What leads us to change our mind about a fact or to decide to purchase a certain product? How can we change a habit or our perception of another person?
From Social Psychology, the models that address the issue of attitudinal 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 in accordance with such evaluation.
Attitudes are made up of a cognitive element (perception about 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 previous two).
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. Below are the key points involved in this particular psychological process.
Persuasive messages and their role in attitudinal change
Persuasive messages are socially mediated strategies which are usually resorted to to pursue attitude change It becomes a direct methodology in which it starts from a central idea to be defended and is complemented with one or two forceful arguments that reinforce it, since its ultimate purpose is usually directed at a type of recipient who is originally positioned in the opposite attitude..
Thus, the effectiveness of a persuasive message resides in the ability to modify a series of already internalized beliefs by the recipient through the use of incentives and a type of 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 recipient 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:
Various authors have attempted to explain 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 the reception of information and the acceptance of said message.
On the other hand, Petty and Cacioppo (1986) state in their Elaboration Probability Model that individuals try to validate their position when faced with the decision to accept or reject a certain idea. through two routes, the central route and the peripheral route
The central route consists of the longer-lasting 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), for its part, states that when 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.
Key elements in the persuasion process
As mentioned above, 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 in turn formed by competence (or experience in the thematic field in question) and authenticity (perceived sincerity), the attractiveness of the sender, power or group similarity between the sender and the receiver influence in the level of attention raised 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 an inverted U relationship with the degree of perceived threat or danger that the recipient presents to the information received. Thus, The so-called appeals to fear are usually widely used in promoting attitudinal changes related to health and disease prevention.
Furthermore, greater power of persuasion has been demonstrated when the level of fear aroused is high, as long as it is accompanied by certain instructions on how to deal with the danger exposed in the message.
Unilateral messages are characterized by exclusively present the advantages of the object of persuasion, while bilateral ones combine both positive aspects of alternative proposals and the negative aspects of the original message. Studies seem to favor bilateral messages in terms of persuasion effectiveness, since they are usually perceived as more credible and realistic than the former.
Other key elements to assess in the type of message They are mainly: whether the information is accompanied by graphic examples (which increases 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 memory of the information offered first – or recency effect – greater memory 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 recipient feels involved with the subject matter
If what is being talked about has meaning for the recipient, it will be up to them 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 existing.
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 their original position and not give in to the persuasive message. This occurs in cases where the power of information is not strong 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. Prior notice has been given of the sender’s persuasive intention
On these occasions, the recipient usually increases his resistance as a prevention 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 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 based on spontaneous contact, since has no conscious perception of having been directly persuaded for it.
8. The power that cognitive dissonance is significant enough for the recipient
Cognitive dissonance is the effect of discomfort that an individual experiences when there is no correspondence between their beliefs and their actions, for which they try to readjust one of the two elements to reduce such discrepancy and minimize the psychological tension caused.
The degree of dissonance in turn is influenced by the type of incentive that accompanies the attitude change the degree of freedom of choice of the decision or personal involvement, among others.
9. There is coherence in the message
The arguments that justify the message are solid (central route).
Conclusion
According to what is stated 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 in 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 presented can facilitate or hinder such attitudinal modification in a significant percentage
Even so, the effect of the idea defended and 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 of previous life experiences) or the degree of discrepancy between theoretical thinking and the actual behavior emitted by the individual, which determine 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.
Baron, R.A. and Byrne, D. (2005) Social Psychology, 10th edition. Ed: Pearson.
Moya, M (1999). Persuasion and change of attitudes. Social psychology. Madrid: McGraw-Hill.
