What makes us change our mind about a fact or decide to buy a certain product? How do we manage to change a habit or our perception of another person?

From Social Psychology there are very diverse models that address the issue of attitudinal change . By definition, an attitude is a type of acquired and relatively long-lasting predisposition to evaluate a fact or a subject in a certain way and to behave according to such evaluation.

Attitudes are composed of a cognitive element (perception of the attitude object), an affective element (set of feelings generated by the attitude object) and a behavioural element (behavioural intentions and actions derived from the two previous ones).

Due to its complexity and the number of internal and external aspects of the subject that are involved, modifying an attitude can be more difficult than it may seem on the surface. The following are the key points involved in this particular psychological process

Persuasive messages and their role in attitudinal change

Persuasive messages are socially mediated strategies that are usually used to pursue attitude change . It becomes a direct methodology in which a central idea to be defended is started and is complemented with one or two strong arguments that reinforce it, since its ultimate purpose is usually directed to a type of recipient that is originally positioned in the opposite attitude.

Thus, the effectiveness of a persuasive message r is based on the capacity to modify a series of beliefs already internalized by the receiver through the use of incentives and a type of clear and simple information that can be understood by the recipient.

The choice of this persuasive message is very relevant, since it must produce a series of internal effects in the receiver, such as attention, understanding, acceptance and retention. If these four processes are not combined, the achievement of attitudinal change may be greatly compromised. In turn, these cognitive processes depend on the nature of four other major external factors:

  • The source of information
  • The content of the message
  • The communication channel
  • The communicative context

Several authors have tried to explain through different models why attitudinal change occurs over the last decades. McGuire (1981) defends a six-stage process that is summarised in the result of combining the joint probability of receiving the information and the acceptance of that message.

The central route and the peripheral route

On the other hand, Petty and Cacioppo (1986) affirm in their Model of Elaboration Probability that individuals try to validate their position before the decision to accept or reject a certain idea through two ways, the central route and the peripheral one .

The central route consists of the most durable critical evaluation process where the arguments presented are analyzed in detail, and the peripheral route is the superficial evaluation that has a low level of motivation and focuses on external aspects such as interest in the issuer or its credibility. In the latter case, the probability of basing the change of opinion on heuristics or “cognitive shortcuts” is considerably significant.

The Cognitive Response Theory (Moya, 1999), on the other hand, states that when the receiver receives a persuasive message he compares this information with his own feelings and other previous attitudes regarding the same subject, generating a cognitive response. Thus, the recipients of the message “convince themselves” with their own messages based on their previous opinion when they receive certain persuasive information.

Key elements in the process of persuasion

As discussed above, some of the main factors modulating the effectiveness of persuasion for attitudinal change are as follows.

1. The source of information

Aspects such as credibility, which is formed in turn by competence (or experience in the thematic field in question) and authenticity (perceived sincerity), the attractiveness of the sender, the power or the group similarity between the sender and the receiver affect the level of attention aroused by the information transmitted.

2. The message

They can be classified as rational vs. emotional and unilateral vs. bilateral .

According to the first criterion, research shows that the level of persuasion has an inverted U ratio to the degree of perceived threat or danger presented by the recipient of the information received. For this reason, the so-called appeals to fear are often widely used in the promotion of attitudinal changes related to health and disease prevention.

In addition, greater persuasive power has been demonstrated when the level of fear raised is high, provided that it is accompanied by certain indications on how to deal with the danger set out in the message.

Unilateral messages are characterized by presenting only the advantages of the object of persuasion , while bilateral messages combine both positive aspects on alternative proposals and negative aspects available on the original message. The studies seem to be in favour of bilateral messages on the effectiveness of persuasion, as they are often perceived as more credible and realistic than the former.

Other key elements to evaluate in the type of message are, mainly: whether the information is accompanied by graphic examples (which increases the persuasive effectiveness), whether the conclusion is explicit or not (more probability of attitudinal change in the first case) or the degree of the effects derived from the order of the ideas that make up the message (primacy effect – greater recall of the information offered in the first place – or recency effect – greater recall of the last information received).

3. The receiver

The receiver of the message is also another key element. As pointed out by the findings of authors such as McGuire (1981), Zajonc (1968) or Festinger (1962), there is a lower probability that the recipient will resist accepting a persuasive message if

1. The receiver feels involved with the subject matter

If that which is spoken of has a meaning for the receiver, it will come out of him to hear the proposal.

2. There is little discrepancy

There is little discrepancy between the defended position in the message and the previous beliefs of the receiver , i.e. the level of discrepancy is moderate although existing.

3. The information given was not known

There is a process of pre-exposure to the information or not, which can lead the person to defend his or her original position and not give in to the persuasive message. This occurs in cases where the power of the information is not strong enough to overcome such defenses.

4. Moderate level of distraction

The level of distraction in the recipient is considerable, which makes it difficult to consolidate the arguments used by the persuasive message. When the degree of distraction is moderate, the persuasive power tends to increase because the tendency to counter-argue the transmitted idea is diminished .

5. Notice of the persuasive intent of the issuer has been given

On these occasions, the recipient often increases his resistance as a preventive mechanism to preserve his previous beliefs. This factor interacts considerably with the degree of involvement of the individual in the subject matter : the greater the involvement and the greater the notice, the greater the resistance to persuasion.

6. The repetition of the persuasive message is maintained over time

This condition occurs as long as it is based on the central transmission path.

7. The degree of exposure to the stimulus or persuasive information is high

It seems to have been shown that the subject tends to increase his or her liking for the new attitude in question from spontaneous contact, since does not have the conscious perception of having been directly persuaded to do so.

8. The power that cognitive dissonance is sufficiently significant for the receptor

Cognitive dissonance is the effect of discomfort that an individual experiences when there is no correspondence between his beliefs and his actions, so he tries to readjust one of the two elements to decrease such discrepancy and minimize the psychological strain involved.

The degree of dissonance in turn is influenced by the type of incentive that accompanies the change of attitude , the degree of freedom of choice of decision or personal involvement, among others.

9. There is consistency in the message

The arguments that justify the message are solid (central path).

Conclusion

According to the text, the relative interaction between the cognitive aspects that are manifested in the recipient of a type of information in order to achieve a change in attitude (attention, comprehension, acceptance and retention) and other external factors such as the characteristics of the original source of the message or the way in which it is presented can facilitate or hinder such an attitudinal change by a significant percentage .

Even so, the effect of the defended idea and of the arguments used to support it becomes a considerably particular phenomenon, since it is a function of circumstances such as the person$0027s previous beliefs, the type of feelings generated by the new information (which depend on previous life experiences) or the degree of discrepancy between theoretical thinking and the real behavior emitted by the individual that most conditions the effectiveness of the persuasive intention.

It cannot therefore be stated that there are infallible strategies or methodologies to achieve attitude change in a universal or standard way for all people.

Bibliographic references:

  • Baron, R. A. and Byrne, D. (2005) Social Psychology, 10th edition. Ed: Pearson.
  • Moya, M (1999). Persuasion and attitude change. Social Psychology. Madrid: McGraw-Hill.