COMM 3060
Chapter 10
Receiver and Context Factors
Eaves-Persuasion
Read O
=Keefe--read pp. 175-187
Issues:
I. Enduring Receiver Characteristics:
A. General Persuasibility
1. General evidence for intra-individual consistency
B. Sex Differences in Persuasibility
1. Females are more easily persuaded (p.176)
2. However, these differences are small
3. Difference not reliable, could be spurious diff.
4. Knowledge and interest are intervening variables
5. Males perhaps more analytical, critical, independent thinkers; females perhaps more encouraging of social harmony and express support for others (p. 177)
C. Personality Traits
1. Few dependable generalizations
2. Greatest attitude change is moderate levels of self-esteem (again, inverted U-curve relationship, sound familiar--p.178)
3. More intelligent receivers will be more likely to understand persuasive messages (p. 178)-ex: voters; Also, more likely to see weaknesses and generate counter-arguments.
II. Induced Receiver Factors
A. Inoculation Theory (McGuire, 1964)
1. The biological metaphor--as in vaccines to disease
2. Cultural truisms--a belief rarely attacked--everyone in the culture holds these beliefs--no one is criticized for holding these (p. 180)
They are vulnerable to attack during inoculation:
a) the believer has no practice in defending the belief
b) the believer is unmotivated to undertake the necessary practice
3. Supportive/Refutational Treatments
4. Nontruisms--equal results for supportive and refutational treatments for nontruisms, not true for cultural truisms
5. The resistance produced by refutational treatments does appear to generalize to novel arguments (p.181)
6. The refutational treatment not only makes persons resistant to the particular argument that
=s being refuted, but makes them resistant to additional new arguments as well7. Warning: has been correlated with a person
=s bolstering of their defenses thereby reducing the effectiveness of future attacks on their beliefs (p.182)8. Two types of warning: persuasive intent and topic and position (Freedman and Sears study, 1965--student driving)
Both reduce attack to beliefs--operate differently..How so?
*persuaive intent--counter-argument during message
*topic and position--counter-argument before message --How did delay affect persuasion as evidenced in the Freedman/Sears study?
III. Contextual Factors
A. Primacy versus Recency--speaker pos. Order and advantage
B. Medium---channel of communication;mode
1. Effects of medium
2. Written vs audio-tape vs video-tape
a) more complex messages better in written form (p185
b) increased salience as you move toward video
c) Why are the results so questionnable here?
C. Persistence and Persuasion
1. Decay--max effect--message at time of decision
2. Influences on Decay
a) more supporting points--more persistence
b) communicator credibility increases persistence
c) receiver involvement increases persistence