about the zoo?”). Results of Goldman’s
(1986) study found that this combination approach was more persuasive than either
tactic alone.
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THE LOW-BALL TACTIC: CHANGING THE DEAL
If you’ve ever bought a car from a dealership, there’s a chance you’ve seen the low-ball tactic in
action. Here’s how it works. First, the salesperson makes you a deal that looks too good to
refuse. Perhaps the car you want is offered for several hundred dollars less than any place else
you’ve shopped. Excited, you accept the offer. But then, a number of things might go wrong.
For instance, the salesperson might inform you that the quoted price did not include an
expensive option (e.g., air conditioning) that you thought was included. Or, the salesperson
might check with his or her manager for approval and later report that the deal was rejected.
Why? The dealership would lose money if the car were sold so cheap. In short, the original
offer is taken back, and you are asked to pay a much higher price for the car.
Slimy? You bet. But also very effective. Indeed, two meta-analyses of multiple experiments
found that the low-ball tactic increased compliance significantly (Burger & Caputo, 2015;
Pascual, Carpenter, Guéguen, & Girandola, 2016). By way of example, in one study, Cialdini
and colleagues (Cialdini, Cacioppo, Bassett, & Miller, 1978) wanted to see if they could get
undergraduate students to wake up early. Here’s what happened: Some students were simply
asked to participate in a “thinking” experiment at seven in the morning. Others, however,
were asked to participate but were not told when the experiment would take place. If they
agreed to participate, they were told the time of the experiment and asked if they were still
willing to participate. In other words, the second group of students was lowballed. Results of
the study showed that although only 31 percent of the non-lowballed students agreed to
participate, 56 percent of the lowballed students agreed.
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BOX 11.3 | Cheapening Your Product by Sweetening the Deal: The Drawbacks of Including Free Gifts With Purchases
Not long ago, one of the authors, intending to buy a Valentine’s Day gift for his wife,
ended up at a cosmetics counter in a local department store. After sniffing at a dozen
samples he’d dabbed on his arms, he settled on some perfumed lotions. It wasn’t until
he’d paid and was leaving the counter that the salesperson called after him, explaining
she’d forgotten that those particular lotions came with a free gift—a little handbag with
an orange ribbon. The author didn’t think much of the handbag—after all, it was just a
freebie, probably something that was out of style or didn’t sell—but he didn’t mention
that when he presented it, alongside the lotions, as a gift to his wife. To his surprise, she
was thrilled. In fact, she made a bigger fuss over that bag than those darned expensive
lotions. At the time, the author chalked up the differences between his and his wife’s
perceptions to his lack of appreciation for handbags. But then he came across a study
suggesting that he was not alone; apparently, other people react the same way to free
gifts. Indeed, in one study (Raghubir, 2004), research participants were asked to evaluate
the desirability of a pearl bracelet. Half were told that the bracelet was a free gift
accompanying the purchase of another item, while the other half were presented the
bracelet as a stand-alone product. Results showed that the second group was willing to
pay more for the bracelet than the first group. Similarly, another study showed that,
compared to bundling items and selling them together, marketing them in “buy-one,
get-one-free” offers led to a value-discounting effect—the free, add-on item was
perceived as less valuable than when it was bundled with something else (Raghubir,
2005).
This research, of course, has implications for businesses that include their regular
merchandise or services as free promotional items from time to time. By doing so, such
businesses may cause their customers to perceive those items or services as less desirable.
With that in mind, Raghubir (2004) suggests that customers should be informed of how
valuable the gift is. For example, rather than say that a handbag is a “free gift,” a
salesperson should say something like, “You’ll also receive this $50 handbag, with our
compliments.”
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As unethical as the low-ball tactic seems, it is used far more often than might be expected.
Credit card issuers, for instance, are known for tempting customers with low introductory
“teaser” rates. The problem is that these rates may double or even triple in a few months.
Rates on some adjustable mortgages do this too; a few years at a very reasonable rate, then—
BAM!—a balloon payment is due.
Why Lowballing Works
According to Burger and Caputo (2015), the effectiveness of the low-ball tactic can be
explained by three psychological processes, which include commitment to the action,
commitment to the person, and self-presentation. To illustrate the first, let’s use the
automobile customer as an example. Specifically, when the customer agrees to the initial
offer, he or she becomes psychologically committed to the idea of owning the car. Thus, even
when the reasons for buying the car change, the customer has a hard time altering his or her
decision and commitment (Cialdini et al., 1978).
Second, Burger and Petty (1981) suggested that people fall victim to the tactic because
agreeing with the initial request creates a commitment to the requester. In other words,
people agree to a second, more costly request because they feel obligated to make good on
their promises. In support of this hypothesis, Burger and Petty (1981) found that the low-ball
tactic works only when the same person who made the first request also makes the less
attractive request. It does not work when a different person makes the less attractive request.
The third explanation, self-presentation, suggests that people want to be seen in a
favorable light. As such, they comply with requests to avoid looking bad (e.g., like “welshers”
who don’t keep their commitments). If that’s the case, Guéguen and Pascual (2014)
wondered how people might respond if asked to comply with requests that were associated
with illegal behavior—the idea being that people should be less motivated to look good in the
eyes of “deviant” persuaders. To find out, cigarette-smoking pedestrians were approached in
one of two ways. In the low-ball condition, a researcher said, “I see that you are smoking a
cigarette and I wonder if you could give me a light for my cigarette.” If the pedestrians
agreed, the researcher lowballed them by pulling out a large cannabis joint, which was illegal
to smoke in the study’s location. In another condition, a researcher produced the cannabis
joint before asking for a light. What were the results? Lowballed pedestrians complied more
than pedestrians who were not lowballed, leading Guéguen and Pascual (2014) to conclude
that, compared to commitment, self-presentation is a weaker explanation for the effectiveness
of the low-ball tactic.
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“SORRY, WE DON’T HAVE ANY MORE OF THOSE IN YOUR SIZE, BUT …”: THE BAIT-AND-SWITCH TACTIC
The next time you see a big sale advertised, be careful. If you aren’t, you may fall victim to a
persuasion tactic that some authors (Joule, Gouilloux, & Weber, 1989; Marchand, Joule, &
Guéguen, 2015) call “the lure.”
This tactic … is frequently used when goods are put on sale. For example, a beautiful
pair of shoes marked 40% off is displayed quite conspicuously in a store window. The
enticed consumer enters the store with the intention of taking advantage of this
exceptional offer, but the salesperson informs him that they are out of the shoe in his
size. Just when the disappointed customer is ready to leave the store, he is shown a
new pair that resembles the shoes on sale but that is being sold at the regular price.
(p. 742)
The travel industry uses the same ploy, which is more commonly known as the bait-and-
switch tactic. For instance, a company might advertise an inexpensive vacation package as part
of a promotion. However, as many prospective travelers discover, very few of these seats or
packages are available, and they are often sold out by the time people have committed
themselves to the idea of a vacation. The only solution is to go home and mope or buy a more
expensive option.
Research by Joule and colleagues (1989) indicates that the bait and switch is an effective
strategy for gaining compliance. In one study, these researchers got several students to sign up
to participate in a rather interesting and well-paying experiment. When the students showed
up for the experiment, however, they were told that it had been canceled. Even so, these
students, compared to those who were not lured, were more willing to participate in another
experiment that was less interesting and unpaid.
The low-ball and bait-and-switch tactics are similar in that both lead the customer on
before pulling the rug out. How do the two differ? With the low-ball technique, the customer
is still buying the product he or she wanted, but at a higher cost. There are “strings attached”
to the deal or “fine print” that drives up the cost. With the baitand-switch, the customer is
buying a different product altogether, often at a higher price or of lower quality. The product
she or he wanted is sold out or out of stock.
437
438
THE DISRUPT-THEN-REFRAME AND PIQUE TECHNIQUES: I’M SO CONFUSED
If we offered to sell you five Nutrageous candy bars for 400 pennies, would you buy them? It
would be a bargain.
Before you decide to buy anything after being presented an offer like this, be careful. You
might be falling for a sequential compliance tactic known as the disrupt-then-reframe technique
(DTR). According to Davis and Knowles (1999), the DTR rests on the assumption that
certain requests (e.g., asking for charitable donations) create a conflict within persuadees.
Specifically, persuadees want to help but are also resistant to the expense or effort required to
do so. The DTR overcomes this problem by disrupting the persuadees’ resistance. How?
According to Davis and Knowles, certain confusion techniques (e.g., non sequiturs, requests
stated in a peculiar way) can be used to divert people’s minds from maintaining resistance.
Once that is accomplished, reframing the request with a positive spin (e.g., “It’s a bargain”)
works to engage the persuadees’ underlying desire to help.
To test the effectiveness of this technique, Davis and Knowles (1999) examined door-to-
door salespeople who were trying to sell greeting cards in order to earn money for a worthy
charity. The salespeople presented different messages to potential buyers. Some customers
received a straightforward sales pitch—“The cards are $3. It’s a bargain”—whereas others
were presented with a slightly peculiar pitch (i.e., the DTR technique)—“The cards are 300
pennies … that’s $3. It’s a bargain.” Results of the study indicated that when salespersons
used the DTR technique, they sold significantly more cards than when they used the more
straightforward approach (Davis & Knowles, 1999). A meta-analysis of several studies
suggests that this technique is effective, particularly when seeking donations in nonprofit
contexts (Carpenter & Boster, 2009).
A related approach, called the pique technique is simpler (and sounds more poetic) than the
DTR. It also involves making a peculiar request. For example, in the first examination of the
technique (Santos, Leve, & Pratkanis, 1994), a woman posing as a vagrant asked passersby
for “a quarter,” “any change,” or, more oddly, for “17 cents” or “37 cents.” Results indicated
that the more unusual requests (i.e., 17 and 37 cents) were more persuasive, perhaps because
they, like the DTR, disrupt people’s refusal scripts. A recent meta-analysis indicates that the
pique technique is especially persuasive when smaller amounts of money are requested, when
accompanied by a legitimate reason for making the request, and when used in France (Lee &
439
Feeley, 2017).
440
LEGITIMIZING PALTRY CONTRIBUTIONS: EVEN A PENNY WILL HELP
A technique known as legitimizing paltry contributions (LPC for short) involves letting people
know that very small donations would be acceptable. By way of example, in the first
examination of the LPC technique, Cialdini and Schroeder (1976) found that adding the
phrase “even a penny will help” to a request for donations increased the percentage of
donations that people made to the American Cancer Society. Similarly, the phrase “even a
single marble will make him/her happy” led more people to donate toys to children from
needy families (Guéguen, Martin, & Meineri, 2013).
Originally, the approach was considered an effective way to fend off excuses like “I can’t
afford that right now” or “I don’t have the money for that.” A recent meta-analysis (Bolkan &
Rains, 2015), however, suggests that the LPC is effective for two alternative reasons.
Specifically, the impression management (self-presentation) explanation suggests that people
who refuse tiny requests might worry that they’ll be perceived as heartless cheapskates.
Meanwhile, the “requester need” explanation suggests that people are more willing to donate
because they feel that someone willing to accept exceptionally tiny donations must be
especially desperate for help.
Previous research suggests that LPC is an effective way of amassing a large number of
donations and may be even more effective when combined with other influence techniques
(e.g., social proof) (Russell & Boster, 2016; Shearman & Yoo, 2007). That said, although
LPC garners a larger number of donations, research is inconsistent on whether the technique
lowers the amount of money donated per person (see Bolkan & Rains, 2015 versus Lee,
Moon, & Feeley, 2016). Either way, Bolkan and Rains (2015) noted that the technique
would still be effective when all-or-none behavior is requested. For instance, someone
requesting a signed petition might say, “even one signature will help” (Bolkan & Rains,
2015).
441
THE EVOKING FREEDOM TECHNIQUE: “… BUT YOU ARE FREE TO ACCEPT OR REFUSE”
If you hate being pressured to comply, the evoking freedom technique (a.k.a. but you are free
technique) might appeal to you. If you’ve ever heard someone say something like “Feel free to
say no” or “I’m asking, not insisting,” he or she might have been using this technique. In the
first study to examine it (Guéguen & Pascual, 2000), pedestrians were approached by an
experimenter and asked, “Excuse me … can I ask for some change to take the bus, please?”
Only 10 percent of pedestrians complied. However, when the experimenter added the phrase
“but you are free to accept or to refuse,” not only did compliance rates jump to 47.5 percent,
the average donation was twice as large. Since then, a growing body of research indicates that
the technique is effective in a large number of contexts (Carpenter, 2013; Guéguen, Joule,
Halimi-Falkowicz, Pascual, Fischer-Lokou, & Dufourcq-Brana, 2013). One common
explanation for the technique’s effectiveness is that it reduces psychological reactance.
Specifically, because people react negatively when their freedom is restricted (Brehm, 1966),
declaring them “free” leads them to experience less reactance (Carpenter & Pascual, 2016;
Meineri, Dupre, Guéguen, & Vallee, 2016).
442
FEAR-THEN-RELIEF AND HAPPINESS-THEN- DISAPPOINTMENT PROCEDURES: THE EMOTIONAL ROLLER COASTERS OF SOCIAL INFLUENCE
If you are a fan of detective novels and movies, you’re undoubtedly familiar with the way the
“good cop/bad cop” interrogation operates. First, the “bad cop” mistreats the suspect,
humiliating, yelling at, and threatening to do harm. Next, the “good cop” enters the
interrogation room, asks the bad cop to chill out, and then woos the suspect into confessing
with little more than a cup of coffee and a dose of respect. Based on this scenario, Dolinski
and Nawrat (Dolinski, 2007; Dolinski & Nawrat, 1998) identified the fear-then-relief
procedure. The assumption underlying the procedure is that fear/relief confuses people, which,
in turn, leads them to act rather mindlessly (Dolinski, 2016). Additionally, complying with
requests can help them cope with their confusion (Dolinski, Dolinska, & Bar-Tal 2017). As
such, they become prone to influence attempts. Previous research indicates that the procedure
is effective (e.g., see Dolinski, 2007; Dolinski & Szczucka, 2012). For example, studies that
have scared people (e.g., by blowing police whistles at jaywalkers or leaving “tickets” on
illegally parked vehicles) and then relieved them (by having the people see that police weren’t
the ones blowing the whistles or that the tickets were really just leaflets), have found that
those people are typically more compliant (e.g., willing to complete surveys) than people who
have not undergone the procedure. Research also suggests that the persuasive effect of see-
sawing emotions is not just confined to fear-then-relief. Indeed, one study found that a
happiness-then-disappointment procedure (e.g., finding a note that had originally looked like
money) also led people to comply more with later requests (Nawrat & Dolinski, 2007).
Before concluding this section, we think it’s important to reiterate that a number of ethical
concerns surround the use of influence tactics, perhaps even more so when persuasion
involves unpleasant emotions such as fear. Remember, just because a tactic is effective does
not mean it is ethical. Given the importance of these topics, we will have more to say about
emotions and ethics in Chapters 13 and 16.
443
SUMMARY (AND THEN SOME)
This chapter featured some of the most prominently researched sequential tactics. Pregiving
involves making a persuadee feel indebted so that he or she will be more compliant. The foot-
in-the-door tactic involves making a small request and following up with a large one. The
foot-in-the-mouth tactic works by getting people to admit to feeling terrific and then trying
to get them to behave in a way consistent with their declaration. The door-in-the-face tactic
involves making a large request and following up with a smaller one. The that’s-not-all tactic
seeks compliance by making deals more attractive before persuadees agree to them. When
using the low-ball tactic, persuadees are asked to agree with an attractive request but are
expected to agree with a less attractive request later. Similarly, the bait-and-switch technique
lures people with merchandise that is attractive in order to get them to buy substitute
merchandise that is less attractive. The disrupt-then-reframe and pique tactics divert people
from resisting requests. The legitimization-of-paltry-favors approach minimizes excuses for
making a donation. The fear-then-relief procedure uses changes in emotion to disorient and
then persuade people. The dump-then-chase technique occurs when persuaders persist in
their influence attempts by addressing obstacles to compliance.
We realize that we’ve covered a heap of strategies this chapter. Even so, we can’t help but
wish there was more space. Indeed, plenty of additional tactics are waiting to be explored. In
case you’re interested, Box 11.4 provides the briefest of glimpses to get you started.
444
BOX 11.4 |
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
But Wait, There’s More: A Laundry List of Additional Tactics
The Foot-in-the-Mouth Effect: Donation seekers are especially successful if they
ask people how they are feeling, acknowledge the response, and then request
compliance (Howard, 1990; Meineri & Guéguen, 2011). Thus, when a phone
solicitor asks, “How are you?,” you might be putting your foot in your mouth by
replying, “Great!”
The Dump-and-Chase: Persuaders who “won’t take no for an answer” and
continue to chase compliance by responding to obstacles are using this tactic. “Too
expensive?” they might reply. “Let’s talk about our layaway plan …” According to
some research (Boster, Shaw, Hughes, Kotowski, Strom, & Deatrick, 2009), the
dump-and-chase works just as well as and sometimes better than the foot-in-the-
door and door-in-the-face techniques.
The Four Walls Technique: Persuaders are more successful when you answer “yes”
to a list of seemingly innocent questions (e.g., “Do you like animals?” “Should
animals be well cared for?”) before they deliver the target request (e.g., “Will you
donate to the Humane Society?”) (Cialdini & Sagarin, 2005; Guéguen, Joule,
Halimi-Falkowicz, & Marchand, 2013).
The “Just One More” Technique: People are more compliant when they believe
that they are the last person required to reach a goal. So, if you want a survey filled
out, you should be more successful if you follow “Would you be willing to take a
survey?” with “I just need one more person to take my survey” (Carpenter, 2014).
The “You Will Probably Refuse, But …” Technique: Perhaps because it is
perceived to threaten their freedom to act, people donate more money to charity
when the words “You will probably refuse, but …” come before a request
(Guéguen, 2016).
445
1.
NOTE
Although we don’t think it’s common, we don’t rule out the possibility of women using this same approach on men.
446
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W
CHAPTER 12
Deception
What Is Deception? Lies and Damn Lies
Telling Lies: The Enactment of Deception
Theoretical Frameworks
What Makes a Liar Persuasive?
Detecting Deception: I Can See Right Through You
Factors That Influence Detection
HEN ONE OF YOUR AUTHORS was 5 or 6 years old, he cut the hair off several of his
sister’s Barbie dolls. He was a proud little vandal, and savvy enough to realize that an
interrogation was inevitable. To prep, he practiced angelic expressions in front of a mirror
and then moseyed innocently around the house until his mother, provoked by her daughter’s
shrieks, found him. “Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t do it,” his mom said, holding
your author gently by his shoulders. “It wasn’t me,” the author replied. He stared straight at
her … and then burst into tears.
Deception, he learned the hard way, is no cakewalk. Likewise, detecting lies, more often
than not, is more difficult than this story makes it seem. Indeed, humans, in general, tend to
be far less accurate than they believe when trying to detect deception. Some research shows
that the average person can detect a liar with about the same accuracy as someone flipping a
coin (Bond & DePaulo, 2006), whereas other research presents an even less optimistic view.
For example, when accuracy rates for truthful and deceptive messages are examined separately
(rather than together, as in most studies), people’s detection accuracy is above 50 percent for
truths, but well below 50 percent for lies. Levine and his colleagues (Levine, 2014; Levine &
Kim, 2010; Levine, Park, & McCornack, 1999) call this the veracity effect.
The fact that people are not very accurate at detecting deception is unfortunate when you
451
consider the practical and professional contexts within which accurate detection would be
desirable (e.g., for jurists, consumers, law officers, negotiators, customs inspectors, job
interviewers, secret service agents, and so forth; see Box 12.1). Clearly, there are practical
advantages to improving detecting abilities, and this observation leads us to the following
questions: Are there any reliable cues that can be used to detect deception? If so, what are
they? Are some people better at lying than others? Can some people detect deceit more
accurately than others? Are there factors that can improve people’s ability to detect a liar?
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BOX 12.1| Something Phishy Is Going On: Beware of Internet Deception
Some time ago, one of the authors received an email greeting him as “Dear Bank of the
West Customer.” The email told him that because of too many failed login attempts, his
banking account had been locked and could be unlocked only by following a link to a
website where he could provide his ATM card number and PIN. Fortunately, he didn’t
take the bait, unlike others who have been hooked—line and sinker—by what are known
as “phishing” or “spoofing” scams. Such scams try to lure you to a website where you
provide personal or financial information, which, in turn, enables the con artists to
commit identity theft or credit card fraud. Some, known as spear-phishing attacks,
target specific victims and people with high net worth, often with intimate knowledge
about the victim. In one study, spear phishing fooled one-third of the targets into
clicking on an embedded link (Luo, Zhang, Burd, Seazzu, 2013). To prevent yourself
from being filleted by such scams, beware of unfamiliar websites. Use only website
addresses you have used before. If you receive an email that seems to be snooping for
personal info, be especially wary. If you are suspicious, contact the legitimate company
directly. Finally, if you’ve been hooked, contact the police and file a complaint with the
FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (www.ic3.gov/default.aspx).
These are some of the questions we address in this chapter. But, before doing so, we
would like to make a point. You might ask, “Why is a chapter on deception in a book on
persuasion?” We respond that deception is a form of persuasion. Even from the standpoint of
pure cases of persuasion, deception involves an intentional attempt to get someone to believe
what the liar knows to be false. As Miller (cited in Miller & Stiff, 1993) argued: “Deceptive
communication strives for persuasive ends; or, stated more precisely, deceptive
communication is a general persuasive strategy that aims at influencing the beliefs, attitudes,
and behaviors of others by means of deliberate message distortion” (p. 28).
With this basic understanding of deception as persuasion under our belt, we now turn to a
more in-depth discussion of some common conceptualizations of deception. The rest of the
chapter examines research on the enactment and perception of deception.
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
WHAT IS DECEPTION? LIES AND DAMN LIES
In this section, we examine what deception entails conceptually. To answer the “conceptual
question,” scholars have attempted to outline several types of communication that might be
considered deceptive. Many attempts to do so have focused on liars’ motivations for telling
lies.
Although some motivations for lying are self-evident, others are less obvious. For example,
various researchers have posited all of the following reasons for lying (see Barnett et al., 2000;
Camden, Motley, & Wilson, 1984; DePaulo, Ansfield, Kirkendol, & Boden, 2004;
Lindskold & Walters, 1983; Seiter, Bruschke, & Bai, 2002).
Lie to benefit other: Because she knows that her husband does not want to be disturbed,
Babbs tells a door-to-door salesman that her husband is not home.
Lie to affiliate: Buffy wants to spend some time with her father, so she tells him she
needs help with her homework even though she is capable of doing it herself.
Lie to avoid invasion of privacy: Muffy tells a co-worker that she is younger than she
really is because she believes her age is no one’s business but her own.
Lie to avoid conflict: Biff tells his neighbor, who has called to complain about Biff’s
barking dog, that he cannot talk at the moment because dinner’s on the table.
Lie to appear better: To impress a date, Rex tells her that he was captain of his debate
team when, in reality, he was treasurer of the Slide Rule Club (for more on this
motivation, see Box 12.2).
Lie to protect self: Trudy breaks her mother’s vase but tells her the cat did it.
Lie to benefit self: Favio tells his parents he needs extra money for textbooks so that he
can buy tickets to a Lady Gaga concert.
Lie to harm other: Barney’s in a bad mood so he points in the wrong direction when a
motorist asks him directions.
In addition to looking at people’s motivations for lying, another approach to
conceptualizing deception is to examine the types of strategies people use when lying. For
example, Burgoon, Buller, Ebesu, and Rockwell (1994) distinguished three deception
strategies: distortion (or equivocation), omissions (or concealment), and falsification (outright
falsehoods). Yet other researchers have come up with other categories of deception (e.g., see
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Hopper & Bell, 1984).
In addition to looking at different types of deception, a final way of conceptualizing
deception was proposed in information manipulation theory (McCornack, 1992; McCornack,
Morrison, Paik, Wisner, & Zhu, 2014).1 This theory argues that when we are talking with
others, we typically assume that they will be cooperative, providing us information that is not
only truthful but also informative, relevant, and clear. We’re not always right, however.
Indeed, people violate our assumptions by manipulating the information they communicate
to us. First, they might not provide the quantity of information that we assume they will (i.e.,
they tell the truth, but not the whole truth). Second, they might violate our assumptions about
the quality of information provided (i.e., what they tell us is not at all true). Third, they might
manipulate information through manner violations, communicating messages that are vague
and ambiguous. Finally, people can engage in relation violations by presenting messages that
are not relevant. According to the theory, some violations (e.g., quantity) are predicted to
occur more frequently than others (e.g., relation). That said, people can alter the quantity,
quality, relation, and manner of messages all at the same time or in different combinations. In
other words, there is an infinite variety in forms of deception (McCornack, Levine,
Solowczuk, Torres, & Campbell, 1992). To give you an idea, examples of the ways in which
people manipulate information along each of these dimensions are presented in Box 12.3.
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BOX 12.2| Can I Believe Anything That Comes Out of Your Mouse? Deception and Online Dating
If you or anyone you know has searched for love on any of the dozens of online dating
sites available, beware. Apparently, people’s motivation to create desirable impressions
when trying to attract prospective partners is so powerful that they’ll resort to some
serious truth stretching in the process. In one study (Toma & Hancock, 2010), for
example, researchers invited 80 online daters to their lab. Among other things, the
researchers weighed and measured the daters to see if any funny business was going on,
and found out that it was. Specifically, 81 percent of the daters lied in their profiles
about their height, age, or weight, with men lying more than women about their height
and women lying more than men about their weight. Moreover, independent judges
considered about one third of the daters’ online photographs to be deceptive
representations of the daters’ current appearance. In short, if you think “seeing is
believing,” think again.
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BOX 12.3|
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Information Manipulation Theory: Examples of Deceptive Dimensions of Messages
Gabriella has been babysitting several children for her neighbor, Betty Jones. The
youngest child, Morgan (age 2), although usually well behaved, has been a handful all
night. To top off a difficult evening, while Gabriella was cooking dinner and helping the
other children, Morgan crawled behind the family’s new leather couch and scribbled all
over the back of it with a permanent marker. Although Gabriella scrubbed the couch
with soap and water, she couldn’t get the stains out. Later, after Gabriella has put the
children to bed, Betty Jones returned home and inquired, “How did the night go?”
Examples of responses that:
Are clear, direct, and truthful: “Tonight was not good, Mrs. Jones. Morgan acted
up most of the night. I don’t know what got into him. As I was making dinner and
helping the girls with their homework, he wrote all over the back of the couch with
a Sharpie. I tried to get it off, but it was no use. I’m sorry if I didn’t watch him as
closely as I should have.”
Violate assumptions about the quantity of information that should be provided:
“Morgan was a little naughty, but it was no big deal.”
Violate assumptions about the quality of information that should be provided: “The
kids were perfect angels, especially Morgan. We did puzzles. We played games. We
laughed. What fun!”
Violate assumptions about the manner of information that should be provided:
“Oh, you know. We kept busy with this and that. We did some neat stuff … We
definitely cleaned house tonight!”
Violate assumptions about the relevance of information that should be provided: “I
don’t mean to be rude, but I really need to be getting home, Mrs. Jones. It’s late
and I have homework to do.”
Having laid the groundwork for examining deception, we now discuss what happens
during the process of deception—that is, what goes on while deception is being enacted, and
how is deception detected?
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TELLING LIES: THE ENACTMENT OF DECEPTION
If all liars had noses like Pinocchio, deception detection would not be a problem.
Unfortunately, spotting lies is not that simple. In fact, even empirical research has been
inconsistent when trying to identify the types of behaviors that we can expect out of liars.
(Some of the behaviors that have been associated with deception are listed in Box 12.4).
Theoretical Frameworks
Despite these inconsistencies, however, several theories of deception have been proposed that
attempt to provide an understanding of the types of behaviors that are typical of liars. One
such framework, known as the four-factor model, was proposed by Zuckerman and Driver
(1985). Another, known as interpersonal deception theory, was proposed by Burgoon and Buller
(2004). The following sections discuss each of these perspectives.
The Four-Factor Model
Rather than simply list all the things that people do when telling lies, the four-factor model
tries to explain the underlying processes governing deceptive behavior. In other words, rather
than tell us what people do when lying, the model tries to tell us why people behave
differently when lying. According to the model, the four factors that influence behavior when
lying are arousal, attempted control, felt emotions, and cognitive effort.
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FIGURE 12.1
“I knew the suspect was lying because of certain telltale discrepancies between his voice and nonverbal gestures. Also his
pants were on fire.”
Source: © Robert Mankoff/ The New Yorker Collection/ www.cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
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BOX 12.4 | How Do Liars Behave?
A meta-analysis is a summary of several studies. Such an analysis attempts to resolve
inconsistencies in research. Several of these analyses (i.e., DePaulo, Stone, & Lassiter,
1985; Kraut, 1980; Sporer & Schwandt, 2007; Vrij, 2000; Zuckerman & Driver, 1985)
have examined cues that were associated with deception across a number of studies, but
the largest analysis, combining the results of 1,338 estimates of 158 deception cues, was
conducted by DePaulo and her colleagues (DePaulo et al., 2003). Based on this analysis,
a number of cues were found to be associated with deception. Keep in mind, though,
that all of these cues must be prefaced with the caveat, in general:
Talking time: Liars’ responses are shorter than truth tellers’ responses.
Details: Liars provide fewer details than do truth tellers.
Pressing lips: Liars press their lips (as if holding back) more than truth tellers.
Making sense: Compared to truth tellers, liars’ stories are rated as more discrepant
and ambivalent and as having less plausibility and logical structure.
Lack of immediacy: Both verbally and vocally, liars seem evasive and impersonal,
linguistically distancing themselves from their listeners and from the contents of
their presentations (e.g., using passive vs. active voice).
Uncertainty: Liars are rated as sounding more uncertain than truth tellers.
Raising chin: Liars raise their chins more than truth tellers, perhaps to try to appear
more certain about their stories.
Repetition: Liars repeat themselves more than do truth tellers.
Cooperation: Liars are rated as less cooperative in their conversations than are truth
tellers.
Negative statements: Liars’ responses contain more negative expressions and
complaints than do truth tellers’ responses.
Pleasantness: Liars’ faces are less pleasant than are truth tellers’ faces.
Nervousness: Overall, liars appear more nervous than truth tellers.
Vocal tension and pitch: Compared to truth tellers, liars’ voices are more tense, and
liars speak in a higher pitch.
Pupil dilation: Liars’ pupils are more dilated than are truth tellers’ pupils.
Fidgeting: Liars fidget more than truth tellers.
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Spontaneous corrections: Truth tellers spontaneously correct themselves more than
do liars.
Admitted lack of memory: Truth tellers admit not remembering things more than
do liars.
Related external associations: Compared to truth tellers, liars are more likely to
mention events or relationships peripheral to the key event they are discussing.
Although the meta-analysis by DePaulo and colleagues (2003) examined some verbal
behaviors, it focused primarily on nonverbal behaviors. Given that, some researchers
have wondered whether a reliable set of verbal cues to deception might be uncovered.
According to Ali and Levine (2008), however, although verbal indicators of deception
appear to exist, they have not been consistent from situation to situation or from study
to study.
First, the model assumes that people are more aroused or anxious when telling lies than
when telling the truth. This is also the principle on which the polygraph operates. Of course,
we know that results from polygraphs are inadmissible in courts because they are not 100
percent accurate. Why? Because a sociopath, for instance, who feels no remorse for murder
certainly won’t get anxious when lying. Even so, not all people are sociopaths. We know that
many people do feel anxious when they lie. Perhaps they fear getting caught. Perhaps telling
the lie reminds them of information they want hidden. Perhaps they are simply motivated to
succeed in the deceptive task. Whatever the case, we know that such arousal can lead to
certain behaviors during deception. Poker players, for example, are said to wear sunglasses
because their pupils dilate when they get a good hand. Similarly, pupil dilation can be a
reliable indicator of deception (DePaulo et al., 2003). What other cues to arousal accompany
deception? A few that researchers have investigated include speech errors, speech hesitations,
word-phrase repetitions, increased adaptors (e.g., finger fidgeting), eye blinks, vocal pitch,
and leg movements.
Second, because people do not want to get caught telling lies, the four-factor model argues
that they try to control their behaviors. This seems to be the case both before and during
deception. For example, Hartwig, Granhag, and Strömwall (2007) found that when planning
to be interrogated, liars strategized more than truth tellers by planning to remain calm and
pleasant. Moreover, Vrij (2000) reported that during deception, liars tend to limit their
463
movement to keep from looking nervous. Similarly, according to Ekman and Friesen’s (1969,
1974) sending capacity hypothesis, when people tell lies, they try to control their behaviors but,
in the process, pay more attention to some cues than others. Because it is difficult to monitor
everything they do, liars try to control behaviors that communicate the most information,
such as facial expressions and the words they use. But, while busy monitoring their faces and
words, they tend to forget about parts of their body that communicate little information such
as their legs and feet. So, according to the sending capacity hypothesis, those parts of the
body that communicate little information reveal the most when people are lying. In other
words, because people are concentrating so much on their faces and words, deception “leaks”
in other places. At least some research tends to support this notion. First, Caso, Vrij, Mann,
and De Leo (2006) found that, even when they were taught how to avoid looking deceptive,
research participants were more effective at controlling their words than their nonverbal
behavior. Moreover, one study found that people who watched liars’ heads and faces (higher
sending capacity) were less accurate at detecting deception than people who watched liars’
bodies (lower sending capacity) (Ekman & Friesen, 1974). Finally, in a summary of more
than 30 studies in which judges tried to detect others’ deception from either single channels
(i.e., only the face, body, tone of voice, or words of the liar) or from particular channel
combinations, DePaulo and colleagues (1985) found that in all conditions in which judges
relied on facial cues, detection accuracy was lower.
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FIGURE 12.2
Duping delight in action.
Source: Calvin and Hobbes © (1989) Watterson. Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate. Reprinted with permission. All
Rights Reserved.
In addition to arousal and attempted control, the four-factor model asserts that affective
factors influence our behavior when telling lies. And if you stop to think about it, you could
probably figure out what types of emotions would be associated with telling a lie. Indeed, in
our culture, deception is generally frowned on. Children are taught that “the truth shall set
them free,” “honesty is the best policy,” “what tangled webs are weaved,” and often chide one
another with rhymes such as “liar, liar, pants on fire.” It’s no surprise, then, that deceptive
behavior would be associated with negative emotions such as guilt. It is because of these
negative affects that researchers (e.g., DePaulo et al., 2003) hypothesized that when
compared to truthful communicators, deceivers display less facial pleasantness and make more
negative remarks. We should note, however, that not all deception is associated with the
display of negative emotions. Paul Ekman (1985), for instance, argued that liars may
experience “duping delight,” as the result of facing or successfully meeting the challenge of
deceiving another person.
Finally, the four-factor model asserts that cognitive factors play a role in the way people
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behave when lying. Stated differently, lying requires you to think a lot harder than telling the
truth does. Why? Because it’s fairly easy to tell a story about something you’ve already heard
or experienced. When you lie, however, you are oftentimes required to “make things up as
you go along.” Not only that, you must be careful not to contradict something you’ve said
before. (Remember the old saying “Liars need a good memory”?) Because lying requires extra
cognitive effort (Vrij, 2014), it’s no wonder that researchers have hypothesized that liars,
compared to people telling the truth, would take a longer time to respond, pause more when
speaking, and deliver messages with few specifics (e.g., Vrij, Granhag, Mann, & Leal, 2011;
Zuckerman & Driver, 1985).
Interpersonal Deception Theory
Interpersonal deception theory (Burgoon & Buller, 2004, 2008) views deception as an
interactional phenomenon in which both senders and receivers simultaneously encode and
decode messages over time. In the process, both the liar’s and the detector’s goals,
expectations, and knowledge affect their thoughts and behaviors. In turn, such thoughts and
behaviors affect how accurately lies are detected and whether liars suspect that they are
doubted. Later in this chapter, we examine other assumptions that detail the theory. At this
point, however, the aspect of interpersonal deception theory that is most relevant is its
distinction between strategic and nonstrategic behaviors during deception. Specifically,
interpersonal deception theory argues that a liar’s communication consists of both intentional
(strategic) attempts to appear honest and unintentional (nonstrategic) behaviors that are
beyond the liar’s control.
First, interpersonal deception theory says that, to avoid being detected, liars strategically
create messages with certain characteristics. For instance, liars might (1) manipulate the
information in their messages to dissociate themselves from the message (e.g., liars might refer
to themselves very little so they distance themselves from the responsibility of their
statements), convey uncertainty or vagueness (because creating messages with a lot of specific
details would increase the likelihood of detection), or withhold information (e.g., liars might
create brief messages). Liars might also (2) strategically control their behavior to suppress
deception cues (e.g., liars might withdraw by gazing or nodding less than people telling the
truth). Finally, liars might try to strategically (3) manage their image by smiling or nodding to
make themselves appear more credible (Buller, Burgoon, White, & Ebesu, 1994). Research
by White and Burgoon (2001) found that during interactions, deceivers continue to modify
and adapt their behaviors, thereby supporting the notion that some deceptive behaviors are
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strategic.
Second, although liars try to control their behaviors strategically, they also exhibit some
nonstrategic communication. In other words, some behaviors “leak out” beyond the liar’s
awareness or control. As noted previously (see the four-factor model), such communication
might result from arousal (e.g., blinks, pupil dilation, vocal nervousness, speech errors, leg
and body movements, and shorter responses) or negative emotions (e.g., less nodding, less
smiling, more negative statements).
Criticisms of Theoretical Assumptions
Before concluding this section, we should note that many scholars have expressed skepticism
about certain assumptions contained in interpersonal deception theory and the four-factor
model (for reviews and criticism, see Feeley & Young, 1998; Levine & McCornack, 2014).
For example, McCornack and his colleagues (McCornack, 1997; McCornack et al., 2014)
argued that, in some cases, telling lies may be less cognitively difficult and arousing than
telling the truth. Imagine what you’d do if a close friend asked you how you liked her new
hairstyle. Imagine also that you thought the hairstyle looked hideous. In such situations,
rather than creating a truthful yet tactful message that would preserve your relationship and
spare your friend’s feelings, it might be less cognitively taxing and less stressful to simply tell
your friend that you loved her hair. In short, the underlying differences between truths and
lies may not be as simple as some models make them out to be (McCornack, 1997).
What do we think of such criticisms? Recall from Chapter 1 that the complex nature of
persuasion provides one of the most compelling reasons for studying it. When research seems
confusing or contradictory, oftentimes it’s because the research is approaching the study of
persuasion too simplistically. With that in mind, we believe that the preceding criticisms
should not be ignored by those who study deception. They are important because they
suggest that deceptive behaviors are far more complex than many of us originally imagined.
However, while such criticisms should be applauded, we do not think that they render
assumptions from the four-factor model and interpersonal deception theory useless. Instead,
they suggest that these assumptions apply to some but not all deceptive encounters. Telling
different types of lies may lead to different types of behavior (see Seiter et al., 2002). For
example, fabricating lies may require more mental effort than telling the truth, but only when
lies are narrative or spontaneous in nature (see Vrij, 2014; Vrij, Kneller, & Mann, 2000).
Moreover, the notion that deception leads to arousal may apply less to fibs and white lies than
to more serious forms of deception, such as cheating on a spouse or denying a crime. Even
467
then, what qualifies as a “serious” form of deception is subject to interpretation. For example,
previous research indicates that a person’s cultural background not only influences how
acceptable that person perceives a lie to be (Mealy, Stephan, & Urrutia, 2007; Seiter et al.,
2002), but also the emotions (e.g., guilt and shame) that person expects to experience after
telling a lie (Seiter & Bruschke, 2007). In short, our assumptions about deceptive behavior
may need to be more qualified or complex in nature. For instance, in Box 12.3, we list several
cues to deception. It turns out that under certain conditions, the list gets longer. With that in
mind, we turn to a discussion of factors affecting successful deception.
What Makes a Liar Persuasive?
Previous research suggests that some people are better at “pulling the wool over our eyes”
than others. For instance, research by Bond and DePaulo (2008) and Levine and his
colleagues (Levine, Serota, et al., 2010; Levine, 2016) indicates that while some people are
especially transparent, leaking the fact that they are lying, others have an honest demeanor
and, consequently, are typically seen as being truthful even when they are lying. In this
section, we discuss the ways in which characteristics of the liar—in addition to characteristics
of the lie being told and the deceptive situation—affect the process of deception.
The “Wool Pullers”
The boy who cried wolf should have quit while he was ahead. Or, before he got eaten, he
should have at least taken a personality test. If he had, our guess is that he would have scored
high on a test that measures a trait known as Machiavellianism. The Machiavellian
personality is not interested in interpersonal relationships, manipulates others for selfish
purposes, and has little sense of social morality (Christie & Geis, 1970; Geis & Moon, 1981).
Machiavellian personalities are truly “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” Not only do they lie and
intend to cheat more often than their counterparts (i.e., low Machiavellians) (Brewer, &
Abell, 2015; Jonason, Lyons, Baughman, & Vernon, 2014), they appear more innocent while
doing so. Indeed, a classic study by Braginsky (1970) backs up this claim. In the study, high
and low Machiavellian children tasted bitter crackers and then were offered a nickel for each
cracker they could get their little chums to eat. The results of the study showed that the high
Machiavellian children were not only the most successful in their persuasive attempts, but
were also seen as more innocent and honest than the low Machiavellian children.
In addition to Machiavellianism, a person’s social skills influence how successful he or she
is at deceiving others. For example, high self-monitors, people who use situational
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information to behave more appropriately, tend to be more skilled at deception than low self-
monitors (Elliot, 1979; Miller, deTurck, & Kalbfleisch, 1983). Moreover, people skilled at
communicating basic emotions are particularly good at convincing others to believe their
deceptive messages (Riggio & Friedman, 1983), whereas those who are apprehensive in their
communication tend to leak more deceptive cues (see O’Hair, Cody, & Behnke, 1985).
Similarly, people who are expressive and socially tactful (Riggio, Tucker, & Throckmorton,
1987); socially skilled (Riggio, Tucker, & Widaman, 1987); competent communicators
(Feeley, 1996); and attentive, friendly, and precise in their communication (O’Hair, Cody,
Goss, & Krayer, 1988) are more successful at deceiving others than those who do not possess
such skills.
Finally, who do you suppose is better at not being detected when lying—males or females?
The results of two meta-analyses found that males tend to be more successful at lying than
females (Kalbfleisch, cited in Burgoon, Buller, Grandpre, & Kalbfleisch, 1998; Zuckerman,
DePaulo, & Rosenthal, 1981). Even so, a review of literature by Burgoon and colleagues
(1998) suggests that such gender differences are small, perhaps because the deceptive
strategies of men and women both have shortcomings. Specifically, when they are lying, men
tend to restrict their nonverbal behavior. Although this may prevent them from leaking
deceptive cues, if they overdo it, they run the risk of appearing deceptive. Women, however,
try to appear more involved in conversations. As a result, this greater activation may cause
them to leak more arousal cues and appear more nervous than usual (Burgoon et al., 1998).
Are Some Lies Easier to Tell Than Others?
Imagine that Babbs, a 15-year-old high school sophomore, has a curfew of 9 p.m. It’s
Thursday, a school night, but Babbs is on the dance floor, partying it up when she suddenly
notices the time: 11 p.m! Knowing that her parents usually go to bed around 8 p.m., she
hopes they’ll be asleep but, on arriving home, she finds herself face to face with her parents,
who have been waiting up for her. “Where have you been?” they demand to know, at about
the same time Babbs decides that she had better start lying her pants off if she doesn’t want
to spend the next two weeks in solitary confinement.
How successful do you think Babbs will be? According to previous research (e.g., O’Hair,
Cody, & McLaughlin, 1981; Vrij, 2014), behavior during deception depends, to a large
extent, on whether the liar is telling a prepared lie or a spontaneous lie. To be sure, think
about some of the components of the four-factor model we discussed earlier. When telling a
prepared lie, compared to a spontaneous lie, Babbs should be less aroused, have more control,
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and should not find lying as cognitively difficult. Not surprisingly, research on deceptive cues
supports this idea; in general, spontaneous lies are accompanied by more cues associated with
deception than are prepared lies. And, because prepared liars make a more credible
impression, they are more difficult to detect than spontaneous liars (deTurck & Miller, 1985;
Littlepage & Pineault, 1979; Strömwall, Granhag, & Landström, 2007).
Spontaneity, though, is not the only dimension of a lie that seems to affect deceptive
success. Indeed, research also has shown that the length and the content of a lie influences
how well a person can tell it. Longer lies, for instance, are more difficult to tell than short
ones (Kraut, 1978). And concerning content, in a study by Thackray and Orne (1968),
subjects played the role of an espionage agent who attempted to conceal both his or her
identity and certain code words he or she had learned. The results of the study showed that
subjects were more successful when telling lies about personally relevant information (i.e.,
their identity) than when telling lies about neutral information (i.e., code numbers). Similarly,
one study (Warren, Schertler, & Bull, 2009) found that people detected emotional lies (e.g.,
liars describing Hawaiian landscapes while watching videos of grisly surgeries) more
successfully than they detected unemotional lies (liars describing surgeries while watching
landscape videos). This finding is consistent with a meta-analysis showing that deceivers
displayed fewer nods and illustrators when lying about facts and feelings than when lying
about facts only (Sporer & Schwandt, 2007). Finally, a meta-analysis by DePaulo and
colleagues (2003) found that when lying about transgressions, people took longer to respond,
talked faster, blinked more, and fidgeted less than truth tellers.
Deceptive Situations and Deceptive Success
The context in which a lie is told can influence how successful the liar is. Several situational
features have been found to influence deception success. One is motivation. Certainly, there
are times when you are simply more motivated to lie successfully than others. A fisherman,
for example, may not care so much when someone discovers that his trophy “bass” was really
a guppy. A playboy husband cheating on his wife, however, might have more at stake if his
affair were discovered. So who, then, is the better liar: the fisherman or the cheat?
To address this question, recall the four-factor model, which suggests that liars attempt to
control their behavior to avoid being detected. As you might suspect, this attempt to control
behavior increases as people’s motivation to lie successfully increases. Consequently, as people
become more motivated to lie successfully, their behavior becomes more rigid and over-
controlled, a phenomenon known as the motivational impairment effect (DePaulo &
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Kirkendol, 1989). In short, being overly motivated may cause you to be especially detectable.
To further illustrate the role of motivation in the process of deception, Frank and Ekman
(1997) gave 20 males $10 each for participating in their research. As part of the study, the
males were provided with an opportunity to commit a “mock” crime— they would either steal
or not steal $50 from a briefcase. Before given the opportunity, the participants were told that
if they took the money and were able to convince an interrogator that they were innocent,
they could keep the $50. If, however, they were caught lying, they would be punished.
Specifically, if caught, they would be forced to forfeit both the stolen $50 and their initial $10
participation fee. Worse yet, they would be required to sit on a cold, metal chair inside a
cramped, darkened room, where they would have to endure anywhere from 10 to 40
randomly sequenced, 110-decibel startling blasts of white noise over the course of an hour.
Needless to say, the liars in this study were motivated to succeed. Unfortunately for them,
results of the study showed that telling such high-stakes lies made them consistently
detectable to certain types of people (if you were worried about how they fared in the “torture
chamber,” rest assured, the researchers didn’t follow through on their threat). In short, telling
high-stakes lies motivates people to succeed and, as a result, makes them more detectable.
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DETECTING DECEPTION: I CAN SEE RIGHT THROUGH YOU
Just as persuaders need someone to persuade, liars need someone to lie to. In the preceding
pages we discussed deception from the liar’s perspective. In this section, we examine the
opposite side of the coin: deception detection. One framework, proposed by Seiter (1997),
suggests that we treat deception detection a lot like reaching a verdict in a trial (see also
Henningsen, Valde, & Davies, 2005). Whichever verdict we reach (i.e., the person is lying or
the person is telling the truth) depends on how we integrate a vast array of verbal and
nonverbal information (e.g., Biff is twitching), past knowledge (e.g., Biff doesn’t like Gummi
Bears), and inferences (e.g., Biff is nervous). Sometimes the information we observe is
contradictory (e.g., Biff seems nervous but tells a plausible story), and, sometimes new
information causes us to discount our earlier perceptions. This illustrates how complex and
idiosyncratic the process of deception detection can be. In other words, the information that
one person uses to detect deception may be quite different from the information that another
uses. With that as a backdrop, we turn now to a discussion of factors that affect the detection
process.
Factors That Influence Detection
Truth Bias: Presuming That People are Honest
Suppose what would happen if everyone in the world always suspected that everyone else was
lying. Cooperation would become impossible. So instead, people tend to assume that other
people are being honest. In other words, we go through life with a “truth bias,” mostly
believing what other people tell us. This notion forms the basis of Levine’s (2014) truth-
default theory. According to the theory, the truth bias is adaptive and functional because most
of the time people are being honest. When they’re being deceptive, however, the truth bias
makes detecting them less likely.
“Look Me in the Eye”: Stereotypes and Intuitions About Deception
What kinds of things do you look for to detect deception? When we ask our students this
question, the most common response we get is “eye contact.” When people are lying, our
students suggest, they won’t look you in the eye or they look up and to the right.
If you’ve ever thought the same thing about lying and eye contact, you and our students
are not alone. According to Lock’s (2005) sources, research in more than 60 countries
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indicates that, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, people report that eye contact is one of the
most common behaviors they use for detecting deception. Here’s the catch, though:
Generally, research has shown that liars do not avoid eye contact (DePaulo, et al., 2003;
Sporer & Schwandt, 2007), and in some situations engage in more deliberate eye contact
than truth do tellers (Mann, Vrij, Shaw, Leal, Ewens, Hillman, Granhag, & Fisher, 2013).
Likewise, evidence that people look in certain directions when lying—a hypothesis derived
from neurolinguistic programming—is weak at best (Mann, Vrij, Nasholm, Warmelink,
Leal, & Forrester, 2012). What’s more, many of the other behaviors people say they use to
detect deception are not reliable indicators of deception (e.g., see Granhag, Giolla, Sooniste,
Stromwell, & Lui-Jonsson, 2016; Hart, Hudson, Fillmore, & Griffith, 2006).
Given that, you might be thinking that such stereotypes are to blame for our generally
less-than-stellar ability to detect deception. If so, think again. Although this notion, known
as the wrong subjective cue hypothesis (see Hartwig & Bond, 2011), prevailed for decades,
recent research suggests that people tend to be unaware of the cues they actually rely on to
detect deception. In other words, people say they look for one set of cues, but they actually
use a different set of cues. In one meta-analysis, for instance, Hartwig and Bond (2011)
found that rather than relying on lack of eye contact and other stereotypical cues, people tend
to look for signs of ambivalence, uncertainty, and indifference to detect deception. What’s
more, the latter group of cues was more reliable, suggesting that people’s intuitions about
deceptive cues are less flawed than the stereotypical cues they report using. As such, Hartwig
and Bond (2011) note that one possible avenue for improving detection might be to promote
(and improve) more automatic, intuitive processing of messages. This, they suggest, might
occur if people receive feedback about the accuracy of their judgments often enough to
develop useful intuitions about deceptive behaviors.
Training People to Be Effective Lie Detectors
Training people to be better at spotting lies, however, could prove to be tricky business.
Indeed, an analysis of 30 studies indicated that training people to spot verbal and nonverbal
cues to deception improved their detection accuracy, but the effect was small (Hauch, Sporer,
Michael, & Meissner, 2016). Not only that, two studies found that training might actually
backfire (Akehurst, Bull, Vrij, & Köhnken, 2004; Kassin & Fong, 1999)—that is, people who
had been trained to spot cues to deception, compared to those who had not, were
significantly less accurate at spotting lies.
That said, if you’re thinking that deception detection is a hopeless endeavor, don’t
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surrender just yet. Instead, keep in mind that when experts are allowed to actively question
suspects, accuracy rates get much higher (Levine, Clare, Blair, McCornack, Morrison, &
Park, 2014; Luke, Hartwig, Joseph, Brimbal, Chan, Dawson, Jordan, Donovan, & Granhag,
2016). With that in mind, a more promising approach might be to focus on improving
people’s interrogation techniques, a topic we’ll return to later in this chapter.
Humans as Polygraphs
Just as some people are better at deceiving others, are some people more skillful at detecting
deception? Some research seems to indicate that this is the case. For example, earlier we
mentioned that some, but not all people, were fairly consistent when trying to detect high-
stakes lies. What, then, you might wonder, distinguishes these people from more gullible
folks? Is there some type of trait or individual difference that separates effective from
ineffective deception detectors? If so, research has not identified it. Although some studies
have identified individual differences such as involvement (Forrest & Feldman, 2000), self-
monitoring (Brandt, Miller, & Hocking, 1980b; Geizer, Rarick, & Soldow, 1977), and sex
(DePaulo, Zuckerman, & Rosenthal, 1980; Rosenthal & DePaulo, 1979) as characteristics
that may help or hinder successful deception detection, one meta-analysis examining over 140
studies (Bond & DePaulo, 2008) found that when large numbers of studies are examined side
by side, individual differences do not appear to play a significant role in deception detection.
Such differences do, however, predispose some people to be more suspicious and others to be
more trusting, which, in turn, may make them less accurate when trying to distinguish lies
from truths. We will examine these biases later in the chapter. For now, though, we should
mention that Bond and DePaulo (2008) do not completely rule out the possibility that
individual differences may affect deception detection in the real world. For example, they
suggest that individual differences in people’s ability to analyze nonverbal behaviors some
time after an interaction might lead to more accuracy.
Familiarity, Biases, and Deception Detection
Does knowing a person help us detect his or her deception? Several researchers have asked
this question but, for quite some time, results of such studies seemed mixed. For instance, in
five studies (Brandt, Miller, & Hocking, 1980a, 1980b, 1982; Feeley & deTurck, 1997;
Feeley, deTurck, & Young, 1995), people rated communicators’ veracity after either watching
or not watching videotapes of the communicators’ normal, truthful behavior. The results of
these studies showed that people who were familiar with the communicators’ previous,
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truthful behaviors were more accurate in their judgments than those who were unfamiliar.
Similarly, Comadena (1982) found that spouses could detect each other’s deception better
than friends could. However, Miller and colleagues (1981) found that when judging lies
about emotional information, friends were more accurate than either strangers or spouses,
and two studies (Al-Simadi, 2000; Seiter & Wiseman, 1995) found that people who tried to
detect the deception of people from their own ethnic or cultural group (e.g., those with whom
they would presumably be the most familiar) were less accurate than people who tried to
detect the deception of people from ethnic or cultural groups other than their own.2
Although such results may seem inconclusive, interpersonal deception theory (Buller, Stiff,
& Burgoon, 1996; Burgoon & Buller, 2008) suggests that they may not be when you consider
the possible effects of familiarity on deception. The theory argues that familiarity is a double-
edged sword: In some ways, it may help you to be a better deception detector; in other ways,
it might hinder your ability to detect deception. First, because of certain biases, the better you
know someone, the less effective you are at detecting his or her lies. Specifically, McCornack
and Parks (1986) found that familiarity increased a person’s confidence about judging veracity
which, in turn, led to a truth bias (see above). The results of their study and others (Stiff,
Kim, & Ramesh, 1992) support this idea by showing that the truth bias was positively
associated with familiarity and negatively associated with detection accuracy. In other words,
people were less accurate when judging familiar others because they thought the others were
always honest and trustworthy. In positive relationships based on trust, a truth bias is likely.
However, in “negative” relationships, a lie bias (i.e., the perception that people are being
dishonest) becomes more likely (McCornack & Levine, 1990). Whatever the case, both the
truth and lie biases make you less accurate when judging veracity because they prevent you
from distinguishing truths from lies.
Although truth and lie biases make you less accurate at detecting the deception of familiar
others, the knowledge you’ve gained about familiar others can also make you more accurate at
detecting them (Buller, Stiff, & Burgoon, 1996). Specifically, because you have more
background information about familiar others, you might be more likely to notice
contradictions in what they say (e.g., your significant other has told you that he or she has
never been to San Francisco but later says, “The view from the Golden Gate Bridge is
fantastic”). Moreover, because you have more knowledge about the way a familiar other
typically behaves, you may be more likely to detect his or her deception when the behavior
suddenly changes (e.g., your significant other, who is normally calm, becomes very nervous
whenever he or she talks about espionage agents). Finally, when you know another person
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well, you may be more likely to recognize idiosyncratic behaviors that that person only enacts
while lying (Anderson, Ansfield, & DePaulo, 1999). In short, then, familiarity can both help
and hinder accurate deception detection. Familiarity is related to biases that decrease accuracy
and knowledge that increases accuracy.
Suspicion
According to interpersonal deception theory (Buller, Stiff, & Burgoon, 1996; Burgoon &
Buller, 2004, 2008), as a deceptive interaction is unfolding, people may become suspicious of
being lied to and, in turn, may behave in certain ways because of it. In some cases, they may
hide their suspiciousness. For example, at least two studies show that when we suspect that
someone is lying to us, we alter our behavior so we don’t look suspicious (Buller, Strzyzewski,
& Comstock, 1991; Burgoon, Buller, Dillman, & Walther, 1995). Specifically, suspicious
people tend to use shorter responses, take longer to answer, and manage their body
movements more. In other situations, however, our behaviors may reveal our suspicion and,
in turn, may affect our partner’s behavior. Indeed, if someone who is lying to us thinks we are
suspicious, the liar may try even harder to be convincing. Previous research has supported this
notion, demonstrating that deceivers’ verbal and nonverbal behavior changes during the
course of interactions, often becoming indistinguishable from truthful behavior well into the
interaction (see, Burgoon & Buller, 2004; Burgoon & Qin, 2006; White & Burgoon, 2001).
On the other hand, one study found that interviewers who displayed a supportive demeanor
during an interrogation encouraged truth tellers, but not liars, to provide more details (Mann
et al., 2013).
Although it is apparent that suspiciousness plays a role in both senders’ and receivers’
behaviors, does it affect people’s ability to judge veracity? Research suggests the answer to this
question is no. In other words, there appears to be a weak relationship between suspicion and
the ability to discriminate lies from truths. To help understand why, imagine that a person is
making a number of statements and you are trying to decide which of the statements are true
and which are false. The opposing effects model (Kim & Levine, 2011) suggests that suspicion
decreases the truth bias. As such, being suspicious makes you more accurate when judging lies
and less accurate when judging truths. Such opposing effects cancel each other out, making
little difference in your overall ability to tell truths from lies. In short, suspicion helps you
spot lies but misjudge truths.
Probing and Deception Detection
476
In the previous section we learned that when trying to detect deception, people sometimes try
to alter their behavior so they don’t look suspicious. But sometimes, probing a potential liar
for more information may be necessary. To be sure, if a liar won’t talk, it’s difficult to find
contradictions or inconsistencies in his or her story. Interestingly, however, most research
indicates that probing suspects for more information (e.g., “Tell me more about where you
were when the book bag was stolen”) does not increase the accuracy with which you can
detect that suspect’s deception (Buller et al., 1991). Perhaps even more interesting is the fact
that probing a suspect for more information causes third parties to perceive the suspect as
more honest (Buller et al., 1991). This phenomenon has been called the probing effect by those
who study deception (e.g., Levine & McCornack, 1996a, 1996b).
Although scholars agree that the probing effect occurs, there is some disagreement on
what causes it. (For a more detailed debate, see Buller, Stiff, & Burgoon, 1996; Levine &
McCornack, 1996a, 1996b.) For instance, several authors argue in favor of the behavioral
adaptation explanation, which in a nutshell asserts that when probing occurs, liars realize they
are suspected of lying and alter their behavior to be more believable. Levine and McCornack
(1996a), however, assert that this explanation is flawed and in one study found evidence that
contradicts it (Levine & McCornack, 2001). In the study, liars were videotaped being probed.
Afterward, research participants watched one of two versions of the videotaped liars. Both
versions showed exactly the same footage of the liars, but one had the probes edited out.
Interestingly, participants who watched the videos in which probes were deleted perceived
liars to be significantly less honest than those who saw the probed liars. Thus, Levine and
McCornack (2001) showed that the probing effect occurred, but not because liars changed
their behaviors.
What, then, is responsible for the probing effect? According to Levine and McCornack
(2001), when trying to tell if someone is lying, judges often rely on shortcuts rather than on
scrutinizing the behavior of the suspect. One shortcut judges rely on is called the probing
heuristic (Levine & McCornack, 2001). Here’s how it works. Imagine you’re watching a
suspect and trying to decide if he or she is lying or telling the truth. Also imagine that the
suspect is being probed. Rather than scrutinize the suspect’s words and behaviors, you use a
shortcut. Specifically, you think to yourself: “It’s mighty difficult and nerve racking to lie
while being probed, so, given the choice, people being probed will choose to tell the truth.”
Based on such thinking, you decide that people being probed are also being honest. Your
judgment has nothing to do with the suspect’s behavioral adaptation but rather a simple
shortcut that saves you the effort of scrutinizing the suspect’s behavior (Levine &
477
McCornack, 2001).
Before concluding this section, we should note that others have questioned whether
behavioral adaptation happens. For example, in contrast to behavioral adaptation, Ekman
(1985) suggests that an opposite phenomenon may occur: When suspected of deceit, a
truthful communicator may become anxious. This, in turn, may cause a detector to commit
what Ekman calls the Othello error—that is, the detector wrongly assumes that the anxious
behavior is indicative of deception. A study by Henningsen, Cruz, and Morr (2000)
supported this notion by finding that people who were perceived as nervous were also
perceived as deceptive.
Eliciting Cues to Deception: Puttin’ the Squeeze On
Earlier in this chapter, we suggested that one possible way to improve deception detection is
by training people to spot reliable cues to deception. A second, and, according to Hartwig
and Bond (2011), perhaps more promising strategy, is less passive in nature. Specifically,
rather than simply observing a person’s verbal and nonverbal cues, this approach actively
attempts to increase behavioral differences between liars and truth tellers, thereby making
them easier to distinguish from one another. Let’s examine two techniques for doing so.
The Imposing-Cognitive Load Approach: Too Much to Think About
The imposing-cognitive load approach (see Vrij et al., 2011) is based on the assumption that
lying is more mentally taxing than telling the truth (see above). As such, if you increase
cognitive demands further, liars, who have fewer cognitive resources, will struggle more than
truth tellers. By way of example, Vrij, Mann, Fisher, Leal, Milne, and Bull (2008) asked liars
and truth tellers to provide an account in either chronological or reverse chronological order.
It turns out that liars who told the story backward were more detectable than those who told
it from front to back, presumably because of increased cognitive load. Another study found
that describing an event in different ways (i.e., verbally and pictorially) was more difficult for
liars than for truth tellers. As such, liars were less consistent between descriptions (Leins,
Fisher, & Vrij, 2012).
Strategic Questioning: Designed to Trip You Up
A second approach suggests that specific types of interrogation questions may be particularly
useful for detecting deceit. Consider, for example, the strategic use of evidence (SUE) technique
(Granhag & Hartwig, 2008; Hartwig et al., 2005). In it, interrogators who possess certain
478
1.
2.
3.
evidence about a case do not reveal that evidence, hoping instead that suspects will say
something to contradict it. Later, the interrogator pounces, revealing the evidence and asking
the suspect to explain the contradiction. Recent research indicates that revealing evidence late
in the interrogation, rather than early or gradually, is most effective. Indeed, revealing
evidence early or gradually allows a suspect to adapt. What’s more, revealing evidence
gradually causes innocent suspects to appear guilty (Sorochinski, Hartwig, Osborne, Wilkins,
Marsh, Kazakov, & Granhag, 2014).
A compatible approach suggests that deception detectors are more accurate when they
consider context-sensitive information (Levine, Blair, and Clare, 2014). To illustrate, imagine
that a middle-aged woman whom you know nothing about has just told you Nutrageous bars
are her favorite type of candy. And then imagine a tiny, 5-year-old girl tells you that she has
just been signed as the new quarterback for the Denver Broncos, her favorite football team.
Assuming both people are lying, which would be easier to detect? Obviously, if you know
anything about the typical size and demographics of professional football players, the little
girl should be easier to detect. Indeed, according to Blair, Levine, and Shaw (2010), when
given meaningful information about context (e.g., professional football players are usually
large males), the typical 50 percent detection rates we told you about at the beginning of this
chapter increase drastically.
In fact, one series of studies (Levine et al., 2014) increased accuracy rates to over 70
percent! In the studies, students tried to win cash prizes while playing a trivia game with a
teammate. Unbeknown to the students, however, their teammates were really part of the
study. What’s more, the teammates encouraged the students to cheat, which many of them
did. Later, the students were interrogated using several questions that were strategically
designed to garner diagnostically useful information about whether they were lying or telling
the truth. For example:
“When I interview your partner, what will they say about cheating?” (The rationale for
asking this question: Liars, compared to truth tellers, should be less confident that their
teammates will exonerate them).
“For the answers you got right, explain how you got the right answer?” (Rationale:
Cheaters, compared to noncheaters, should feel the need to justify their performance).
“If someone did cheat, what should happen to them?” (Rationale: Cheaters, compared to
noncheaters, should be more likely to suggest leniency).
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Given such research, it is clear that interrogation strategies can be vital when trying to detect
deception.
480
SUMMARY
Deception is a multifaceted and complex communication phenomenon that has been broadly
conceptualized. In this chapter we explored some of these conceptualizations. We also
learned that although people are not very good at detecting deception, some factors improve
their accuracy. Other factors (e.g., the truth bias), however, can impede detection accuracy.
We also examined some of the behaviors that distinguish truthful from deceptive individuals
and some of the frameworks that explain such differences. Finally, we discussed various
approaches for eliciting cues to deception.
481
1
2
NOTES
Although there are two versions of information manipulation theory, for our purposes, we treat them as one.
Results of research on inter- and intra-ethnic deception detection are mixed. Though the two studies already
mentioned (i.e., Al-Simadi, 2000; Seiter & Wiseman, 1995) found that interethnic detection is more accurate than
intraethnic detection, other studies have found the opposite (e.g., Bond & Atoum, 2000; Bond, Omar, Mahmoud, &
Bosner, 1990).
482
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CHAPTER 13
Motivational Appeals
Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Motivation
Emotion and Persuasion: Oh, What a Feeling!
Emotions and the ELM
Emotional Marketing
Logical and Emotional Appeals: A Fuzzy Distinction
Fear Appeals: If You Don’t Stop Doing That, You’ll Go Blind
The Stage Model: Scared Stiff
The Extended Parallel Process Model: Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself
Negative Emotions: Woe Is Me, Shame on You
Humorous Appeals: Stop Me if You’ve Heard This One
Humor as an Indirect Form of Influence: All Kidding Aside
Self-Disparaging Humor: LOLing at Yourself
But Is Humor Persuasive?
Maximizing Humor’s Potential
Pride and Patriotism: Turning Red, White, and Blue Into Green
For Mature Audiences: Sex Appeals
How Sex Sells
Caveats and Cautions
Warmth Appeals: Straight From the Heart
Ingratiation: Polishing the Apple
Mixed Emotions: Other Appeals and Combinations of Appeals
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I F REAL LIFE WERE A CARTOON, the salesperson who showed up at the home of one of the
authors could have been Elmer Fudd. The author needed rain gutters on his house. On
the advice of a neighbor, he contacted a company located a good 40 miles from where he
lived to come out and provide an estimate. The salesperson, a paunchy fellow in his mid-40s,
arrived in a beat-up clunker. He looked tired and disheveled as he got out. He fumbled with
his clipboard, calculator, and an armload of gutter samples as he made his way up the
sidewalk.
“Find the place okay?” the author asked.
“The diwections wuh gweat,” the salesperson answered, “but the twaffic was tewwible, and
I got a ticket on the way.”
“That’s too bad,” the author replied.
“I didn’t have my seat belt on,” the salesperson lamented, “because it’s bwoken, and it costs
$300 to fix. I can’t affawd it wight now.”
Owing to the salesperson’s unkempt appearance, his speech impediment, and his sad tale,
the author felt sympathetic. Even though the salesperson’s estimate was slightly higher than
those of several local businesses, the author signed a contract. How could he do otherwise?
The salesperson had come all that way—risked his life, in fact—to provide an estimate. He’d
gotten a ticket for his trouble. The way the author saw it, the difference in the salesperson’s
price from that of the local competitors was probably less than the cost of the ticket. And the
guy obviously needed the sale.
Or did he? After the salesperson drove away, the author began wondering if it were all a
ruse. What if the salesperson told every potential customer he’d gotten a ticket? What if his
seat belt worked just fine? What if he faked or exaggerated the speech problem to elicit
sympathy and help make the sale? The author never did find out whether the “sad sack”
character was genuine or a guise, but the rain gutters have worked splendidly.
Whether the salesperson’s strategy was honest or not, it’s clear that his success was based,
to a large extent, on pity. His sad story plucked at the author’s heartstrings. And in the end,
the author was willing to pay more because he felt sorry for the fellow. The salesperson’s
appeal to pity, if it were designed as such, represents but one example of a motivational appeal,
the topic of this chapter. Motivational appeals may be generally defined as external
inducements, often of an emotional nature, that are designed to increase an individual’s drive
to undertake some course of action. By external inducements, we mean incentives that exist
apart from the substance of a message itself. Such external inducements typically seek to alter
people’s moods, feelings, or emotions as a means of persuasion.
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INTRINSIC VERSUS EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION
Motivational appeals can be thought of as attempts to jump-start an individual’s drive to do
something. They provide an external incentive for performing some action. Intrinsic
motivation is drive that comes from within (Deci, 1975; Deci & Ryan, 1978). If you “live to
work,” your motivation for doing your job is internal. Extrinsic motivation is instilled by some
outside factor (Petri, 1991). If you “work to live,” your motivation for going to work each day
is external. All the motivational appeals we discuss here can be thought of as extrinsic in
nature. Motivational appeals are found everywhere. Daily entreaties include anxiety, fear,
guilt, health, honor, humor, patriotism, pity, pride, sex, warmth, and more. One might be
tempted to think that all emotional appeals are ethically suspect. However, as Corbett and
Conners (1999) advise, “there is nothing necessarily reprehensible about being moved to
action through emotion; in fact, it is perfectly normal” (p. 206). We begin with an
examination of emotional appeals in marketing.
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EMOTION AND PERSUASION: OH, WHAT A FEELING!
Emotions and the ELM
Emotions tend to exert more influence when receivers rely on peripheral processing, as
opposed to central processing (Greifeneder, Bless, & Pham, 2011). However, central
processing and peripheral processing can coexist, a phenomenon known as parallel processing.
A patient, for example, might perceive that her doctor was offering rational arguments for
taking her medication and demonstrating empathy for her as well.
Emotions sometimes precede thinking. In such cases, a person’s emotional state may bias
subsequent thinking (Petty & Briñol, 2015). For example, if an art patron were in a foul
mood before attending an art exhibit, the patron might decide the display was “a pile of
rubbish” and the artist was a “buffoon.” Sometimes emotions follow thinking, in which case
they tend to validate the thought process used (Petty & Briñol, 2015). For instance, a traveler
who planned a trip carefully, might become elated as the date of departure neared.
Emotional Marketing
Marketers often design ad campaigns to elicit emotions such as fear, love, and regret in
consumers (Achar, So, Agrawal, & Duhachek, 2016). According to attachment theory, people
develop emotional ties to specific brands (Thomson, MacInnis, & Park, 2005). Apple
products are a case in point. Mac, iPhone, and iPad owners share an emotional connection
with their devices unlike that of their counterparts who use non-Apple products. Such
emotional attachments enable marketers to engage consumers, making them passionate
about, and loyal to, their brands.
In an episode of the popular television series Mad Men, advertising guru Don Draper
clearly grasps this concept. His clients, from Kodak, want Draper to create an ad campaign
that touts the technology of the new “wheel” on their slide projector. Draper advises them to
drop the “glittering lure” of technology and establish a deeper emotional connection with
consumers. Nostalgia, Draper stresses, is the key.
In Greek, nostalgia literally means the pain from an old wound. A twinge in your
heart, far more powerful than memory alone. This device … is a time machine. It
goes backwards and forwards. It takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not
called the wheel. It’s called the carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels.
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Around and around and back home again. To a place where we know we are loved.
(Weiner & Veith, 2007)
His pitch invokes the nostalgia he wants consumers to feel. The concept of a carousel
establishes a sentimental bond between the consumer and the product.
Don Draper isn’t the only one who understands the power of emotional marketing.
Persuaders in the real world have acknowledged the effectiveness of motivational appeals for
years. Traditional thinking on this topic suggested that such appeals are effective in some
contexts but not in others. Specifically, traditionalists suggested that decisions, such as buying
gasoline, a microwave, or detergent are more utilitarian in nature and are prompted by
practical concerns (Babin, Darden, & Griffin, 1994). Other decisions, such as purchasing
clothing or music, are more hedonic in nature and are driven more by pleasure seeking (Khan,
Dhar, & Wertenbroch, 2005). Some decisions, like buying a car, are a mixture of both. A
two-seater convertible may seem fun, but what if there are five people in the family?
More recently, however, thinking has shifted in favor of a greater role for emotion
compared to reason. Livingston (2007), for instance, argued that “people buy for emotional
reasons, and then justify their purchases with logic” (p. 16). By way of example, Adler,
Iacobelli, and Gutstein (2016) found that positive emotional appeals outperformed positive
rational appeals in an online persuasion context. Similarly, Geuens, De Pelsmacker, and
Faseur (2011) found that emotional ads outperformed nonemotional ads for both hedonic
and utilitarian products. Some go so far as to say that all consumer purchases are dictated by
emotion rather than reason (Robinette & Brand, 2001).
While we agree that emotions play an important role in persuasion, we don’t believe that
emotions rule all our decisions. A wealth of studies show that highly involved receivers favor
high-quality arguments and evidence, or what Petty and Cacioppo (1986) call central
processing. What’s more, the distinction between logic and emotion is not altogether clear, as
we point out next.
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LOGICAL AND EMOTIONAL APPEALS: A FUZZY DISTINCTION
People often think of “logical” and “emotional” appeals as opposites. This distinction dates
back to Aristotle, who classified logos (logic, reasoning) and pathos (passion, emotion) as
separate, distinct forms of influence (Aristotle, trans. 1932). This way of thinking, however,
represents something of an artificial dichotomy. Whether a message is perceived as logical or
emotional has as much to do with the person perceiving the message as it does with the
message itself (Becker, 1963). In fact, researchers (Evans, Barston, & Pollard, 1983; Oakhill
& Garnham, 1993; Reuchelle, 1958) have learned that when people agree with a message,
they tend to perceive it as being more logical or rational in nature. When they disagree with a
message, they tend to think of it as being more emotional in nature.
In an advertising context, Akbari (2015) found that rational appeals were more effective
for low-involvement products (sunscreen), while emotional appeals were more effective for
high-involvement products (laptops). This finding was borne out in a meta-analysis (Hornik,
Ofir, & Rachamim, 2016) that showed emotional appeals are generally more effective than
rational appeals. In addition, positive emotional appeals (humor, for example) were generally
more effective than negative appeals (fear, guilt). Purely emotional ads, however, may capture
consumers’ attention, without persuading them.
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FEAR APPEALS: IF YOU DON’T STOP DOING THAT, YOU’LL GO BLIND
“If you cross your eyes, they’ll stay that way.” “Don’t run with scissors, you’ll poke your eye
out.” “Don’t stuff beans up your nose, they’ll sprout.” What child hasn’t heard these or similar
admonitions from a parent? When he was a little tyke, one of the authors put beans up his
nose anyway. While having them removed at the doctor’s office, he had to endure his
mother’s “I told you so” lecture.
Fear appeals are not only a staple of child-rearing, they are also prevalent in the workplace,
in public health messages, advertising, and elsewhere. Advertisements for dandruff shampoos,
deodorants, mouthwashes, and acne medications, for example, are often predicated on the
fear of social ostracism. Pharmaceutical ads tell us to ask our doctor if a new prescription pill
is right for us. Then those ads go on to describe a litany of side effects that sound worse than
the original illness.
Some commentators charge that America has become a culture based on fear (Altheide,
2002; Gardner, 2009; Glassner, 1999). Whether to sell products, garner votes, or increase
ratings, persuaders use scare tactics to increase our anxiety about all sorts of things. We’re
afraid of exotic diseases such as Ebola, mad cow, and West Nile. We stress out about school
shootings, child abductions, homeland security, and road rage. The world is a scary place.
When designed properly, fear appeals can be highly effective. Reviews of the fear appeal
literature have shown that inducing fear can bring about changes in attitudes, intentions, and
behavior (Boster & Mongeau, 1984; Cho & Witte, 2004; Higbee, 1969; Mongeau, 1998;
Ruiter, Abraham, & Kok, 2001; Sutton, 1982; Witte & Allen, 2000). But how and when do
fear appeals work best? Two well-known models explain. We discuss these next.
The Stage Model: Scared Stiff
Natascha de Hoog and her colleagues (2007, 2008) developed a dual process model, known
as the stage model, that explains how fear level or intensity works. According to the model,
when a person is exposed to a fear-arousing message, the person engages in threat appraisal to
assess the perceived severity of the threat and her or his perceived vulnerability to the threat.
The stage model posits four possible threat conditions, based on the combination of low
versus high severity and low versus high vulnerability to a threat (see Figure 13.1).
If both severity and vulnerability are seen as low, a person will tend to ignore the threat or
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rely on peripheral processing. For example, Simone, who lives in Manhattan, might know
that bee stings hurt (mild severity), but if she’s not allergic to them and doesn’t spend much
time trekking in meadows (low vulnerability), she might think, “No big deal. I’ll worry about
it if it happens.”
If a person perceives that a threat is severe, but vulnerability is low, the person will engage
in moderate cognitive processing, mostly to make sure that the threat is assessed accurately.
For example, Dieter, who lives in Stuttgart, might believe that Ebola is a deadly disease (high
severity), but that there is little or no risk of contracting it in Germany (low vulnerability). He
might be motivated to support eradication efforts in Africa, though, and health screening to
prevent travelers from infected areas entering Germany. A converse scenario, with low
severity, but high vulnerability, would also prompt moderate central processing. For example,
Dieter is mindful of pickpockets on public transit, so he holds his backpack on his lap.
When perceived severity and perceived vulnerability are both high, defense motivation kicks
in and the person utilizes central processing (see Figure 13.1). Under defense motivation, a
person actively scrutinizes the message and evaluates strategies for minimizing the harm. For
example, suppose Alain lives in Nice, which was the target of a horrific terrorist attack in
2016. In that incident, a truck plowed into a crowd on Bastille day killing 86 people and
injuring 434 more. As a resident of the French city, Alain might perceive that he and other
residents are highly vulnerable to another deadly attack. In the high-severity/high-
vulnerability condition, the person would examine the message carefully, not just to be clear
about the threat, but to identify specific strategies for avoiding or minimizing the threat. The
latter process is referred to as coping appraisal.
FIGURE 13.1
Stage model of fear-arousing communication.
A person using coping appraisal would ask “What can I do to avoid having this happen to
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me?” In Alain’s case, he would likely assess ways of reducing his risk during another attack.
He could, of course, move to another city that is less likely to be targeted. He could also avoid
places where large crowds congregate. “Why make myself a target?” he might reason. He
might be vigilant about possible methods of attack; explosives, assault weapons, or vehicle
ramming. He might increase his situational awareness by noting exits or avenues of escape in
case of an emergency. He might still drink coffee at outdoor cafés, but not sit street side or
near glass windows.
The Extended Parallel Process Model: Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself
When are people likely to use coping strategies? When are they more likely to panic?
Although the stage model excels at explaining how threat level or intensity functions, we
think another model is better at explaining how people actually respond to threats. Kim
Witte’s extended parallel processing model (EPPM) addresses these concerns (Maloney,
Lapinski, & Witte, 2011; Witte, 1992, 1994). According to the model, when a person
encounters a fear-arousing message, the person can respond in one of three ways. Let’s say a
Japanese student, Mayumi, is thinking of visiting South Africa. Her friends, however, have
expressed concerns about contracting a disease there. First, she might ignore the message
altogether, believing she is not at risk. Mayumi might think to herself, “I’ve traveled a lot and
I’ve never gotten seriously ill.”
Second, if Mayumi perceives that she is at risk, she can try to avoid the danger. She would
use danger control, by focusing on constructive ways of preventing or minimizing the threat.
For example, there are vaccines that prevent hepatitis A and typhoid, two diseases that are
found in South Africa. Malaria is also a risk, so she might wear insect repellent or avoid being
outdoors at night.
Third, Mayumi might fixate on her fear, which is a non-constructive response known as
fear control. Fear control essentially involves “worrying about worry.” Such a reaction can
result in panic. If she decided to visit South Africa anyway, but spent every moment riddled
with fear, she would be engaged in fear control.
In the EPPM, danger control is a far more effective response because it focuses on the
solution. Fear control, conversely, is counterproductive because it focuses on managing one’s
fear. A persuader’s goal in using fear appeals, then, should be to arouse fear in a manner that
triggers danger control rather than fear control.
Returning to our example, for danger control to occur, Mayumi must believe there is a
clear course of action that she can take to avoid the threat. This element of the EPPM is
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called perceived efficacy. Perceived efficacy has two components. The first, response efficacy, has
to do with whether there are effective steps for avoiding the harm. For example, Mayumi
might reason that by staying current on immunizations and taking reasonable precautions,
she can avoid contracting a disease. The second, self-efficacy, has to do with whether she,
personally, is capable of taking those steps. If Mayumi is allergic to some vaccines, or she will
be visiting rural areas with no potable water, or she will be sleeping outdoors at night, she
may not believe she can avoid hepatitis A, typhoid, or malaria.
Both response efficacy and self-efficacy are important components of perceived efficacy. If
both are present, a person is more likely to engage in danger control. If either is missing, the
person is more likely to resort to fear control. Indeed, a meta-analysis (Casey, Timmermann,
Allen, Krahn, & Turkiewicz, 2009) demonstrated this very result: High-response efficacy and
self-efficacy correlated significantly with greater condom use. At the point where “perceptions
of threat begin to outweigh perceptions of efficacy … people begin to shift from danger
control to fear control” (Maloney, Lapinski, & Witte, 2011, p. 210).
According to the stage model, then, fear appeals that heighten the perceived severity of,
and vulnerability to, a threat, are most likely to succeed. According to the EPPM, identifying
specific actions, that the target audience can perform, is essential too. An excellent summary
of fear’s effectiveness based on these and other models was provided by Tannenbaum, Hepler,
Zimmerman, Saul, Jacobs, Wilson, and Albarracin (2015). After reviewing 128 different
studies on fear appeals, they concluded, “fear appeals are particularly effective when the
communication depicts relatively high amounts of fear, includes an efficacy message, stresses
severity and susceptibility, recommends one-time only behaviors, and targets audiences that
include a larger percentage of female message recipients” (p. 1198).
We would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge that there are serious ethical concerns
surrounding the use of fear appeals. We address these in Chapter 16. For the time being,
suffice it to say that a persuader should exercise caution in using fear appeals. Nevertheless, if
the harmful consequences are real or genuine, we would suggest it is not only acceptable for a
persuader to employ fear appeals, but also that the persuader has an obligation to use them.
The beans, by the way, did not sprout.
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NEGATIVE EMOTIONS: WOE IS ME, SHAME ON YOU
Persuaders often seek to stir negative emotions in people. Pity, guilt, and shame are three
such negative emotions that can be leveraged to a persuader’s advantage. Appeals involving
these emotions are often interrelated. Becheur and Valette-Florence (2014), for example,
found that a combination of guilt and shame was more effective than guilt alone in
persuading young people, ages 18–25, to limit their alcohol consumption. As another
example, charitable organizations regularly air television spots portraying starving children or
abused pets. The ads induce pity for the kids or animals and guilt in viewers for not donating.
“For just a few cents per day,” the ads claim, “you can make a difference.” Is it possible for
nonprofits to use a different approach? Absent pity ploys, guilt trips, and shaming, will people
still donate?
One study suggests it may not be possible to have it both ways. Eayres and Ellis (1990)
asked males and females to evaluate 10 posters for charitable causes that used different
appeals. Some posters depicted people with mental disabilities in a negative light (dependent,
incapable), whereas others portrayed them in a positive light (valued, capable). The
researchers found that the negative depictions were most likely to induce participants to
donate money. Participants were less likely to donate if the posters featured positive
portrayals. As the researchers noted, “this tends to validate the supposition that in order to
produce a successful poster in charity terms it is necessary to play on people’s feelings of guilt
and pity” (p. 356). Interestingly, the participants were more willing to become actively
involved in, and donate time to, charitable causes that were featured positively in the posters.
This bodes well for charities seeking increased voluntarism, but not for ones seeking
monetary contributions.
On the subject of guilt itself, some researchers have found that invoking feelings of guilt in
another person can facilitate compliance (O’Keefe, 2002). Inducing guilt made people more
likely to comply with a subsequent request (Freedman, Wallington, & Bless, 1967; Hibbert,
Smith, Davies, & Ireland, 2007; Lindsey, 2005; Lindsey, Yun, & Hill, 2007). Surprisingly,
they were more likely to comply even if the person making the request, or the person
benefiting from the request, was not the source of their guilt. However, other research
(Bessarabova, Turner, Fink, & Blustein, 2015) found that inducing guilt can be
counterproductive. Stronger guilt appeals may produce psychological reactance, which refers to
resistance to a perceived threat to one’s freedom. According to Bessarabova et al., internally
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generated guilt is more effective than externally induced guilt.
A second caution regarding guilt appeals is that the target of the appeal may seek to avoid
further interaction with the source, to avoid further embarrassment or minimize the risk of a
confrontation. Guilt appeals should, therefore, be designed to emphasize the positive self-
feelings that come from doing the right thing, rather than focusing on further loss of face.
There is a dark side to guilt appeals as well. Unscrupulous persuaders can use guilt appeals
to extract money from people who are in mourning, as we point out in Box 13.1.
Along the same lines, several investigations have examined people’s emotional reactions to
others who possess varying maladies or stigmas. How people react to others’ stigmas (obesity,
paraplegia, blindness, AIDS, etc.) depends on the causal inferences they make about those
stigmas (Blaine & Williams, 2004; Weiner, Perry, & Magnusson, 1988). For example, these
researchers analyzed college students’ emotional reactions to people with varying stigmas
(obesity, drug addiction, etc.), based on how controllable the students thought the stigma
was. Students expressed more feelings of guilt and sympathy if the stigma was uncontrollable
(e.g., obesity ascribed to a glandular dysfunction) and more feelings of anger and reluctance to
help if the stigma was controllable (e.g., obesity due to overeating). Thus, persuaders seeking
to use emotional appeals such as pity or guilt for fundraising or other purposes need to ensure
that the beneficiaries are not perceived as having a physical or social malady that they brought
on themselves.
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BOX 13.1 |
1.
2.
3.
Funeral Home Persuasion
“You can’t take it with you … but you don’t have to give it all to the mortuary!”
Funerals are expensive. In the USA the price of a typical funeral is $8,000-11,000
(Miller, 2016, www.parting.com). A funeral is a “distress purchase” that is often made
under emotional duress. Unfortunately, consumers are quite naive about funeral home
practices. What’s more, the process of negotiating the price of a funeral comes at the
worst possible time: when thinking is impaired by the loss of a loved one. We may feel it
is crass to engage in hard bargaining over prices (Gentry, Kennedy, Paul, & Hill, 1995),
but this is exactly why some unscrupulous funeral home directors try to take advantage
of us. They know that a person who is grieving is an easy mark.
Not all, or even most, mortuaries prey on those who are grieving, but some clearly do
(Wasik, 1995). To increase your consumer awareness, and to arm you against the
unscrupulous practices employed by some funeral homes, we offer the following list of
dos and don’ts when making funeral arrangements. The suggestions apply to a
traditional burial. If cremation, burial at sea, or some other option is chosen, not all the
suggestions will apply.
Do try to be as rational as possible. Grieve for the deceased with all your heart, but
negotiate the price of the funeral with your head. A funeral home is a for-profit
enterprise. You need to be a savvy consumer when negotiating the arrangements
and the price.
Don’t give in to guilt appeals, such as “Don’t you think he/she deserves genuine
brass handles on his/her coffin?” The amount you love someone isn’t measured by
the amount you spend on that person’s funeral. You can always spend more on that
person later. For example, you could make a donation in the deceased’s name to a
worthwhile charity or social cause.
Do conduct price comparisons, just as you would when buying a car or making any
other major purchase. Websites such as Parting.com and FuneralDecision.com
allow consumers to shop online. Telephone mortuaries and ask for quotes over the
phone. The FTC now requires funeral homes to provide prices by phone. Ask what
a complete funeral would cost, including embalming, casket, burial, flowers, and so
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4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
on. If you don’t feel up to making the calls, ask a trusted friend.
Do ensure that everything you are promised is itemized in writing. The FTC now
requires mortuaries to provide itemized prices. Don’t take the funeral director’s
word for it if he or she says, “leave it to us, we’ll take care of everything.”
Do shop around for prices on caskets. Funeral homes mark up casket prices
astronomically. You can save thousands of dollars by purchasing a casket factory-
direct from a manufacturer, or even Costco, and having it delivered to the funeral
home. Federal law requires funeral homes to accept a casket purchased elsewhere
and prohibits the imposition of “handling fees.”
Don’t pay for unnecessary frills. Rather than paying for brass handles, silk ruffles,
or carved wood panels, consider personalizing the casket with family photos,
poetry, or artwork. Decide what is within your budget and have the funeral director
accommodate your needs. If the price isn’t right, use outside vendors to provide
additional services.
Don’t pay more than you must for basic services. These include transporting the
remains, embalming, a casket, interment, and a plot. Try calling around to see if
the same services can be obtained more cheaply elsewhere. Cremation is a cheaper
option than burial (no casket required, no plot or mausoleum, no gravestone or
marker). To learn about what fees funeral homes may and may not charge legally,
see www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0301-funeral-costs-and-pricing-checklist
Don’t prepay for a plot, casket, or other services without discussing the contract
with an attorney or accountant. Prepaid plans might seem like a good idea, but
most consumer groups advise against them. If you change your mind about where
you want to be buried, or how you want to be disposed of, it may be impossible to
alter the contract or obtain a refund. You also lose the potential interest your money
could earn in a bank account (see item 10).
Do consider opening a “Totten” trust, a payable on-demand account at a bank or
savings institution for the cost of a funeral. The trust is revocable, so it can be
moved, altered, or closed completely (Jaffe, 1996).
Do make use of helpful information sources. You can locate excellent advice and
information on planning a funeral at www.funerals.org, www.clarkhoward.com
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504
HUMOROUS APPEALS: STOP ME IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE
You might not think of comedians as being particularly persuasive, but Time magazine’s list
of the 100 most influential people in 2017 included three comics: Samantha Bee, Leslie
Jones, and Jordan Peele (Time, 2017). An Egyptian comedian, Bassem Youssef, who is
referred to as the “John Stewart of Egypt,” hosted a top-rated political satire show that
lampooned the Egyptian government. He was arrested repeatedly for skewering powerful
elites and eventually fled to the USA where he is now living in exile. In China, Zhou Libo,
another comedian, used humor to draw attention to government corruption. In Paris in 2015,
Al Queda terrorists gunned down the editor and staff members of the satirical magazine,
Charlie Hebdo. Why? Because the magazine published cartoons critical of Islam.
Why do authoritarian governments and religious extremists fear comedians? Political
satire is subversive. Beyond the laughs, comedians offer social commentary. “Good comics,”
say Cohen and Richards (2006) “are playing an important function in society by holding up a
mirror and forcing us to confront realities that we would prefer to ignore” (para. 2).
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FIGURE 13.2
Source: Jerry King, www.CartoonStock.com
The use of humor in persuasion is pervasive, and not just the political kind. Humorous
advertisements account for 24 percent of all advertising in the USA (Laroche, Nepomuceno,
Huang, & Richard, 2011). Internet memes rely heavily on humor to offer pithy social and
political commentary. Humor is common in the boardroom, the courtroom, the classroom,
interpersonal conversations, and even the pulpit. Using humor to influence is like skinning a
cat; there’s more than one way. A humorous appeal can consist of a pun, satire, an anecdote,
innuendo, irony, a metaphor, slapstick, or just a plain old joke, as in “an armadillo walks into
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a bar …” Humor can be directed at oneself, which is known as self-disparaging humor, or at
others. All in all, Berger (2011) identified 45 different types of humor.
Humor as an Indirect Form of Influence: All Kidding Aside
Typically, jokes themselves don’t persuade. Humor tends to operate in a more roundabout
manner using the peripheral route to persuasion. Two well-established ways in which humor
assists persuasion are by capturing attention and increasing liking for the source (Eisend, 2011;
Gulas & Weinberger, 2006; Nabi, Moyer-Gusé, & Byrne, 2007; Weinberger & Gulas,
1992). This explains why comedians like Ellen DeGeneres, Tina Fey, Jim Gaffigan, and Jerry
Seinfeld are popular endorsers. A meta-analysis of humor in advertising revealed that humor
was highly effective in increasing attention and positive feelings toward a brand (Eisend,
2009).
A third way in which humor may facilitate persuasion is by serving as a distraction (Nabi,
Moyer-Gusé, & Byrne, 2007; Strick, Holland, van Baaren, & van Knipperberg, 2012).
Specifically, because the cognitive effort required to comprehend a joke trades off with the
mental energy needed to analyze the substance of a message, humor tends to suppress
counterarguing (Young, 2008). For example, one study found that participants who read a
series of jokes told by late-night comedians were less inclined to scrutinize the statements
carefully, compared to a control group of participants who read nonhumorous versions of the
same statements. This suggests that a persuader facing a hostile audience could use humor to
“soften up” the crowd.
A fourth way in which humor may aid a persuader is by serving as a form of social proof,
which involves modeling our behavior after the actions or reactions of others (see Chapter 6).
The use of “laugh tracks” or live audience laughter on television sitcoms illustrates this
principle. Researchers have found that the perceived funniness of low- to medium-quality
jokes can be enhanced by including canned laughter (Cupchik & Leventhal, 1974; Leventhal
& Cupchik, 1975, 1976). Speakers often use “shills” or “plants” in an audience to initiate
laughter or applause to help sway audience members.
Finally, the use of humor might affect perceptions of a source. One meta-analysis, for
example, found that overall, humor tends to reduce perceptions of a source’s credibility
(Eisend, 2009). That said, humorous sources are perceived as being more socially attractive
(Murnstein & Burst, 1985; Wanzer, Booth-Butterfield, & Booth-Butterfield, 1996) and
more competent communicators (Wanzer et al., 1996). Our advice, then, would be to employ
humor judiciously, tailoring your message to the audience, the situation, and your goals.
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Self-Disparaging Humor: LOLing at Yourself
Should you ever make yourself the brunt of a humorous appeal? On one hand, it might seem
that putting yourself down, even lightheartedly, would damage your image. On the other
hand, it might seem that the ability to poke fun at yourself would bolster your image. Again,
the answer depends on the type of image you are aiming to create. The ability to laugh at
yourself demonstrates that you are friendly and good-natured (Graham, Papa, & Brooks,
1992). Presidential candidates often appear on late-night comedy shows. By showing a lighter
side, they hope to seem more natural, genuine, and spontaneous.
Actual studies on self-disparaging humor have yielded mixed results (Chang & Gruner,
1981). Hackman (1988) revealed that self-disparaging humor led to lower ratings of speaker
competence. Our advice is to avoid self-disparaging humor if you think you have low
credibility to begin with or if you need to bolster your credibility in the competence
dimension. If you have moderate to high credibility to begin with, then making light of some
of your human frailties might make you appear more genuine and good-natured.
But Is Humor Persuasive?
Earlier attempts to determine whether the use of humor enhanced persuasion produced
inconsistent results (Gulas & Weinberger, 2006; Skalski, Tamborini, Glazer, & Smith, 2009;
Weinberger & Gulas, 1992). This is understandable, given that humor takes many forms.
And let’s face it, some jokes are funnier than others. A recent meta-analysis, however,
suggests that humor enhances at least two measures of persuasion: attitudes toward a brand
and purchase intentions (Eisend, 2009). Although humor may be effective, it doesn’t appear
to be superior to other appeals, such as fear and pride (Verma, 2009). An additional study
(Nabi, Moyer-Gusé, & Byrne, 2007) also found that humorous appeals may benefit from a
sleeper effect— that is, humor may grow on people over time, leading to more persuasion later
on.
Maximizing Humor’s Potential
Some advice for maximizing humor’s persuasive potential seems in order. First, if you aren’t
good at telling jokes, don’t. Another suggestion is to use related humor, which integrates the
humor into the content of the message. Unrelated humor, such as a stand-alone joke, is not as
effective (Gulas & Weinberger, 2006; Weinberger & Gulas, 1992; Weinberger & Spotts,
1989). Another suggestion is to add gravitas toward the end of a humor-laden message. Let
the audience know your message is not all fun and games. Stress the seriousness of the point
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you are trying to make through your use of humor (Nabi, Moyer-Gusé, & Byrne, 2007).
Another important piece of advice is don’t overdo it. Too much humor may cause listeners
to discount the message as little more than a joke (Gruner, 1967; Nabi et al., 2007). After all,
if you don’t appear to take your own message seriously, why should others? Similarly, the use
of inappropriate humor can decrease perceptions of credibility (Derks, Kalland, & Etgen,
1995; Munn & Gruner, 1981).
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PRIDE AND PATIOTISM: TURNING RED, WHITE, AND BLUE INTO GREEN
In the summer of 2016, Budweiser beer temporarily renamed itself, America. Skittles offered
packages with red, white, and blue candies. M&Ms followed suit with its own patriotic
palette. If the trend continues, Schultz (2016) observed, “Buyers might have to salute each
time they walk into a grocery store.”
Politicians are fond of wrapping themselves in the flag, standing next to veterans at public
events, and declaring theirs to be the greatest nation on earth (whatever nation that happens
to be). Does flag waving work? The answer is yes, quite well. Several investigations suggest
that patriotic ploys are effective, when used appropriately. Seiter and Gass (2005), for
example, compared the tips earned by food servers who wrote a patriotic message (“United
We Stand”) on patrons’ checks with a more traditional message (“Have a Nice Day”). Food
servers who used the patriotic slogan earned significantly higher tips.
Even brief exposure to a patriotic emblem can sway people. Those who saw an American
flag on a survey of voter attitudes shifted their attitudes in a more conservative direction.
Voting intentions also leaned more toward the right after a single exposure to the flag
(Carter, Ferguson, & Hassin, 2011). Why? As a patriotic symbol, the flag may be more
closely associated with the Republican than the Democratic party (Kalmoe & Gross, 2016).
Han (1988) found that patriotism had a positive effect on consumers’ intentions to purchase
domestic as opposed to foreign brands, but didn’t necessarily alter their perceptions of brand
quality or reliability. Pedic (1990) discovered that nationalistic ads were more effective than
non-nationalistic ads, but only if the receivers were themselves nationalistic.
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FIGURE 13.3
Poster by Shepard Fairey.
Source: Christopher Penler/Shutterstock.com
In America, patriotic appeals have a lot going for them. Even so, recent evidence suggests
that the effectiveness of flag waving may be wearing off (Wellner, 2002). In the USA, there
has been pushback against Trump’s anti-immigration policies. Shepard Fairey’s series of pro-
diversity posters, entitled “We the People” illustrates this trend (see Figure 13.3).
Not only that, patriotic appeals can backfire, as Samuel Johnson’s famous remark that
patriotism is the “last refuge of scoundrels” warns. Companies can still use American
branding successfully, but if a persuader appears to be “cashing in” on patriotic ploys or using
patriotism as a wedge issue, then receivers may reject the message or the source.
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FOR MATURE AUDIENCES: SEX APPEALS
Television is replete with sexual appeals. So are print ads. One analysis found that half of all
print ads depict women as sex objects (Stankiewicz & Rosselli, 2008). And then there’s the
Internet. There’s more sex on the Web than flies on a cowpie. “Sex sells,” goes the advertising
adage.
Although the use of sexual appeals has been a fixture of advertising for decades, two things
have changed. First, the use of more overt sexual appeals has increased (Malik, 2016).
Second, increasingly younger audiences are being targeted. Media is sexualizing children at
younger and younger ages (American Psychological Association, 2010; Hill, 2011).
Historically, females have been depicted as sex objects in advertising (Snigda &
Venkatesh, 2011), a situation decried by feminists and other media critics. Grounded in
objectification theory, females are more likely to be seen as objects or things. Accordingly,
females are more likely than males to be portrayed as passive, submissive, and subordinate
(Mager & Helgeson, 2011). Women also are depicted as being disembodied, silenced, and
occupying less space than men (Conley & Ramsey, 2011; Eisend, 2010). Not surprisingly
then, women respond less favorably to sex appeals than men (Black & Morton, 2017).
Despite the media’s obsession with sex appeals, studies show that simply increasing the
amount of sexual imagery does not make a message more persuasive. As Ma and Gal (2016)
warn, “in general, research has found that sex in advertising does not improve brand recall or
sales effectiveness” (p. 479).
The sexual objectification of males is also well underway (Sexualization of men, 2016). For
example, the Magic Mike franchise, starring Channing Tatum, rides the current wave of
toned dudes. David Beckham is hunky in H&M’s underwear ads. Duckett (cited in Brown,
2016) emphasized that “the trend for using hyper-athletic male models and celebrities in
advertising has grown significantly in recent years, giving rise to the term ‘hunkvertising’”
(para. 7). And while one in six males under 24 reported being more self-conscious about their
bodies, more than half of males said they pay little attention to male advertising physiques
(Brown, 2016). Men, therefore, have far less reason to worry about women ogling them than
women do from the “male gaze.”
How Sex Sells
How do sex appeals work? Typically, the unspoken message in ads employing sexual appeals
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is either (1) if you use product “X” you will look, act, or feel more sexy or (2) if you use
product “X” other sexy people will be attracted to you. Of course, such ads rarely make
explicit cause–effect claims about the benefits of the product. Rather, the product is paired
with sexually laden imagery. Through this associative process (see Chapter 3) the receiver
comes to identify the product with sexiness or sensuality.
Caveats and Cautions
Although it is true that sexual appeals can be effective, there are also cautions regarding their
use (see, for example, Sengupta & Dahl, 2008). First, despite their prevalence, sex appeals are
not always effective. A study conducted in a pharmaceutical sales context found that a female
sales representative who showed cleavage was no more persuasive than a female salesperson
who did not (Glick, Chrislock, Petersik, Vijay, & Turek, 2008). Context means a lot,
however. A study conducted in France found that males were much more likely to approach a
female in a bar if she had large breasts (Guéguén, 2007). Who says research has to be boring?
The conclusion might seem obvious. The point is that sex appeals may not function the same
way in professional settings as they do in social settings. A boardroom is not a barroom.
Second, in some cases the targeted audience may resent the use of sexual appeals. For
example, sexual stimuli are frequently included in ads aimed at women. Yet if women
perceive the ads as sexist, the ads may backfire. Nowadays, an advertiser must walk a fine line
between creating ads that are considered sexy and ads that are considered sexist.
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FIGURE 13.4
Source: © Darrin Bell, All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with permission. www.BellCartoons.com
A third liability in using sex appeals is that they may function as a distraction, inhibiting
receiver recall. If a consumer is salivating over a sexy model in a magazine ad, his or her
attention may be diverted from the product being advertised. Several studies have shown this
to be the case (Bushman & Bonacci, 2002; Judd & Alexander, 1983; Malik, 2016; Steadman,
1969). Advertisers face something of a dilemma here: A sexual appeal that is too mild may
not stand out in the crowd, yet a sexual appeal that is too strong may serve as a distraction.
A fourth downside to using sex appeals is that they may produce undesirable social
consequences. Objectification of women in media can lead to self-objectification, whereby
females begin viewing themselves as objects (Snigda & Venkatesh, 2011). This, in turn, may
result in lower self-esteem, negative body image, and eating disorders (Conley & Ramsey,
2011; Kilbourne, 1999). We don’t fault the media entirely for the current obsession that
people have with their bodies. We do think, however, that advertisers, the movie industry,
and the fashion industry must shoulder some of the blame for exploiting people’s insecurities
about their looks.
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515
WARMTH APPEALS: STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART
“Nothing says lovin’ like something from the oven, and Pillsbury says it best.” Some
advertisements convey a warm, cozy feeling. They emphasize family, friends, and a sense of
belonging. They make us feel sentimental or nostalgic about life. Such ads are based on
warmth. Aaker and Bruzzone (1981) identify warmth as one of a half-dozen basic dimensions
people use to describe advertisements. The use of warmth in advertising is quite common
(Aaker, Stayman, & Hagerty, 1986). A little more than one in five prime-time commercials
include warmth as an advertising theme (Aaker & Stayman, 1990). State Farm’s “Like a good
neighbor … State Farm is there” campaign is based on this theme, as is Olive Garden’s
“When you’re here, you’re family” slogan. So are ads for Hallmark cards, “Poppin’ Fresh,” the
Pillsbury doughboy, and Snuggle fabric softener, which features a cuddly teddy bear.
Insurance companies, airlines, health-care providers, restaurants, and hotel chains all use
warmth to convey images of folksiness, hominess, friendliness, and familiarity (see Goldman
& Papson, 1996).
So how do they work? Primarily through association. A product or service is associated
with the image of being warm, caring, or friendly. When we think of that product or service
we get a warm-fuzzy feeling.
Warmth appeals aren’t limited to television advertising. One study found that parental
warmth was more effective in influencing adolescents’ eating habits than the use of negative
pressure (Lessard, Greenberger, & Chen, 2010). Real-estate listings often use words like
charming, cozy, or rustic to describe houses that are for sale. Restaurants boast of “home-style”
cooking. Frozen foods claim to be based on “authentic family recipes” that are “made the old-
fashioned way.” In interpersonal encounters, warmth can be conveyed through actions that
generate a sense of friendship, bonding, or camaraderie. The Walmart “greeter” is a living
embodiment of a warmth appeal. When a food server introduces himself or herself by name
and smiles, the food server is also conveying warmth.
516
FIGURE 13.5
Source: © Peter C. Vey/ The New Yorker Collection/ www.cartoonbank.com. All RightsReserved
Warmth appeals can be quite effective, but their success depends on their believability.
The warm-fuzzy images being portrayed must come across as sincere for the appeal to work
(Aaker & Stayman, 1989). As Aaker and Stayman (1990) note, the appeal “need[s] to avoid
creating the perception of an ad’s being phony, pointless, or contrived; such perceptions could
interfere with the emotional response” (p. 59). Warmth appeals, then, are a persuader’s
friend. They offer a positive approach to using motivational appeals by engendering warm,
happy feelings in receivers.
517
INGRATIATION: POLISHING THE APPLE
You may know it as “brownnosing,” “sucking up,” or “boot-licking,” but ingratiation is the
term researchers use for flattery as a motivational inducement. Ingratiation has been
thoroughly studied in organizational settings (see Deluga & Perry, 1994; Liden & Mitchell,
1988; Tal-Or, 2010). Indeed, Westphal and Shani (2016) report that “ingratiation is perhaps
the most widely studied form of interpersonal influence behavior in the organization
literature” (p. 481). Will flattery get you everywhere? An overall assessment of the research to
date suggests that ingratiation works—and works well (Gordon, 1996). For instance, a study
by Watt (1993) found that ingratiators were perceived by their supervisors as being more
competent, more motivated, and more qualified for leadership positions than their
noningratiating counterparts. Another study (Wayne, Kacmar, & Ferris, 1995) found that the
use of ingratiation tactics by subordinates resulted in higher satisfaction for the supervisor and
co-workers. In fact, one study quantified the advantage enjoyed by ingratiators over
noningratiators. In a study of 152 pairs of managers and employees, Deluga (cited in
Kelleher, 1997) found that ingratiators enjoyed a 5 percent edge over noningratiators in
getting favorable evaluations. Ziemke and Brodksy (2015) found that the use of ingratiation
by defense attorneys during their closing arguments increased their perceived attractiveness,
likability, and credibility. Two studies in organizations—one conducted in restaurants (Seiter,
2007), the other in hair styling salons (Seiter & Dutson, 2007)—found that food servers and
hair stylists earned significantly higher tips when they complimented (ingratiated) their
customers than when they did not.
Researchers know that ingratiation works, but just how does it work? What is the secret
behind its success? There are three interrelated explanations for ingratiation’s effectiveness
(Dubrin, cited in Kelleher, 1997). First, ingratiatory behavior tends to increase liking (“I love
that outfit on you!”). Second, ingratiatory behavior can create perceptions of similarity (“You
love polka music? Hey, I do too!”). Third, ingratiation can work through social labeling. The
use of positive social labels (“You sure are in a good mood today,” “You are so thoughtful”)
can produce changes in the target’s self-concept that, in turn, lead to changes in the target’s
behavior (Kraut, 1973). The person being ingratiated thus lives up to the positive label
bestowed on her or him.
How many kinds of ingratiation are there? Edward Jones (1963), who authored the first
major work on ingratiation, identified three basic categories of ingratiation. The first is other
518
enhancement, such as paying compliments or engaging in flattery. A derivative of this
technique is to have a third party deliver the compliment, so that it seems more genuine
(“Biff speaks highly of you. He says you are the nicest boss he’s ever had”). The second
technique is opinion conformity. This involves agreeing with the target’s statements, ideas, and
views. A variation on this technique is to initially disagree, then subsequently yield, creating
the impression the target has changed your mind (“Okay, you’ve convinced me, Godiva
chocolates taste better than See’s chocolates”). A third approach is self-presentation. This
involves bragging or otherwise displaying one’s attributes to increase the target’s evaluation of
oneself (“Gee, I’d love to play golf with you, but I’m helping at the homeless center this
weekend”). Some scholars include performing favors as a fourth type of ingratiation (Zin,
Ngah, Ismail, Tajuddin, Abdullah, & Salleh, 2010). So you see, there is more than one way
to engage in brownnosing.
But, you might ask, wouldn’t the other person know, or at least suspect, that the
ingratiator was trying to curry favor? If so, can ingratiation backfire? The answer is yes,
although some studies find that shameless ingratiation still works, though perhaps not as well
(e.g., Chan & Sengupta, 2010).
Research on the “slime effect” suggests that inept ingratiators are seen as unlikable and are
suspected of ulterior motives (Vonk, 1998). In one study, for example, food servers who
delivered compliments to large parties in one fell swoop (“You all made good choices!”)
received lower tips than food servers who complimented smaller parties, thereby seeming
more sincere (Seiter & Weger, 2010).
That said, some ingratiators are more skilled at disguising their motives. Westphal and
Shani (2016), for instance, found that effective ingratiators self-regulate their thought process
to focus on the positive characteristics of another person, rather than on his or her negatives.
Successful ingratiators also rely on more subtle forms of flattery, such as turning a
compliment as a question—e.g., “Ralph, you’re always dressed sharp. Do you think I should
wear black or brown shoes with a blue suit?”
Considering such manipulative tactics, you might be thinking that ingratiation is an
unethical influence strategy. We tend to agree, but not in all cases. If the ingratiator believes
in the praise he or she is offering, we see no ethical problem in focusing on the positive side
of things. Indeed, if the praise is genuine, this strategy offers the prospect for a “win–win”
communication encounter. We discuss the ethical implications of ingratiatory behavior in
more detail in Chapter 16.
519
FIGURE 13.6
Beetle Bailey.
Source: Reprinted with permission from King Features Syndicate.
520
MIXED EMOTIONS: OTHER APPEALS AND COMBINATIONS OF APPEALS
There are many other types of motivational appeals that we do not have space to cover here.
Some of these include appeals to honor, youth, beauty, shame, freedom, and the
environment. Almost any human drive or emotion can serve as the basis for a motivational
appeal.
Motivational appeals also can be used in combination. A threat of punishment can be
coupled with a promise of reward, for example. A prosecutor might tell a defendant, “If you
cooperate, I’ll cut you a deal. If you don’t, I’ll throw the book at you.” The “good cop/bad
cop” technique used in police interrogations also combines positive and negative appeals
(Inbau, Reid, & Buckley, 1986; Kassin & McNall, 1991). One study found that adding
humor to a fear appeal about skin cancer reduced defensiveness by providing a “margin of
safety” to the audience (Mukherjee & Dubé, 2012).
Guilt is commonly coupled with pity in charity fund-raisers (“If you don’t help, who
will?”). In a twist involving “strange bedfellows,” the animal rights group known as PETA
(People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has collaborated with Penthouse magazine for
the past few years to produce an anti-fur advertisement. The ads feature sexy supermodels
who proclaim they would rather go naked than wear fur, thus combining a sex appeal with a
guilt appeal. Evidence suggests that when people experience mixed emotions, they don’t recall
them clearly (Aaker, Drolet, & Griffin, 2008). For example, riding a roller coaster might
evoke positive (e.g., excitement, exhilaration) and negative (e.g., fear, apprehension)
emotions. Over time, though, the person would tend to remember the ride as mostly exciting
and enjoyable or mostly scary and unpleasant.
We see definite advantages in combining appeals. If one appeal proves ineffective, another
may still work. And there is always the prospect that combinations of appeals will have an
additive effect—that is, the combination of appeals may work better than they would
individually. A danger in combining appeals is that they may appear contradictory or cancel
one another out. Combining humor with pity, for instance, might create the appearance that
a persuader was insensitive or disingenuous. Some research suggests that inducing conflicting
emotions (happiness and sadness) may be better suited for Asian American than Anglo-
American receivers (Williams & Aaker, 2002). In selecting motivational appeals, then, a
persuader must be judicious.
521
522
SUMMARY
Motivational appeals are external inducements used to increase another’s drive to do
something. The use of motivational appeals is an omnipresent phenomenon. Attempts at
casting logical and emotional appeals as opposites are suspect. Although motivational appeals
aren’t necessarily rational, neither are they irrational. Eight types of motivational appeals were
discussed: fear, pity, guilt, humor, patriotism, sex, warmth, and ingratiation. These represent
only a fraction of the appeals available to persuaders. Experimental studies have shown some
of these to be highly effective in facilitating persuasion, whereas others have been shown to be
less effective. It also was suggested that motivational appeals can be successfully combined if
certain precautions are followed.
523
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W
CHAPTER 14
Visual Persuasion
Image Is Everything
Overlooked and Under-Appreciated
The Power of Images: A Thousand Words
How Images Persuade
Iconicity: Bearing a Resemblance
Indexicality: Seeing Is Believing
Syntactic Indeterminacy: Don’t Look for Logic in Images
The Art of Persuasion Includes Art as Persuasion
The Paintbrush Is Mightier than the Sword
Art and Social Change: I Must Protest
Cinematic Persuasion: Sex, Drugs, and Popcorn
Acting Out: How Movies Persuade
Images in Advertising: And Now a Word From Our Sponsors
Visual Extravaganzas: Now You’ve Got My Attention
Anti-Ads: You Can’t Fool Me
Image-Oriented Advertising: Materialism as Happiness
Shock Ads: Edgy Images as Persuasion
Photojournalism as Persuasion: The Camera Does Lie
Playing Tricks With the Camera: Photographic Deception
ANT TO CAPTURE AN AUDIENCE’S ATTENTION? Try taking off your clothes. You
wouldn’t be the first to use this approach. People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals (PETA) use this strategy to protest wearing leather and fur. Their “Naked Truth”
campaign features attractive models and celebrities, sans clothing, with the caption “I’d rather
go naked than wear fur.” Not to be outdone, Spencer Tunick, a performance
artist/photographer convinced 18,000 people in Mexico City to strip naked for a photo shoot.
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He sees mass nudity as a form of collective defiance against social norms. Nudity, however, is
not reserved for protesters and artists. When a German supermarket offered free groceries to
the first 100 naked shoppers, more than 200 people showed up (Zimmerman, 2012). The
promotion worked! We suspect that the male shoppers avoided the frozen food aisle.
Hang on. Before you give your next class presentation in the buff, we should warn you that
while nudity may be a great attention getter, your “visual aids” may serve as a distraction
during the rest of your presentation. Moreover, you may encounter a good deal of audience
resentment. Lots of folks tend to react negatively to nudity (Christy & Haley, 2008). With
that said, and, now that we have your attention, we’d like to examine the role of images in
persuasion.
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IMAGE IS EVERYTHING
We are living in an increasingly visual society. Gurri, Denny, and Harms (2010) underscored
this trend, commenting that “Many more images than ever before are available, and many
more people are paying a disproportionate amount of attention to them” (p. 101). Fewer
people are reading newspapers and books. More people are watching movies and TV. As
Metros (2008) observed:
politicians wage campaigns not on issues, but through their visual persona; wars are
televised live through the eyes of embedded journalists; criminal trials have become
24/7 international spectator events; newspapers have had to reduce text to pack their
pages with charts, graphics, and photos to compete for market-share; and even radio
directs its listeners to Web sites to illustrate the spoken word.
(p. 109)
In television commercials, magazine ads, and billboards, images are primary and words are
secondary. Politicians worry about “bad optics,” such as being on vacation when a crisis
unfolds. The Internet is chock-full of images. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and other
social media are saturated with images. Internet memes are ever popular. Selfies are all the
rage. And it is not only mass media that rely on visual cues. Protest marches, sit-ins,
demonstrations, rallies, and picketing are highly visual acts that are intended to persuade.
In this chapter, we examine some of the important ways in which images shape beliefs,
attitudes, and behaviors. First, we consider the importance of visual stimuli and how images
persuade. Next, we examine art as a form of persuasion, cinematic influence, images in
advertising, and photojournalism as a form of persuasion.
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OVERLOOKED AND UNDER-APPRECIATED
“Visual images,” writes Taewon Suh (1999), “have become a predominant means of
transmitting information in the twentieth century and may be even more so in the next
century” (p. 3). Yet, despite the increasing importance of visual persuasion, the topic has been
under-studied in the field of communication. Traditionally, the study of persuasion has
focused on influence attempts that take place within the world of words. Messaris (1997)
underscored this point when he noted:
although the study of persuasive communication has a history of more than two
millennia, the focus of this scholarly tradition has tended overwhelmingly to be on
verbal strategies. With a few notable exceptions, the systematic investigation of
visual persuasion is still in its infancy.
(p. vii)
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THE POWER OF IMAGES: A THOUSAND WORDS
Images are powerful. They can move us in ways that words cannot. Their potency stems
partly from their perceived “realness,” or the idea that seeing is believing. As Gurri, Denny,
and Harms (2010) noted, “with visual media, however, the illusion is created that we are
gazing out a window at the real world” (p. 102). The power of images also arises from their
emotional force. Joffe (2008) emphasized the advantages of images over words when she
noted that “the most salient distinction between the relative effects of textual/verbal versus
visual messages concerns their emotive impact” (p. 84). The grim photo of a Sudanese infant
starving to death (see Figure 14.1) demonstrates this capacity. The ghoulish image won a
Pulitzer Prize in 1993.
Despite the traditional emphasis on words, studies have revealed a picture superiority effect
for images. Pictures are more easily recognized and recalled than words (Hockley, 2008; Pelli,
Farell, & Moore, 2013; Stenberg, 2006). Medina (2014) reports, for example, that people
remember only about 10 percent of what they hear three days hence, compared to 65 percent
recall when pictures are included. Images also cross languages and cultures more easily.
FIGURE 14.1
Source: Photo: Kevin Carter 1993 Getty Images.
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HOW IMAGES PERSUADE
What is it about images and other visual stimuli that make them so persuasive? We take up
this question here. In doing so, we rely heavily on Paul Messaris’s (1997) conceptualization of
the role of images in persuasion. He suggests that images persuade in three basic ways:
through iconicity, indexicality, and syntactic indeterminacy.
Iconicity: Bearing a Resemblance
One way that images persuade is by functioning as icons, which simply means that they stand
for and resemble the things they represent. An image can sum up a concept. The stick figure
on a “pedestrian crossing” sign is an icon. An emoji is an icon for an emotion. A caricature of
a politician drawn by an editorial cartoonist is also iconic. The Statue of Liberty, Uncle Sam,
and the bald eagle are all icons of America. It doesn’t matter whether they are accurate
representations or not (silhouettes of pedestrians on a crossing sign lack hands and feet) as
long as people understand what they represent. This is, perhaps, the most important property
of images: to summarize ideas and concepts. As Messaris (1997) noted, “If there is one
property that most clearly distinguishes pictures from language and other modes of
communication, that property is iconicity” (p. 3).
A good illustration of the iconic nature of images can be found in Philip Morris’s
Marlboro man. The Marlboro man is immediately recognizable around the world. He is a
mythical American hero. He represents the Old West. He symbolizes an idealized image of
the cowboy—a rugged, self-reliant individual. He’s always pictured outdoors, on the range.
Without even seeing the brand-name or the slogan, most people can spot the Marlboro man
in an instant. And boy, can he sell cigarettes! Marlboro cigarettes are the most popular brand
in the world (de Guzman, 2007). For this reason, the Marlboro man has been called “the
most universally recognized, consistently profitable, and aesthetically appealing image in the
advertising world” (Selling tobacco, 1990, p. 84). Now that’s an icon.
As part of their iconic nature, images also can be selective. Lighting, camera angle,
perspective, distance, cropping, and editing all figure into what a viewer sees. Ads for
Weightwatchers and Nutrisystem, for example, can choose which “before” and “after” photos
to show.
Another iconic function of images is that they can violate the reality they represent
(Messaris, 1997). An image can make something look real that isn’t. For example, a busy
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mother who has her hands full doing the laundry, cooking dinner, cleaning house, and taking
care of the kids could be pictured with four arms rather than two. An ad for a pain reliever
might show someone suffering from a splitting headache, whose head actually appears to be
splitting in two. Images can thus simulate a reality that doesn’t exist.
Indexicality: Seeing Is Believing
A second way in which images persuade is through indexicality (Messaris, 1997). This refers
to the ability of images, in particular photos and video, to document that an event happened
or that something took place. For example, photos of Iraqi detainees being abused by U.S.
soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison or images of Syrian children killed by U.S. drone missile strikes
function as “proof” to many in the Middle East that the United States does not value Muslim
lives.
Indexical images often function as a form of sign reasoning or circumstantial evidence. For
example, a high school yearbook photo might document who was in the glee club. An image
of a zipper-shaped scar down the center of a person’s chest is evidence the person had open
heart surgery. Airline passenger “shaming” photos verify that some travelers, like the slob in
seat 15A with his bare foot on your arm rest, are disgusting reprobates. A poignant example
of indexicality involves police shootings that have been recorded by witnesses on smartphones
or dashboard cameras. Such footage contributed to the rise of the Black Lives Matter
movement.
A recent study (Cornelis & Peter, 2017) demonstrated that consumers consider the
veracity of images when evaluating products. Female respondents rated photos of models
with labels stating that “the model in this ad has been retouched” versus “the model in this ad
has not been retouched” versus no label. The photos labeled as not retouched were perceived
as more authentic and increased purchase intentions.
The documentary aspect of images, however, also can be misleading. Pictures are not
always faithful representations of reality. Gunning (2004) refers to the common
misconception that “the camera never lies” as the truth claim of photography. In this regard,
Messaris (1997) cautioned, “photographs, of course, can lie. The picture of a model in a
fashion ad can be made more attractive through airbrushing, and voter interviews or product
demonstrations can be staged” (p. xvii). A controversy over what images do or do not prove
involved the size of the crowd at Trump’s presidential inauguration. Although Trump
declared his audience was the largest in history, the National Park Service released photos
that challenged that claim. You can judge for yourself at www.nps.gov/aboutus/foia/foia-‐
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frd.htm (scroll halfway down the page to inaugural photos).
Staged events also call the veracity of images into question. Let’s say we are watching the
news and we see a political candidate, shirtsleeves rolled up, wearing a hardhat, while touring
a factory. The image emphasizes the candidate’s “plain folks” appeal. He or she identifies
with ordinary workers. But would the candidate have rolled up his or her sleeves, donned a
hardhat, and toured the factory in the absence of any camera crews? The cameras are
recording an event that might not take place in their absence.
We’ve all seen news footage of angry citizens in foreign lands burning the American flag
to protest U.S. foreign policies. It seems fair to ask, however, whether the cameras are there
because the protesters are burning the flag or the protesters are burning the flag because the
cameras are there. A critical viewer should, therefore, question the indexicality of visual
records of events. Media events can be staged. Hey, some people think the moon landing was
faked! We don’t, but the presence of cameras and film crews can alter people’s behavior.
Photographs and videotapes can be digitally altered to create the appearance that events
occurred when, in fact, they did not, or did not occur in the way they are pictured.
Syntactic Indeterminacy: Don’t Look for Logic in Images
A third way in which images persuade is through syntactic indeterminacy. This simply means
that, unlike words, pictures cannot convey precise relationships between things. Messaris
(1997) thus noted, “what visual syntax lacks, especially in comparison to verbal language, is a
set of explicit devices for indicating causality, analogy, or any other relationships other than
those of space or time” (pp. xvii–xviii). The problem is that images lack logical operators—
that is, they can’t explicitly state cause–effect, if–then, either–or relationships, or other logical
connections between people, objects, and events. As an example, a picture can show what a
person’s abdominal muscles looked like before using the new “Monster Ab-Cruncher.”
Another picture can show what the person’s abdominal muscles look like afterward.
However, pictures themselves can’t specify a cause–effect relationship.
The fact that images can’t convey logical relationships, such as “A causes B,” “A is
analogous to B,” or “either A or B will happen,” is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is
that pictures can be used to equate one thing with another, via association. Images can be
juxtaposed to imply an association without actually saying so. This can work to a persuader’s
advantage. For example, researchers found that a picture of 14 sugar cubes stacked next to a
can of Coke was more effective at reducing intentions to consume sugary soft drinks than a
text-only label stating that the same Coke can contained 35 grams of sugar (Adams, Hart,
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Gilmer, & Lloyd-Richardson, 2014).
A persuader can also foster subtle associations through images without making the
associations explicit in words. For example, an advertiser can equate a product with being
cool, or sexy, or conferring social status simply by pairing the product with cool, sexy, or
classy images.
The curse is that images can never suggest the precise nature of relationships, so it is up to
the observer to guess what the relationship is. A car commercial might depict a happy family
carrying kayaks from their hybrid SUV to a river. Rather than make the consumer want a
hybrid SUV, as the advertiser intends, the sequence of images may make the consumer want
to go camping, or buy a kayak, or spend more time with the family instead. This is not a
serious drawback, however, for two reasons. First, advertisers have decades of practice at
manipulating lighting, camera angle, color, and other aspects of images to achieve the results
they want. Second, advertisers use words when they want to make a point explicitly and
pictures when they want to make a point implicitly. Thus, they enjoy the best of both worlds.
Now that you have a better understanding of how images persuade, we can turn our
attention to some of the intriguing and important ways visual stimuli affect us. We begin by
examining art as a visual form of influence.
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THE ART OF PERSUASION INCLUDES ART AS PERSUASION
The use of art to further political and religious ends dates to ancient civilizations. Greek
friezes and frescoes taught citizens moral lessons involving Greek gods and Greek mythology.
In the Middle Ages, organized religions sponsored art to further religious ends. The Catholic
Church commissioned thousands of works of art to promote Catholicism. As only one
example, Michelangelo’s painting of the finger of God reaching out to man that adorns the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel endorses a biblical view of creation.
The Paintbrush Is Mightier than the Sword
Governments, especially totalitarian governments, have used art as a form of political
propaganda (Clark, 1997). Under Stalin, the Soviet Union declared all art to be subservient to
the interests of the state. “Socialist Realism” became the officially recognized standard for art,
and its purpose was to advance the political and social ideals of communism. All art projects
were commissioned by the government. Not surprisingly, paintings and posters from this era
featured members of the proletariat working side by side in factories and on farms. Such
iconic representations idealized communism. Clark (1997) explains how such politicized art
modeled behavior for the masses:
in paintings, novels, and films, Socialist Realism created a parallel world peopled by
heroes and heroines who personified political ideals. As tireless labourers, courageous
Red Army soldiers, diligent schoolchildren, or dedicated Party activists, they
demonstrated exemplary behaviour and the attitudes of perfect citizens.
(p. 87)
Similarly, under Mao, China produced a great deal of art aimed at promoting Communist
ideology. When the Communists assumed power in 1949, posters and murals contributed to
the deification of Chairman Mao. Graphic arts also were used to mobilize and indoctrinate
the people during the Cultural Revolution. Posters showed smiling, cherubic children,
peasants, and soldiers all harvesting bumper crops together—a tribute to the agricultural
achievements of the revolution.
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FIGURE 14.2
This poster from the Chinese cultural revolution portrays an idealized view of agrarian life.
Source: Reprinted by permission. AP / Dita Alangkara.
541
Meanwhile, in the Western world, art was not only sponsored by governments but was
directed against governments as well. Eugène Delacroix’s well-known painting Liberty
Leading the People (1830) now hangs in the Musée du Louvre in Paris. The painting shows a
mythical lady liberty, rifle in one hand and French flag in the other, leading French citizens
in a charge during the French Revolution. Through its iconicity, the painting both endorses
and romanticizes the revolution. Diego Rivera’s History of Mexico (1929–1935), a large mural
painted on the walls of the National Palace in Mexico City, depicts the domination of
Mexico’s peasants first by Spanish conquistadors, then the Catholic Church, then the
Mexican army, and finally by wealthy landowners. The painting reveals the struggle of the
downtrodden against oppression, a struggle that culminated in the Mexican Revolution.
These are but two examples of socially and politically inspired art.
Art and Social Change: I Must Protest
As we noted in Chapter 1, not all art is created for art’s sake. Art serves more than an
aesthetic or decorative function. Contemporary artists have strong opinions on political and
social issues, and they express them in and through their work. Bertolt Brecht’s oft-cited quip
that “art is not a mirror to reflect reality, but a hammer with which to shape it” (as cited in
McLaren & Leonard, 1993, p. 80) sums up this view.
A contemporary manifestation of this perspective can be found in protest art or the art of
social activism. Such art critiques society and promotes social change (Hobbs & Woodard,
1986; Lippard, 1984). This activity typically occurs in public spaces. For example, a bronze
sculpture, called Fearless Girl, was unveiled in a highly public space near Wall Street in 2017
in honor of International Women’s Day. The girl stands with her hands on her hips, head
held high, facing down a sculpture of a charging bull that was already in place. The statue
immediately sparked a public debate. Admirers said Fearless Girl sent a powerful message
about the need for gender diversity in corporate America. Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney
of New York declared, “this statue has touched hearts across the world with its symbolism of
the resiliency of women” (O’Connor, 2017, para. 3).
Critics, however, complained that the sculpture represented faux feminism, since it was
commissioned by a Wall Street investment firm promoting a gender diverse fund called SHE.
Arturo Di Modica, the sculptor who created the charging bull, complained that his sculpture
had been hijacked. He demanded that Fearless Girl be relocated. The juxtapositioning of one
icon opposite another suggested an adversarial relationship between the girl and the bull.
Mayor de Blasio countered with the tweet shown in Figure 14.3.
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Fearless Girl achieved her purpose by provoking a public debate about gender
representation in the boardroom. Activist artists seek to engage the public in their art and
increase the public’s social consciousness. As Felshin (1995) notes, such artists are
“attempting at the very least to ‘change the conversation’ to empower individuals and
communities, and ultimately to stimulate social change” (p. 26). For example, a popular
graffiti artist, known as Banksy, stencils images onto walls and buildings in public places at
night (Pryor, 2007). One of his works depicts Dorothy and Toto, from the Wizard of Oz. Her
basket is being searched by an officer in riot gear wearing latex gloves. The image suggests
that society’s paranoia over security has gone too far. Duncombe (2016) identifies a number
of goals and functions of activist art, including altering perceptions, building community,
causing disruption, fostering dialogue, promoting political change, and transforming the
environment. We focus on two such functions here, involving increased awareness.
FIGURE 14.3
Screen capture of de Blasio’s Tweet on Fearless Girl statue.
Awareness Through Interpretation
How do activist artists go about persuading? One method is by increasing awareness through
interpretation. Activist art might consist of an exhibit that is odd, disturbing, or peculiar. The
artist seeks to pique the viewer’s curiosity and pull him or her in. In the process of trying to
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understand the work, the viewer’s awareness is increased. Interpretation requires active
thinking or central processing, which, as we learned earlier, is more likely to trigger lasting
attitude change.
For instance, Suzanne Lacy re-created an earlier work, called Three Weeks in May, again in
2012, this time called Three Weeks in January (www.suzannelacy.com/three-weeks-in-janu‐
ary/). As part of a collaboration with SafeLA.org and other groups, she sought to increase
public awareness of sexual assault. On a huge map of Los Angeles, she stenciled the word
“rape,” in red block letters, at the locations where rapes had been reported, from January 12 to
February 1, 2012. Before long, the map was peppered with red stencils. The exhibit provided
a graphic revelation of the scope and severity of the problem.
Awareness Through Participation
Yet another approach is to increase awareness through participation. Such art is collaborative or
interactive. As Felshin (1995) comments, “participation is a catalyst for social change” (p. 12).
By way of example, Wafaa Bilal created an interactive installation, called Domestic Tension, in
a Chicago art gallery (Bilal & Lydersen, 2008). Bilal, an Iraqi artist living in political asylum
in the United States, occupied a Plexiglas room for one month. During this time, people
went online and shot at him using a robotically controlled paintball gun. This went on 24
hours a day. They shot him in the head when he fell asleep and in the groin when he stood
up. More than 60,000 shots were fired at him by strangers from more than 120 countries.
Over time, some sympathetic viewers formed a “human shield” by trying to aim the gun away
from Bilal. Others hacked in to the system to make the gun fire more rapidly. By the project’s
end, the room was drenched in paint and Bilal was suffering from posttraumatic stress
disorder.
So what did viewers’ participation mean? Clearly, many people had no qualms about
shooting a person online. Others were confronted with their own morality in choosing to
shoot, or not to shoot, another human being. The project laid bare cultural, ethnic, and
religious tensions between Westerners and Middle Easterners. By allowing virtual strangers
to shoot him, Bilal focused attention on how desensitized modern societies are to violence.
Killing has become robotic, clinical, and—as in his project—carried out from afar. When
innocent civilians are killed by drone missiles, they are simply labeled “collateral damage.”
People living comfortably in stable societies are blithely unaware of the suffering of people in
conflict zones.
Another example of collaborative art is the AIDS Memorial Quilt, founded by Cleve
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Jones (Jones & Dawson, 2000). The quilt, also known as the NAMES Project, is a folk-art
project commemorating those who died of AIDS. It comprises thousands of 3 ft. × 6ft.
panels, each dedicated to the memory of a specific person. The quilt was first displayed on the
Washington Mall in 1987, and again in 1992 and 1996. It became the largest community art
project in the world. Portions of the quilt are now part of traveling displays that are shown
throughout the world. The panels are preserved in an archive (www.aidsquilt.org/about/the-
aids-memorial-quilt).
The AIDS Memorial Quilt persuades on multiple levels. We often hear statistics about
AIDS, but the quilt puts a human face on these numbers. Every panel is a handmade
testimonial to a specific individual’s life. When people see the quilt they understand, in
concrete rather than abstract terms, the toll taken by the disease. The very choice of making a
quilt was a persuasive one. Cleve Jones was attracted to the idea of quilting because it is a
traditional American folk art. Quilts conjure up images of home and family. AIDS, however,
was thought of as a promiscuous gay male disease. The quilt served as a means of countering
that image. As Jones and Dawson (2000) note:
There was hope we could beat the disease by using the quilt as a symbol of solidarity,
of family and community; there was hope that we could make a movement that
would welcome people—men and women, gay and straight, of every age, race, faith,
and background.
(p. 108)
The AIDS Memorial Quilt increased the public’s awareness of the disease. It also brought
people together. Loved ones who didn’t know how to grieve found an outlet in creating a
panel. This was truly participatory art. Students who have seen the quilt reported that the
experience reduced their homophobia and increased their desire to practice safe sex. This fact
alone demonstrates the quilt’s persuasiveness as a work of art.
Activist art is often controversial. Indeed, that is its purpose. It is precisely because art has
the capacity to arouse people’s interest, attention, and ire that it is influential. A primary goal
of activist artists is to raise the public’s consciousness on a variety of social and political issues
(Felshin, 1995; Hobbs & Woodard, 1986; Lippard, 1984; Von Blum, 1976, 1994). Art can
challenge the existing social order. It can make people angry. It can offend. At the same time
it can heighten people’s awareness. It can make people question their assumptions. It can
change the way they see things. It can make them reconsider long-held beliefs. In doing so,
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art persuades.
FIGURE 14.4
The AIDS Memorial Quilt, also known as the NAMES Project, is an example of folk art, activist art, and a social movement
all in one.
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Source: NAMES project/AIDS Memorial Quilt. Reprinted by permission.
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CINEMATIC PERSUASION: SEX, DRUGS, AND POPCORN
Upon receiving an award from the American Museum of the Moving Image, Steven
Spielberg remarked that cinema “is the most powerful weapon in the world” (cited in Fuller,
1995, p. 190). There are several factors at work that lend films their power to persuade.1
First, there is the potential for mass suggestion. Millions of people are exposed to movies in
the United States and abroad. In fact, movies are one of America’s leading exports. Thus,
movies reach vast audiences. Second, movies are told in a narrative form—that is, as stories.
Stories possess an aura of believability not found in other mediums for communication.
When we watch a movie, we engage in a “willing suspension of disbelief.” In order to follow
the story, we must lose ourselves in the imaginary world of the film. In so doing, we give up
some of our ability to think and reason. Third, the power of films to persuade is aided by the
fact that when people sit down in a theater they don’t expect to be persuaded, they expect to
be entertained. Therefore, they tend to let down their guards and become more open to
suggestion. We believe this is one of the reasons that product placement—the practice of
inserting brand-name items into movie scenes—is so prevalent. Lastly, films are carefully
crafted works. Considerable planning and attention to detail go into the making of a film.
Something as simple as a close-up or a swell in the music can enhance the intensity of
emotion on the big screen. Thus, motion pictures represent finely crafted messages. Few real-
world persuaders, such as salespeople, attorneys, or politicians, have the luxury of lavishing so
much time and attention on their persuasive messages.
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FIGURE 14.5
“What kind of moviemaking do we want to reinforce?”
Source: © William Haefeli, www.cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
Acting Out: How Movies Persuade
Movies persuade in multiple ways and on multiple levels. Some of the influential features are
unique to particular genres of film. Docudramas, such as JFK or Titanic, for instance, may
convince viewers that a subjective interpretation of events is an objective recounting of the
facts (Simpson, 2008). Dramas and romantic comedies may model traditional or
nontraditional gender roles. Violent movies, such as Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, and Natural Born
Killers, may desensitize people to violent or aggressive behavior. We examine some of the
most important ways that films persuade here.
Exporting Values Abroad
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The first of the ways in which films persuade is that American movies export Western values.
As one commentator noted, “Hollywood films are America’s biggest cultural export,
consumed by billions around the globe” (Hey, 2001, p. 4). People in remote areas of the
world know who Sylvester Stallone is, based on the film character Rocky. They know who
Julia Roberts is from her role in Pretty Woman. American films embody Western values.
Rocky was the blue-collar guy who made his dream come true. Julia Roberts was the
prostitute with a heart of gold.
Not everyone is happy about the values promoted by American movies. Some view the
movie industry as a form of cultural imperialism (Crane, 2014). As Su (2016) observes,
“American popular culture in general, and Hollywood films in particular, explicitly and
actively advocate American values and the American way of life, thereby threatening other
national and local cultures” (p. 46). Foreign audiences often resent the infusion of Western
values such as promiscuity, violence, and drug use into their own culture (many in the United
States aren’t too thrilled with these values either). Others resent the emphasis on materialism
and conspicuous consumption. At the same time, movies can advance positive values such as
freedom, human rights, and equality. The point is that movies tacitly endorse Western values
that may or may not be shared by people in other cultures.
On the positive side, movies can promote prosocial values. Movies often champion the
underdog. In Hunger Games, Rudy, and Slumdog Millionaire, the underdog perseveres and,
ultimately, wins. Other films, such as Finding Nemo, My Left Foot, and Theory of Everything
feature those with disabilities in a favorable light. Forrest Gump demonstrated that values such
as honesty and compassion can triumph over mental and physical limitations. Fate threw
hardships in his way, but Forrest showed us that it is how we deal with adversity that
determines who we are. More recently, animated Disney movies, such as Brave, Mulan, and
Frozen have abandoned the “damsel in distress” refrain in favor of assertive, independent roles
for female protagonists. Films like Akeelah and the Bee, Hidden Figures, and The Princess and
the Frog offer positive, uplifting roles for African American females.
Promoting Popular Culture
A second way in which movies persuade is by promoting popular culture both at home and
abroad. Fashions, hairstyles, habits, lifestyles, and slang terminology are often emulated by
moviegoers (Chansanchai, 2001; Unterberger, 2001). If you are old enough, or into retro
fashion, you may recall the popularity of white, three-piece suits following the release of the
disco film Saturday Night Fever, starring John Travolta. Donnie Darko and The Crow inspired
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“Goth” culture. Katniss Everdeen’s braided hair in Hunger Games popularized the side plait.
Edward Cullen’s upswept hair in Twilight made him a heartthrob among brooding, moody
teens. After seeing Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Lautner, or Chris Hemsworth on the big screen,
many guys hit the gym to work on their abs and pecs. As a function of their iconicity, movies
have a way of idealizing and romanticizing trends and lifestyles. Cinema, then, is a major
vehicle for the dissemination of fads, fashions, and trends.
Modeling Behavior: Social Proof
A third way in which movies persuade is by modeling behaviors. People may gauge what
constitutes appropriate behavior in social situations by taking a movie character’s lead. Albert
Bandura’s social cognitive theory maintains that adolescents observe behaviors that are modeled
in the media and then imitate those behaviors in real life (Bandura, 1986, 1989). For
example, young teens who watch movies about dating and relationships, such as Mean Girls,
American Pie, and Superbad, may take their cue about how to deal with love and relationships
based on behaviors they see in movies (Behm-Morawitz & Mastro, 2008). At a subconscious
level, people may enact scripts they’ve learned from movies as well.
Characters in movies also model risky, unsafe, or violent behaviors. This can have the
effect of legitimizing such behaviors. Movie characters rarely wear seat belts. They often
engage in unprotected sex. They frequently smoke, use drugs, get drunk, and drive recklessly.
Oh, and they kill lots of people. Regardless of whether these activities are intentional, their
prevalence in movies tends to glamorize them. The actions of the characters in movies may be
seen as placing a stamp of approval on those behaviors. For example, there is strong evidence
that adolescents who see a lot of smoking on the big screen are more likely to light up. A
study by Heatherton and Sargent (2009) reported that teens with high exposure to smoking
in movies were three times more likely to smoke than those with low exposure. The same
applies to unprotected sex. More than 80 percent of PG and PG-13 rated movies include
some sexual content. Exposure to sexual content increases the likelihood of unprotected sex
(O’Hara, Gibbons, Gerrard, Li, & Sargent, 2012). Yet 98 percent of movies with sex scenes
make no mention of safe sex (Gunasekera, Chapman, & Campbell, 2005).
Cultivation Theory: It’s a Mean, Scary World
A fourth way in which movies persuade is by fostering beliefs about a world fraught with
danger. Other studies have examined the effects of a steady diet of violence on TV. Would it
surprise you to learn that gun violence in the top PG-13 rated movies was greater than in the
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top R-rated films? Such is the case (Cha, 2017). Cultivation theory maintains that the more
violence people watch on TV, the more likely they are to develop an exaggerated belief in a
mean, scary world (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, & Signorielli, 2002). In addition to developing a
jaded view of the world, viewing violence tends to increase aggression and antisocial behavior
in people. “Fifty years of research on the effects of TV violence,” notes John Murray (2008),
“leads to the inescapable conclusion that viewing media violence is related to increases in
aggressive attitudes, values, and behaviors” (p. 1212). With respect to cinema’s influence on
behavior, Oliver Stone, who directed Natural Born Killers, commented, “Film is a powerful
medium. Film is a drug. It goes into your eye. It goes into your brain. It stimulates, and that’s
a dangerous thing” (cited in Leiby, 1995, p. G1).
Viewer Identification
A fifth way in which movies persuade is by promoting viewer identification. Moviegoers may
idolize a particular actor or actress or a specific character played by that actor or actress.
Perhaps you know a few Kristen Stewart or Johnny Depp “wannabes.” Young adults may
discover “possible selves” from seeing movies or may derive a sense of validation from a
character (Greenwood & Long, 2015).
Sometimes the story of the character overlaps with the viewer’s own experience, causing
the viewer to identify with the character in the film. If you’ve ever felt like an outcast, a nerd,
the underdog, or misunderstood, you might identify with movies such as Napoleon Dynamite,
Ghost World, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Happy Times, or Pretty in Pink. In this way, movies
establish a common bond with viewers.
Viewer identification can take place even if a viewer’s experience doesn’t directly overlap
with that of a character in a movie. None of us have met an extraterrestrial (okay, most of us
haven’t), but we can still identify with a movie such as E.T., because all of us have had to say
goodbye to someone we love. None of us are green ogres, but we can identify with Shrek
because we’ve all felt like outsiders from time to time.
Perpetuating Stereotypes
A final way in which cinema shapes public perceptions is by fostering and perpetuating
stereotypes. Hollywood frequently typecasts minorities, women, overweight people, the
elderly, and other groups into limited roles (Benshoff & Griffin, 2009). This may create the
impression that these are the only roles these groups are capable of performing. Although the
number of parts for minorities has increased, the roles often involve the same predictable
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stereotypes. Middle Easterners, for example, are frequently cast as terrorists (Shaheen, 2009).
When they aren’t terrorists, they are often playboys or cab drivers. Hispanics are often
depicted as drug dealers or gang-bangers. While the situation has improved, many roles for
Hispanics remain tied to cultural stereotypes. Asians also tend to occupy stereotypic roles in
films. If Hollywood is to be believed, every Asian is skilled in martial arts. They are often
undersexed and romantically awkward (Whitty, 2001). As with other minorities, things are
changing, but slowly.
In a similar vein, African Americans have been historically typecast (Entman & Rojecki,
2001). African American males fit the mold of athlete, drug dealer, or musician (Waxman,
2000). African American women tend to be relegated to stereotypic roles such as beautiful
wife, beautiful girlfriend, or beautiful prostitute. African Americans also are typecast as the
funny sidekick in “buddy” movies. Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, Chris Rock, and Chris
Tucker have all played such parts. These, too, are narrowly defined roles. The situation has
improved. Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, Denzel Washington, and Forest Whitaker have all won
Oscars for best actress or actor. Their success may convince filmmakers and the movie-going
public that African Americans can be taken seriously on screen. In 2016, the dearth of
African American Oscar nominees sparked a #OscarsSoWhite movement, with numerous
black stars boycotting the Academy Awards ceremony.
When it comes to stereotypic roles, women fare no better. With few exceptions women
must be thin and beautiful to land starring roles (Benshoff & Griffin, 2009). In action-
adventure movies, women are depicted as powerful and objects of desire (McClearen, 2015).
Women also tend to be confined to traditional roles: mother, wife, mistress, girlfriend. This
isn’t particularly surprising, given that fewer than 10 percent of screenplays are written by
women, and fewer than 6 percent of movies are directed by women (Maher, 2009).
Admittedly, there are some women in nontraditional roles. Nevertheless, roles for women,
especially older women, remain limited.
If there is a silver lining, it is that younger moviegoers tend to be more tolerant, if not
completely color-blind (Welkos, 2001). This is evidenced by the box-office success of recent
multiethnic, multicultural movies, such as Joy Luck Club, Moana, Slum Dog Millionaire, the
Big Sick, and The Help. Because youth culture includes more African Americans, Asian
Americans, and Hispanic Americans, filmmakers are producing more multiethnic movies to
meet the demands of a new generation of viewers.
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IMAGES IN ADVERTISING: AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS
“Advertising,” write Woodward and Denton (1999), “is undoubtedly the most pervasive form
of persuasion in our society” (p. 286). When we think of pure cases of persuasion, advertising
immediately comes to mind. Over $200 billion per year is spent on advertising in the United
States, with an increasing share going to digital advertising (Statista, 2017). Various estimates
suggest that the average person is exposed to more than 3,000 advertising messages per day
(Dupont, 1999; Simons, 2001; Woodward & Denton, 1999). Some estimates are even
higher. One estimate places daily media exposure at 15.5 hours per day (Walsh-Childers,
2017). If all the money spent on advertising were divvied up, it would work out to about $800
per person in the United States and $40 per person in all other countries combined (Berger,
2011). Most of us are “armchair” experts in advertising, having watched so many commercials
during our lives. Indeed, the average American spends about one hour per day watching
television commercials (Salter, 2009). That works out to more than two years of commercial
viewing over an average lifespan.
Advertisements, whether on television, in a magazine, online, or some other medium,
feature images. The visual components of such ads are often key to their effectiveness.
Visually oriented ads work their magic in a variety of ways. We don’t have enough space to
examine all the ways here, so we focus on four of the most important ones.
Visual Extravaganzas: Now You’ve Got My Attention
One challenge that advertisers face in trying to convince consumers to buy their products is
media clutter. There are so many ads competing for consumers’ attention that it is difficult for
a message to stand out in the crowd. Commercials must grab and hold viewers’ attention.
Thanks to CGI, it is now possible for advertisers to create and manipulate images in ways
previously not possible. A plain-vanilla commercial simply won’t hold up to an eye-popping
extravaganza, especially when viewers have low involvement with the topic or issue.
Anti-Ads: You Can’t Fool Me
Another challenge facing advertisers is that consumers are increasingly cynical about
advertising. They don’t trust Madison Avenue. But that skepticism is the very premise on
which anti-ads are based. Anti-advertising, or “subvertising” as it is sometimes called, caters
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to consumers who distrust the media. Anti-ads mock advertising itself (Axelton, 1998; Beato,
1999). They denounce traditional advertising to gain acceptance by consumers.
Many anti-ads are spoofs on commercial advertising (see www.adbusters.org). Others are
designed to sell actual products and services. Geico spoofed insurance comparison ads by
conducting a mock insurance “taste test.” Consumers who sampled a glass of Geico said
“mmm, yum,” while consumers who taste-tested a competing brand of auto insurance said
“ugh, yuck!”
An antismoking commercial also offers an example of an anti-ad. The spot shows two
cowboys in a downtown setting, one playing guitar and the other singing. The singing
cowboy, however, is singing through a hand-held device pressed against his neck (an electro
larynx). He’s had a laryngectomy. He sings, “You don’t always die from tobacco, sometimes
you just lose a lung. Oh, you don’t always die from tobacco, sometimes they just snip out your
tongue.” This ad mocks the rugged cowboy mystique associated with Marlboro cigarettes.
In essence, anti-ads are telling viewers, “Hey, you’re on to us. You’re too smart to be
fooled.” But of course, that strategy is itself a ploy designed to appeal to jaded consumers.
Such an approach creates the perception that the advertiser respects the viewer’s intelligence.
Advertisers are constantly finding ways to reinvent themselves. As consumers have grown
more skeptical, advertisers have found ways to adapt to, and capitalize on, their skepticism.
Anti-ads or subvertising thus mark another evolutionary phase in advertising.
Image-Oriented Advertising: Materialism as Happiness
In addition to using vivid imagery and anti-advertising, advertisers also seek to create positive
associations between their brands and idealized images or lifestyles. This approach is known
as image-oriented or image-based advertising and it is the bread and butter of modern
advertising campaigns. Image-oriented ads rely on the syntactic indeterminacy of images.
Remember, images don’t contain logical operators, so they can’t make clear-cut claims. That
turns out to be a plus, however, because by pairing a product with a favorable image, an
advertiser can equate the two without actually saying so in words. Messaris (1997)
underscored this feature, stating that “this ability to imply something in pictures while
avoiding the consequences of saying it in words has been considered an advantage of visual
advertising since the first days of its development as a mass medium” (p. xix).
Let’s consider some examples of this in action. Oil companies don’t want you to think
about tar-covered birds on an oil-stained beach when you envision petroleum products. They
want you to associate oil companies with pro-environmental attitudes. Hence, Chevron’s
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•
“People do” advertising campaign, which portrays Chevron as a guardian of endangered
species.
Image-oriented ads portray a brand as the embodiment of an idealized lifestyle. Equating
the brand with an idealized lifestyle creates identification with that brand. When we buy that
brand we are buying into that lifestyle. Some brands are luxury brands, prestigious, yet within
reach of many consumers (Ralph Lauren, Mercedes). Some are aspirational brands; few
people can afford them, but they hope to own them one day (Armani, Rolls Royce). Still
others are authentic or genuine brands (Gilmore & Pine, 2007; Rosica, 2007). These brands are
unpretentious. In a marketplace filled with fake, phony products, consumers value what
seems real. A smaller brand with a story to tell may be more desirable than a mass-produced
commodity. Organic foods, handmade goods, and artisanal beers fall into this category. With
a little practice, you should be able to watch a TV commercial or view a magazine ad and
decipher the favorable image or association the advertiser is trying to manufacture. Some of
the most common associations are as follows:
Social status and elitism: Ads for luxury cars and expensive watches often associate owning
these products with prestige and success. Ads for expensive wines, luggage, jewelry, and
other upscale goods often imply that the products are symbols of taste and refinement.
Sex or romance: Ads for perfume, lingerie, and hair-care products often equate the
products with sexiness, allure, and romance. The association established by many perfume
ads is that if you wear that fragrance you’ll be more sexy, or other sexy people will be
attracted to you.
Cause-related: Some brands have a cause to promote. Consumers aren’t just buying a
product or service, they are also helping to feed starving children, save rainforests, or
protect endangered species (Adkins, 1999; Pringle & Thompson, 1999). TOMS shoes
and (Product) Red exemplify this approach. Ben & Jerry’s promotes social change as well
by donating a percentage of their profits to social causes.
Power, speed, and strength: Ads for tools, trucks, SUVs, computers, and nutritional
supplements often equate buying a product with conferring power on the user. Dodge
trucks are “Ram tough.” Chevy trucks are built “Like a rock.” You, too, can have rock-
hard abs or buns of steel. If you’ve got the newest, fastest computer, you are a “power
user.”
Youth culture: A number of products are marketed by associating products with youth
culture, rebelliousness, and an alternative lifestyle. Soft drinks, clothing, fast food,
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3.
skateboards, small electronics, makeup, and many other goods and services appeal to what
is hip, trendy, or cool. These commercials are often shot with handheld cameras and
employ rapid editing techniques to simulate the look of “reality TV.”
Safety, security: Ads for banking, insurance, and retirement accounts try to foster images of
being safe and secure. Consumers want peace of mind and a sense of stability when it
comes to their finances and retirement.
Sense of place, belonging: Ads for foods, restaurants, furniture, and other household goods
often strive to create a sense of hominess. The advertisers want you to get a warm,
comfortable, familiar feeling when you think of their products.
These are only some of the important values and lifestyles to which advertisers attempt to
link their brands. When you watch a commercial or read a print ad, you should examine the
associations the advertiser is trying to establish. For decades, cigarette ads fostered the
association that smoking was cool. More recently, antismoking ads have associated smoking
with being uncool. Both approaches rely on the underlying assumption that “being cool” is
what really counts in life. Is it? When evaluating a commercial or print ad, ask yourself three
important questions:
What image or lifestyle is being associated with the product?
Is that image or lifestyle truly desirable? Is that the image I’m really seeking or the
lifestyle to which I truly aspire?
Would buying the product actually grant me the image or lifestyle equated with the
product? If so, how?
Shock Ads: Edgy Images as Persuasion
Some pro-life videos feature grisly images of late-term abortions in which the fetus has been
dismembered prior to extraction. The images are intended to be repulsive. Is it acceptable to
use gory images to persuade? Kelland and Macleod (2015) note that anti-abortionists view
such gruesome images as revealing the truth about the practice of abortion. Only by showing
such images, anti-abortionists argue, can the immorality of the practice be revealed. Images of
abortion, pro-life proponents claim, are analogous to images of the Holocaust. They must be
seen to be believed.
In contrast, pro-choice proponents argue that grisly photos are misleading, because a small
percentage of abortions are late-term. Shocking photos, pro-choice advocates maintain,
ignore the circumstances of a woman who opted for a late-term abortion, such as rape, incest,
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severe birth defects, or a threat to the woman’s life. The contested nature of pro-life imagery
illustrates the tension between images that appeal to the head or the heart (Kelland &
Macleod, 2015).
Images also figure heavily into the form of advertising known as shock ads. Shock ads, or
“shockvertising” as it has also been called, push the boundaries of taste and propriety (Lazar,
2003; McCarthy, 2000). The goal is to sell products by being edgy. Some shock ads are
vulgar, some erotic, some humorous, and others nauseating. Some adopt an “in your face”
style of advertising.
The Montana Meth Project ran a series of public service announcements graphically
depicting the consequences of meth use. One depicted a boyfriend who “pimped out” his
girlfriend to support their meth habit (www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-iEA6-I1xU). A
billboard showed a young woman with a thousand-yard stare and the caption “15 bucks for
sex isn’t normal, but on meth it is.” The effectiveness of the MMP has been questioned,
however (Anderson, 2010; Marsh, Copes, & Linnemann, 2017).
Even shock ads can go too far. In the United Kingdom, hundreds of readers complained
when they found a full-page ad showing a newborn infant with a cockroach in its mouth. The
ad was sponsored by Barnardo’s, a children’s charity group, and was designed to draw
attention to the plight of children living in poverty. The ad was banned by Britain’s
Advertising Standards Authority.
Given their widespread use, do shock ads really work? A study by Dahl, Frankenberger,
and Manchanda (2003) suggests they do. These researchers concluded that “shocking content
in an advertisement significantly increases attention, benefits memory, and positively
influences behavior” (p. 1). Other studies also support the effectiveness of shock ads (Scudder
& Mill, 2009). But shock ads must walk a fine line. If they aren’t shocking enough, they
won’t provoke the public dialogue and publicity they seek. If they are overly shocking, they
may prompt a consumer rebellion. Furthermore, consumers may build up a tolerance to
shocking images. One commentator warned that shock ads were analogous to drug addiction;
a larger and larger dose is required to achieve the desired effect until consumers eventually
overdose on the strategy (Black, cited in Klara, 2012).
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PHOTOJOURNALISM AS PERSUASION: THE CAMERA DOES LIE
Even without any accompanying text, photographs tell their own persuasive stories. Because
there are entire courses offered in photojournalism, we won’t attempt to explore the whole
field here. What we wish to emphasize is that still photographs can make powerful
statements. They can affect people’s perceptions of events. They also can reach people on an
emotional level in ways that words alone cannot. As Zumwalt (2001) noted, “There is
tremendous potential in a photograph to inflame emotions” (p. B12). Because photographs
don’t require literacy or familiarity with a particular language, they also are more universally
understood than messages that rely on words. Photographic images also can distort reality, as
we shall see.
Many well-known photos serve as iconic representations of events or eras in history
(Hariman & Locaites, 2007). In all likelihood, you’ve seen Joe Rosenthal’s famous 1945
photo of U.S. Marines raising the Stars and Stripes at Iwo Jima. The picture symbolizes the
determination of the United States to win the war in the Pacific. You may have seen John
Filo’s photo of a female student at Kent State University in 1970, kneeling over the body of a
fellow student who was slain by the National Guard. That picture symbolized the schism
between the protest movement and the government, as well as the generation gap of the late
1960s. You may have seen the photograph taken by Nick Ute in 1972 of a naked, 9-year-old
Vietnamese girl, running down the road, with napalm burns from the bombs that had just
been dropped on her village. The photo epitomized the feelings of many Americans that the
United States was involved in an unjust war in Vietnam.
Photos can sum up social problems or controversies. They can document events in ways
that words cannot. This is where the old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words”
applies. Owing to their iconicity, photographs can cement themselves in the public’s mind.
They function as touchstones that capture entire events in our collective conscience. The fact
that so many cellphones now have cameras has elevated the role of amateur photographers.
Photos can be uploaded instantly to Facebook, Twitter, and other social media.
Playing Tricks With the Camera: Photographic Deception
An important point to keep in mind about photographic images is that they aren’t objective,
impartial representations of things. The truth claim implied by a photograph can be
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misleading. All photographs are mediated by the photographer. Someone must aim the
camera. Photographs give us the photojournalist’s point of view, which is simply that—one
point of view. The photographer decides which events to capture on film, and which aren’t
worth preserving. The photographer decides on the distance, camera angle, lighting, shutter
speed, and so on. The photographer decides which pictures to develop, how to edit or crop
them, and which prints to offer for public consumption.
For example, photojournalists and news editors make decisions about which photos of war
zones to publish and how gory or sanitized those images are. McEntee (2015) found that
more graphic war photos (showing human carnage) evoked greater empathy than less graphic
photos (showing building rubble). She contended that news outlets function as gatekeepers,
deciding what the public sees, thereby shaping public opinion about conflict zones.
Some well-known historical and recent examples of photographic deception serve to
illustrate how easily this medium can be manipulated. On June 27, 1994, Time magazine
darkened O. J. Simpson’s mug shot on one of its covers, making him appear more sinister and
menacing. In the year 2000, a brochure for the University of Wisconsin–Madison was
doctored by adding an African American student into a photo of fans cheering at a football
game. The manipulation was done to make the campus seem more ethnically diverse. Kim
Kardashian once “broke the Internet” with a photo of a champagne glass balanced on her
behind. But when a non-airbrushed photo of Kim Kardashian’s derriere surfaced on the Web,
fans realized all her other photos were digitally altered (Cacich, 2017). She lost 100,000
Instagram followers in a week. Wait, her fans were unaware that she had some physical and
digital sculpting done? Not to worry, with 99 million followers she can afford the loss.
Outside of photojournalism, photos also are not carbon copies of reality either. Political
attack ads often show a politician at his or her worst. Fashion magazines show models at their
best. When people join online dating services, they often alter their profile photographs to
appear more attractive (Hancock & Toma, 2009). These examples underscore the point that
seeing is not necessarily believing. Just because someone claims to have captured an image on
film doesn’t necessarily mean the image is genuine and unaltered. Box 14.1 offers some useful
suggestions on how to avoid being duped by photos and other visual media.
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BOX 14.1 |
1.
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3.
On Your Guard: Remaining Vigilant Against Visual Deception
Images, whether in the form of television commercials, cinema, magazine ads,
photojournalism, Web pages, or other media, function as powerful tools for influence.
They give us a vicarious sense of “being there.” For this reason, we must remain wary of
visual communication designed to persuade us. We’ve all seen supermarket tabloids with
doctored photos claiming “Martian now on Supreme Court” or some other such
nonsense. We know these images can’t be trusted. But images may be manipulated by
others as well. Politicians may manipulate images for propaganda purposes. Images may
be manipulated by lawyers to make a defendant seem innocent or guilty (“If it doesn’t fit,
you must acquit.”). Images may be used by the media to increase ratings (“Stay tuned,
film at 11!”) and by advertisers to sell goods (“Get the body you want now!”). With this
in mind, we offer the following tips and advice when evaluating persuasive images.
Try to improve your visual literacy—that is, the ability to critically analyze and
evaluate visual communication (Felton, 2008). As Messaris and Moriarty (2005)
note, “visual literacy can … be seen as a potential antidote to attempted
manipulation of the viewer in TV, print, and Web-based advertising; visual
journalism; and other forms of pictorial entertainment, information, or persuasion”
(p. 482).
Don’t succumb to the adage “Seeing is believing.” The camera does lie (Brugioni,
1999). What you are seeing may well be a manipulated image. When you see a
fashion model on a magazine cover, for example, don’t assume she or he looks that
good in real life. The cover photo has probably been digitally altered to remove
blemishes, whiten teeth, highlight hair color, etc.
Be especially wary of images on the Internet. Anyone can digitally alter an image
on a home computer nowadays using Photoshop and mobile apps. If you are unsure
whether to trust an image or not, try checking out some useful Web-based
resources that identify hoaxes. Using Google, you can conduct a reverse image
search (see www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5e9wTdAulA. www.Tineye.com also does
reverse searches. We like www.snopes.com (check out their photo gallery link);
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4.
5.
6.
factcheck.org, and Skeptical Enquirer, at www.csicop.org. For celebrity gossip,
Gossip.com is useful.
When watching so-called reality shows on TV, remember they may bear little
resemblance to reality. Reality shows are carefully engineered productions. Guests
or contestants typically try out for the show and are carefully vetted. This selection
process allows producers to cast contestants for maximum dramatic effect. Footage
can be edited so that a contestant seems braver, cleverer, more devious, more
hostile, or more psycho than she/he really is. Hosts may encourage or reward
certain types of behavior while discouraging others. You don’t really think that
every guest on the Jerry Springer show threw a chair on his or her own initiative, do
you?
When viewing documentaries, keep in mind that they do not objectively recount
events. They advocate a point of view. Documentaries often use techniques such as
re-enactment (recreating scenes for which no original footage is available),
substituted or modified footage (film of something similar or related, but not the
same thing), time compression (cramming years or even centuries into a one-and-a-
half-hour-long movie), and composite characters (combining several different
people into one). While all these techniques may make the story easier to follow
and the narrative more compelling, they come at the expense of impartiality. Some
exemplars of this genre, such as Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and Morgan
Spurlock’s Supersize Me, have been dubbed “mockumentaries” or “shockumentaries”
because the director’s bias is so intense.
Beware of images in diet ads, cosmetic surgery ads, supplement ads, and
infomercials. Take a typical ad for a weight loss product: Notice that the person in
the “Before” photo usually has a bland expression, poor posture, pasty skin,
unkempt hair, unflattering clothes, and unflattering lighting. In comparison, the
person shown in the “After” picture is usually smiling, has an upright posture,
stylish hair, a tan and/or makeup, and flattering lighting. Does the ad say both
photos are unretouched? Does the fine print acknowledge “Results may vary” or
“Results not typical?” If a diet ad claims a user lost 30 pounds in two weeks, but you
can see the person’s hair is much longer in the “After” photo, then you would know
that more than two weeks had passed between photos. Testimonials and the photos
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7.
that accompany them are always subject to the “hasty generalization” fallacy.
The context and captioning of images can have an important impact as well.
Following the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, newspapers printed two photos of
survivors wading in the flood water. One Associated Press photo showed an
African American male clutching a six-pack of Pepsi with the caption “A young
man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store “ (Ralli,
2005). Another AFP/Getty photo, showed a white couple and carried the caption,
“two residents wade through chest deep water after finding bread and soda from a
local grocery store.” The captioning implied a clear double-standard: Blacks were
looting, but white folks were acting out of necessity.
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SUMMARY
In this chapter, we’ve examined a variety of ways in which visual stimuli, including but not
limited to images, facilitate persuasion. We have not touched on all the ways in which visual
cues persuade. Yet the principles we’ve discussed about how images persuade through
iconicity, indexicality, and syntactic indeterminacy apply to other forms of visual
communication as well. Our society is becoming increasingly visually oriented. More people
now get their news from television than from newspapers. More people now watch movies
than read books. Persuaders are capitalizing on this trend by enlisting images in support of
their persuasive endeavors. Based on what you’ve learned in this chapter, you should be able
to watch a television commercial, see a movie, or read a print ad with a sharper eye toward
the strategic choices made by the persuader. In short, we hope you will be a wiser consumer
of visual persuasion.
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1
NOTE
Most of our comments about cinematic persuasion apply equally to television shows. Television shows, however,
typically have smaller budgets and tighter production schedules. Hence, they are less polished works. Nevertheless,
many TV series have altered attitudes and behavior in the same ways as films.
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CHAPTER 15
Esoteric Forms of Persuasion
Color as Persuasion: The Grass Is Always Greener
Color Coded at Birth: Dyed in the Wool
Colorful Associations: A Blonde Walks Into a Bar …
Color and Branding: Big Blue, Red Bull, and Pink (Victoria’s Secret)
Color and Emotion: Mood Indigo
Color and Behavior: Hue Made Me Do It
Subliminal Influence: Hidden Messages or Hokum?
The Laboratory Versus the Real World
What Is and Isn’t Subliminal
Subliminal Advertising: Much Ado About Nothing
Subliminal Priming: That Rings a Bell
Not So Fast: Limitations of Subliminal Priming
Subaudible Messages: The Power of Suggestion
Backward Masking and Reverse Speech: Turn Me On, Dead Man
What Advertisers Really Do
Neurolinguistic Programming: The Emperor’s New Clothes
Music as Persuasion
Music as a Central and Peripheral Cue
Music in Advertising and Sales
Background Music: Shop Till You Drop
Music Videos and Persuasion: Is Hip-Hop Harmful?
Weaponizing Music: What a Buzz Kill
Cautions: Face the Music
Aroma and Persuasion
Perfume: Romance in a Bottle
Love Stinks
Ambient Aromas: Something Special in the Air
Caveats and Qualifications
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P REVIOUS CHAPTERS HAVE DEALT with fairly “mainstream” types of persuasion. In this
chapter, we examine more esoteric forms of persuasion. The topics we discuss in this
section often receive short shrift or are neglected entirely by other texts. Yet we find that
these are among the most interesting topics to students and laypersons. We include them
here partly because they are so intriguing, partly because there are important research
findings, and partly to debunk some of the myths and superstitions surrounding these topics.
The topics we’ll examine are color, subliminal persuasion, backward masking or reverse
speech, neurolinguistic programming, music as persuasion, and the role of smell in
persuasion.
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COLOR AS PERSUASION: THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER
Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona was known as “America’s toughest sheriff.” Besides making
male prisoners work on chain gangs, he also required them to wear pink underwear—that is,
until an appeals court overturned the practice. Wrote one justice, “it is a fair inference that
the color is chosen to symbolize a loss of masculine identity” (Williams, 2012, p. AA-2).
Whether one agrees with Arpaio’s methods or not, clearly color was being used as an
instrument of power and control.
In this section, we examine some of the ways in which color influences people. The
meanings we assign to color are based, in part, on biology and, in part, on culture and
socialization (Genschow, Reutner, & Wänke, 2012). In nature, for example, red often serves
as a warning, or aposematism, signifying toxicity. In human society, red often signifies danger
as well. Ignore a red stop sign or a red traffic light, for example, and you do so at your own
risk.
Color Coded at Birth: Dyed in the Wool
Color exerts an enormous influence on our lives—and not just in our choice of undies. Take
clothing colors, for instance. In much of the United States and Western Europe, newborn
girls are swaddled in pink, boys in blue. Thus, gender differentiation, through color, begins in
infancy (Paoletti, 2012). In old Westerns, the good guys wear white hats, the bad guys black.
Good and evil are thus differentiated by color. Business executives often wear “power” colors
to signify their status. Brides traditionally wear white to symbolize their purity. Schools adopt
uniforms to minimize clothes consciousness and focus students’ attention on learning.
Soldiers and hunters wear camouflage clothing to evade detection. Scientists wear white lab
coats, at least on TV, to convey their expertise. Gang members display their gangs’ colors to
mark their turf. Sports fans wear color-coordinated clothing, or even face paint, to express
their identification with their team.
Colorful Associations: A Blonde Walks Into a Bar …
In Chapter 3, we discussed the importance of attitudinal associations. We also have strong
associations with colors. In politics, for instance, states are referred to as red or blue based on
their political leanings. Likewise, we often classify occupations according to colors of collars:
white, blue, and sometimes pink or green. The meanings attached to such colors shape our
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beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. For example, companies boast about their green initiatives—
which, not coincidentally, makes for good PR. A recent study shows this strategy is effective.
Seo and Scammon (2017) asked college students to evaluate a product, based only on its
packaging. All versions included a label expressing support for the Sierra Club’s
environmental work. What differed was the color of the packaging: Green, red, blue, yellow,
or gray. Products with green or blue packaging were rated more positively than the other
colors.
The associations we have with colors are highly contextual. At a funeral, wearing black
conveys grief or sorrow. At a nightclub, however, wearing black may suggest class or elegance.
Red may signify sin in one context (red light district, scarlet woman) or reverence in another
(the Pope’s red shoes, red vestments). The meanings associated with colors are also culture
bound. Traditionally, brides in America have worn white gowns, while brides in China have
worn red gowns. That has changed, though, with more Chinese brides adopting the Western
white wedding gown (Labrecque, Patrick, & Milne, 2013).
Seeing Red
To better illustrate how associations with colors can affect attitudes and behavior, let’s
examine the color red in a specific context: Grading students’ papers. Has a teacher ever
returned a paper to you that was “bleeding” with red ink? Did it make you feel like a dunce?
If so, you are not alone. Studies on the red pen effect, as it is known, have prompted many
school districts to encourage teachers to avoid marking papers in red, which is associated with
failure, in favor of purple or some other color. You may scoff, but as it turns out, the color red
significantly affects students and teachers alike. Studies show that even brief exposure to the
color red before or during a challenging intellectual task can activate thoughts of failure and
hinder performance (Elliot, Maier, Binser, Friedman, & Pekrun, 2009; Elliot, Maier, Moller,
Friedman, & Meinhardt, 2007; Lichtenfeld, Maier, Elliot, & Pekrun, 2009). What’s more,
using a red pen affects the grader, too. Evaluators who graded essays using red pens identified
significantly more mistakes than evaluators who used blue pens. Red pens thus predisposed
the evaluators to grade more harshly (Rutchick, Slepian, & Ferris, 2010). Our advice: Give
your instructor a purple pen when you submit your next paper. If you are a teacher, manager,
or other evaluator, consider using a less pejorative color to minimize defensiveness. Even
positive feedback in red may be ignored.
Color and Branding: Big Blue, Red Bull, and Pink (Victoria’s Secret)
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Not only do corporations use logos to identify their brands, they also rely on color. Color is “a
central aspect of a brand’s visual identity” (Labrecque, Patrick, & Milne, 2013, p. 193). To
illustrate, if you were told that a laptop was white, could you guess the brand? A Mac, no
doubt. Color serves as an identifier for many brands, such as McDonald’s (golden arches),
Coke (red), and Rabobank (orange and blue). According to one source, color can increase
brand recognition by 80 percent (Goldstein, 2011). Philanthropic causes also use color to gain
recognition. Livestrong’s yellow wristbands and the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s pink
ribbons are cases in point.
In some instances, a color becomes synonymous with a brand, such as UPS’s ubiquitous
Pullman brown trucks or Reese’s Pieces’ orange, yellow, and brown wrappers. What’s more,
the distinctive colors of a particular brand are often trademarked. T-Mobile’s specific shade
of magenta is a trademarked color. So is Tiffany’s distinctive robin-egg blue. Owens-Corning
even trademarked the shade of pink used in its fiberglass insulation. One of the ever-gullible
authors bought a John Deere tractor largely because he liked its venerable green and yellow
color, which is trademarked (see Figure 15.1). Companies protect their brand colors, too.
Cadbury won a lawsuit for trademark infringement when Nestlé also tried to market a
chocolate bar with a purple wrapper (Clark, 2011). A similar suit was filed by high heel
designer, Christian Louboutin, whose pricey shoes have distinctive red soles, against Yves
Saint Laurent.
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FIGURE 15.1 An author aboard his trusty John Deere tractor.
Source: Photo by Debora Seiter.
Color and Emotion: Mood Indigo
We often refer to emotions by color. You might hear someone say, “I’m feeling blue,” “He’s
seeing red,” “She was green with envy,” or “I’m tickled pink.” A meta-analysis revealed that
different colors can and do affect our emotional state (Jalil, Yunus, & Said, 2012). Individual
color preferences, quite obviously, are a major determinant in whether a given color is viewed
favorably or unfavorably. Generally speaking, warm colors such as red, orange, and yellow
tend to be more stimulating, while cool colors, such as blue, green, and purple tend to be
more calming. As Gobé (2009) explains, “Colors with long wavelengths are arousing (e.g.,
red is the most stimulating color that will attract the eye faster than any other) and colors
with short wavelengths are soothing (e.g., blue, which actually lowers blood pressure, pulse,
and respiration rates)” (p. 80).
Consistent with this generalization, males rated a female wearing a red blouse as more
sexually attractive than the same female wearing a blue blouse (Elliot & Niesta, 2008; Niesta
Kayser, Elliot, & Feltman, 2010). Similarly, waitresses wearing red lipstick, as compared with
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pink, brown, or no lipstick, earned higher tips, but only from male customers (Guéguen &
Jacob, 2012). In addition, observers rated rooms with warm colors as more exciting and cool
colors as more restful (Yildirim, Hidayetoglu, & Capanoglu, 2011). Want your new store to
encourage hustle and bustle? Use warm colors. Want it to foster a sense of relaxation? Go
with cool colors.
Women in White, Men in Blue
Uniform colors also evoke different emotional responses in people. Suppose you were a little
kid about to get a vaccination. Would the nurse’s uniform color affect your anxiety level? It
just might. One study found that blue uniforms were perceived by kids as more calming than
white uniforms (Albert, Burke, Bena, Morrison, Forney, & Krajewksi, 2013). For adult
patients, nurses in white uniforms were perceived as more competent, professional, and
efficient, whereas nurses wearing printed patterns were perceived as more caring, attentive,
and approachable (Kucuk, L., Çömez, T., Kaçar, S., Sümeli, F., & Tas¸kiran, Ö, 2015;
Skorupski & Rea, 2006). Thus, one color of scrubs might be better suited for an emergency
room (ER) and another color or pattern for an intensive care unit (ICU).
Let’s consider another type of uniform. Imagine you’ve just been pulled over by a police
officer. Would the color of the officer’s uniform affect your emotional state? Research shows
that all-black uniforms are the most intimidating (Johnson, 2005). Black is authoritative,
commanding more respect and attention (Nickels, 2008). However, a uniform consisting of a
light-blue shirt and navy pants was judged to be more warm, friendly, and honest than all
black (Johnson, 2005). Which image is most important for cops to project? Uniform colors
may affect police officers’ behavior too. Johnson (2013) found that police departments with
dark uniforms were significantly more likely to use deadly force than departments with lighter
uniforms.
Color and Behavior: Hue Made Me Do It
Color influences consumer ratings of products and product purchases. Color is one of the first
cues that we perceive about products, often before we can touch, smell, or taste them. The
use of color in product packaging therefore matters a great deal (Lichtlé, 2007). A color–
product mismatch can turn off consumers. Would you buy Pepto Bismol if it were grey?
Would you like Tidy Bowl if it made your toilet water red? We suspect not. Color also can be
used to prime consumer reactions. In one study, participants were given orange or green pens
to evaluate two soft drinks, one in an orange container (Fanta orange), the other in a green
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container (Sprite). Pen color functioned as a peripheral cue, such that ratings for Fanta were
higher when using an orange pen and higher for Sprite when using a green pen (Berger &
Fitzsimons, 2008).
Some of the ways in which color affects behavior are a bit weird. Take snacking, for
example. When snacks are served on red plates or drinks in red cups, people tend to consume
less (Genschow, Reutner, & Wänke, 2012). Why? Partly due to biology and partly due to
social conditioning, red evokes avoidance reactions. As noted earlier, red is associated with
danger, risk, and hazards. This finding may seem trivial until you consider the current
epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States and elsewhere. If simple measures such as
serving meals on red plates or trays can help reduce food intake, they are worth considering
by parents, school districts, and health agencies.
The Color–Aggression Link: Men in Black
A host of studies have examined whether uniform color affects sports performance. Does
donning a black uniform make an athlete think, “I’m bad”? An early study (Frank & Gilovich,
1988) found that NFL and NHL teams with black uniforms racked up more penalties. The
finding was attributed, in part, to greater aggression by players and, in part, to selective
perception by referees. Other studies have questioned the color–aggression link, finding no
differences (Caldwell & Burger, 2011). A larger study, however, confirmed the link. Data
from 25 NHL seasons (52,098 games) revealed that players wearing black uniforms were
penalized more often, about two minutes of penalty time per game on average, than players
wearing white (Webster, Urland, & Correll, 2012). There may a “chicken–egg” question
involved as well. Do black uniforms make teams more aggressive or do more aggressive teams
choose to wear black uniforms?
Color is not the “be all and end all” of persuasion. Nevertheless, color has an important
supporting role to play on the stage of persuasion. Color can facilitate or inhibit influence
attempts through associations, by activating attitudes or stereotypes, by evoking moods and
emotional responses, and by altering behavior.
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SUBLIMINAL INFLUENCE: HIDDEN MESSAGES OR HOKUM?
A good deal of misinformation surrounds the topic of subliminal influence. Most Americans
believe subliminal messages are not only common in advertising but that they are highly
effective as well (Broyles, 2006). Public belief in subliminal persuasion dates to the 1950s,
when James Vicary claimed to have flashed the words “Eat popcorn” and “Drink Coca-Cola”
on a movie screen. Allegedly, popcorn sales increased by almost 58 percent and Coke sales by
18 percent (Rogers, 1992–1993). Thus was born an urban myth. Vicary never achieved the
results he claimed. His so-called experiment was merely a publicity stunt.
The Laboratory Versus the Real World
The fact of the matter is that subliminal effects have been documented clearly and
convincingly in controlled laboratory conditions but almost never in real-world settings. The
examples found in the real world tend to be isolated cases rather than organized attempts at
“mind control.” Most cases involving the use of subliminals appear to be pranks. Some
Disney movies, for example, contain embedded images, but these appear to be acts of
mischief by individual artists and animators rather than a corporate conspiracy (see, for
example, www.snopes.com/disney/films/films.asp). Mind you, these cases only demonstrate
that subliminal messages exist, not that they work.
What Is and Isn’t Subliminal
Let’s begin by clearing up some confusion surrounding the term subliminal. Literally, the
term means below (sub) the threshold (limen) of human consciousness. Thus, a subliminal
stimulus is one that is processed without conscious awareness. This is in contrast to
supraliminal messages that are consciously processed. An image that is flashed so quickly that
a person can’t consciously register it is subliminal. An image that is fleeting yet recognizable
is supraliminal. Subtle is not the same as subliminal. This distinction is important, because
product placements in movies and TV shows are not subliminal. Advertisers want you to
notice their products and/or logos.
Subliminal Advertising: Much Ado About Nothing
In the 1970s and 1980s, “pop psychology” books and magazine articles made it seem as if
every ice cube in a magazine ad contained a hidden phallic symbol. Brian Wilson Key
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championed this view with his popular but unscientific books on subliminal advertising (Key,
1972, 1976, 1980). We’ve looked at the particular ads in question and, although we can
discern some of the symbols and shapes Key mentions, we find his approach somewhat akin
to staring at clouds. If one looks long enough and hard enough, one is bound to see a rubber
ducky, the Virgin Mary, or some other vaguely discernible shape.
Embedded Images
More rigorous studies were carried out from the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s, many of
which focused on embedded images. Embedded images are buried or hidden within an
advertisement. Researchers, however, were unable to substantiate any of the grandiose claims
about hidden images making people want things or buy things (Gable, Wilkens, & Harris,
1987).
Studies examining embedded sexual imagery have found some effects, but only in
controlled laboratory settings. For example, Gillith and Collins (2016) found that subliminal
exposure to unclothed versus clothed opposite sex images increased the desire to have sex.
This was measured, however, only by whether participants (mostly males) were more likely to
choose a condom or a pen as a reward for participating. Another investigation (Wernicke,
Hofter, Jordan, Fromberger, Dechent, & Müller, 2017) using fMRI (neural imaging)
identified some brain activity associated with subliminal sexual stimuli, but the findings were
inconclusive.
Results like these led Trappey (1996) to conclude in his meta-analysis that “the results
show no significant positive or negative effect … subliminal advertising does little to
influence consumer behavior” (p. 527). After reviewing 50 years’ worth of research on
subliminal advertising, Broyles (2006) similarly announced that “subliminal advertising just is
not effective” (p. 405). More recent books, such as Bullock’s The Secret Sales Pitch (2004), also
have been faulted for making unsubstantiated claims about subliminal ads (Broyles, 2006). In
2011, Jeff Warrick aired a documentary entitled Programming the Nation?, which relied on
dated, anecdotal evidence of subliminal advertising (Catsoulis, 2011).
Proof of Existence Is Not Proof of Effectiveness
A key point to bear in mind is that the mere existence of subliminal messages does not prove
their effectiveness. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that there are subliminal messages
in some Disney movies. In what way are they influential? Where is the proof that they have
any effect on viewers, other than providing fodder for conspiracy theorists? If they are more
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than isolated pranks, how would they advance Disney’s business model of providing family-
friendly entertainment?
Subliminal Priming: That Rings a Bell
There is scant evidence that subliminal influence works in advertising. In laboratory studies,
however, a method known as subliminal priming has enjoyed considerable success (Bargh,
2002; Kouider & Dehaene, 2007). A meta-analysis of masked prime studies found strong
support for the technique (Van den Bussche, Van den Noortgate, & Reynvoet, 2009). So
compelling is the evidence for priming that Brintazzoli, Soetens, Deroost, and Van den
Bussche (2012) declared, “the existence of unconscious subliminal perception is no longer
questioned in an experimental context” (p. 824).
Methods vary, but a typical priming technique is as follows. First, participants view a
masked prime. The mask is simply a string of characters covering up a word. For example, the
characters #### could be used to mask the word salt. Second, the mask is removed and the
subliminal prime is presented. Thus, the word salt might appear for 30 milliseconds, too
quickly to be consciously perceived. Third, a target word that is consciously visible, for
example, the word pepper, replaces the prime. Participants who are primed by the word salt
tend to recognize the word pepper faster than participants who are not primed.
Importance of a Prior Need or Drive
For priming to work, however, it appears that a prior need or drive state must exist (Strahan,
Spencer, & Zanna, 2002; Verwijmeren, Karremans, Bernritter, Stroebe, & Wigboldus,
2011). That is, for a subliminal prime about food to work, a person must be hungry. For a
subliminal prime about a beverage to be effective, a person must be thirsty. The need or drive
state increases receptivity to priming. In a controlled setting, for example, participants were
exposed to subliminal images of happy or angry faces (Winkielman, Berridge, & Wilbarger,
2005). Then they sampled a lemon-lime-flavored drink. After reporting how thirsty they
were, the participants were instructed to drink as much as they wanted. Participants exposed
to the happy faces consumed much more of the new drink than those exposed to the angry
faces, but only—and this is the key—if they were already thirsty. The amounts consumed by
nonthirsty participants, whether exposed to happy or angry faces, did not differ significantly.
Priming thus appeared to act as a trigger, but only for those whose thirst needed to be
quenched.
Other studies have found similar results. Bermeitinger, Goelz, Johr, Neumann, Ecker, and
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Doerr (2009) asked participants to complete a task requiring high concentration. Half were
well rested; the other half were tired. Before completing the task, participants in each group
were subliminally primed with logos for a sugar pill called Dextro. Primed participants, who
were also tired, consumed far more sugar pills than those who were not tired. The
investigators concluded that “subjects’ choice of a specific product is influenced by
subliminally presented information only if there is a motivational state congruent with the
subliminally presented stimulus” (p. 325).
Not So Fast: Limitations of Subliminal Priming
Although priming has been demonstrated in controlled laboratory settings, we wish to
emphasize the practical limitations of this technique. Participants in laboratories are free from
other distractions. They are instructed to pay close attention to the priming messages. The
target words immediately follow the primes. The effects of priming are also fleeting. As
Brintazzoli and colleagues (2012) cautioned, “the short-lived nature of the influence of
subliminal information casts serious doubt on its effectiveness in everyday life and
advertising” (p. 825). What’s more, the minor effects of priming in laboratory studies can be
nullified simply by informing participants of the presence of a subliminal message and
warning them not to be influenced (Verwijmeren, Karremans, Bernritter, Stroebe, &
Wigboldus, 2013). The real world is a very different environment, one chock-full of media
clutter. A myriad of supraliminal stimuli vie for our attention. People don’t always pay close
attention to messages. We are aware of no studies demonstrating any commercial success at
using subliminal priming.
By the way, do you suddenly feel smarter or like this book even more? The reason we ask
is because we included a “subliminal” message at the top of p. 369. It is in very small type.
Did you see it? Did it consciously register? Did it work?
Subaudible Messages: The Power of Suggestion
How would you like to lower your blood pressure, improve your memory, lose weight, release
your body’s natural healing forces, stop procrastinating, and win the lottery? These are just
some of the claims that have been made on behalf of subliminal self-help audiotapes and CDs.
The problem is that they don’t work (Benoit & Thomas, 1992; Greenwald, Spangenberg,
Pratkanis, & Eskenazi, 1991; Mitchell, 1995; Spangenberg, Obermiller, & Greenwald, 1992;
Staum & Brotons, 1992). Other than provide soothing sounds, hiding reaffirming messages
in ambient music accomplishes nothing. Believing can, in and of itself, produce changes in
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people, but such changes are the result of a placebo effect and have nothing to do with the
content of the tapes or CDs themselves. A placebo effect follows the age-old notion that
“thinking makes it so.”
Backward Masking and Reverse Speech: Turn Me On, Dead Man
Can satanic, backward-masked lyrics cause impressionable teens to commit suicide? That is
what the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against Ozzy Osbourne’s record label claimed. The suit
charged that backward-masked lyrics on the Blizzard of Ozz album drove a teen to commit
suicide (Harmon, 1995). A similar suit was filed by the parents of two teens who committed
suicide after listening to backward-masked lyrics on Judas Priest’s Stained Class album
(Goleman, 1990; Phillips, 1990). In both cases, the judges ruled in favor of the defendants,
citing the lack of any causal connection between the reversed lyrics and the teens’ deaths. The
authors have listened to both albums and have experienced no suicidal tendencies. Justin
Bieber tunes, however, are another story! All kidding aside, there are no credible studies
showing that listening to reversed speech produces any effects. As Smith (2011) noted,
“Psychological studies have produced no evidence that listeners are influenced, consciously or
unconsciously, by the content of backward messages” (p. 539).
It is possible to infer meanings from reversed speech, but these may be a matter of
coincidence. Vokey (2002), for example, noted that the phrase “Jesus loves you,” when played
backward, sounds like “we smell sausage” (p. 248). Some rock songs do contain backward-
masked lyrics (the Beatles’ song “Revolution 9” and Pink Floyd’s “Goodbye Blue Sky,” for
example) but, as is the case with subliminal messages, their mere presence doesn’t prove their
effectiveness. Scientific studies of backward masking have failed to demonstrate any effects on
listeners (Kreiner, Altis, & Voss, 2003; Langston & Anderson, 2000; Swart & Morgan,
1992; Vokey & Read, 1985).
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FIGURE 15.2
Source: © Robert Mankoff/ The New Yorker Collection/ www.cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
What Advertisers Really Do
Advertisers are not really interested in subliminals, subaudible messages, or reverse speech.
What advertisers seek to do is to connect their products with favorable images and idealized
lifestyles. Product placement is one way of accomplishing this. Placements in movies and TV
exceed $6 billion dollars per year (PQ Media, 2015). According to Morgan (2005) “between
15–30 products are inserted into every half hour of television programming” (p. 62). Morgan
Spurlock’s (2011) documentary The Greatest Movie Ever Sold lampoons this trend.
Placements may be blatant or subtle, but they are in no sense subliminal. Some product
placements operate at a low level of awareness, but they remain a form of supraliminal
persuasion. In sum, we believe consumers have little to fear from subliminal advertising at
this time.
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NEUROLINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING: THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES
Did you know that by uttering a few magical words, you can get anyone to do your bidding?
Some folks would like you to believe in such hocus-pocus. They claim that they can teach
you, in a few easy steps, how to hypnotize people with your words. Some claim their
techniques will help you get dates, overcome phobias, cure depression, improve spelling,
alleviate colds and flu, and enlarge your breasts or penis.
Don’t reach for your wallet just yet. What these folks are peddling is based on
neurolinguistic programming, or NLP, which is a mix of linguistics, psychology, and
hypnotism (Gow, Reupert, & Maybery, 2006). The original theory, developed by Richard
Bandler and John Grinder (1975, 1979), lies somewhere between pop psychology and junk
science. It is popular with authors of self-help books, such as Tony Robbins, and others on
the lecture circuit. Despite the extravagant claims, there is scant evidence that NLP works.
Indeed, although one meta-analysis (Zaharia, Reiner, & Schütz, 2015) found positive results
when using NLP to reduce phobias, the authors acknowledged that “there is a major lack of
high-quality data from observational, experimental studies or randomized trials on this field”
(p. 361). What’s more, most credible experts, e.g., those who don’t stand to profit by writing,
speaking, or training about the subject, denounce NLP as a form of pseudoscience (Corballis,
1999; Gumm, Walker, & Day, 1982; Heap, 1988, 2008; Sharpley, 1984, 1987; Thaler Singer
& Lalich, 1996).
The basic idea behind NLP is that a person’s inner, unconscious mind determines how he
or she responds to persuasive messages. All persuaders have to do is use a few clever linguistic
strategies and—presto!—they can “program” another person’s responses. Certain words and
nonverbal behaviors allegedly have hypnotic power and evoke a subconscious reaction in
people, or so the theory goes. They do this by activating a person’s primary representational
system (PRS), which is reflected in the five senses.
For example, a salesperson who sensed that a consumer was “visually” oriented, based on
the consumer’s language style, mannerisms, and gaze, could adapt a message to emphasize
visual features about a product—e.g., “As you can see …” “take a look …” “watch this …” A
salesperson who perceived a customer was “auditory” would adjust the sales pitch by saying “I
hear you …” “it sounds like this is what you’re after …” But how, you might wonder, does a
salesperson know if a customer is primarily visual or auditory? According to NLP, a customer
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who looks up and to the left (memory) or right (invention) is accessing visual information; a
customer who looks horizontally left (memory) or right (invention) is accessing auditory
information (see Lankton, 1980).
Although NLP’s proponents assert that certain words and phrases have hypnotic power,
their claims are suspect. The theory itself is nebulous and the evidence for its effectiveness is
largely anecdotal. We agree that people respond reflexively to certain words, such as free or
sale. That is a long way from saying, however, that specific words, phrases, and nonverbal
cues have hypnotic power. By way of example, in one study, the investigators compared an
indirect message using NLP with a direct message without NLP (Dixon, Parr, Yarbrough, &
Rathael, 2001). They found that the direct message without NLP was significantly more
effective than the indirect message employing NLP. As the investigators concluded,
“Neurolinguistic programming may not be an effective device for improving the
persuadability of messages” (p. 549).
In our view, NLP is much like the emperor’s new clothes—people believe in it because
others seem to believe in it. The underlying assumptions of NLP so annoyed one expert in
neuroscience that he declared it “neurobabble” (Miller, 1986).
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MUSIC AS PERSUASION
Have you ever heard an advertising jingle and then been unable to get the tune out of your
head the rest of the day? Are you able to sing along to tunes like “Break me off a piece of that
____ ____ bar,” or, “I’m stuck on ____ ____ ’cause ____ ____ stuck on me”? If so, you’re not
alone. In fact, advertising agencies spend big bucks developing “earworms” like these. What’s
more, 86 percent of prime-time television commercials include some form of music (Allan,
2008). And when you stop to consider the role of music in persuasion, it’s easy to see why.
Indeed, music facilitates persuasion in a variety of ways that we examine next.
Music as a Central and Peripheral Cue
Song lyrics persuade. The lyrics to the famous McDonald’s song “You deserve a break today”
offer a case in point. When song lyrics persuade, they may do so through what Petty and
Cacioppo (1986a, 1986b) call the central route to persuasion—that is, the song lyrics are
thought about and reflected on by listeners. This was the case with anti-war protest songs in
the 1960s. It may be the case with rap and hip-hop lyrics today.
Music also can persuade via the peripheral route to persuasion. Peripheral processing
occurs when listeners hear, but don’t actively attend to, the music. You may, for example,
prefer to study with music playing (or blaring) in the background. Background music can
affect a person’s mood or emotions, without the person’s full awareness.
Music in Advertising and Sales
Music and Branding: What’s That Song?
Music is often used to bolster a brand’s image by creating favorable associations. As Danny
Turner, the head of Mood Media, the company formerly known as Muzak, emphasized,
“major brands realize that to move forward … positive, emotional connections have to be
made—and there’s no better way to do that than music” (cited by Lazarus, 2017, p. C1).
Chevy’s “Like a rock …” song, for example, reinforces a rugged image for its pickup trucks.
The congruity of a song with a brand, known as musical fit, affects consumers’ perceptions of
a product or service (North, Sheridan, & Areni, 2016; Zander, Apaolaza-Ibáñez, &
Hartmann, 2010). Coca-Cola, for example, has been particularly successful at pairing pop
songs with its brand image of joy, happiness, and love (Sanchez-Porras & Rodrigo, 2017). A
Nielsen study found that TV commercials with music outperformed those without in four key
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areas; creativity, empathy, emotive power, and information power (2015).
Brand endorsements now appear regularly in song lyrics (Gloor, 2014). One study found
that 30 percent of all songs, and 73 percent of rap songs in particular, included brand
mentions (Craig, Flynn, & Holody, 2017). For example, Busta Rhymes’s hit “Pass the
Courvoisier” is credited with increasing sales of the cognac brand by 30 percent (Emling,
2004; Schemer, Matthes, Wirth, & Textor, 2008). In another song, Run-DMC love their
Adidas. Lady Gaga’s song “Telephone” mentions at least eight brands, including Miracle
Whip, Virgin Mobile, and Polaroid. Some of these are paid endorsements, but many are not.
Such endorsements appear to enhance brand identity, even if consumers know that the artist
was paid for the brand mention (Van Vaerenbergh, 2017).
Mere Exposure Effect: Hearing Is Believing
Another way that music helps to sell products is through the mere exposure effect (Wang &
Chang, 2004; Zajonc, 1968), which we discussed in Chapter 9. Repeated exposure to an
unfamiliar stimulus increases liking for the stimulus over time. If a commercial includes a
popular song or a likable jingle, repeated airings of the spot will facilitate liking for the
product (Hargreaves, 1984; Obermiller, 1985). This is only true up to a point, however.
Excessive repetition of a song or jingle can become annoying.
Music as a Mnemonic Device
Music also functions as a mnemonic device in advertising (Yalch, 1991). A mnemonic device is
simply a memory aid that facilitates recall. Can you remember which insurance company goes
with “We are ______________, Bum Puh Dum Bum, Bum Bum Bum”? Hint: J. K.
Simmons is the spokesman. Some tunes help the consumer to spell out the product’s name
and thus remember it. The Oscar Mayer bologna song is an example. Other jingles surround
the product’s name with positive associations. Can you fill in the company name for the tune
“Like a good neighbor, _____________ is there”? If you are familiar with these commercials,
you probably came up with the brand names. According to North, Mackenzie, Law, and
Hargreaves (2004), the right kind of music can increase brand recall by as much as 96
percent. To be effective, jingles must be simple. This is because the words in a jingle tend to
be processed phonetically (e.g., as mere sounds) rather than semantically (as meanings).
Background Music: Shop Till You Drop
Retailers rely heavily on background music. Some stores, such as Abercrombie & Fitch,
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Starbucks, and Victoria’s Secret, provide their own in-store music. Background music has
been shown to affect mood (Bruner, 1990; Nielsen, 2015; Wiesenthal, Hennessy, & Totten,
2003), regulate shopping pace (Ding & Lin, 2011; Garlin & Owen, 2006), improve sports
performance (Boutcher & Trenske, 1990; Elliott, Carr, & Savage, 2004), lower anxiety in
healthcare settings (Pelletier, 2004; Rudin, Kiss, Wetz, & Sottile, 2007), and enhance task
performance (Mayfield & Moss, 1989; Miller & Schyb, 1989). In one of our favorite studies,
researchers played either French or German music in a wine shop and kept track of which
wines sold the most. The sobering findings were that French wine sold better when French
music was playing, while German wine sold better while German music was playing (North,
Hargreaves, & McKendrick, 1999). The shoppers’ affective responses to the background
music thus influenced their purchase decisions.
In their meta-analysis, Roschk, Loureiro, and Breitsohl (2017) concluded that background
music significantly increases pleasure, satisfaction, and purchase intentions. Of course, one
would expect the results to be modest, given that background music is only one of many
environmental cues. Because background music is now so pervasive, some suggest that
habituation may occur, whereby people become desensitized to background music over time
(Kämpfe, Sedlmeier, & Renkewitz, 2010).
Music Videos and Persuasion: Is Hip-Hop Harmful?
A great deal has been written about the influence of music videos on the attitudes and
behaviors of young people. Today, a typical music video is essentially a three-minute
commercial for the artist, the brands that he or she endorses, and the lifestyle he or she
espouses. There is little doubt that music videos influence fashions, trends, slang, sexual
mores, and model social behavior. The question is how much they do so and how beneficial
or detrimental the social proof found in music videos is.
Concerned parents and media critics have roundly criticized music videos for glorifying
materialism and wealth (Kalis & Neuendorf, 1989), for being overly sexual (Hansen &
Hansen, 1990; Kistler & Lee, 2012), and for promoting sexism (Barongan & Hall
Nagayama, 1995; Peterson & Pfost, 1989). Indeed, as Wright and Qureshi (2015) reported,
“1/3 of popular songs contain explicit sexual content and 2/3 of these references are
degrading” (p. 228). The general aggression model (GAM) posits that music can prime
aggressive behavior by activating negative thoughts or scripts in listeners (Anderson &
Bushman, 2002). Support for the GAM is well-documented (Anderson, Carnagey, &
Eubanks, 2003). A reverse effect has also been found, however, such that songs with pro-
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equality lyrics generate more favorable attitudes toward women (Böhm, Ruth, & Schramm,
2016; Greitmeyer, Hollingdale, & Traut-Mattausch, 2015).
With regard to musical genres, rap and hip-hop, in particular, have been singled out for
criticism (Dunbar, Kubrin, & Scurich, 2016). “Rap music,” one group of scholars notes, “has
been blamed for youth violence, the rise of gangs and gang-related crime, drug use, and
violence against women” (Reyna, Brandt, & Tendayi, 2009, p. 362). Some critics have
warned that frequent exposure to rap and hip-hop is associated with illicit drug use, alcohol
abuse, and misogyny (Adams & Fuller, 2006; Chen, Miller, Grube, & Waiters, 2006;
Parker-Pope, 2007).
In response, defenders argue that rap and hip-hop music give a voice to the
disenfranchised and serve as a medium for urban empowerment (Reyna et al., 2009).
Proponents argue that some music videos make important socio-political statements and that
others simply mirror the crass materialism and rampant sexism of the larger society. Rap and
hip-hop artists respond that the mainstream media paint a distorted picture of rap and that
the language and images used reflect the harsh realities of inner-city life (Brown & Campbell,
1986; Chambers & Morgan, 1992; Cummings & Roy, 2002; Tiddle, 1996). Dyson (1993),
for example, classifies rap music as a form of resistance that empowers African Americans.
He stresses that rap combines social protest, musical creation, and cultural expression all at
the same time. Lynch (2003) states that hip-hop brings people from different races and
cultures together.
Whether one perceives the messages in music videos as positive or negative, it is difficult
to deny that such music serves to shape attitudes, beliefs, intentions, motivations, and
behaviors. This is particularly true for adolescents who are heavy viewers of music videos
(Council on Communications and Media, 2009). One must be cautious about making direct
causal inferences, however, between what juveniles see or hear and their subsequent behavior.
There are plenty of alternative sources for modeling behavior.
Weaponizing Music: What a Buzz Kill
Is subjecting someone to awful music akin to waterboarding? How much Miley Cyrus music
can one human being take? It was reported that the U.S. military used music as a form of
“torture lite” during the war in Iraq (Connor, 2008). One of the songs was Barney the
Dinosaur’s “I Love You, You Love Me.” Amnesty International is investigating the use of
music in interrogations.
Music has also been used as a deterrent. In 2009, the U.S. Border Patrol commissioned a
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CD, Migra Corridos, comprising popular Mexican ballads warning of the dangers of crossing
the border illegally. The U.S. Border Patrol did not reveal that it was behind the CD, songs
from which were played on several dozen Mexican radio stations (Surdin, 2009). Should
music be used like barbed wire to repel people?
There have been reports that classical music was used to drive away the homeless,
panhandlers, and gang members from fast-food restaurants and convenience stores (Hirsch,
2012). One officer commented, “If you’re a tough guy and you like rock or rap, you’re not
going to sit there and listen to Tchaikovsky” (Holt, 1996, p. 2). In what has been termed the
“Manilow Method,” the town of Rockdale, near Sydney, initiated a campaign to discourage
teens from congregating at a park late at night. Music by Barry Manilow was played over
loudspeakers from 9 p.m. until midnight (Hirsch, 2007). We have to wonder, did the town
pay Mr. Manilow any royalties?
Cautions: Face the Music
Before you get a hankering to use music to persuade others, bear in mind the following
caveats. First, for music to be persuasive, there must be a good fit; the type of music must
match the particular product, brand, purpose, and audience for which it is intended. Second,
music shouldn’t overpower the verbal content of a message. In a sales setting, for example,
quieter music allows for more interaction between the salesperson and the customer. Third,
music will probably have little effect on highly involved receivers who tend to concentrate on
the substance of the message anyway. Music is best used on low-involved receivers who will
process the message peripherally (Park & Young, 1986). In most cases, music functions as a
useful supplement to verbal persuasion. Rarely can music be used as a substitute for verbal
persuasion.
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AROMA AND PERSUASION
Although few texts discuss the subject, smell plays an important role in the process of
persuasion. Selling smells is a big business. Sales of fragrances and perfumes are expected to
grow to $51 billion by 2022 (Global Industry Analysts, 2016). Think of all the fragrances you
can buy to make you feel better; you can douse yourself in cologne or perfume, scent your
car’s interior, and place air fresheners throughout your home. You can use scented
deodorants, soaps, and laundry detergent, as well as scented dishwashing liquid and toilet
paper. In addition to personal uses of fragrances, the use of ambient (background) fragrances
in the workplace and in retail settings is beginning to play an increasingly prominent role. In
this section, we examine the role of fragrances and aromas as forms of influence.
Perfume: Romance in a Bottle
The fragrance industry is one in which a product often “wins by a nose.” But is it the actual
fragrance that sells or the associations that are paired with it? Scent alone isn’t what sells
perfume. The promise of romance sells perfume. The marketing themes associated with
fragrances revolve around images of romance, intrigue, sensuality, and, of course, sex.
“Between madness and infatuation,” a Calvin Klein ad proclaims, “lies obsession” (for
Obsession perfume). The slogan for FCUK’s fragrance was far less subtle. “Scent to Bed,” the
ads proclaimed.
Love Stinks
Through images and innuendo, fragrance ads create the impression that using their products
will increase your sexual attractiveness. But do perfumes make any actual difference? Do they
help attract dates, win over lovers, or make one feel better about oneself? Empirical research
on this question is mixed, with some studies showing that fragrances increase attraction and
others showing they do not (Baron, 1983; Cann & Ross, 1989).
An interesting study that casts doubt on the allure of perfumes was conducted by Hirsch
(cited in Stolberg, 1994). Male medical students were recruited as subjects for the study.
Blood pressure monitors were attached to the volunteers’ genitals while they smelled a variety
of fragrances, including Chanel No. 5 and Obsession. The results? The only smell that
consistently increased blood pressure, the measure of sexual arousal used in the study, was
that of cinnamon buns! The results seem to reinforce the adage that the way to a man’s heart
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is, after all, through his stomach. As with the preceding study, these results may also be
questioned. Let’s face it, having an apparatus attached to one’s genitals doesn’t approximate a
real-world setting for arousal (not for most folks, anyway). In such a clinical environment, the
participants may not have responded as they otherwise would.
FIGURE 15.3
“It’s the smell of money.”
Source: © Peter Steiner/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
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FIGURE 15.4
A fragrance designer for Givaudan-Roure Corp. plies his trade.
Source: Photo by Joe Tabacca.
Bear in mind that scent is only one factor in the overall attractiveness equation. Other
factors include such things as physical appearances, personalities, and common interests, to
name but a few. One would be foolish, indeed, to believe that fragrance alone could serve as
the basis for a meaningful, lasting relationship.
Ambient Aromas: Something Special in the Air
Although there is little research on the relationship between fragrance and attraction, there is
a sizable body of research on the ways in which ambient aromas affect people. We consider
three such ways here: Mood or emotion, task performance, and shopping behavior.
Aromas and Moods: Am I Blue?
Background fragrances have been shown to have a calming effect on patients in healthcare
settings. For example, vanilla and heliotropin (similar to baby powder) reduced anxiety in
patients undergoing an MRI scan (Redd & Manne, 1991; Stolberg, 1994). Researchers have
found that scents can influence people’s emotional states in nonmedical settings as well. For
example, investigators asked college students to write a brief essay about a childhood memory.
Half the students composed their essays in a room with a mild floral scent. The other half
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wrote in an unscented room. The students in the scented condition used happy, positive
terms three times more often than their counterparts in the unscented condition. What’s
more—and this is the part of the study we love—students in both groups were then
instructed to direct a mime to act out their childhood memory. Some 75 percent of the
students in the scented condition touched the mime while giving directions, compared to
only 15 percent in the unscented condition (Welsh, 2011).
Another of our favorite studies (Hanisch, 1982), because of its unusual method, examined
whether pleasant fragrances could reduce arachnophobia (fear of spiders) among females. The
researcher dangled a spider at varying distances from the participants’ faces. Part of the time,
the participants were exposed to a pleasant, unfamiliar scent. Part of the time they were not.
The pleasant fragrance reduced anxiety and allowed the spider to be placed closer to the
participants’ faces than the no-fragrance condition. The researcher didn’t mention whether
the spider liked the fragrance or not.
Aromas and Task Performance: Smell That Productivity
One area in which scents have been shown to have an effect is task performance. Several
studies have shown that mild fragrances can improve the speed, accuracy, and efficiency with
which people complete tasks (Hirsch, cited in Stolberg, 1994; Rotten, 1983; Sugano & Sato,
1991; Warm, Parasuraman, & Dember, 1990). For example, Baron and Kalsher (1998) found
that a pleasant ambient fragrance improved driving performance on a simulated driving task.
Moreover, Baron (1997) found that shoppers in a mall were more than twice as likely to help
a stranger in the presence of pleasant ambient aromas (roasting coffee or baking cookies).
Scent Marketing: Follow Your Nose
Branded fragrances are increasingly being used to promote brand identity. Abercrombie &
Fitch was among the first to market its own fragrance, called Fierce (Smiley, 2014). Other
brands soon followed suit. Cadillac, Lincoln, Marriott, United Airlines, and Verizon all have
branded fragrances. As of 2017, Ikea was poised to launch its own fragrance. Early reports
hint at the smell of cinnamon buns. We haven’t gotten a whiff yet, but we think the true
essence of Ikea should be redolent of the tears, bitterness, and frustration that comes with
trying to assemble one of their products. Finally, in a bizarre twist of fragrance, the fast-food
chain KFC created fried-chicken scented sunscreen. What better way to fight sunburn than
to wade into shark-infested waters smelling like meat?
Ambient Aromas and Consumer Behavior
596
Retail stores are increasingly using ambient odors to motivate shoppers. But does pumping
fragrances into the air make customers buy more? A meta-analysis of aroma studies found
that background fragrances resulted in increased arousal, pleasure, satisfaction, and intention
to purchase (Roschk, Loureiro, & Breitsohl, 2017). Other research has shown that pleasant
ambient aromas can increase shopping time (Knasko, 1989; Teerling, Nixdorf, & Koster,
1992) and improve product evaluations (Bosmans, 2006).
That said, researchers seem to agree that purchasing decisions are too complex to be
influenced solely by smell, and not all studies find aromas to be persuasive. For instance, one
study conducted in a shopping mall found no effects for background smells (Teller & Dennis,
2012). Not only that, one study shows that if consumers get wind of the fact that ambient
aromas are being manipulated as a marketing ploy, they will become more skeptical toward
the brand, the store, or the product in question (Lunard, 2012).
Caveats and Qualifications
Before you rush out to buy a case of room air-fresheners to make you feel better, study
harder, and work more efficiently, keep the following in mind: First, there are large variations
in individual preferences for smells. A scent that works on one person may not work on
another. One of the authors, for example, likes the smell of a skunk from afar. Second, as was
the case with subliminal research, some of the effects reported in these studies may be
attributed to a placebo effect. The participants’ expectations that smells affect behavior might
account for the changes observed. Third, the repetitive use of scents can lead to
counterconditioning such that an initially pleasant scent comes to be perceived as unpleasant.
The smell of vanilla, for example, has been shown to be relaxing. But if it is introduced every
time a child receives a vaccination, the smell may become aversive. Finally, there may be
ethical as well as health-related concerns involved in using fragrances to influence people.
People can close their eyes or look away from an image that offends them. They can’t stop
breathing or turn off their noses, however. We address ethical questions arising from the use
of fragrances in Chapter 16.
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SUMMARY
In this chapter, we examined several esoteric forms of persuasion: Color, subliminal messages,
subaudible messages, backward masking or reverse speech, neurolinguistic processing, music
as persuasion, and smell as persuasion. Despite the public’s belief in subliminal persuasion,
subliminal effects have only been demonstrated in highly controlled laboratory settings. At
present, subliminal priming is not commercially viable. Embedded words and images,
subaudible messages, and backward masking have not been shown to influence people.
Neurolinguistic processing is a popular, but unproven phenomenon. Music was shown to be
an important component of persuasion. Music facilitates persuasion in a variety of ways such
as reinforcing advertising images, serving as a mnemonic device, and influencing receivers’
moods. Though overlooked by most persuasion researchers, smell was also shown to be a
useful tool for persuasion if the right conditions are met. Ambient fragrances can enhance
moods, improve task performance, and influence consumer behavior.
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T
CHAPTER 16
The Ethics of Persuasion
Is Persuasion in General Unethical?
The Motives Color the Means
Ethics, Culture, and the Issue of Central Versus Peripheral Processing
Ethical Questions That Can’t Be Answered Through the Study of Persuasion
Our Approach: Characteristics of Ethical Influence
Ethics and Our Model of Persuasion
Persuaders as Lovers
Bunglers, Smugglers, and Sleuths
Ethical Issues Arising From Previous Chapters
Ethics and Credibility
Ethics and Communicator Characteristics
Ethics and Deception
Ethics of Using Threats as a Compliance-Gaining Strategy
Ethics and Fear Appeals
Ethics and Emotional Appeals
Ethics and Ingratiation
Ethics and Visual Persuasion
Ethics and Subliminal Influence
“HE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL in the world,” it has been said, “is a freshman with one
semester of psychology.” If that is true, then the second most dangerous creature must
surely be a freshman with one persuasion class under his or her belt. If you give a child a toy
hammer, the child will invariably find that every object he or she encounters needs pounding
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(Kaplan, 1964). In much the same vein, it is not uncommon for a student who has completed
a course in persuasion to think that every communication encounter requires a test of her or
his newfound skills. At best, this can be annoying to the recipients of the influence attempts.
At worst, it can damage or destroy relationships if the persuader is perceived as being
unethical. Like a hammer, persuasion is a useful tool. But one shouldn’t use it to pound on
others.
For this reason and others, we consider in this chapter the ethics of influence attempts.
Although this is the last chapter of the text, it is by no means the least important. We
decided to place this chapter at the end so we could discuss ethical concerns raised
throughout the book. We make no bones about trying to teach you how to become a more
effective persuader, as well as a more discriminating consumer of persuasive messages. Hence,
we feel morally obliged to offer some prescriptions and proscriptions on the ethical uses of
persuasion. Before you go out and attempt to wield your persuasive skills on unsuspecting
roommates, absent-minded professors, unwitting family members, unfortunate co-workers,
or hapless strangers, we want to make sure that you understand the importance of respecting
others’ dignity, of showing concern for others’ welfare, and, as they say in comic books, “of
using your powers for good instead of evil.” Quite seriously, we believe that the power to
persuade carries with it a corresponding duty to persuade ethically. We don’t claim to have a
“corner” on the ethics market. Feel free to disagree with any of our guidelines, as you choose.
Your time will be well spent thinking through the bases for your own ethical standards and in
coming to terms with what you consider to be moral and immoral influence attempts.
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IS PERSUASION IN GENERAL UNETHICAL?
A frequent charge leveled against persuasion is that it is unethical. Some people equate
persuasion with manipulation and see it as a one-sided approach to communication.
Communication, they argue, should emphasize cooperation, trust, and shared agreement. We
believe this view of communication is noble but overly idealistic. What happens when people
don’t agree? What happens when their goals contradict? Enter the need for persuasion.
Persuasion is what people rely on when things aren’t “hunky dory” or “peachy keen.”
We argued in the first chapter that persuasion is not a dirty word. But persuasion is used
to do the “dirty work” of convincing others when disagreements develop. Attempts at
convincing others, however, are not necessarily one-sided. Persuasion can be, and often is,
two-sided. Persuasion can, and often does, result in mutually satisfactory solutions.
Persuasion is not the antithesis of cooperation. Persuasion can be based on trust and mutual
respect. In a relationship based on equality, for example, each party is free to influence the
other.
As we noted in Chapter 1, persuasion performs a number of positive, prosocial functions.
To the extent that some persuaders are unethical, it makes even more sense to learn how
unethical influence attempts work and why they succeed. We don’t deny that persuasion can
be used in manipulative ways. Persuasion is a tool. Tools can be misused. In such cases,
however, one should blame the tool’s user, not the tool. By way of analogy, when someone
uses the English language to belittle or demean another person, no one suggests that we
should do away with language. Why, then, when persuasion is used unethically, do people
blame persuasion rather than the persuader? Granted, some persuasive tools, such as fear
appeals, hold greater potential for abuse, in the same way that a saw is more dangerous than a
tape measure. Stronger safeguards need to be taken when using such persuasive tools, even
when their use is for the receiver’s own good.
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THE MOTIVES COLOR THE MEANS
Consistent with our tool analogy, James McCroskey commented that “the means of
persuasion themselves are ethically neutral” (McCroskey, 1972, p. 269). Contrasting this
view, Jacksa and Pritchard (1994) adopt the position that “virtually any act of communication
can be seen from a moral point of view” (p. 12). We believe that ethics and persuasion are
closely intertwined. We maintain, however, that the moral quality of an influence attempt is
derived primarily from the motives or ends of the persuader, and only secondarily from the
means of persuasion that are employed. In our view, the means of persuasion take on the
moral character of the persuader’s ends.
To illustrate, imagine that three persuaders each employ one of three influence strategies:
deception, fear appeals, or ingratiation. Is it possible to determine which persuader is the
most ethical or least ethical, merely by knowing the strategy each employs? We think not.
We don’t see how an ethical evaluation of the strategies could be made without any
knowledge of the purposes for which the strategies would be used. In Table 16.1, we list
these three strategies (in column 1), along with two contrasting sets of motives (in columns 2
and 3). Notice that when paired with the first set of “good” motives, the use of the strategies
appears justified. However, when paired with the second set of “evil” motives, the strategies
appear highly unjustified.
TABLE 16.1 The Motives Color the Means
Strategy or Means “Good” Motive or End “Evil” Motive or End
Use of deception Trying to conceal a surprise birthday party from
the person in whose honor the party is being
given
Trying to swindle an elderly person out of his or
her life savings
Use of fear appeals Trying to convince a child never to accept a ride
from a stranger
Threatening to demote an employee for refusing
a superior’s sexual advances
Use of ingratiation Trying to cheer up a friend who is depressed
about a poor grade on a test
Lavishing attention on a dying relative in order
to inherit the relative’s money
Thus, in our view, the ethical quality of a persuader’s motives tends to “rub off” on the
persuasive strategy employed. The strategy itself is essentially neutral or amoral, until such
time as it is paired with a particular motive or end. At that point, the entire influence attempt
(motive and strategy) takes on a moral/immoral dimension.
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In our view, a persuader’s motives color the means of persuasion that are used, as the
following examples illustrate.
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ETHICS, CULTURE, AND THE ISSUE OF CENTRAL VERSUS PERIPHERAL PROCESSING
We readily admit that some persuasive strategies may seem more ethically defensible than
others. For example, the use of reasoned argument might seem more ethically justifiable than
the use of flattery or charm. The use of facts and statistics might appear more defensible than
the use of emotional appeals. This highlights a general preference among Western societies
for logical, rational thought, consistent with what Petty and Cacioppo (1986) call central
processing. You may recall from our discussion of the elaboration likelihood model in
Chapter 2 that the central route to persuasion involves actively thinking about issues,
reflecting on information, and scrutinizing the content of messages. The peripheral route,
however, is based on factors such as source credibility, imagery, or social cues. In U.S. culture,
the central route is generally the preferred route for persuasion.
Not all cultures place the same emphasis, however, on rational, linear thinking. Other
cultures value different ways of knowing, favor other means of gaining adherence to ideas,
and prefer other methods of securing behavioral compliance. As one example, some Asian
cultures emphasize the importance of fitting in, of conforming to group norms, and of not
“rocking the boat.” In such cultures, greater emphasis tends to be placed on indirect strategies
of influence (such as hinting or stressing the importance of following group norms) than on
direct strategies (arguing, open disagreement). The preference for indirect strategies reflects
the importance of such cultural values as avoiding confrontation and preventing the loss of
face (Ting-Toomey, 1988, 1994; Ting-Toomey & Kurogi, 1998; Wiseman et al., 1995).
Within Western culture there are also exceptions to the general preference for “rational”
persuasion. A person who comes across as being overly logical or emotionless, such as the
character Mr. Spock of Star Trek fame, may be viewed as “cold,” “calculating,” or “heartless.”
Similarly, the character of Dr. House, played by Hugh Laurie, displayed brusqueness with
patients, indifference toward colleagues, and an acerbic tone with everyone. He was more
interested in solving medical problems than the feelings of his patients. The ability to display
compassion, convey empathy, and respond to the entreaties of others based on these same
emotions is considered a desirable quality. Thus, even though it may seem that some forms of
influence are more ethically defensible than others, this depends to some extent on cultural
and situational factors.
612
613
ETHICAL QUESTIONS THAT CAN’T BE ANSWERED THROUGH THE STUDY OF PERSUASION
We’ve argued that the moral character of a persuasive act is derived primarily from the
persuader’s motives. Persuasion research, however, tends to focus almost exclusively on the
means of persuasion (strategies and tactics) rather than on the motives of persuaders. For this
reason, persuasion research is ill equipped to answer questions about what are good or evil
ends. Take any current social controversy—for example, abortion, assisted suicide, gay
marriage, and so forth. The study of persuasion cannot tell a persuader what side of the
controversy to be on. The study of persuasion can’t enlighten persuasion researchers as to
what causes are good or bad, or what values are right or wrong. Persuasion researchers tend to
defer to moral philosophers, religious leaders, the judicial system, and other ethical arbiters to
make such determinations.
As far as specific strategies are concerned, many professional organizations have
established codes of ethics. Newspaper journalists, television news anchors, and radio
commentators, for example, are bound by codes of conduct established by their national
organizations or government agencies. A print journalist, for instance, should not publish a
story without verifying the information via two independent sources. Even the Word of
Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) has adopted a code of ethics (see http://wo‐
mma.org/ethics). On the Web, however, anything goes. There are no clear-cut guidelines.
Bloggers can post anything they want. Legislation regarding hate speech and cyberbullying
on the Web is evolving.
Perhaps persuasion researchers should give greater consideration to the possible uses of the
strategies and tactics they are busy investigating. Bear in mind, though, that it is difficult for a
researcher to know how a particular tool of influence will be used. If a persuasive tool can be
used for good or evil ends, what is a persuasion researcher to do? In Box 16.1, we identify
some well-known approaches to ethics that you might study in a course on ethics. In practice,
individuals tend to follow a combination of the approaches identified in Box 16.1, making
most of us ethical relativists. A complete discussion of the field of ethics and moral
philosophy is beyond the scope of this text. Fortunately, several excellent works are available
if you wish to learn more about ethics and communication (Christians, Rotzoll, & Fackler,
1991; Duffy & Thorson, 2015; Jacksa & Pritchard, 1994; Johannesen, 1983; Johannesen,
Thayer, & Hardt, 1979; Nilsen, 1966; Rivers, Christians, & Schramm, 1980).
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The inability of persuasion researchers to distinguish good from bad applications of
persuasion is similar to the situation facing other researchers in other fields. Consider the
controversy surrounding the cloning of human embryos. The topic of cloning is fraught with
moral implications. Scientists conducting this sort of research are aware that their research
has ethical overtones. For the most part, however, they tend to focus on scientific questions
related to cloning, as opposed to moral questions. After all, neither politicians nor clergy
agree on the answers to the moral questions.
Persuasion researchers are similar to other researchers in this respect: They are simply
interested in learning more about how persuasion works. Their focus is not on whether a
particular strategy or tactic should be used. Nor is their focus on what causes should or should
not be furthered using persuasion. We don’t deny that persuasion researchers should take
heed of the ethical implications of the strategies and tactics they are investigating. We merely
wish to point out that persuasion researchers are more interested in pursuing knowledge for
its own sake than on discovering techniques for mind control. We readily admit, however,
that like Dr. Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s novel, persuasion researchers—and all other
researchers for that matter—are ethically responsible for the knowledge they uncover and pass
along.
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BOX 16.1 | Approaches to Ethics
Ends versus means: An ethical controversy centering on whether the means or
method of influence is justified by the desirability of the outcome. Can a persuasive
outcome be so good or desirable that the use of force or coercion is justified to
achieve it?
Consequentialism/teleological ethics: An ethical approach emphasizing
consequences or outcomes. A persuader should weigh the benefits and drawbacks
of his or her actions. Those actions that produce the greatest balance of good over
bad are ethical.
Deontological systems/duty ethics: An ethical approach that focuses on moral
imperatives, rather than specific consequences. A person has a duty to adhere to
rules of moral conduct. One may be morally obliged to take some actions,
regardless of their consequences.
Amoralism (or Machiavellianism): This ethical approach authorizes whatever a
persuader can get away with, constrained only by laws, or fear of social ostracism.
The self-interest of the persuader is all that matters; others better watch out for
themselves. Suckers deserve what they get. They should learn from their mistakes.
Situational ethics/relativism: This ethical approach maintains that there are no
moral absolutes. There are no ethical maxims. It isn’t possible to follow a moral
code that applies to all cultures, persons, times, and places. There are always
exceptions to every rule. There can be good or bad forms of persuasion, but
whether they are good or bad depends on the situation, the parties involved, the
nature of the issue, and other related factors.
Universalism: This ethical approach maintains that there are universal, immutable
“dos” and “don’ts.” Morals and values can be translated into enduring codes of
conduct. Some actions are right or wrong for all people, places, and times. For
example, torture is always wrong. Certain universal human rights must be honored.
There are “hard” and “soft” versions of universalism, meaning that some
perspectives are more absolute than others.
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Egalitarianism (also known as the “Golden Rule”): This approach to ethics
involves doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. Treat other people
as you would have them treat you. A more modern derivative of this principle is,
“What goes around comes around.”
Free market ethics: This ethical approach is based on the metaphor of the free
market or capitalism: caveat emptor, let the buyer beware. There should be little or
no prior restraint on persuasive messages. This approach places greater
responsibility on receivers to critically evaluate persuasive messages.
Utilitarianism (John Stuart Mill): This is a teleological approach, based on the
greatest good for the greatest number of people. The Star Trek version of this
principle involves balancing “the needs of the many with the needs of the one.”
Virtue ethics: This perspective focuses on the character of the person, as opposed to
specific moral rules or moral actions. A person should strive to be virtuous, to have
good character. Instead of relying on a list of dos and don’ts, one should ask
oneself, “What kind of person do I want to be?”
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OUR APPROACH: CHARACTERISTICS OF ETHICAL INFLUENCE
The authors claim no special expertise in the field of ethics. We certainly don’t possess the
moral credentials of a Mother Teresa or the Dalai Lama. We feel obliged, nonetheless, to
offer our own set of guidelines and recommendations for ethical persuasion. Just as we believe
the power to persuade entails a responsibility to persuade ethically, we also believe that
teaching others how to persuade entails an obligation to teach them how to do so ethically.
Our views don’t emanate from a single ethical perspective, so we can probably best be
described as situationalistic or relativistic in our approach (see Box 16.1). We don’t expect you
to accept our advice as gospel. But we do hope you’ll think about our guidelines and
recommendations carefully. We believe that the more you think about the ethical dimensions
involved in persuasion, the more conscientious you will tend to be as a persuader.
Ethics and Our Model of Persuasion
Recall that in our model of persuasion (see Chapter 2), we distinguished between pure and
borderline cases of persuasion. Recall also from our model that there are five criteria that
distinguish pure cases of persuasion from borderline cases. Pure cases of persuasion are those
that are intentional; they occur with the receiver’s conscious awareness, involve free choice on
the part of the receiver, take place through language or symbolic action, and involve two or
more persons. We believe that the first four of these criteria hold important ethical
implications for persuaders.
Intentionality
A number of scholars subscribe to the view that only intentional influence attempts count as
persuasion. From an ethical standpoint, however, this view is problematic. We maintain that
such a view lets persuaders “off the hook” for the unintended consequences of their
persuasion. A persuader whose efforts result in harmful, unforeseen consequences can avoid
responsibility by saying, “That’s not what I intended.” A persuader whose influence attempts
reach the wrong audience can say, “That’s not where I was aiming.” Studies have shown that
unintended messages, such as an overheard ethnic slur, can damage a person’s reputation in
the eyes of other persons (Greenberg & Pyszczynski, 1985; Kirkland, Greenberg, &
Pyszczynski, 1987). Thus, we think that persuaders should be held accountable for the
unintended consequences of their persuasion.
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Conscious Awareness
Pure cases of persuasion, according to our model, occur with the conscious awareness of the
participants. Borderline cases of persuasion, however, require no such realization on the part
of the participants. We maintain that persuasion that takes place with the conscious
awareness of all the parties involved is far more ethical than persuasion that does not. If a
person knows that he or she is the target of an influence attempt, he or she can take active
steps to resist the attempt or counter with an attempt of his or her own.
Free Choice/Free Will
Pure cases of persuasion, according to our model, are those that allow participants to make
free, informed decisions about whether they wish to comply with persuasive messages.
Borderline cases of persuasion, however, involve coercion in varying degrees. We believe,
quite obviously, that persuasive attempts that allow persons to make free choices are ethically
superior to those that do not. Free choice includes the ability to question others’ influence
attempts, to counter with influence attempts of one’s own, and to resist complying with
others’ attempts. As a general rule, we believe the more freedom one has to say “No,” the
more ethical a given influence attempt is. This also explains why conscious awareness,
discussed previously, is an important ingredient in ethical persuasion. A person cannot choose
to comply with an influence attempt if the person is unaware that he or she is the target of an
influence attempt.
Language and Symbolic Action
According to our model, pure cases of persuasion center on the use of language (the spoken
or printed word) and symbolic actions (protest marches, sit-ins, etc.). Borderline cases of
persuasion include persuasion via nonverbal or behavioral means. Using physical
attractiveness or behavioral modification to alter another’s behavior would both constitute
instances of borderline persuasion. We believe that persuasion that takes place through
language or symbol usage is generally more ethical than persuasion via nonverbal or
behavioral means. Our preference for the former is based on the fact that language-based
influence attempts are generally more easily recognized and more readily understood.
Nonverbal appeals, however, are less recognizable as persuasive attempts.
Of course, it is possible for persuaders to let receivers know that they will be the targets of
nonverbal influence attempts or behavioral modification techniques. Sit-ins and protest
marches, for example, are fairly obvious instances of nonverbal persuasion. If the recipient is
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made aware that nonverbal or behavioral strategies will be employed, we see little ethical
difference between language-based and nonlanguage-based persuasion.
Persuaders as Lovers
In a widely acclaimed essay, Wayne Brockriede (1974) suggested that arguers can be classified
into three different types, based on their regard for the other person. “Seducers,” he argued,
use trickery, deceit, charm, flattery, and beguilement to achieve their ends. Seducers do not
view others as equals but as unwitting victims. “Rapists,” the second category identified by
Brockriede, use threats, force, and coercion in an effort to win their arguments. They resort to
browbeating, personal attacks, threats, and ultimatums to get their way. Like seducers, rapists
view others as inferior. Others are treated as objects rather than equals. “Lovers,” the third of
Brockriede’s categories, respect one another’s dignity and base their relationships on equality.
They don’t treat each other as victims or objects but rather as partners. They are open and
receptive to one another’s arguments and look for mutually satisfactory solutions to their
differences.
We believe that Brockriede’s characterization of these three styles of argument applies
equally well to persuasive encounters. We draw upon and extend his approach here by
ascribing what we believe to be three essential attributes or qualities of “persuaders as lovers.”
The first quality is respect. Ethical influence attempts tend to reaffirm the other person’s sense
of self-worth. Persuaders who use ethical strategies and tactics tend to demonstrate respect
for one another’s dignity. In contrast, unethical influence attempts tend to express disdain for
others. The target of an unethical influence attempt is viewed as a “mark,” a “sucker,” or a
“patsy.”
The second quality is equality. Influence attempts are most ethical when the parties enjoy
equal status in a relationship. This is because in unequal relationships, status or power
differences are more likely—whether intentionally or unintentionally—to impinge on the
choice-making ability of the lower-status person. The person enjoying more status or power
may find it difficult to resist using “carrots” or “sticks” to gain compliance. The person
occupying the lower-status position may find it difficult to believe that the person with higher
status will not resort to rewards or punishments.
We believe that ethical influence attempts are possible even when there are power
disparities, but only if the more powerful party allows communication to take place, on an
equal footing. In organizational communication, for example, the very concepts of
“downward” and “upward” communication suggest inequality. To minimize such inequality, a
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superior could make it clear that he or she was suggesting, not ordering. The superior also
would have to be open to having her or his mind changed as well. These same requirements
—suggesting, not ordering and remaining open to influence—would apply to parental
influence as well.
The third quality is tolerance. Each party to a persuasive encounter must be patient with
the other, giving the other a chance to make his or her case. Each party should also be open
to the other’s point of view, making persuasion a two-way street. If a person wishes to
influence another, we maintain that he or she also must be willing to be influenced. Turn-
taking plays an important role in this process. Persuaders need to be willing to hear one
another out. A person who enters a persuasive encounter with the mind-set, “I will persuade,
but I will not be persuaded,” is not displaying tolerance for the other person or the other
person’s point of view. Taken together, we believe that these three qualities have the potential
to make persuasive encounters more ethical and more pleasant.
Bunglers, Smugglers, and Sleuths
Robert Cialdini, whom many consider to be the father of modern compliance-gaining
research, suggests that persuaders can be categorized into three different types (Cialdini,
1999). Bunglers, the first type, squander their prospects for influence by selecting ineffective
strategies and tactics. As the name implies, they bungle their chances for success. Bunglers
aren’t so much unethical as they are inept. Smugglers, the second type, know exactly what they
are doing but rely on unethical influence tactics. Smugglers, for example, wouldn’t hesitate to
use deception as a compliance-gaining technique if they thought it would produce immediate
results. Sleuths, the third type, are more knowledgeable about how influence works than
bunglers, and they are more ethical in their choice of strategies and tactics than smugglers.
According to Cialdini, sleuths function like detectives who study a persuasive situation,
searching for clues about the most ethical and effective means of influence. For Cialdini,
then, the sleuth is the ideal persuader. He maintains that both individuals and groups
(marketers, advertisers, corporations) should be sleuth-like in their influence attempts. The
problem, he says, is that persuaders don’t always recognize the long-term advantages of
sleuth-like influence. “The systematic use of misleading influence tactics,” he maintains,
“ultimately becomes a psychologically and financially self-damaging process” (Cialdini, 1999,
p. 94). For example, the owner of a car lot who encourages the salespeople to use ethically
suspect tactics to sell cars may sell a few more cars in the short run. In the long run, however,
employee morale will suffer, repeat business will taper off, and eventually, the “bottom line”
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will suffer. If not for the sake of the persuadee, then, Cialdini suggests that ethical influence
is ultimately in the persuader’s best interest as well.
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ETHICAL ISSUES ARISING FROM PREVIOUS CHAPTERS
Having offered some of our own guidelines for ethical persuasion, we now turn our attention
to some of the ethical issues introduced elsewhere in this text. A number of ethical questions
regarding persuasive strategies and tactics emanate from the preceding chapters. Here we
examine some of those key questions and explore possible answers.
Ethics and Credibility
A number of ethical questions center on the use of source credibility as a tool for persuasion
(see Chapter 4). Among the key questions on the ethical uses of credibility are the following:
Is it unethical for a celebrity endorser to promote a product or service he or she does not
actually use or about which he or she lacks expertise?
Do we expect too much from politicians, professional athletes, and celebrities? To what
extent should they be held accountable for errors in judgment, gaffes, and faux pas?
Does the use of authority become an abuse of authority if receivers place too much faith
or reliance in a particular source? For example, can a TV evangelist hold too much sway
over his or her followers, thereby clouding their judgment and independent thinking?
When celebrities endorse products they don’t actually use, the problem tends to be self-
correcting. The celebrity can be sued for breach of contract. This happened to Charlize
Theron, an endorser for Raymond Weil watches, when she was photographed in public
wearing another brand. Jessica Simpson and Teri Hatcher were sued for similar infractions.
Sometimes endorsement deals can backfire when the products don’t work. The Kardashians,
for example, were named in a $5 million lawsuit for making “false, misleading, and
unsubstantiated” claims about Quick-Trim, a weight loss product that they claimed helped
them shed pounds (Kotz & Haupt, 2012, para. 1). A similar lawsuit targeted Shaquille
O’Neal for touting the benefits of wearing a Power Balance bracelet, which used “holograms”
to optimize the body’s energy flow (Malinowski, 2011).
From time to time, sources say or do things that damage their own credibility. Such gaffes
can haunt candidates, athletes, and celebrities. Olympic swimmer, Ryan Lochte, for instance,
found himself in hot water after falsely claiming that he was robbed at gunpoint during the
2016 Olympics in Rio. It not only cost him multiple sponsorships, but hung his sponsors out
to dry as well. Indeed, Fong and Wyer (2012) found that a scandal involving a celebrity
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endorser resulted in more negative attitudes toward the endorsed product and decreased
purchase intentions. Twitter now makes it easier than ever for a source to put a virtual foot in
his or her mouth. Consider, for example, former Congressman and chronic “sexter,” Anthony
Weiner, who might be considered the poster boy for regrettable tweets. The old adage “think
before you speak” should now be amended to “and before you tweet.”
Because credibility tends to function as a peripheral cue, a reliance on credibility as the
principal means of persuasion tends to short-circuit thoughtful deliberation. We believe that
persuasive appeals that emphasize central processing are generally superior to those that
emphasize peripheral processing. The former are ethically preferable, we believe, because they
enable receivers to analyze messages, scrutinize evidence, and generally think for themselves.
We believe that a reliance on source credibility, at the expense of thoughtful reflection, is
ethically suspect. In cases where credibility is used to enhance the persuasiveness of a
message, we believe a qualified source should be used. By “qualified,” we mean a source
possessing expertise in the area in which she or he is offering advice or making
recommendations. Serena Williams, for example, knows a great deal about tennis, so her
endorsement of a tennis racket brand would be meaningful. She’s not an expert on vacuums,
however, so her recommendation of a brand of vacuum cleaner would possess no more
validity than that of the average person.
Ethics and Communicator Characteristics
We noted in Chapter 5 that some receivers are particularly vulnerable to influence attempts.
Young children, for example, have difficulty distinguishing what toys featured in television
commercials can and cannot do. Patients with terminal illnesses are highly vulnerable to
hucksters peddling “miracle” cures. Elderly citizens, some of whose mental faculties are
diminished, are highly susceptible to scams perpetrated by con artists. And some new
immigrants are uniquely vulnerable, because of their naiveté, language barriers, or both.
Concerns such as these invite several ethical questions on persuasion aimed at specialized
audiences:
What ethical safeguards should be followed when attempting to persuade children?
What ethical responsibilities does a persuader have when attempting to persuade highly
vulnerable audiences?
With respect to the first question, we strongly believe that special care must be taken when
persuading children, especially young ones. According to a policy statement of the American
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Academy of Pediatrics “research has shown that young children—younger than eight years—
are cognitively and psychologically defenseless against advertising” (2009, p. 2563). They
often cannot distinguish ads from programs and fail to grasp disclaimers attached to ads.
Although a variety of private and public agencies already regulate mass media messages aimed
at children, advertisers have been criticized for a number of unfair practices. As Treise,
Weigold, Conna, and Garrison (1994) commented:
advertising to children promotes the use of products, such as sweets, that are harmful
to children (Gore, 1989), manipulates and disappoints children with exaggerated
claims; creates conflicts with parents over purchases; has the potential to influence
children to experiment with alcoholic beverages and/or drugs (Atkin, 1987); and
creates confusion over product and commercial distinctions (Kunkel, 1988;
Englehardt, 1987).
(p. 60)
Of particular concern is children’s exposure to media violence. As the American Academy
of Pediatrics (2009) cautioned, “Exposure to violence in media, including television, movies,
music, and video games, represents a significant risk factor to the health of children and
adolescents (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2009, p. 1495). Exposure to media violence
increases children’s social and physical aggression (Gentile, Mathieson, & Crick, 2011;
Murray, 2008). What is surprising is that even advertising aimed at children includes as much
or more violence than advertising aimed at adults (Jones, Cunningham, & Gallagher, 2010).
In addition to following those strictures that are already in place, we would advise those
seeking to influence youngsters to follow three basic guidelines. First, they should ensure that
they have a parent or legal guardian’s permission before attempting any persuasion. For
example, before you decide to convince the next-door neighbor’s child (spoiler alert) that
Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are myths, check with the parent(s) first. Persuading
without such permission not only usurps parental autonomy but invites lawsuits as well.
Second, they should communicate using words and concepts that children can understand.
Persuasive messages should be geared to the developmental level of the age group being
targeted. Third, they should make sure they have the children’s best interests at heart. Whose
interest was R. J. Reynolds promoting by using the now-discontinued “Joe Camel” campaign?
Critics charged that the use of the cartoonlike character was a transparent attempt to attract
underage smokers (Bromberg, 1990). In our view, public awareness messages that target
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children for their sake (e.g., antidrug spots or stranger-danger messages) are less ethically
suspect than for-profit advertisements that target children in order to make money.
With respect to the second question, there are clearly cases in which vulnerable groups are
targeted by persuaders. As just one example, people who live in inner-city areas are subjected
to more billboards promoting cigarettes and alcohol than people who live in more affluent,
suburban areas. The poorer the neighborhood, the more billboards (Kwate & Lee, 2006).
We believe that many of the concerns involving highly vulnerable groups or individuals
can be allayed by adhering to the aforementioned values of mutual respect, relational equality,
and mutual tolerance. Part of the task of persuading vulnerable receivers involves displaying
interpersonal or intercultural sensitivity. This includes the ability to empathize with others’
feelings and points of view. Part of the task also involves avoiding the temptation to prey on
others’ fears, weaknesses, or vulnerabilities. The motto caveat emptor (“let the buyer beware”)
may make sense when one is dealing with fully functioning, informed consumers. When
applied to vulnerable groups, however, the motto simply becomes an excuse for taking
advantage.
Ethics and Deception
The study of deception and deception detection constitutes one of the most ethically sensitive
areas of persuasion research. A number of ethical issues were addressed in Chapter 12. Of
these, the overriding questions will be reexamined here: Is deception ever justified? Or, stated
somewhat differently, is honesty always the best policy? How concerned should consumers be
about online deception, including deception on social media?
Although some may believe that lying is always wrong, we believe that there are numerous
situations in which telling “white lies” is beneficial for relationships. Such social rituals as
complimenting another’s clothing, praising your mother-in-law’s cooking, or telling the host
of a party that you had a good time seem like fairly harmless uses of deception to us. Even
where candor is called for, we believe there is an important difference between being honest
and being brutally honest.
Our view is that although deception is sometimes socially justified, one should examine
the motives of the persuader by asking, “In whose interest is the lie being perpetrated?” Self-
serving lies, we believe, are the least ethical. Lies told for the benefit of another, we maintain,
are the most ethical. Research suggests that others hold this view as well. A study by Seiter,
Bruschke, and Bai (2002), for example, asked people from China and the United States to
rate the acceptability of various types of lies. Participants from both cultures tended to agree:
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They rated lies told for selfish reasons as unacceptable and lies told to benefit others as
generally acceptable. In evaluating deception, one should also keep in mind that outright
falsehoods and misrepresentations constitute only one type of deception. Deception can also
include withholding information or purposeful ambiguity. The latter types of deception, we
suggest, are more ethically defensible than “bald-faced” lies. A person might be “diplomatic,”
for example, to spare another the pain or loss of face that being blunt might cause. Both
withholding of information and purposeful ambiguity thus can be used to benefit another.
A final note on the “honesty is the best policy” approach is that it works only if some of
the preceding conditions for ethical persuasion exist—for example, if there is mutual respect,
a relationship based on equality, and tolerance for one another’s views. If these conditions do
not exist, then being honest may simply result in the honest person being fired, punished, or
ridiculed.
With regard to the second question on deception online, we believe there is some cause for
concern. One reason is because social media are less regulated than traditional media, so
consumers enjoy fewer protections. Another reason is that many people lack online media
literacy. They are not as wary of peer-to-peer persuasion, word-of-mouth, and third-party
endorsements as they should be. Online deception takes place in a variety of ways. One form
is known as native advertising (Taylor, 2017). The “native” feature is that the ads are
chameleon-like. They blend in with the social platforms in which they appear. For example, a
native ad might have the look and feel of a Facebook or Instagram post. Suppose you were
shopping for a handknit sweater for your dog. If you searched on Etsy for “dog sweater,” the
top row of items found would be paid or promoted ads. As another example, BuzzFeed’s
series of “Dear Kitten” videos for Friskies cat food, were viewed millions of times and,
according to BuzzFeed, made viewers 57 percent more likely to buy that brand (BuzzFeed,
2014).
Native advertising is deceptive. Since native ads imitate the sites on which they appear,
users may not recognize them for what they are. The Better Business Bureau has declared
native advertising a deceptive practice, unless clear labeling is provided (Ikonen, Luoma-aho,
& Bowen, 2017). The Federal Trade Commission adopted guidelines requiring all native ads
to include disclosures such as “paid advertisement.” A study by Media Radar, however, found
that 37 percent of native advertisers failed to follow the FTC’s labeling rules (Fletcher, 2017).
A related technique involves sponsored content. Compared to native advertising, sponsored
content is more informational and less commercial in nature—hence the emphasis on
content. What appears to be a legitimate news story, blog, or entertaining video showcases a
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particular person or organization as an opinion leader in a field (Herrman, 2016). For example,
Vani Hari, a self-proclaimed food activist, who goes by the moniker the “Food Babe,” blogs
about healthy eating. She maligns major brands like Chick-fil-A, Panera, and Subway, while
collecting reimbursements from smaller, cottage brands that she endorses (Schultz, 2014).
She also sells her own juice cleanses and sugar detox guides, even though she holds no degree
in nutrition or food science. As another example, to promote its fantasy role-play game,
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Warner Brothers paid gaming enthusiasts to post online
videos of themselves enthusiastically playing the game, without disclosing the payments. The
FTC filed a complaint with Warner Brothers and a settlement was reached (FTC, 2016).
FTC guidelines require that any for-profit arrangement between an opinion leader and a
brand must be disclosed. The guidelines are routinely flouted, though, by including obscure
acknowledgments such as #sp (for sponsored product) or #partner in Facebook or Instagram
posts.
Ethics of Using Threats as a Compliance-Gaining Strategy
In Chapter 10, we discussed a number of strategies and tactics related to compliance gaining.
Among the strategies identified were threats of punishment. As a general rule, studies have
shown that using threats achieves greater compliance than not using them (Gass & Canary,
1988; Heisler, 1974; Nevin & Ford, 1976; Tittle & Rowe, 1973). Their effectiveness
notwithstanding, there are serious ethical questions regarding the use of threats. Hence, we
focus here on the ethics of using threats as a means of persuasion: Is the use of threats of
punishment ever ethically justifiable and, if so, under what circumstances?
Every attempt to persuade involves ethical questions. To a greater extent than with other
influence strategies, however, we believe the use of threats should raise red flags in the
persuader’s mind. There are numerous reasons for this. First, we believe threats are unethical
inasmuch as their effectiveness hinges on creating a state of psychological distress in receivers.
Second, threats tend to be exploitative of power or status differences in relationships. Third,
issuing and carrying out threats tends to diminish the morale and self-esteem of the recipient.
Fourth, a reliance on threats is damaging and destructive to relationships. In the long run,
threats do more harm than good. Fifth, the use of threats can foster resentment or trigger
aggression toward the threatener. If you rely on threats, you’d better watch your back. Sixth,
threats must be carried out from time to time, an unpleasant prospect for both the threatener
and the recipient. Seventh, the threatener is modeling a negative form of behavior for others
to follow, thereby teaching others to rely on threats as well. Can you tell we’re not too fond of
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threats?
When, if ever, then, should a persuader use threats? Our advice is that threats, although
sometimes unavoidable, should never be the strategy of first resort. They should be used only
when prosocial alternatives are unavailable or have failed and only when they are clearly in the
best interests of the receiver or society. As an illustration, imagine that a spouse or an
intimate partner is destroying himself or herself through alcohol abuse. The partner has
pleaded with him or her to join Alcoholics Anonymous or to seek some other form of help,
all to no avail. We believe that the partner would be justified in threatening, “I’m leaving you
if you don’t get help.” Making such a threat, and following through on it if necessary, might
well be in the long-term interests of both people.
Despite exceptions such as these, a reliance on threats produces so many undesirable social
consequences that we think their use is rarely justified. A persuader who is contemplating the
use of threats should, therefore, ask him- or herself if that is the only way to achieve an
objective and if the objective is even worth achieving if threats must be used. Too often, we
suspect that the use of threats represents reflex behavior on the part of the threatener. A
reliance on threats can become habitual. If persuaders would reflect on their strategy selection
more, they would recognize that prosocial alternatives are usually available and are more
conducive to promoting and preserving relationships.
Ethics and Fear Appeals
Gloom and doom scenarios abound. Some commentators suggest that we have become a
“culture of fear” (Glassner, 1999; Ropeik & Gray, 2002; Siegel, 2005). We are bombarded
with media reports of dangers lurking everywhere (Altheide, 2002). The research we reviewed
in Chapter 13 shows that fear appeals can be quite effective. Yet considerable caution should
be used when employing fear appeals to promote constructive responses (e.g., danger control)
rather than panic (e.g., fear control). We therefore posit two questions related to the ethics of
using fear appeals.
Is it ethical to promote a “culture of fear”?
Is the use of fear appeals ever ethically justified and, if so, under what conditions or
circumstances?
Many persuaders have a vested interest in scaring us. Politicians want our votes. The
media wants ratings. “If it bleeds, it leads,” goes the journalistic adage. Pharmaceutical
manufacturers want to sell us prescription drugs. But is the use of such scare tactics justified?
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Take the case of rare, exotic diseases for example. In the last half dozen years, the public has
been warned about the Zika virus, Ebola or hemorrhagic fever, swine flu or H1N1 flu, mad
cow disease or BSE, West Nile, SARS, the “flesh-eating” virus or necrotizing fasciitis, and
Asian bird flu. As of 2016, however, no American had contracted Zika within the continental
USA. One person in Salt Lake City died of Zika, but that person had traveled to a high-risk
country. Similarly, only one person died from Ebola in the USA, and that patient contracted
the disease in Liberia. In contrast, chicken pox kills about 100 people a year in the United
States. Chicken pox, however, just doesn’t seem as scary as Zika or Ebola, so it garners little
media attention.
There is a whole industry dedicated to scaring people about exotic diseases. Consider, for
example, books such as Plague (Orent, 2004), The Coming Plague (Garrett, 1994), Betrayal of
Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health (Garrett, 2000), and Secret Agents: The Menace of
Emerging Infections (Drexler, 2002). Scary, exotic diseases sell books. Tired of the same old
scary diseases? Here are some exotic diseases you may not have heard of: fatal familial
insomnia (death from lack of sleep), maple syrup urine disease (yup, MSUD makes your
urine smell like maple syrup, but it can also cause brain damage and death), and brain worms
(technically known as neurocysticercosis). Not to fear, perhaps some enterprising author will
write a Maple Syrup Urine Disease for Dummies book in the near future.
Other persuaders profit from the public’s fear of crime. We are assailed by stories of car-
jackings, school shootings, freeway shootings, home invasion robberies, homegrown
terrorists, serial killers, and child molesters. Yet, as a matter of fact, violent crime rates in the
United States are near their lowest levels in three decades (FBI, 2013; Gramlich, 2017).
Consider child kidnappings as a case in point. Parents have a heightened fear of abduction-
murders in the wake of high-profile cases such as those of Polly Klaas and Amber Hagerman.
Terrible as they may be, however, child-abduction murders are extremely rare. The actual risk
of a child being kidnapped and killed in the United States is roughly 1 in 1.3 million (Ropeik,
cited in Wilson et al., 2005). In comparison, the risk of a child dying from the flu is 1 in
130,000, a much greater risk. We don’t mean to belittle parents for worrying about their kids’
well-being, but a parent who gets his/her child a microchip but doesn’t get his/her child a flu
shot is giving in to irrational fear.
New media and social media make fearmongering easier than ever. We’ve been warned
about cyberbullying, cybertracking, cyberstalking, and other cyber fears. Social media,
however, are neither fact-checked nor carefully edited. Moreover, a single tweet, text, or post
can go viral in no time. For example, following media chatter about face-eating zombies, the
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Centers for Disease Control felt compelled to issue a public statement saying there was no
impending “zombie apocalypse” (Campbell, 2012). Similarly, after claims that a mermaid’s
body had been discovered, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA)
issued a disclaimer saying “no evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found” (Lynch,
2012, p. A12). Should we be concerned that the federal agencies have not denied the
existence of vampires or werewolves?
We can’t stop the fearmongers from practicing their trade. What we can do is urge you to
use central rather than peripheral processing when evaluating fear appeals. Keep the numbers
in perspective (Ropeik & Gray, 2002; Siegel, 2005; Simhan, 2004). When driving, be
concerned about road rage (about 40 deaths per year), but be much more concerned about
wearing your seat belt (9,200 preventable fatalities per year, according to the NHTSA)
(Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, 2005). When at the beach, worry about the risk of
a shark attack (about three deaths per year in the United States), but worry far more about the
risk of skin cancer from overexposure to the sun (about 8,000 deaths per year in the United
States). Fret a little over exotic diseases, such as West Nile virus (100 deaths in the United
States in 2004), but bear in mind that you have roughly the same chance of dying from a
lightning strike (around 100 deaths per year in the United States) and a greater risk of
drowning in a bathtub (more than 300 cases in the United States annually). Don’t worry
about zombies or mermaids at all.
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FIGURE 16.1
“How do you respond to critics who say you’re just trying to scare people?”
Source: © Paul North/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
Turning to the second question of whether and when fear appeals are ever justified, we
maintain that if the dangers alluded to in a fear appeal are real or genuine, then we believe it
is not only acceptable but desirable to evoke fear. People should be informed about dangers
and hazards to which they are exposed. Two guidelines should be observed when using fear
appeals. The first is that specific recommendations for avoiding the harmful consequences
must be included in the appeal. The specific recommendations must tell receivers how to
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cope with the dangers identified.
The second recommendation is that the persuader should include concrete
recommendations that tell receivers what they should do. In our judgment, fear appeals
should never be used if the alleged harms are exaggerated or, worse yet, fabricated. Nor
should fear appeals be used if receivers are given no recourse for avoiding the harms. What is
the point in scaring people if there is nothing they can do about it?
Ethics and Emotional Appeals
Some people take the view that emotional appeals, which tug at receivers’ heartstrings, are
unjustified precisely because they appeal to emotion rather than to reason. Persuasion, they
say, should aim higher, at the mind, not the heart, and certainly not below the belt. In
response to this concern, we raise the following ethical questions:
Is playing on others’ emotions ethically justifiable?
Are some types of emotional appeals better, or more ethically defensible, than others?
Our answer to the first question is a qualified “Yes.” Recall from Chapter 13, however,
that the distinction between logical and emotional appeals represents something of an
artificial dichotomy anyway. People tend to perceive messages they agree with as “logical” or
“rational” and messages they disagree with as “emotional.” To the extent that logical and
emotional appeals can be differentiated, we believe they work perfectly well side by side. We
see nothing wrong with using emotional appeals, as long as their use complements, rather
than contradicts or substitutes for, other more thoughtful approaches to persuasion. We do
not think emotional appeals should constitute the sole means of persuasion, nor do we believe
emotional appeals should be used if they contradict sound reasoning and evidence. As we
mentioned earlier, our preference is for central processing of persuasive messages. To the
extent that emotional appeals are used to promote peripheral processing, at the expense of
central processing, we believe their use is undesirable.
An example of persuasion that combines emotional and rational appeals effectively is
Whirlpool’s Care Counts program, which provides washers and dryers to schools so kids have
clean clothes to wear (www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxbipSM8GmA). The video begins with
gloomy statistics indicating that students who drop out of school face higher unemployment,
require greater government assistance, and are more likely to be incarcerated. Next,
testimonials from children report that they are embarrassed or ashamed to go to school
wearing dirty clothes. “We have a washer and dryer at home,” says one little girl, “It’s just that
633
our electricity was shut off.” Whirlpool to the rescue. Pairs of washers and dryers were
provided free of charge to 17 schools. Kids could bring their clothes to school to be
laundered. Testimonials from teachers say the program improved attendance, class
participation, and grades. Finally, statistics are presented, showing that over 90 percent of
kids improved their attendance and at-risk kids attended nearly two weeks more than the
previous year. The video has an emotional, “feel good” ending.
Despite potential limitations of the program (e.g., other, more significant barriers to
school attendance), Whirlpool’s program is a positive example of what is known as corporate
social responsibility (CSR), in this case, by giving back to the community in the form of
washers and dryers. Since the program is being expanded to more than 60 schools, it appears
to be more than window dressing.
In answer to the second ethical question, we tend to believe that negative, divisive appeals
are less ethically defensible than positive, prosocial appeals. When you think of emotional
appeals, you may envision “negative” sorts of appeals, such as appeals to pity, shame, or guilt.
Bear in mind, however, that emotional appeals have a positive side as well. Emotional appeals
can be inspiring or uplifting. They can motivate us to try harder, to excel, to give our all. We
hardly think that coaches, teachers, politicians, and clergy who provide emotional
encouragement are behaving unethically. To the contrary, we believe that positive emotional
appeals have a legitimate role to play in the persuasion process and that they function as
useful complements to the use of reasoning and evidence.
Ethics and Ingratiation
Everyone claims to hate brownnosers, unless the brownnosing is directed at them, that is. In
his seminal work on the subject, Jones (1963) defined ingratiation, the polite term for
brownnosing, as an “illicit” form of strategic behavior (see Chapter 13). Thus, it would seem
that ingratiation operates through unethical means. We thus explore the question: Is
ingratiation an unethical practice or simply an honest acknowledgment of the way things
work?
We sometimes tend to think of ingratiation as a form of deception—that is, we envision
the ingratiator as being disingenuous in his or her use of flattery. But what if the ingratiator
believes in the praise he or she bestows on another? We see no problem with the use of praise
or compliments if the persuader genuinely believes in what she or he is saying. In fact, this is
one of the ethical questions that allows us to draw a “bright line” between what we consider
to be ethical and unethical persuasion. Sincere compliments, we maintain, are ethical, and
634
insincere compliments unethical. Genuine praise offers the prospect of a win–win
communication encounter. Both parties benefit. When a persuader pays a compliment and
means it, he or she is demonstrating respect for the other person, and respect, we contend, is
one of the essential ingredients of ethical influence attempts.
Ethics and Visual Persuasion
If a picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes, then is a misleading image
equivalent to a thousand misleading words? Images are a powerful form of influence, as we
noted in Chapter 14. Images are immediate and visceral. They evoke strong emotions. But
images can be misleading too. When it comes to photographic evidence, determining what is
real or fake can be difficult. There are multiple cases, for example, of prize-winning
photographers who have been caught Photoshopping images, contrary to photojournalistic
standards (Cooke, 2016; Laurent, 2017). Thus, we raise the question: What social
responsibilities accompany the use of images and other forms of visual persuasion?
Size matters. Optics matter too. You may recall the brouhaha over the crowd size at
Trump’s inauguration in 2017 compared to Obama’s in 2009. A similar controversy emerged
when the New York Times tweeted comparison photos of Donald Trump greeting the 2017
Super Bowl champion New England Patriots on the steps of the White House, versus Barack
Obama greeting the Patriots team that won the Super Bowl in 2015. The photos showed a
noticeably smaller turnout for Trump than his predecessor. What the New York Times failed
to mention, however, was that in 2015 the coaching staff was standing on the steps alongside
the players, whereas in 2017 the coaching staff were not on the steps, but on the south lawn
(Kerr-Dineen, 2017).
We believe that persuaders have a responsibility for fact-checking the accuracy of
documentary images before publishing them in traditional media or circulating them on
social media. For the Super Bowl photos in question, the whole point of the tweet was to
compare turnout. Shouldn’t the source, then, have checked to see if there were coaches, not
just players, in both pictures? It didn’t take long for viewers and the Patriot’s front office to
complain that the 2017 photo excluded 40 members of the coaching staff.
635
FIGURE 16.2
Tweet with comparison photos from The New York Times.
As a consumer of images, we believe that you bear some responsibility for fact-checking
the accuracy of images before sharing, forwarding, or retweeting them, too. Some useful
Web-based resources for checking the veracity of images include www.snopes.com (check out
their photo gallery link); factcheck.org, and Skeptical Enquirer, at www.csicop.org. Using
Google, you can conduct a reverse image search (see www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5e9wT‐
dAulA).
Nowadays optics matter as much or more than words. As Zimmer (2010, para. 3) noted,
“When politicians fret about the public perception of a decision more than the substance of
636
the decision itself, we’re living in a world of optics.”
Ethics and Subliminal Influence
Unlike many other people, we aren’t troubled by the use of subliminal messages. Why?
Because, frankly, we don’t believe they work outside of highly controlled laboratory settings.
All of the research to date suggests that subliminal priming is not commercially viable. Thus,
it is more as a matter of principle than out of genuine concern that we raise the ethical
question: Should subliminal messages be allowed, and, if so, should they be regulated by the
government or some other institution?
We feel much the same about the first part of this question as we do about the use of
voodoo dolls. We’d prefer that people not stick pins in dolls that resemble us, but we aren’t
much bothered by it if they do. As we noted in Chapter 15, subliminal priming works, but
the effects are difficult to produce and highly transitory. At present, priming cannot make
people do something they do not want to do, although under the right circumstances, it can
reinforce an existing goal, need, or value. The practice of “embedding,” or hiding, images in
advertisements has proven fruitless, as has the practice of planting subaudible oral messages.
Other than disliking subliminals as a matter of principle, then, we believe there is little to fear
from their actual use. If unscrupulous persuaders want to bombard us with subliminal
messages, so much the better. The time and energy they waste on their fruitless endeavor may
distract them from using other, more effective techniques of persuasion on us.
637
SUMMARY
We have argued in this chapter that persuasion is not an inherently unethical activity. To the
contrary, we believe that persuasion can be used to advance all manner of positive, prosocial
interests. Persuasion is a powerful tool that can be used for the noblest and basest of motives.
Humankind’s ability to persuade is thus both a blessing and a curse. Our view is that the
moral quality of a given persuasive act is based primarily on the motives of the persuader and
only secondarily on the strategies and tactics used by the persuader.
Based on our model of persuasion, we’ve argued that pure persuasion is more ethically
defensible than borderline persuasion. That is, persuasion that is intentional, that occurs with
the receiver’s conscious awareness, that involves free choice, and that takes place through
language or symbolic action is more ethically defensible than persuasion that takes place via
other means. Furthermore, we offered three qualities that we consider to be characteristic of
ethical persuasion—respect, equality, and tolerance.
Finally, we examined a number of ethical questions associated with particular topics and
issues related to persuasion. We attempted to answer these questions as best we could—
without dancing around the issues on one hand and without claiming to have a corner on
truth and ethics on the other hand. Above all, we urge you to contemplate the bases for your
own ethical beliefs and not to let anyone else, including us, tell you what is right or wrong.
The cause of ethics will be better served if you figure out for yourself what you ought, and
ought not, do as a persuader.
We’ve told you about a number of tools of influence in these pages. Many of them have
proven to be highly effective. Unfortunately, we can’t give you a conscience to go with them
(the publisher said it would be too expensive). We have to trust that you will let your
conscience be your guide. When pondering which persuasive strategies you should use, think
not only about the persuasive ends you are seeking but also about the kinds of relationships
you want to have with other people. Long-term relationships, we’re convinced, should never
be sacrificed for short-term compliance. Mutual influence requires give and take, not just
take, take, take. If you put people first and persuasion second, we think you’ll be more
successful in the long run than if you put persuasion first and people second.
638
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641
Author Index
Aaker, D. A. 325, 326
Aaker, J. L. 64, 72, 328
Abbot, G. 42
Abdullah, I. H. 327
Abell, L. 293
Abraham, C. 313
Abraham, J. A. 185
Achar, D. A. 311
Acharya, L. 13, 186
Ackerman, J. M. 36
Adams, J. M. 340
Adams, R. B. 56
Adams, T. M. 376
Adkins, S. 353
Adler, R. B. 163, 167
Adler, R. F. 312
Adorno, T. 118
Aggarwal, P. 152
Agnew, C. A. 226
Agrawal, J. 84
Agrawal, N. 111, 311
Ahluwalia, R. 64
Ajzen, I. 60
Akbari, M. 312
Akbulut, V. 185, 246
Albarracín, D. 84, 93, 315
Albert, N. M. 367
Albert, S. 193
Ale, S. 13
Alexander, M. W. 324
Allan, D. 202, 374
Allen, M. 74–75, 93, 215, 224, 313, 315
Allen, V. L. 138
Allison, S. T. 153
Allport, G. W. 118
Almond, L. 120
642
Aloe, A. M. 268
Al-Simadi, F. A. 297, 302
Altemeyer, B. 118, 119
Altheide, D. L. 313
Altis, N. A. 372
Alvaro, A. M. 74
Ambady, N. 56, 58
Anagnostopoulos, F. 185
Anand, S. 108
Andersen, P. A. 185, 196
Anderson, C. A. 376
Anderson, D. E. 298
Anderson, J. C. 372
Anderson, M. 354
Anderson, N. 152
Anderson, R. C. 201–202
Andrews, P. H. 135
Anker, A. E. 247, 268
Ansfield, M. E. 285, 298
Apaolaza-Ibáñez, V. 374
Appel, M. 93
Applbaum, R. L. 58
Applegate, J. L. 120, 123
Aramovich, N. P. 140
Areni, C. S. 374
Arenson, S. J. 154
Argyle, M. 189, 193, 199–200
Argyriou, E. 53
Aristotle, 19, 87, 312
Arndt, M. 125
Arnkoff, D. B. 177, 178
Aronson, E. 18, 38, 72, 140
Arthur, C. 73
Asch, S. E. 136–137
Asher, T. 266
Atkins, C. P. 196
Atoum, A. O. 302
Au, T. K. 271
Aune, R. K. 177, 202
Averbeck, J. M. 176, 223
Avergin, J. xvii
Avila, R. A. 268
Axleton, K. 352
Baberini, M. 188
643
Babin, B. J. 312
Backus, J. 114
Baek, T. H. 120
Bai, C. 285, 401
Baião, V. B. U. 201
Baldry, A. C. 142
Banaji, M. R. 56
Banas, J. A. 222, 223, 239
Bandler, R. 373
Bandura, A. 33, 349
Bannister, K. xviii
Bantel, K. A. 121
Barata, P. C. 242
Bargh, J. A. 36, 370
Barnett, M. A. 285
Barnicott, E. F. 248
Baron, R. A. 193, 378, 380
Baron, R. S. 140
Barongan, C. 376
Barreto, M. 152
Barrett, D. W. 147
Barrett, S. 201
Barrick, M. R. 191
Barry, J. 5
Barston, J. L. 312
Bar-Tal, Y. 276
Bartlett, T. 89
Baseheart, J. R. 173
Bassett, R. 272
Batchelor, J. A. 171
Batra, R. 144
Batson, C. D. 268
Baudhuin, E. S. 173
Baughman, H. M. 293
Baumeister, R. F. 227
Baxter, L. 244, 245
Beaber, R. J. 202
Beaman, A. L. 149
Beard, F. K.
Beato, G. 352
Beatty, M. J. 227
Beaubien, R. A. 247
Beauvois, J. L. 73
Becheaur, I. 315
644
Beck, G. 172
Becker, J. A. H. 244
Becker, S. L. 312
Behkne, R. R. 293
Behm-Morawitz, E. 349
Belew, J. 12
Belk, R. W. 64
Bell, P. A. 193
Bell, R. A. 266, 285
Bem, D. J. 264–265
Bena, J. F. 367
Bendel, R. 109
Benoit, S. C. 371
Benoit, W. L. 92, 95, 225, 226, 229
Benshoff, H. M. 350, 351
Berger, A. A. 3, 24, 84, 124, 319, 351
Berger, C. R. 98
Berger, J. 367
Berkman, E. T. 58
Berlo, D. K. 90
Bermeitinger, C. 370
Bernieri, F. J. 191
Bernritter, S. F. 370, 371
Berntson, G. G. 58
Berridge, K. C. 370
Berry, D. S. 200
Besley, R. 71
Bessarova, E. 316
Bettinghaus, E. P. 38
Beverly, G. D. 119
Bhui, K. 13
Bianco, A. 125
Bickman, L. 197
Bilal, W. 344
Bingham, S. G. 249
Binser, M. J. 365
Birk, T. S. 247
Biswas, D. 220
Bizer, G. 43, 46
Bizman, A. 269
Black, I. R. 323
Blades, M. 109
Blaine, B. 318
Blair, J. P. 296, 301
645
Blankenship, K. L. 176, 178
Bleakley, A. 166
Bless, E. 316
Bless, H. 311
Blinkhorn, V. 120
Blonde, J. 175
Bloom, P. 72
Blustein, N. B. 316
Boatwright, B. C. 121
Bobren, H. M. 113
Boden, J. M. 285
Bodenhausen, G. V. 127
Bogost, I. 9
Böhm, T. 376
Bohns, V. K. xviii, 14
Bolkan, S. 275, 276
Bonacci, A. M. 324
Bonaiuto, M. 190
Bond, C. F. 283, 292, 296, 297, 300, 302
Bond, R. 138, 143, 145
Book, A. 189
Book, L. A. 146–147
Booth-Butterfield, M. 185, 320
Booth-Butterfield, S. 46, 47, 320
Borchers, T. A. 37
Bosmans, A. 380
Bosner, R. N. 302
Boster, F. J. 46, 47, 154, 240–242, 244, 246, 247, 248, 253, 275, 277–278, 313 Bostrum, R. N. 173
Boulbry, G. 191
Bourgeois, M. J. 17
Boutcher, S. H. 375
Bowen, S. A. 403
Bowers, J. W. 172, 176
Boyd, T. C. 85
Bradac, J. 176, 178
Braddock, K. 215–216
Bradley, P. H. 177
Braginsky, D. D. 293
Brajkovich, G. 217
Brand, C. 312
Brandt, D. R. 297
Brandt, M. 376
Brasel, S. A. 63
Brauer, M. 154
646
Braverman, J. 118, 215
Brehm, J. W. 73, 194, 228, 276
Brehm, S. S. 73, 194, 228
Breitsohl, J. 375, 380
Breseman, B. C. 200
Bresnan, J. 200
Brewer, G. 293
Bricker, B. J. 170
Brimbal, L. 296
Briñol, P. 13, 53, 56, 311
Brintazzoli, G. 370, 371
Britt, M. A. 178
Brock, T. C. 227
Brockriede, W. 397
Brodsky, S. L. 187, 326
Bromberg, M. S. 401
Brooks, C. 123
Brooks, G. P. 320
Brotons, M. 371
Brown, G. R. 143
Brown, J. 323
Brown, J. D. 376
Brown, P. 244–245
Brownlow, S. 200
Broyles, S. J. 368, 369
Brugioni, D. A. 357
Bruner, G. C. 375
Bruno, C. 84
Bruno, S. 17
Bruschke, J. C. 285, 292, 401
Bruzzone, D. E. 324
Buchanan, M. C. 244
Buckley, J. P. 328
Buijzen, M. 108
Bull, P. 294, 300
Buller, D. B. 196, 202, 227, 285, 287, 291, 293, 297, 298, 298
Bullis, C. A. 142
Bullock, A. 369
Burd, S. 284
Burger, J. M. 144, 147, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 270–271, 272, 273, 368
Burgoon, J. K. 184, 193, 194, 196, 247, 285, 287, 291, 293, 297, 298, 299
Burgoon, M. 74, 90, 176, 247, 248, 265
Burke, J. 367
Burke, K. 15, 141
647
Burke, M. J. 109
Burleson, B. R. 249
Burnkrant, R. E. 218
Burst, R. G. 320
Bushman, B. J. 324, 376
Busler, M. 85
Buss, A. H.
Butner, J. 147
Byers, E. S. 241
Byrne, S. 319, 320, 321
Cable, D. M. 200, 201
Cacich, A. 356
Cacioppo, J. T. 30, 43, 47, 58, 62, 84, 92, 121, 190, 214, 217, 312, 374, 393
Cacioppo, S. 58
Cai, D. A. 72, 250
Calanchini, J. 188
Caldwell, D. F. 368
Camden, C. 285
Cameron, P. 172
Campbell, A. 405
Campbell, D. M. 287
Campbell, D. T. 219, 229
Campbell, J. D. 138
Campbell, K. 376
Campbell, S. 349
Camps, J. 192
Canary, D. J. 40, 248, 403
Cann, A. 378
Cantor, J. 106
Capanoglu, A. 367
Caputo, D. 272, 273
Carli, L. L. 108, 178
Carlsmith, J. M. 71
Carlson, B. D. 217
Carlyle, K. 262
Carnagey, N. L. 376
Carpenter, C. J. 44, 272, 275, 276, 278
Carr, S. 375
Carter, L. F. 109
Carter, T. J. 321
Carter-Sowell, A. R. 148
Cascio, C. N. 2
Casey, M. K. 315
Caso, L. 289
648
Cassotta, L. L. 144–145
Catsoulis, J. 369
Cauberghe, V. 108, 225
Caughlin, J. P. 249
Cavazza, N. 153
Cha, A. E. 349
Chaiken, S. 30, 38, 43, 45, 47, 52, 109
Chambers, G. 376
Chan, A. C. 271
Chan, D. 296
Chan, E. 327
Chandler, T. A. 122
Chang, C. 167, 375
Chang, M. 320
Chansanchai, A. 349
Chapman, D. S. 127
Chapman, S. 349
Charbonnier, E. 153
Chartrand, T. 266
Chen, C. 8, 325
Chen, D. 217
Chen, M. J. 376
Chen, Y. 146
Chen, Z. 148
Cheney, G. E. 142
Chester, D. S. 71
Cheung, C. K. T. 151
Childers, T. L. 192
Cho, H. 313
Choi, W. 11
Cholerton, M. 266
Chrislock, K. 323
Christian, M. S. 109
Christians, C. G. 394
Christie, R. 119, 293
Christman, S. D. 13
Christopher, F. S. 242
Christy, T. P. 337
Chuang, R. 40, 111
Cialdini, R. B. 13, 75, 113, 145, 147, 194, 254, 263, 265, 266, 268, 269, 273, 275, 278, 398–399
Ciolacu, M. V. 58
Clapp, J. D. 142
Clare, D. D. 296, 301
Clark, J. K. 115
649
Clark, N. 366
Clark, R. D. 139
Clark, T. 12, 341–342
Claypool, H. M. 217–218
Cody, M. J. 38, 40, 110, 145, 147, 240, 241, 248, 253, 293, 294
Cohen, D. J. 196
Cohen, R. 318
Cohen, S. H. 196
Coker, R. A. 247
Coleman, C. 188
Collins, S. 17, 84
Collins, T. J. 369
Comadena, M. E. 196–197, 297
Çömez, T. 367
Compton, J. 223
Comstock, J. 298
Confessore, N. xvii
Conley, T. D. 323, 324
Conna, J. 400
Conners, R. J. 310
Connolly, T. 151
Connor, A. 377
Cooke, A. 408
Cooper, J. 66, 71, 73
Cooper, M. 96
Cope, J. G. 74
Copeland, L. 123
Copes, H. 354
Corballis, M. C. 373
Corbett, E. P. J. 170, 211, 310
Cornelis, E. 225, 340
Cornwall, T. B. 84
Cornwell, T. B. 105
Correll, J. 368
Costello, K. 189
Couper, M. P. 263
Courtright, J. 176
Craig, C. 374
Craig, R. T. 244
Craig, T. Y. 176, 178
Crane, D. 348
Crano, W. D. 52
Creason, C. R. 271
Crick, N. R. 400
650
Cronkhite, G. 87
Cross, C. P. 143
Cruz, M. G. 300
Cummings, D. D. 139
Cummings, M. S. 376
Cunningham, P. H. 401
Cupach, W. R. 15, 97, 99
Cupchik, G. C. 320
Curseu, P. L. 145
Dabbs, J. M. 193
Dahl, D. W. 323, 355
Dallinger, J. M. 122, 240, 248
Dardin, W. R. 312
Darley, J. M. 152
Darnold, T. C. 191
Davidson, W. P. 17
Davies, A. 316
Davies, E. 295
Davis, B. P. 274–275
Dawson, E. 201, 296
Dawson, J. 345
Day, H. D. 373
Deatrick, L. M. 74, 277–278
DeBono, K. G. 114, 115, 119
DeCesare, K. 271
Decety, J. 58
Dechent, P. 369
Deci, E. L. 310
Deeter-Schmelz, D. R. 121
De Gail, M. 188
de Guzman, N. F. 339
Dehaene, S. 370
de Hoog, N. 313
DeJong, W. 264
Delbyck, C. 105
De Leo, G. 289
Delia, J. G. 120
Deluga, R. J. 326
Demaine, L. 266
Dember, W. N. 380
Dennis, C. 381
Dennis, M. R. 243
Denny, C. 337, 338
Denton, R. E. 351
651
Denzen, N. K. 89
DePaulo, B. M. 38, 283, 285, 288, 289, 290, 292, 293, 294, 296, 297, 298
De Pelsmacker, P. 108, 225, 312
Derks, P. 321
Deroost, N. 370
De Souza, A. A. L. 201
deTurck, M. 242, 248, 293, 294, 297
Deutsch, M. 138
DeWall, N. C. 78
Devine, P. G. 228
Dhar, R. 312
Dickenson, A. 107
Diener, E. 148, 149
Dillard, J. P. 40, 53, 74, 167, 212, 213, 215–216, 248, 251, 253, 255, 265, 266, 268, 269, 270
Dillman, L. 298
Dillow, M. R. 122
Ding, C. C. 375
Ding, Y. 145
Dixon, P. N. 373
Djafarova, E. 84
Doerr, R. 370
Dolinska, B. 276
Dolinski, D. 276–277
Dommeyer, C. J. 152
Donovan, P. 296
Donovan-Kicken, E. D. 249
Doran, N. E. 248
Dorrance Hall, E. 251
Dowrick, P. 106
Dragojevic, M. 246
Drexler, M. 405
Driver, R. E. 287, 288, 291
Drolet, A. 328
Dubé, L. 328
Duffy, M. 394
Dufourcq-Brana, M. 276
Duhachek, A. 311
Dunbar, A. 376
Duncombe, S. 344
Dunn, D. 196, 199
Dupont, L. 24–25, 37, 351
Dupre, M. 276
Durik, A. M. 178
Durkee, M. J. 170
652
Dustin, S. L. 191
Dutson, E. 326
Dyson, C. 202
Dyson, M. E. 376
Eagly, A. H. 30, 45, 47, 52, 109, 118
Eaton, A. A. 108
Eayres, C. B. 316
Ebesu, A. S. 285, 291
Ecker, U. K. H. 370
Edwards, C. 122
Egan, L. C. 72
Einstein, M. 65
Eisenberg, D. 146
Eisend, M. 225, 319, 320, 323
Eisenmann, M. 84
Ekman, P. 189, 190, 289, 290, 295, 300
Elashi, F. B. 108
Elberse, A. 84
Eliasziw, M. 242
Ellemers, N. 152
Elliot, A. J. 365, 367
Elliot, G. C. 293
Elliott, D. 375
Ellis, N. 316
Ellul, J. 18
Emling, S. 374
Endersby, J. W. 12
Entman, R. M. 350
Epley, N. 149
Erb, H. P. 46,
Erevelles, S. 218
Erickson, B. 177, 178
Erkan, I. 8
Eskenazi, J. 371
Esposo, S. 13
Etgen, M. 321
Eubanks, J. 376
Evans, A. T. 115
Evans, C. 8
Evans, J. St. B. T. 312
Even-Chen, M. 269
Ewens, S. 296
Fabrigar, L. R. 47, 56, 58
653
Fackler, M. 394
Faedda, S. 74
Fairey, P. J. 138
Falbe, C. M. 244
Falk, E. B. 2, 58
Farell, B. 338
Faseur, T. 312
Faucheux, C. 139
Fay, C. 153
Fazio, R. H. 53, 56
Feeley, T. H. 216, 247, 268, 269, 270, 275, 276, 291, 297
Feinberg, M. W. 148
Feldman, R. S. 297
Felshin, N. 343, 344, 345
Feltman, R. 367
Felton, P. 357
Fennis, B. M. 227
Ferguson, M. J. 321
Fern, E. F. 268, 270
Ferris, G. R. 326
Feshbach, S. 113
Festinger, L. 66, 71, 74, 148, 227, 276
Ficca, G. 190
Fico, A. E. 268
Filieri, R. 147
Fillmore, D. G. 296
Fischer, A. H. 139
Fischer-Lokou, J. 187, 191
Field, A. 197
Figgé, M. 269
Fink, E. L. 215, 316
Finkel, E. J. 202
Fishbein, M. 60, 61
Fisher, J. D. 191
Fisher, R. P. 296, 300
Fitch, K. L. 111–112
Fitzpatrick, M. A. 243, 248
Fitzsimons, G. 367
Fitzsimons, G. M. 202
Fletcher, P. 403
Flynn, D. 54
Flynn, M. A. 374
Fointiat, V. 113
Folger, J. P. 190
654
Fong, C. P. S. 400
Forbes, R. J. 187
Ford, N. M. 403
Forney, J. 367
Forrest, J. A. 297
Forrester, D. 296
Foss, K. A. 164
Foss, S. K. 164
Fournier, S. 64, 65
Fraczek, K. E. 266
Frandsen, M. M. 242
Frank, J. B. 12
Frank, J. D. 12
Frank, M. G. 295, 368
Frankenberger, K. D. 355
Fraser, S. C. 149, 264
Fredman, K. 11
Freedman, J. L. 226, 264, 316
Frei, S. S. 174
French, J. P. R. 244
Frenkel-Brunswik, E. 118
Friedman, H. S. 293
Friedman, R. 365
Friesen, W. V. 189, 190, 289
Fromberger, P. 369
Fu, P. 111
Fu, W. 108
Fukada, H. 228
Fuller, D. B. 376
Fuller, L. 200
Fuller, L. K. 347
Funke, F. 54
Furnham, A. 196, 220
Gable, M. 369
Gagne, M. 64
Gal, D. 323
Galinsky, A. D. 188
Gallagher, K. 401
Garcia-Marques, T. 217
Gardner, D. 313
Garlin, F. V. 375
Garnham, A. 312
Garrett, L. 404
Garrido, E. 200
655
Garrison, H. 400
Gass, R. H. 30, 33, 38, 41, 122, 321, 403
Gayle, B. M. 119
Geers, A. L. 13
Geis, G. L. 293
Geizer, R. S. 297
Generous, M. A. 174
Gengler, C. 168
Genschow, O. 364, 367
Gentile, D. A. 401
Gentry, J. W. 317
George, W. H. 262
Gerard, H. B. 138
Gerbner, G. 349
Gerrard, M. 349
Gerstein, L. H. 114
Gertner, J. 125
Gettings, P. E. 251
Geuens, M. 312
Ghuge, S. 213
Gibbons, F. X. 349
Gier, J. A. 271
Giles, H. 177, 188
Gilley, M. 195
Gillith, O. 369
Gilmer, L. 341
Gilmore, J. H. 353
Gilmore, J. N. 11
Gilovich, T. 149, 368
Giolla, E. M. 296
Gips, J. 63
Girandola, F. 175, 271, 272
Gitomer, J. 96
Givens, K. D. 168
Gladwell, M. 5, 145
Glassner, B. 11, 313, 404
Glazer, E. 320
Gleick, E. 134–135
Glick, P. 323
Gliner, M. D. 154
Gloor, S. 375
Gobé, M. 367
Goei, R. 262, 263
Goelz, R. 370
656
Goethals, G. R. 153
Goffman, E. 97, 184
Goleman, D. 371
Goldberg, C. 196
Goldman, M. 271
Goldman, R. 325
Goldstein, N. J. 263, 265
Goldstein, T. 265
Golish, T. D. 246
Goodall, C. E. 56
Goodman, E. 146
Gorassini, D. R. 265
Gordon, N. P. 143
Gordon, R. A. 326
Gordon, W. I. 122
Gorham, J. 196
Gornik-Durose, M. 147
Goss, B. 293
Gouilloux, P. 274
Gournic, S. J. 262
Gow, J. 373
Gnisci, A. 190
Grady, K. 228
Graham, E. E. 320
Gramlich, J. 405
Grande, L. R. 262
Grandpre, J. R. 74, 293
Granhag, P. A. 289, 291, 294, 296, 297, 300, 301
Gray, G. 404, 405
Graziani, A. R. 153
Greenberg, J. 34, 396
Greenberger, E. 325
Greenwald, A. G. 56, 66, 371
Greenwood, D. 350
Greer, N. 153
Gregg, A. P. 120
Greifeneder, R. 311
Greitemeyer, T. 376
Grewal, D. 220
Griffin, D. 328
Griffin, D. J. 268
Griffin, M. 312
Griffin, S. 350, 351
Griffith, J. D. 296
657
Griggs, L. 123
Grinder, J. 373
Gross, K. 321
Gross, L. 349
Grossnickle, W. F. 74
Grover, R. 125
Groves, R. M. 263
Grube, J. W. 376
Gruder, C. L. 93
Gruner, C. R. 320, 321
Guadagno, R. E. 113, 267, 268
Gudykunst, W. B. 142
Guéguen, N. 186, 187, 188, 191, 201, 267, 270, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 323, 367
Guerin, B. 150
Guidetti, M. 153
Guido, G. 201
Gulas, C. S. 319, 320, 321
Gumm, W. B. 373
Gunasekera, H. 349
Gunning, T. 340
Gunns, R. E. 189
Gunter, B. 108
Gupta, K. 85
Gurri, M. 337, 338
Gutiérrez-Arranze, A. M. 43
Gutiérrez-Cillán, J. 43
Gutstein, Y. 312
Hackman, M. C. 320
Haefner, J. E. 35
Hagerty, M. R. 325
Hagita, N. 13
Hakel, M. D. 187
Hakim, D. xvii
Halberstadt, J. 217
Hale, J. L.
Hale, S. L. 268
Haley, E. 337
Halimi-Falkowicz, S. G. M. 276, 278
Hall, A. 109
Hall, J. R. 227
Hallett, K. C. 56
Hall Nagayama, G. C. 376
Halloran, T. 64
Hamilton, M. A. 172, 176
658
Hamilton, V. E. 13
Hamilton, W. D. 200
Hamm, H. K. 191
Hample, D. 122, 200, 240, 248
Han, B. 215
Han, C. M. 321
Han, S. 110
Hancock, J. T. 286, 356
Hanewinkel, R. 108
Hanisch, E. 380
Hansen, C. H. 376
Hansen, R. D. 376
Hansen, S. D. 121
Hansmann, R. 74
Happ, C. 262
Harden, J. M. 40, 251
Hardt, H. 394
Hargreaves, D. J. 375
Hariman, R. 355
Harkins, S. G. 150
Harmon, A. 371
Harmon-Jones, C. 71
Harmon-Jones, E. 71, 73
Harms, A. 337, 338
Harris, L. 369
Harris, S. 242, 248
Harrison, B. 58
Harrison, K. J. 223
Harrison, M. S.
Hart, C. L. 296
Hart, J. W. 121, 139
Hart, R. P. 164
Hart, W. 341
Hartman, P. 374
Hartwig, M. 289, 296, 300, 301
Harvey, O. J. 119
Haslett, B. 248
Hass, R. G. 228
Hassin, R. R. 321
Hatch, S. 196
Hauch, V. 296
Haugtvedt, C. P. 43, 44, 47
Haun, D. B. M. 143
Haupt, A. 399
659
Heap, M. 373
Heath, C. 6
Heath, D. 6
Heatherton, T. F. 349
Hecht, M. A. 188
Heerdink, M. W. 139
Heider, F. 66
Heisler, G. 403
Helgeson, J. G. 323
Hendrickson, B. 262, 263
Hennessy, D. A. 375
Henning, B. R. 13
Henningsen, D. D. 295, 300
Hensley, W. E. 198
Hepler, J. 315
Herbst, K. C. 202
Herman, C. P. 153
Herrero, C. 200,
Herrman, J. 403
Heslin, R. 191
Hewgill, M. A. 90, 98
Hey, S. 348
Hibbert, S. 316
Hidayetoglu, M. 367
Higbee, K. L. 313
Higgins, E. T. 153
Hill, J. A. 322
Hill, J. B. 316
Hill, R. P. 317
Hillman, J. 296
Hinkle, L. L. 185, 201
Hirokawa, R. Y. 244, 248
Hirsch, J. B. 127
Hirsch, L. 377
Hobbs, R. H. 343, 345
Hocking, J. E. 297
Hockley, W. E. 338
Hodge, D. R. 12
Hoeken, H. 215
Hoffman, B. H. 120
Hofstede, G. 110, 144
Hofter, C. 369
Hollanbaugh, L. C. 241–242
Holland, R. W. 52, 59, 188, 320
660
Hollingdale, J. 376
Holloway, P. 96
Holman, A. 142
Holody, K. J. 374
Holt, D. 377
Holt, L. E. 93
Holyk, G. 96
Homan, A. C. 139
Hong, S. M. 74
Hong, Y. 213
Hoover, J. D. 174
Hopper, R. 285
Hornick, J. 191, 312
Hornsey, M. J. 13, 143
Horowitz, L. M. 121
Horsley, A. D. 74
Hosansky, D. 140
Hoshino-Browne, E. 72
Hosman, L. A. 178
Houser, M. J. 174
Hovick, 242
Hovland, C. I. 92, 93, 224
Howard, D. J. 166, 168, 212, 277
Howard, L. A. 174
Huang, L. 319
Hudson, L. P. 296
Hudson, S. M. 189
Huffman, K. 74
Huffman, K. T. 74
Hugenberg, K. 186–187
Hughes, M. 277–278
Huguet, P. 153,
Hull, S. J. 213
Hunt, S. 202
Hunter, J. E. 58, 246, 248, 266,
Hustinx, L. 215
Iacobelli, F. 312
Iacoboni, M. 58
Ibrahim, Y. 13
Ikonen, P. 403
Imahori, T. T. 97, 99
Imberi, J. E. 262
Imhof, M. 201
Inbau, F. E. 328
661
Infante, D. A. 121–122, 248
Inkster, J. A. 75
Insko, C. A. 226
Ireland, F. 316
Isenberg, D. J. 154
Isensee, B. 108
Ishiguro, H. 13
Ismail, R. 327
Ivanov, B. 222, 223
Iyer, A. 13
Jack, J. 58
Jacks, J. Z. 228
Jacksa, J. A. 392, 394
Jackson, P. R. 187
Jacob, C. 186, 191, 270, 367
Jacobs, K. A. 185, 246
Jacobs, S. 315
Jaffe, C. A. 317
Jain, A. 168
Jalil, N. A. 366
Jang, A. 72
Jang, S. 239
Janis, I. L. 113, 142
Janssen, L. 227
Jaschinski, C. 198
Jenkins, M. 246
Jenni, K. 216
Jensen, A. S. 185
Jensen, J. D. 213
Jensen, K. 17, 84
Jensen, M. L. 176
Jessup, L. M. 151
Jetten, J. 143
Jing, X. 146
Joffe, H. 338
Johannesen, R. L. 394
John, D. R. 64
Johnco, C. 195
Johnson, A. 177
Johnson, B. T. 118
Johnson, D. I. 173, 246
Johnson, G. M. 239
Johnson, J. W. 192
Johnson, M. D. 121
662
Johnson, R. R. 367
Johnston, L. 189
Johr, N. 370
Jonason, P. K. 293
Jones, C. 345
Jones, E. 326, 401, 408
Jones, J. P. 24
Jordan, K. 369
Jordan, S. 296
Jordan, W. J. 240, 253
Joseph, M. 296
Joslyn, M. 71
Joule, R. V. 73, 274, 276, 278
Jowett, G. S. 18
Judd, B. B. 324
Judd, C. M. 154
Judge, T. A. 200, 201
Kaçar, S. 367
Kacmar, K. 326
Kafetsios, K. 185
Kahle, L. R. 144
Kahn, B. E. 169
Kahneman, D. 212–213
Kalbfleisch, P. 293
Kalis, P. 376
Kalland, S. 321
Kalmoe, N. P. 321
Kalsher, M. J. 380
Kamakura, W. A. 84
Kamins, M. A. 85, 201
Kämpfe, J. 376
Kang, J. G. 223
Kang, S. K. 127
Kaplan, A. 390
Kappas, A. 188
Karau, S. J. 139, 150, 151, 152
Kardes, F. R. 212,
Karmarkar, U. R. 89
Karremans, J. C. 370, 371
Kasmer, J. E. 43, 47
Kaspa, K. 13
Kassel, J. D. 13
Kassin, S. M. 328
Kaufman, D. O. 121
663
Kausel, E. E. 120
Kawakami, K. 188
Kazakov, D. 301
Kazoleas, D. C. 248
Kearney, P. 253
Keating, J. P. 227
Kelem, R. T. 149
Kelland, L. 354
Kelleher, K. 326
Keller, E. 5
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Kommers, P. 198
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Snyder, M. 114, 144, 248
So, J. 311
Soetens, E. 370
Sojka, J. Z. 121
Soldow, G. F. 297
Solowczuk, K. 287
Somat, A. 73, 74, 113
Sommer, K. L. 17
Sooniste, T. 296
Sopory, P. 167
Sorensen, G. 253
Sorenson, J. 223
Sorochinski, M. 301
Sorokowski, P. 201
Sottile, V. M. 375
Souchet, L. 271
Spangenberg, E. R. 371
Spears, R. 151
Spencer, S. J. 72, 370
Spiegel, S. 46
Spisak, F. 244
Spitzberg, B. H. 15
Sporer, S. L. 288, 294, 296
Sprague, R. 7
Spry, A. 84,
Spurlock, M. 372
Stahlberg, D. 217
Stankiewicz, J. M. 322
Stasson, M. F. 121, 139, 152
Staum, M. J. 371
Stayman, D. M. 325, 326
682
Steadman, M. 324
Steffgen, G. 262
Stel, M. 188
Stenberg, G. 338
Stephan, W. 292
Stephenson, M. T. 74
Stern, S. E. 202
Stewart, B. L. 172, 176
Stewart, G. L. 191
Stiff, J. B. 46, 47, 92, 93, 284, 297, 298, 299
Stilley, K. M. 64
Stinchfield, K. 170
Stolberg, S. 378, 379, 380
Stone, A. 195
Stone, J. I. 38, 288
Storey, J. 178
Story, L. 24
Stouten, J. 192
Stowe, S. A. 122, 185
Strahan, E. J. 370
Strain, M. L. 120
Strasser, T. 168
Strathman, A. 62, 92
Strick, M. 188, 320
Stroebe, W. 370
Strom, R. E. 277–278
Strömwell, L. A. 289, 294, 296
Strong, C. A. 212
Struthers, C. W. 118
Strzyzewski, K. D. 298
Su, W. 348
Suci, G. J. 53
Sugano, H. 380
Suh, T. 337
Sullivan, T. 73
Sümeli, F. 367
Sun, C. 8
Sunstein, C. R. 7
Surdin, A. 377
Sutton, S. R. 313
Swaab, R. I. 139
Swart, L. C. 372
Swami, V. 196, 201
Swaminathan, V. 64
683
Szczucka, K. 276
Tajuddin, N. H. 327
Tal-Or, N. 326
Tamborini, R. 320
Tan, H. H. 152
Tan, M. L. 152
Tandingan, R. 197
Tanford, S. 138, 139, 146–147
Tannenbaum, M. B. 315
Tannenbaum, P. H. 53, 66
Tansik, D. A. 151
Tark, J. 242
Tas¸kiran, Ö. 367
Tavris, C. 72
Taylor, A. 195
Taylor, C. R. 402
Tedeschi, J. T. 95, 184
Teerling, A. 380
Teller, C. 381
ten Brinke, L. 58
ten Brinke, T. 145
Tendayi, G. V. 376
Terry, D. J. 13
Tesser, A. 62,
Teven, J. J. 88, 90, 185, 196–197
Textor, S. 374
Thackray, R. J. 294
Thaler, R. H. 7
Thaler Singer, M. 373
Thayer, L. O. 394
Thibodeau, P. H. 167
Thomas, R. L. 371
Thomson, M. 311
Thompson, E. P. 30, 46
Thompson, L. 152
Thompson, M. 353
Thornton, R. J. 171
Thorson, E. 394
Throckmorton, B. 293
Thurson, W. E. 242
Tice, D. M. 227
Tiddle, C. 376
Till, B. D. 85, 86, 217
Timmermann, L. 315
684
Tingley, D. 58
Ting-Toomey, S. 97, 393
Tittle, C. R. 403
Tittler, B. I. 117
Toma, C. L. 286, 356
Tomasello, M. 143
Tompkins, P. K. 142
Tong, S. T. 198
Tormala, Z. L. 59, 89
Torres, H. I. 287
Torstrick, A. M. 148
Totten, B. 375
Totty, M. 9
Towle, M. J. 12
Towne, N. 163
Tracy, K. 244
Trapp, R. 164
Trappey, C. 369
Traut-Mattausch, E. 376
Trebing, D. W. 248
Treise, D. 400
Trenske, M. 375
Trope, Y. 43, 45
Trost, M. R. 266
Tucker, J. 293
Tuman, J. S. 13
Turek, A. 323
Turkiewicz, K. L. 315
Turman, P. D. 185
Turner, M. M. 239, 316
Tusing, K. J. 269
Tuteleers, C. 192
Tversky, A. 213
Uchida, Y. 145
Udall, A. 217
Uhlmann, E. L. 56
Unnaba, H. R. 218
Unterberger, L. 349
Urland, G. R. 368
Urrutia, I. C. 292
Valde, K. S. 295
Valette-Florence, P. 316
Valindra, A. 185
685
Vallee, B. 276
Valone, K. 202
Van Baaren, R. 188, 320
Van Bockern, S. 223
Van den Bussche, E. 370
Van den Noortgate, W. 370
Van Der Heide, B. 198
Van Der Heijden, S. 173
van Kleef, G. A. 139
van Knippenberg, A. 52, 59, 188, 320
Vanman, E. J. 13
van Schaik, P. 54
Van Vaerenbergh, Y. 375
van Wersch, A. 54
Vanwesenbeeck, I. 108
Vasiljevic, D. 139
Vassileva, J. 109
Västfjäll, D. 188
Vázquez, M. 109
Veith, R. 311
Venette, S. 248
Venkatesh, S. 323, 324
Verhulst, B. 138
Verleun, J. 84
Verma, S. 321
Vernon, M. 166
Vernon, P. A. 293
Verplanken, B. 52, 59
Verwijmeren, T. 370, 371
Vijay, M. 323
Visser, P. S. 108
Vohs, K. D. 227
Vokey, J. R. 371, 372
Von Blum, P. 12, 345
Voss, C. W. 372
Vrij, A. 288, 289, 291, 292, 294, 296, 300
Wade, T. J. 200,
Wadhwa, M. 145, 220
Wagner, A. E. 244
Wagner, E. F. 13
Waiters, E. D. 376
Waldron, J. J. 140
Waldron, V. R. 120, 123
Walker, M. K. 373
686
Wallington, S. 316
Walrave, M. 108
Walsh-Childers, K. 351
Walter, B. F. 13
Walters, P. S. 285
Walther, J. B. 198, 298
Wang, C. 8
Wang, M. W. 375
Wänke, M. 364, 367
Wanzer, M. B. 320
Ward, C. D. 92
Ward, D. A. 109–110
Warm, J. S. 380
Warmelink, L. 296
Warren, G. 294
Warshaw, P. R.
Washburn, P. V. 187
Watkins, M. B. 109
Watson, M. 197
Watt, J. D. 326
Watts, W. A. 93
Waxman, S. 350
Wayne, S. J. 326
Weaver, R. M. 164
Webb, R. 107
Weber, F. 274
Webster, G. D. 368
Webster, R. J. 119–120
Wegener, D. T. 47
Weger, H. 168, 185, 246, 261, 327
Weigold, M. F. 400
Weinberger, M. G. 319, 320, 321
Weiner, W. 311, 318
Weir, T. 84
Weis, D. L. 242
Weisenthal, D. L. 375
Welkos, R. W. 351
Wellner, A. S. 322
Wells, M. E. 7
Welsh, J. 380
Wernicke, M. 369
Wertenbroch, K. 312
Westerman, D. 198
Westphal, J. D. 326, 327
687
Wetz, R. V. 375
Weyant, J. M. 266
Wick, J. Y. 11
Wheeler, L. 195
Wheeler, S. 189
Wheeler, S. C. 46
Whicker, M. L. 201
White, B. 217
White, C. H. 249, 291, 298
White, D. S. 71
White, M. J. 114
Whitty, S. 350
Whorf, B. L. 168
Widaman, K. F. 293
Wiemann, J. M. 177, 188
Wieneke, K. 217
Wigboldus, D. H. J. 370, 371
Wiggins, J. 192
Wigley, C. J. 248,
Wilbarger, J. L. 370
Wilcox, B. L. 106
Wilk, S. L. 152
Wilkins, E. 301
Wilkins, H. 369
Willer, R. 148
Williams, C. J. 364
Williams, K. D. 148, 150, 151, 152, 186–187
Williams, M. 188, 190
Williams, P. 328
Williams, Z. 318
Williams-Piehota, P. 121
Willis, F. N. 191
Wilson, A. 285
Wilson, B. J. 405
Wilson, E. J. 90
Wilson, K. 315
Wilson, M. C. 56
Wilson, P. 241
Wilson, S. J. 202
Wilson, S. R. 244, 249–250, 251
Winke, J. 248
Winkielman, P. 370
Wirth, J. H. 186–187
Wirth, W. 374
688
Wirtz, J. G. 213
Wiseman, R. L. 32, 40, 111, 253, 297, 393
Wisner, A. M. 285
Witte, K. 313, 314, 315
Witteman, H. 243
Wittenbrink, B. 56
Wodjynski, B. W. 8
Woelfel, M. L. 240
Wolverson, R. 146
Wong, S. 212
Wood, W. 66, 111, 112, 113, 226, 228–229
Woodall, W. G. 190, 196
Woodard, F. 343, 345
Wooden, K. 106–107
Woodward, G. C. 351
Wosinska, W. 147
Wright, C. 376
Wright, K. B. 176
Wyer, R. S. 400
Xie, J. 146
Xie, X. 72
Xu, A. Z. 14
Yalch, R. 375
Yang, F. 8
Yarbrough, D. 373
Yen, C. 167
Yildirim, S.
Yinon, Y. 269
Yoo, C. Y. 120
Yoo, J. H. 275
Yoon, S. 120
Yoselson, K. 190
Young, A. M. 74
Young, D. G. 320
Young, M. J. 291, 297
Young, S. M. 377
Young, T. J. 88, 90
Yukl, G. 111, 244
Yun, K. A. 316
Yunus, R. M. 366
Zaharia, C. 373
Zajonc, R. B. 153, 216, 217, 375
689
Zaltman, G.
Zander, M. F. 374
Zanna, A. S. 72,
Zanna, M. P. 72, 370
Zebrowitz, L. A. 200, 217
Zenteno, R. 13
Zhang, W. 284
Zhang, Z. 176
Zhou, J. 217
Zhu, X. 285
Ziemke, M. H. 326
Zimmer, B. 409
Zimmerman, N. 337
Zimmerman, R. S. 315
Zin, S. M. 327
Zuckerman, M. 287, 288, 291, 293, 297
Zumwalt, J. 355
690
Subject Index
ability, and dual process models 44–45, 62
absolute sleeper effect 93–94
accidental influence 33–34, 118
accommodation theory 177, 188; see also
activation of interpersonal commitments 237–239
activation of personal commitments 237–239
active participation and commitment 69–70
activism and art 343–347
actual control, and reasoned action approach (RAA) 61
adaptors 190–191, 289
adolescents 13, 97, 125, 143, 223 349, 376, 401; see also children; teens
advertising: amount spent on 3, 8, 14, 24, 84, 351; associations 353–354; and children 106, 108; effectiveness of 3, 14, 17,
35, 84, 108, 125; exposure to 4, 5, 24–25n4, 106, 351; humor in 319; image-oriented 63, 65, 339, 351; jingles 374;
subliminal 369; themes 63, 169, 353–354, 378,
affect misattribution procedure (AMP) 56
age xvi, 105–108, 400–401; see also children
aggression 121, 368
aggressiveness see verbal aggressiveness
AIDS Memorial Quilt, as a form of persuasion 345–347
alpha consumers 5
alignment 244
ALS ice-bucket challenge 6
altercasting, and compliance gaining 238–239
altruism, and compliance gaining 238
ambient aromas 379
ambient music 375–376
amoralism 395
anchor position, and social judgment theory 116–117
anecdotal proof 215, 369, 373
anti-ads 352
anticlimax order in persuasive messages 218
anxiety-arousing appeals see fear appeals
anxiety level 113, 240; and aroma 379–380; background music 375; and fear appeals 313; and fragrance 379; and
persuadability 113; and self-touch 190; state and trait 112–113; and uniform color 367
aphorisms 166
aposematism, color as 364
691
appearance 56, 195, 200; fallibility of 57; as an indicator of attitude 56–57; see also halo effect; physical appearance
apprehension, and compliance gaining 240
argumentativeness 122, 248
arguments: and dogmatism 119; and need for cognition 120–121; and nonverbal cues 188; quality versus quantity 43, 45,
197, 213–214
Aristotle 24n2, 87, 210, 312
aroma and persuasion 377–381
arousal goals 251
art as persuasion 12, 341–347; art and activism 343; awareness through interpretation 344; awareness through participation
344–345; communist art 341–343; Names Project 345–347
artifacts 195–196
aspirational brands 64, 353
assaults and stride or gait 189
assertiveness 98, 108–109, 122, 243
assimilation effect 117
associations, as indicators of attitudes 57
associations creating 19, 62–66,
associative networks 62
astroturfing, or astroturf activism 170
asynchronous communication 40–41
attachment theory 311
attitude 8, 11, 24n1, 52–60; accessibility of 55; attitude–behavior consistency (ABC) 53, 58–59; attitudes in associative
networks 62; definition of 52; persistence of 44, 59, 62; problems in measuring 55–56; scales for measuring 53–54
attitude object 53
attractiveness 193, 195, 200; see also physical appearance
audiences, analyzing and adapting to 122–127
authenticity and branding 64, 353
authoritarianism 119
authority 254
automobile sales 21–22
awareness through interpretation 344
awareness through participation 344–345
baby-faced individuals 200
background music 375–376
backward-masked recordings 371
bait-and-switch tactic 274; see also lures to entice children; old switcheroo tactic
baldness 201
bandwagon effect, as propaganda ploy 19
bargaining, and psychological consistency 67
behavioral adaptation explanation 299–300
behavioral beliefs 60
behavioral control, and deception 289, 291, 294
behavioral measures of attitudes 58
belief disconfirmation, and cognitive dissonance 73
692
beliefs, and the theory of reasoned action (TRA) 60
belonging needs and Maslow’s hierarchy 126
benefits of studying persuasion 15–17, 19, 391
biases and detecting deception 297–299
bidirectional indicators of attitude 58
blanket of protection and inoculation theory 222
blogging and blogosphere 7, 40, 84, 146, 394, 403
body language 189–191; see also nonverbal influence
body shape 199–200; see also physical appearance
bolstering and psychological consistency 67
boomerang effect 35, 74, 192
borderline persuasion 32–33, 35, 38, 39, 41, 396
bracketing, as a form of distraction 227
brainwashing 24n1, 32, 368; see also indoctrination; propaganda
brand equity 84
brands and branding 63; brand authenticity 62; brand loyalty 68; brand personality 64; brand personality scale 77; brand
relationships 64; color and 365–366; music and 374
bumper stickers 12
bunglers, and ethical persuasion 398
buyer’s remorse 72
buzz marketing 5, 8
bystanders and helping behavior 148–151
Cambridge Analytica xvii
canvas fingerprinting xvii
card-stacking, as propaganda ploy 19
car sales 21–22
catfishing scam 105
cause-related marketing (CRM) 64, 353
ceiling effect for evidence 215
celebritocracy 84
celebrity endorsers 5, 84–86, 121, 399–400
centrality of attitudes 59, 66
central processing 43–45; see also elaboration likelihood model (ELM)
charisma 83; see also credibility
charismatic terms 164–165
children 105 125, 400–401; and advertising 106, 108; and peer pressure 137, 147; persuadability of 105–108; preventing
molestation 106–107
chronemics 194–195
Cicero 210
cinema and persuasion 12, 347–351
clickbait 8
climax order in persuasive messages 218
clothing 195–196, 198
coercion versus persuasion 11, 28–30, 35–37, 39
693
cognitive complexity 120–121, 123
cognitive consistency see consistency, psychological
cognitive dissonance theory (CDT) 71–73; and culture 72; preference for consistency (PFC) 113
cognitive elaboration, and elaboration likelihood model (ELM) 43–45
collective effort model 150
collectivism–individualism 110–111
color and persuasion 364–368; aggression 368; associations with 364–365; branding 365–366; and emotion 366–367; red pen
effect 365; uniform colors, perception of 367–368
combined strategies 328
commitment 22, 69, 75–76, 273
common sense views of persuasion 17
communication accommodation theory 177, 188; see also mirroring
communication competence 15
communicator characteristics 105–116; age 105–106; and compliance gaining 24; and conformity 143–144; and deception
292–293
communist art 341–343
competence, as credibility dimension 87–90
compliance gaining 235–255; and couple types 242–244; design logics 248–249; and goals 249–252; and perceptual
threshold 248; and power 244; resisting influence 241; strategy selection 253; situational factors 239–240; strangers
versus intimates 241; strategies 238; types of 237; typology of compliance gaining strategies 254; and touch 191; versus
persuasion 236
compliance stage, in cult conversion 140
composure 88, 90
computer-mediated communication (CMC) 151
conclusions, explicit and implicit 211–212
conformity 134–148; and culture 144; and early research 136; explanations for 136–138; and facial hair 201; and gender 141;
and group size 137–138; and informational influence 138; and judgments 136–137, 139; and normative influence
135–136; and number of dissenters 138; and online communication 151; and organizations 142; and peer pressure
143–144; and personality 144; and resisting 138–139; and social media 151; see also group influence
connectors (in relation to tipping points) 5
connotative meaning 53, 164
conscious awareness of persuasion 32–36
consequentialism 362
consistency, psychological 66–70, 254; and foot-in-the-door strategy 266; methods of maintaining 67
consolidation stage, in cult conversion 140
constructivism 120
consumer cynicism 352
context and tipping points 6
contextual factors 6, 14–15, 32, 34, 39–40, 87, 142, 184–185, 191–192, 194, 236, 240, 247, 294, 312, 323, 358
contrast effect: and door-in-the-face strategy 268; and social judgment theory 117; and that’s-not-all-tactic 270
control, need for 17, 61, 118, 144
conventional design logic 248
coping appraisal and fear appeals 313–314
corporate social responsibility (CRM) 65, 407
694
counterarguing 45, 226
counterattitudinal advocacy (CAA) 74–75
counterattitudinal attacks 225
counterintuitive findings 17
couple strategies for compliance gaining 243–244
couple types 243
credibility xvii, 83–99; and argumentativeness 122; and authoritarianism or dogmatism 118; definition of 86; dimensions of
87–91; and evidence 97; and facial features 200; and heckling 227; and height 201; and identification of source 97–99;
and illustrators 190; and language 176; and lateness 194; and nonverbal cues 185, 191, 195, 196, 197; as a peripheral cue
92; and presidential debates 184–185; and profanity 173; and powerless language 178; and rate of speech 220; and self-
touching behavior 190; and two-sided messages 225; and uniforms 197; and verbal aggressiveness 121–122; and vocal
factors 202
cross-sex effect 109
crowdfunding 9–10
crowdsourcing 9
cue leakage related to deception 289
cultivation theory 349–350
cults 134–135, 140–141
cultural truisms, and inoculation theory 221–222
culture 15, 32, 40, 110–111; and audience adaptation 126; and cinematic stereotypes 350; and cognitive dissonance 72; and
compliance gaining 111, and conformity 144–145; 250; and deception 292; and direct versus indirect strategies 40,
110–111; and social proof 147; strong culture in organizations 142
culture of fear 313, 405
cussing 172–173
danger control, and fear appeals 314
debt and indebtedness, and compliance gaining 237–238, 250, 254, 263
debunking function 17
deception 283–302; accuracy in detecting 283; behavioral adaption explanation 299; behavioral correlates of deception 288;
as a communication skill 293; cognitions during 289–290; cognitive load 300; context sensitive information 301; cultural
factors 292, 297; definition of 284; demeanor 292; detection of 283, 291, 295–298; duping delight 290; emotional lies
294, 292, 297; ethics and 402–403; four factor model 287–288; high stakes lies 295; information manipulation theory
285–287; interpersonal deception theory 291–292; motivational impairment effect 294; motivations for lying 285; online
dating 286; opposing effects model 299; photographic 355–356; prepared versus spontaneous lies 294; sending capacity
hypothesis 289; stereotypes about 296; strategic use of evidence technique (SUE) 300–301; suspicion 297–298; training
and experience 296; transparent people 292; types of 285
decision rules and heuristic systematic model (HSM) 45
defensive function 17, 20
definition of persuasion 30–41; authors’ definition 41; as product or process 35; versus compliance gaining 236; versus social
influence 33
deictic phrases, as powerless language style 178
deindividuation 148–152
demographic variables and persuasion 105–112, 127; see also segmentation
denial, and psychological consistency 67
denotative meaning 164–165
695
deontological ethics 395
design logics, and compliance gaining 250
descriptive norms 60
devil’s advocate: and counterattitudinal advocacy (CAA) 74; and organizations 143
devil terms 164–165
differentiation, and psychological consistency 67
diligent isolates 152
direct effects model of immediacy 185
direct versus indirect persuasion 242, 246, 393
disabilities 56, 114, 174–175, 316, 348
disassociation, and sleeper effect 93
disclaimers, as powerless language style 177
discounting cue, and sleeper effect 93
discrepancy 176–177; see also social judgment theory
Disney movies and subliminals 368
dispositio 210; see also message structure and organization
disrupt-then-reframe technique (DTR) 274–275
dissent 136–137
dissonance 70–73
distance 107, 192–194
distraction 227; and aphorisms 166; humor as a form of 320; nonverbal behavior and 184, 193, 226; sex appeals and 324
documentaries 357, 369, 372
dogmatism 118–119, 248
dominance, and compliance gaining 240
door-in-the-face technique 267–270
doublespeak 170
dress see appearance
dual process models of persuasion 43; see also elaboration likelihood model (ELM); heuristic systematic model (HSM)
dump and chase technique 277
duping delight 290
duty ethics 395
dynamism 90
ectomorphs 199–200
effects standard 34–35
efficiency principle for reducing dissonance 68
effort justification paradigm, and cognitive dissonance 73
effortless transfer and tipping points 6
egalitarianism 395
ego-involvement 115, 117
elaboration likelihood model (ELM) 43–46, 47n2, 62, 92, 118, 214, 217–218, 311; criticisms of 47n2
elderly people 108, 350, 400
electronic word of mouth 8
elocutio, or elocution 210
elitism 353
696
ELM see elaboration likelihood model
embedded images 369
emblems 189–190
embodied cognition 13, 36
emotional appeals 311; emotional marketing 311–312; ethics and 407–407; guilt and pity 316–318; logic versus emotion
312; mixed emotional appeals 328; patriotic appeals 321–322; sex appeals 323–324; warmth appeals 324–326
emotion and color 366–367
endomorphs 199–200
ends versus means of persuasion 395
esoteric persuasion 364–381
equality and ethical persuasion 398
esteem see self-esteem
esteem needs and Maslow’s hierarchy 126
ethics 3–4, 23–24, 391–410; and credibility 399–400; and communicator characteristics 400–401; conscious awareness and
396; cultural factors 393; and deception 402–403; emotional appeals 406–407; equality 398; ethical approaches 395;
ethical questions 393–394; and fear appeals 404–406; free choice/free will 396–397; ingratiation 408; intentionality and
396; language and symbolic action 397; motives versus means 392, 393; persuaders as lovers 397–398; professional codes
of ethics 394; respect 397; sleuths 398; threats 403–404; tolerance 398; visual persuasion 408–409
ethnicity 34, 110, 125, 254; see also culture
ethnocentrism 142
ethos 84; see also credibility
ethos scale 88
euphemisms 164, 170–172
evaluative dimension of attitudes 52
evaluative priming 56
even a penny helps tactic 275
evidence 43, 97, 214–215; anecdotal versus statistical 214–215; ceiling effect 215; and credibility 97; quality versus quantity
213–214
evoking freedom technique 276
eWOM 8
expectancy violations theory (EVT) 193
experiential products 220
expertise, and compliance gaining 237–238; as credibility dimension 87–88
expert power 244
explicit attitude measures 53–55
explicit conclusions 211–212
explicit norms 135
expressive design logic 248
extended parallel process model (EPPM) 314–315
external incentives, and foot-in-the-door 266
extrinsic motivation 310
extroversion 88, 90
eye contact 186, 296, 323
face 97, 187, 200, 289; and compliance gaining 244–245; see also attractiveness
697
Facebook xvii, 5, 125, 198, 337, 355, 402, 403
facework 97; and euphemisms 171; and impression management 97
factor analysis, and credibility 87, 91
fake news xvii
falsifications 285
familiarity bias, and detecting deception 297
familiar phrases 166
fear appeals xvii, 20, 312–315; effectiveness of 315; ethics of 404–405; extended parallel process model (EPPM) 314–315;
level or intensity of 313, 315
Fearless Girl statue 343
fear-then-relief procedure 276–277
feminine/masculine cultures 151
first impressions 196
flattery see ingratiation
focus groups 155
foot-in-the-door strategy (FITD) 263–267
foot-in-the-mouth effect 277
forewarning 220–221, 225–229
four-factor model of deception 287–291
four walls technique 278
fragrances and persuasion 377–379
framing effects 212–213, 246
free choice or free will and persuasion 35, 396
free choice paradigm, and cognitive dissonance 73
free market ethics 395
free ride effect, and social loafing 150
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) 58
funerals, and guilt appeals 317–318
future-minded 213
gain-framed messages 212–213
gait or stride 189
galvanic skin response (GSR) 58
gamification 9, 108
Gass and Seiter model of persuasion 32–33, 38–41
gaydar 56
gaze and gaze avoidance 186–187; see also eye contact
gender 34, 56, 108–110, 143, 168, 173, 192, 247, 248, 293, 343; and body types 199–20; and cinema 348; and color 364; and
conformity 143; and deception 293; and language style 178; and persuadability 108–110; and resistance to influence 247
general aggression model 376
genuineness xviii, 7, 8, 32, 64, 96, 320, 327, 353, 408
gestures 189–190
glittering generalities, as propaganda ploy 19
goals 33; and compliance gaining 249–252
goals, plans, action model of compliance gaining 251–252
698
god terms 164–165
Golden Rule 395
good cop/bad cop technique 276, 328
goodwill 88, 90, 98
gratitude explanation, and pregiving 263
group buying 146
group identification 141–144
group influence 136–143; and group size 149; see also conformity
group initiation 140
Groupon 146
group polarization phenomenon 154
groupthink 142
growing legs, and commitment 75
guilt, as a motivational appeal 316–318; and door-in-the-face strategy 269
gullibility 13, 24n3, 95, 105, 297
habitual persuasion 16
habituation to music 377
hair 201
halo effect 89, 199
handshakes 191
happiness-then-disappointment procedure 277
haptics 191–192
hard sell versus soft sell strategy 211–212
hashtag activism 5
hazing see indoctrination
heckling, as a form of distraction 227
hedges, as powerless language style 177
hedonic purchases 312
height 38, 201, 286
helping behavior 142
hesitations, as powerless language style 177
heuristic cues 45
heuristic processing 45
heuristic systematic model (HSM) 45–46
hierarchy of needs 126
high self-monitors see self-monitoring
hip hop and rap music 376–377
hostility 118
humor 318–321; and counterarguing 320; and credibility 320; as a distraction 320; effectiveness of 320–321; as indirect form
of influence 319; related vs unrelated humor 321; self-disparaging humor 320; as social proof 320
iconicity, of images 339
identifiable victim effect (IVE) 216
identification 141–142, 350
699
identity goals 255
identity management 40, 99n2
illustrators 190
image management 94–95
image-oriented advertising 63, 65, 339, 351; and high versus low self-monitors 114
image restoration 95
images see visual persuasion
images, importance of 337
immediacy 185
Implicit Association Test (IAT) 56
implicit attitude measures 56, 77n1
implicit conclusions 211–212
implicit cues 32
implicit norms 135
impression management theory (IMT) 95, 99n2, 184; and pregiving 263
inconsistency, psychological 70–71
inconsistency in research findings 20
indebtedness 238, 263; see also pregiving
identity management and compliance resisting 241
independents, couple types 243
indexicality, of images 339–340
indirect strategies, and culture 40, 111, 246, 393
individual differences see communicator characteristics
individualism–collectivism 110–111, 144
indoctrination 18, 140
induced compliance, and cognitive dissonance 73
informational influence in groups 138
information manipulation theory (IMT) 285–287
information processing theory 176–177
ingratiation 8, 16, 139, 326–327; ethics of 408; how ingratiation works 326; types of ingratiation 326
initiation rituals 140
injunctive norms 60
inoculation theory 77n2, 221–223
inspiring, as a credibility dimension 91
instrumental function 15
instrumental goals 40
intelligence and persuadability 112
intensifiers, as powerless language style 177
intensity and language 172
intent criterion, intentionality 33–34
intention 60
interaction goals 251
internal drive state, and subliminal priming 370
internalization stage, in cult conversion 140
700
internalized social norm, and pregiving 263
interpersonal credibility 95
interpersonal deception theory (IDT) 291–292, 297
interpersonal influence xviii, 8, 14–15, 236
interpersonal versus noninterpersonal consequences 242
intimacy: and compliance gaining 220
intrapersonal influence 38–39, 155; see also cognitive dissonance theory (CDT)
intrinsic motivation 310
inventio, or invention 210
involvement 44, 110, 185, 218–219 312; and credibility 92, 99; and elaboration likelihood model (ELM) 44, 62; and
evidence 214, 219, 223; and quality/quantity of arguments 214; see also ego-involvement; issue involvement
issue involvement 118
juries 187, 225
justifying and compliance resisting 241
just one more technique 278
kinesics 186–187
knowledge function 16
labeling 167–168, 267
labels, and foot-in-the-door 266; see also language
language 37, 163–202; aphorisms 166; connotative and denotative meanings 163–164; and credibility 98; doublespeak
170–171; euphemisms 170–171; labeling 167–168; metaphors 167; language intensity 175–176; pharmaceutical drug
names 169; political correctness 174; powerful and powerless language 177–178; power of labels 167–168; profanity
172–173; symbols 163; ultimate terms 164–165; vividness 175
language expectancy theory 176
language intensity 172, 175–176
law of the few (in relation to Tipping points) 5
latitude of acceptance 116
latitude of noncommitment 116
latitude of rejection 116–117
legitimacy, of requests 187; and door-in-the-face technique 268
legitimate power 244
legitimizing paltry contributions 275–276
L-factor 96
lie bias, and deception detection 295, 298
lies see deception
life stages hypothesis 108
likability 95–96, 98
likability scale 96
Likert scale 53–54
liking, and compliance gaining 238, 254; and humor 319; and ingratiation 326; and pregiving 262
linear view of persuasion 34–35
logical versus emotional appeals 312
701
logos 312
loss-framed messages 212–213
lovers, as ethical metaphor 397–398
lowball tactic 272–273
low self-monitors see self-monitoring
lures to entice children 106; see also baitand-switch tactic
luxury brands, and image 353
lying see deception
lynch mobs 150
Machiavellianism 248, 292, 395
magnitude, of cognitive dissonance 72
manipulation 4, 19, 20, 391
marketing strategies 68–70
Marlboro man 339
masculine/feminine cultures 144–145
masked prime 370
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs 126
mass interpersonal persuasion xviii
mass shooting 147
match-up hypothesis 85, 201
mature faces 200
mavens (in relation to tipping points) 5
meaning transfer perspective 85
mean scary world, and cultivation theory 349
media clutter 10, 351, 371
medium of communication 37, 40, 218
medical contexts, and compliance gaining 109, 115, 194, 213, 247
memoria, or memory 210
merchandising, to increase brand loyalty 69
mere exposure effect (MEE) 216–218; and music 375; see also repetition
mesomorphs 199–200
message discrepancy 176–177; see also social judgment theory
message framing 212–213, 246, 275
message recommendations 113
message structure and organization 210–229; anticlimax, climax, pyramidal order 218; dispositio 210; evidence 214–216;
forewarning 220–221; gain-framed versus loss-framed messages 212–213; implicit versus explicit conclusions 211–212;
inoculation theory 221–223; one-sided versus two-sided messages 218–225; primacy versus recency 218–220; quality
versus quantity of arguments 213–214; repetition 216–218
meta-analysis 20, 25n6, 58, 75, 84, 90, 109, 119, 138, 145, 175, 186, 198, 201, 213, 214, 215, 216, 222, 228, 265, 269, 275,
288, 294, 296, 297, 312, 319, 320, 321, 366, 369, 370, 373, 375, 380
metaphors 167
micromarketing 124–125
microtargeting xvii, 124–125
Midas touch 191
702
military and influence 13
mimicry 188
mindfulness 16, 34, 35–36, 55
mirroring 188
mnemonic device, music as 375
mob psychology 149–150
model of persuasion 33, 38–41
modifying attitudes, and psychological consistency 67
Montana Meth Project 355
mood: and music 375; and smell 379–380; and color 366–367; and touch 191
moral conviction 139
morality as motivated resistance hypothesis 140
morality and persuasion see ethics
moral licensing 65
moral obligation, and compliance gaining 230
motivational appeals 309; definition of 310; emotional marketing 311–312; extended parallel processing model 314–315; fear
appeals 312; guilt and pity 316–318; humor 318–321; ingratiation 326–327; logical vs emotional appeals 312; mixed
emotional appeals 328; patriotic appeals 321–322; sex appeals 322–324; stage model of fear appeals 313–314; warmth
appeals 324–326
motivational impairment effect 294
motivation and dual process models 44–45, 62
movies and persuasion 347–351
multidimensional construct, credibility as 86
multiple act criteria, and measuring attitudes 59
music and persuasion 13, 374–377; in advertising 374; background music 375; as central and peripheral cues 374; mere
exposure effect 375; mnemonic device 375; musical fit 374; music videos 375; rap and hip hop 376–377; weaponizing
music 377
name-calling, as propaganda ploy 19
NAMES Project (AIDS Memorial Quilt) 345–347
naming 162–163, 168, 169
narcissism 120
narrative form of movies 347
narrative versus statistical evidence 214–216
native advertising 8, 403
need for cognition 44, 121, 212
need for touch (NFT) 192
negative altercasting 238–239
negative esteem and compliance 238
negative expertise 238
negative labeling 267
negative face 245
negative statements, by liars 288, 291
negativity 244
negotiation and compliance resisting 241
703
nepotistic altruism 200
nervousness, and deception 251, 288, 291
neurolinguistic programming (NLP) 296, 372–374
niche marketing see segmentation
non-attitudes 55
nonexperiential products 220
nonnegotiation and compliance resisting 241
nonrefutational message 224
nonstrategic behaviors, and deception 291
nonverbal influence 2, 32, 37–38, 40–41, 58; appearances 56–57, 199; artifacts 195–196; chronemics 193–194; functions of
184; and definition of persuasion 32, 37–38, 40; direct effects model of immediacy 185; expectancy violations theory
(EVT) 193; facial expressions 54, 187–188, 289; haptics 191–192; and impression management 184; kinesics 186–187;
paralinguistics 201–202; physical appearance 195, 199; proxemics 192–193
normative beliefs 60
normative influence in groups 135, 138
norm of reciprocity 263, 270
norms 40, 55, 109, 118, 135–136
nudges, nudge theory 7
nudity, and social influence 135, 328, 336–337, 363
objectification theory, and sex appeals 323
offensive language 172–173
old switcheroo tactic 22; see also bait-and-switch tactic
omissions 263
one-sided messages versus two-sided messages 218–225
online dating 286
online influence 7
open versus closed body position 189
opinion mining xvii, 8
opposing effects model, and deception 299
order of messages see message structure and organization
organization of messages see message structure and organization
ostracism 147–148, 187
Othello error 30
other enhancement, and ingratiation 326
panhandling 13, 186
paralanguage 201–202
parallel processing: and the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) 43, 311; and the heuristic systematic model (HSM) 45
participation: and art 344–345; and brand loyalty 69–70
pathos 312
patriotic appeals 320–321
pedophiles, deterring 106–107
peer pressure 137, 143, 147, 152, 223; see also teens
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) 18, 328
704
perceived behavioral control 61
perceived caring 88, 90
perceived efficacy, of fear appeals 315
perceived ulterior motives explanation, and pregiving 262
perceived vulnerability, to fear appeals 313–314
perceptual contrast effect 268
perfume 377–379
peripheral processing see elaboration likelihood model
persistence of attitudes 44, 59, 62
personal benefit, and compliance gaining 240
personality 144; see also traits
personal relevance and message scrutiny 218–219
personal space 192–193
persuasion: art as a form of 12; as an art and science 3; definition of 30–42; linear view of 34–35, 40; positive aspects of 4;
process versus product 35; process view of 34–35; science as a form of 11–12; versus coercion 35–37; versus compliance
gaining 236; versus indoctrination 18; versus propaganda 18–19; versus social influence 33
persuasive arguments theory 154
persuasive technology 11, 13
pervasiveness of persuasion 2–3, 5, 24n4
philanthropy 65, 94, 228, 274, 278, 316, 328
phishing scams 284
photography as persuasion 355–358
physical appearance 198–200
physical attractiveness explanation, and pregiving 263
physician–patient compliance gaining 109, 115, 213, 247
physiological measures of attitude 58, 59
physiological needs and Maslow’s hierarchy 126
picture superiority effect 338
pique technique 275
pity, as a motivational appeal 316–318
placebo effect 371
plain folks appeal, as propaganda ploy 19
plans, and compliance gaining 251
polarization of alternatives 72
polarization in groups 154
police interrogation 328
polite forms, as powerless language style 163
politeness theory 244–245
political correctness 174–175
political debates 184–185
positive aspects of persuasion 15–17, 19, 391
positive face 245
posture 186
power, types of 244
705
power distance 144
powerful/powerless language 98, 175–176
prayer as persuasion 12
preference for consistency (PFC) 113, 266; see also tolerance for inconsistency
pregiving 261–263
prescription drug names 169
presidential debates 184–185
present-minded 213
preventing persuasion see resisting persuasion
pride and patriotism 321–322
primacy effect 218–220
primary dimensions of credibility 87–90
primary goals, and compliance gaining 250–252
primary representational system 373
priming 370–371
principle of scarcity 194, 254
private self-awareness, and deindividuation 150
probing effect, and deception 299
probing heuristic 299
product placement xvii, 5, 347, 369, 372
product planting see product placement
profanity 172–173
promise, and compliance gaining 238
pronuntiatio, or pronunciation 210
propaganda 18–19
prosocial requests, and foot-in-the-door 266
prosocial values in movies 348
proxemics 192–193
psychological consistency see consistency, psychological
psychological reactance 73–74, 139, 194, 228, 316
Psychological Reactance Scale 74
public self-awareness, and deindividuation 150
punishing activity, and compliance gaining 237–238
pupil dilation 58, 289
pure persuasion 32–33
pyramidal order in persuasive messages 218
Q-Score and celebrity endorsers 84, 99n1
quality of arguments 213–214
quantity of arguments 213–214
Quintilian 172, 211
race see ethnicity
rap and hip hop music 376–377
rapists, as ethical metaphor 398
706
rate of speech 202
reactance, psychological 73–74, 139, 194, 228
reasoned action approach 60–61
recall and emblems 190
receiver-based phenomenon and credibility 86
recency effect 218–220
reciprocal concessions 268
reciprocity 238, 254
red pen effect 365
reference group 141
referent power 244
refutational message 224
reinforcement expectancy theory 109
reinforcement theory 176
related versus unrelated humor 321
relational consequences, and compliance gaining 240
relational goals 40
relative sleeper effect 93–94
relativism, ethics and 395
repetition: and mere exposure 216
resisting persuasion 17, 35, 240–241, 356
resource goals 251
respect, and ethical persuasion 394
response efficacy, and fear appeals 315
reverse speech 371
rewarding activity, and compliance gaining 237–238
reward power 244
rhetorical design logic 248
rights, and compliance gaining 242
risk aversion 213
risky behaviors, in movies 349
risky shift phenomenon 154
robotic persuasion 13
safety and Maslow’s needs 126, 353
salespeople (in relation to tipping points) 5
Sapir–Whorf hypothesis 168
scalability and tipping points 6
scarcity, scarcity principle 194, 254; see also psychological reactance
scare tactics see fear appeals
scent and persuasion, marketing 380; see also aroma and persuasion
scientists as persuaders 11–12
secondary dimensions of credibility 88, 90–91
secondary goals, and compliance gaining 250–252
seducers, as ethical metaphor 397
707
segmentation 57, 124
selective exposure 72
self-actualization needs and Maslow’s hierarchy 126
self-awareness 150; see also mindfulness
self-concept clarity 267; see also self-esteem
self-disparaging humor 320
self-efficacy, of fear appeals 315
self-esteem 112–113
self-feeling, and compliance gaining 316
self-monitoring 114, 144
self-objectification, and sex appeals 324
self-perception theory 264–265
self-persuasion 38–39, 69, 76, 155
self-presentational goals 40
self-presentation explanation 268, 273
self-report measures of attitudes 53–54
self-touching 190
self-worth function 17
semantic differential scale 53–54, 88
sending capacity hypothesis 289
senior citizens 108, 350, 400
sensation seeking 213
sense of place 354
sentiment tracking xvii, 8
separates, couple types 243
sequential persuasion 260–301; bait-and-switch tactic 274; combined strategies 271; disrupt then reframe (DTR) 274–275;
door-in-the-face (DITF) 267–270; dump and chase 277; evoking freedom technique 276; fear-then-relief procedure
276–277; foot-in-the-door (FITD) 263–267; foot-in-the-mouth effect 277; four walls technique 278; happiness-then-
disappointment 277; just one more technique 278; legitimizing paltry contributions (LPC) 275–276; low-ball tactic
272–273; negative labeling 267; pique technique 275; pregiving 261–263; sweetening the deal see that’s-not-all-tactic;
that’s-not-all tactic 270–271; you will probably refuse, but… technique 278
sex see gender
sex appeals 322–324, 353; and fragrance ads 378–379; and objectification theory 323; and self-objectification 324; and
subliminal persuasion 369
sexism 376, 168, 323–324
sexual overtures, resisting 241–242
shame as a motivational appeal 316
shock advertising 354–355
short-term versus long-term consequences 242
similarity 247, 326; and associations 57; and credibility 98; and ingratiation 326
simultaneous processing 45; see also parallel processing
situational ethics 395
situational factors 87, 124; see also contextual factors
size of initial request, and sequential strategies 265–266, 269
708
sleeper effect 92–94, 223, 321
sleuths, and ethical persuasion 398
slogans and sloganeering 65, 68
smell and persuasion 377–381
smiling 187–188
smoking 3, 66, 74, 143, 223, 225, 243, 273, 349, 352, 354
smoking cessation, and inoculation 223
smugglers, and ethical persuasion 398
sociability 88, 91
social cognitive theory 349
social comparison theory 154
social compensation 153
social desirability bias 55, 253
social facilitation effect 153
social identity of deindividuation model effects (SIDE) 151
social impact theory 138
Socialist Realism 342
socialization 34
social influence model 138
social influence, versus persuasion 33
social judgment theory 115–117
social labeling 326
social loafing 150–151
social media 146,
social modeling 33
social ostracism 147–148, 187
social proof 145–146, 254, 320, 349
social responsibility position 289
social vigilantism 119
sociocultural factors 40–41; see also culture
softening-up stage, in cult conversion 140
Sophists, sophistry 170
source credibility see credibility
source identification 92
space and distance 192–193
speech errors, and deception 289, 291
speech rate 202
spin, and language 171
sponsored content 8, 403
sponsorship 65
staged events 340
stage model of fear appeals 313–314
stages of cult conversion 140
states versus traits 112
709
statistical proof 214–216
stealth marketing see buzz marketing
stereotypes 109, 168, 350–351, 350
stickiness and tipping points 6
strangers: and children 106–107; and compliance gaining 240, 242–243; and online helping behavior 151; and panhandling
186; and violence proneness 345
strategic and nonstrategic behaviors, during deception 291
strategic questioning, and deception detection 300
strategies: compliance gaining 237–238; for enhancing credibility 97–99
Streisand effect 73
strength of arguments 213–214
strength model of self-control 227
stride or gait 189
strong culture in organizations 142
structure of messages see message structure and organization
subaudible messages 371
subjective norm, and theory of reasoned action (TRA) 51–52
subliminal persuasion 17, 368–371; definition of 368; ethics and 409; ineffectiveness of 369
subliminal priming 370–371; limitations of 370
subvertising 352
successful persuasion see effects standard
sucker effect, and social loafing 151
sufficiency principle, and heuristic systematic model (HSM) 45
supermarkets, and nonverbal influence 197
supportive versus refutative strategy 221
supraliminal 368–369
supraliminal messages 368
suspicion, and deception detection 298–299
sweetening the deal 270
symbolic action 5, 15, 37–38
symbols 163; see also language
synchronous communication 40–41
syntactic indeterminacy 340
synthesized speech 202
systematic processing 45
tactics for gaining compliance see compliance gaining
tactile shoppers 192
tag questions, as powerless language style 177
tattoos 64, 196
teens 13, 97, 125, 143, 223, 349, 376, 401
teleological ethics 395
terrorism as a form of persuasion 13
testimonials, as propaganda ploy 19
that’s-not-all tactic 270–271
710
third person effect 17, 84
threat appeals, and compliance gaining 238, 246; ethics and 403–404; threat appraisal and fear appeals 313
threat and inoculation 221
time see chronemics
time delay 219; see also chronemics ; and door-in-the-face 270; and forewarning 229n1; primacy/recency effects 219; and
sleeper effect 93–94
tipping points 5–7, 145
tolerance, and ethical persuasion 398
tolerance for ambiguity 144
tolerance for inconsistency 72
tool analogy, and persuasion 19–20, 391
touch 13, 107, 184, 190, 191–192, 380; self-touching behaviors 190
traditionals, and couple types 243
traits 112–115
transcendence, and psychological consistency 67
transfer, as a propaganda ploy 19
trustworthiness 88–90, 98, 188
truth bias, and deception detection 295, 298
truth claim and photographs 356
truth default theory 295
Twitter 5–6, 8
two-sided messages 218–225
type A personality 248
type of compliance, and door-in-the-face technique 269
ulterior motives explanation for pregiving 263
ultimate terms 164
uncertainty avoidance 144
unethical persuasion see ethics
uniforms 197, 367–368; see also clothing
unimodel of persuasion 46–47
unintended receiver effect 34
unintentional persuasion 33–34, 118
unity and compliance gaining 254
universalism, and ethics 395
unrelated humor 321
upward/downward communication 398
utilitarianism 395
utilitarian purchases 311
value discounting effect 272
values, in movies 348
veracity effect 283
verbal aggressiveness 121
verbal communication see language
711
victimization 189
viewer identification 350
viral marketing 5–7, 145
virtue ethics 395
visual analog scale (VAS) 54
visual literacy 357
visually-oriented attitude scales 54–55
visually-oriented consumers 373
visual persuasion 336–358; art as persuasion 341–347; cinema and persuasion 347–351; and ethics 409; iconicity 339; images
in advertising 351–352; indexicality 339–340; picture superiority effect 338; syntactic indeterminacy 340–341
vividness 175
vocalics 201–202
warmth appeals 324–326; see also direct effects model of immediacy
warning 106, 371
weaponizing music 377
webtracking xvii
weird persuasion 13–14
well-being function 17
WOM see word-of-mouth marketing
word-of-mouth marketing xviii, 5, 7, 8, 36
wrong subjective cue hypothesis 296
Yale Attitude Research Program 24n1
youth culture 353
You will probably refuse, but … technique 278
712
