9 keys to change attitude through persuasion

What leads us to change our minds regarding a fact or to decide to purchase a certain product? How do we manage to change a habit or our perception of another person?

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

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

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

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Persuasive messages and their role in attitude change

Persuasive messages are socially mediated strategies which are usually used to pursue the change of attitude. It becomes a direct methodology in which one starts from a central idea to defend and is complemented with one or two forceful arguments that support it. reinforce, since their ultimate purpose is usually aimed at a type of addressee who is originally positioned in the attitude opposite.

Thus, the effectiveness of a persuasive message rresides in the ability to modify a series of beliefs already internalized by the recipient through the use of incentives and clear and simple information that can be understood by the recipient.

The choice of said 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 can be greatly compromised. In turn, these cognitive processes depend on the nature of four other main 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 throughout the last decades. McGuire (1981) defends a six-stage process that is summarized in the result of combining the joint probability of receiving information and accepting said message.

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The central route and the peripheral route

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

The central one consists of the longest lasting critical evaluation process where the arguments presented are analyzed in detail, and the route Peripheral is the superficial assessment that has a low level of motivation and is focused 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), for its part, states that upon receiving a persuasive message, the receiver compare this information with your own feelings and other previous attitudes regarding the same topic, 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.

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Key elements in the persuasion process

As previously mentioned, some of the main factors that modulate the effectiveness of persuasion for attitudinal change are the following.

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 (sincerity perceived), the attractiveness of the sender, the power or the group similarity between him and the receiver affect the level of attention aroused by the information transmitted.

2. The message

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

According to the first criterion, research shows that the level of persuasion maintains a relationship of inverted U with the degree of threat or perceived danger that the receiver presents to the information received. Thus, 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 power of persuasion has been shown when the level of fear aroused is always high. that is accompanied by certain indications on how to deal with the danger exposed in the message.

One-sided messages are characterized by exclusively present the advantages of the object of persuasion, while the bilateral ones combine both the positive aspects of alternative proposals and the negative aspects of the original message. The studies seem to position themselves in favor of bilateral messages in terms of persuasion effectiveness, since they tend to be perceived as more credible and realistic than the former.

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

3. The receptor

The recipient of the message is also another of the key elements. As pointed out by the findings of authors such as McGuire (1981), Zajonc (1968) or Festinger (1962), the recipient is less likely to resist accepting a persuasive message if:

1. The receiver feels involved with the subject matter

If what is being talked about has a meaning for the receiver, it will come out of him to listen to the proposal.

2. There is little discrepancy

There is little discrepancy between the position defended on the message and the recipient's prior beliefs, that is, the level of discrepancy is moderate although it exists.

3. The information given was not known

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

4. Moderate level of distraction

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

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

On these occasions, the recipient usually increases his resistance as a prevention mechanism to preserve his previous beliefs. This factor strongly interacts 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 route.

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 liking for the new attitude in question from spontaneous contact, since does not have the conscious awareness of having been directly persuaded for it.

8. The power that cognitive dissonance is meaningful enough to the recipient

Cognitive dissonance is the effect of discomfort that an individual experiences when there is no correspondence between his beliefs and his beliefs. actions, for which he tries to readjust one of the two elements to reduce such discrepancy and minimize psychological tension aroused.

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

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9. There is consistency in the message

The arguments justifying the message are strong (central path).

Conclusion

According to what is exposed in 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 of attitude (attention, understanding, 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 presents can facilitate or hinder such attitudinal change in 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's previous beliefs, the type of feelings generated by the new information (which depend on life experiences above) or the degree of discrepancy between theoretical thinking and the actual behavior emitted by the individual, which condition to a greater extent the effectiveness of the persuasive intention.

Therefore, the existence of infallible strategies or methodologies cannot be affirmed. to achieve attitude change in a universal or standard way for all people.

Bibliographic references:

• Baron, R. TO. and Byrne, D. (2005) Social Psychology, 10th edition. Ed: Pearson.

• Moya, M (1999). Persuasion and attitude change. Social psychology. Madrid: McGraw-Hill.