Attitude: Central Route and Peripheral Processing. (200-250 Words)

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Watch this video and write a short essay.
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In the short essay (200-300 words)



1. Write your rating (1, least persuasive, to 5, most persuasive) of how persuasive you found each message.
2. Then, explain which image(s) you attribute to central route processing and which image(s) you attribute to peripheral route processing and why.
3. Finally, describe two factors that may influence when central route processing occurs and two factors that may influence when peripheral route processing occurs, and explain how.



Be specific and use examples to illustrate your points.


Readings

  • Course Text: Handbook of Social Psychology
    • Chapter 10, “Attitudes”
  • Article: Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1984). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. Advances in Consumer Research, 11(1), 673–675. Retrieved from the Walden Library using the Business Source Complete database.
  • Article: Chaiken, S. (1980). Heuristic versus systematic information processing and the use of source versus message cues in persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(5), 752–766. Retrieved from the Walden Library using the PsycARTICLES database.
  • Article: Chaiken, S., & Eagly, A. H. (1983). Communication modality as a determinant of persuasion: The role of communicator salience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(2), 241–256. Retrieved from the Walden Library using the PsycARTICLES database.
  • Article: Chaiken, S., & Maheswaran, D. (1994). Heuristic processing can bias systematic processing: Effects of source credibility, argument ambiguity, and task importance on attitude judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(3), 460–473. Retrieved from the Walden Library using the PsycARTICLES database.
  • Article: Chen, S., & Lee, K. (2008). The role of personality traits and perceived values in persuasion: An elaboration likelihood model perspective on online shopping. Social Behavior and Personality, 36(10), 1379-1400. Retrieved from the Walden Library using the SocINDEX with Full Text database.
  • Article: Eagly, A. H., & Chaiken, S. (2007). The advantages of an inclusive definition of attitude. Social Cognition, 25(5), 582–602. Retrieved from the Walden Library using the Academic Search Complete database.
  • Article: Zuckerman, A., & Chaiken, S. (1998). A heuristic-systematic processing analysis of the effectiveness of product warning labels. Psychology & Marketing, 15(7), 621–642. Retrieved from the Walden Library using the Business Source Complete database.

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Communication Modality as a Determinant of Persuasion: The Role of Communicator Salience Shelly Chaiken Vanderbilt University Alice H. Eagly Purdue University In two experiments, a likable or unlikable communicator delivered a persuasive message via the written, audiotaped, or videotaped modality. In both studies, the likable communicator was more persuasive in videotaped and audiotaped (vs. written) conditions, whereas the unlikable communicator was more persuasive in the written modality. Because of these opposing effects of modality on the persuasiveness of likable and unlikable communicators, communicator likability was a significant determinant of persuasion only in the two broadcast modalities. Additional findings suggested that subjects engaged in more processing of communicator cues when exposed to videotaped or audiotaped, compared to written, messages and that communicator-based (vs. message-based) cognitions predicted opinion change primarily within videotape and audiotape (vs. written) conditions. It was concluded that the videotaped and audiotaped modalities enhance the salience of communicator-related information with the consequence that communicator characteristics exert a disproportionate impact on persuasion when messages are transmitted in videotaped or audiotaped (vs. written) form. The relevance of the findings to understanding "vividness" phenomena is also discussed. Previous research on media effects in persuasion has proven largely inconsistent. Although the modal finding in this literature appears to be that live or videotaped messages induce greater opinion change than do audiotaped messages (Frandsen, 1963), which, in turn, induce greater change than do written communications (Cantril & Allport, 1935; Haugh, 1952; Knower, 1935, 1936; Wilke, 1934), a number of studies have obtained either no differences in persuasiveness as a function of communication modality or greater opinion change with written messages (McGinnies, 1965; Tannenbaum & Kerrick, 1954; Werner, 1978; Werner &Latane, 1976). In an earlier article (Chaiken & Eagly, 1976), we suggested that at least some of the inconsistency in the modality literature might be explained in terms of message compreWe thank Eugene Borgida, Patricia Sorce, and Wendy Wood for their comments on a draft of this article and David Gibo for delivering one of the persuasive messages. Requests for reprints should be sent to Shelly Chaiken, Department of Psychology, Wesley Hall, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37240. hensibility. Based on research indicating that good comprehension of persuasive argumentation often facilitates opinion change (e.g., Eagly, 1974; Eagly & Warren, 1976) and research suggesting that written (vs. videotaped or audiotaped) messages enhance comprehension, especially for complex material (e.g., Beighley, 1952; Harwood, 1951; Westover, 1958; Wilson, 1974), we predicted and found that modality differences in persuasion favored the written mode with inherently.difficult-to-understand material, whereas the more usual advantage of videotaped and audiotaped modalities was found with easy material. Although the Chaiken and Eagly (1976) study demonstrates that message comprehensibility can moderate the persuasive impact of modality, two facts suggest that comprehensibility differences alone cannot fully explain inconsistencies in this literature. First, the slope of the function relating message comprehension to persuasion is relatively flat (Calder, Insko, & Yandell, 1974; Insko, Lind, & LaTour, 1976). Thus, a fairly large difference in comprehension would be required to Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1983, Vol. 45, No. 2, 241-256 Copyright 1983 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 241 242 SHELLY CHAIKEN AND ALICE H. EAGLY exert a detectable effect on persuasion (Eagly, 1978). Second, message comprehension may be an important determinant of opinion change only in persuasion contexts that maximize the tendency for recipients to focus attentively on persuasive argumentation and to base their opinions on such content cues (Chaiken, 1978, 1980; Chaiken & Eagly, 1976; Miller, Maruyama, Beaber, & Valone, 1976). To further explore media effects in persuasion, the present research examined the idea that the persuasive impact of communication modality is contingent on the valence of a communicator's personal characteristics or "image."1 The persuasive impact of communicator characteristics should be affected by modality because nonverbal communicator-related cues are present in videotaped and audiotaped messages but are absent in written messages. Because these nonverbal cues (e.g., the communicator's physical appearance and/or voice) may draw message recipients' attention to the communicator, his or her personal characteristics may be more salient and therefore exert a disproportionate impact on persuasion when messages are transmitted in videotaped or audiotaped rather than written form. This idea is consistent with research on the salience of persons, which indicates that salient individuals are remembered better, viewed as more causally prominent, and have their personal attributes rated more extremely (McArmur, 1981; Taylor &Fiske, 1978; Taylor & Thompson, 1982). Whether the greater persuasive impact of communicator cues in videotaped and audiotaped modalities is positive or negative should depend on whether the communicator cues made salient are themselves positive or negative. For positive cues conveying, for example, that a communicator is likable or expert, increased salience should enhance persuasiveness. However, for negative cues conveying that a communicator is unlikable or inexpert, increased salience should decrease persuasiveness. Assuming that communicators with positive attributes are generally chosen to deliver messages in persuasion experiments, the communicator salience argument implies that the modal finding in past literature should be (as it is) greater persuasion for vid- eotaped and audiotaped (vs. written) messages. Further, in studies employing communicators whose attributes differ markedly, the persuasive effect of media should depend on the valence of these attributes. Consistent with this expectation, Andreoli and Worchel (1978) found that a newscaster and a former politician (presumably trustworthy sources) were more persuasive on television than over the radio or in a newspaper story, whereas a political candidate (a presumably untrustworthy source) was more persuasive in a newspaper story or over the radio than on television. Similar though weaker findings were obtained by Worchel, Andreoli, and Eason (1975). Other researchers have discussed media differences in terms compatible with our communicator salience argument. For example, Keating and Latane (1976) argued that a "live speaker's" persuasiveness decreases progressively with televised, oral, and written presentations because the media become "less rich and transmit less information." Worchel et al. (1975) and Andreoli and Worchel (1978) suggested that television is more "involving" than radio or newspaper and, further, that the more-involving media highlight communicator characteristics. Also, Short, Williams, and Christie (1976) argued that the media vary in "social presence," which they defined as the salience of the other person (e.g., the communicator) and the consequent salience of interpersonal relationships. According to these authors, social presence is greatest in face-to-face communication, followed by videotape, audiotape, and written communications. Although the notions that media differ in richness, involvement, and social presence are quite global, they are consistent with the idea that the persuasive impact of modality is contingent on the valence of communicator characteristics. Another approach to understanding the effects of communication media stems from 1 To exclude message reception from consideration as a mediator of persuasion, the present research employed relatively easy-to-understand messages (Chaiken & Eagly, 1976) and a cover story ("people's reactions to speeches") that we hoped would not lead subjects to focus excessively on persuasive argumentation (Chaiken, 1978, 1980). COMMUNICATION MODALITY AND PERSUASION recent theorizing and research on "vividness" effects. Vivid information is information that presumably attracts and holds people's attention because it is, for example, concrete and imagery-provoking or proximal in a sensory, temporal, or spatial way (Nisbett & Ross, 1980). By this definition, videotaped and audiotaped modalities present information more vividly than does the written modality. Because vividly presented information is hypothesized to exert a greater impact on judgments than nonvividly presented information (Nisbett & Ross, 1980; Taylor & Thompson, 1982), it might be predicted, as Taylor and Thompson (1982) recently suggested, that the more vivid videotaped or audiotaped modalities should effect greater persuasion than the less vivid written modality. Yet, according to our analysis, in many persuasion settings, it is not the persuasive message itself that is made more vivid in videotaped and audiotaped (vs. written) modalities, but, rather, information about the communicator. Given this clarification, our ideas about the greater salience and thus the greater persuasive impact of communicator characteristics in the broadcast media are, in fact, consistent with the general hypothesis that vivid (vs. nonvivid) information exerts a disproportionate impact on people's judgments. To develop the communicator salience explanation more thoroughly, it is useful to employ Chaiken's (1978,1980, Note 1) heuristic versus sytematic analysis of persuasion. In the systematic view of persuasion, message recipients focus primarily on persuasive argumentation in forming their opinion judgments, whereas in the heuristic view, recipients engage in little, if any, detailed processing of message content and, instead, tend to employ simple decision rules often (though not exclusively; Chaiken, 1980, Note 1) based on cues such as the communicator's identity in judging message acceptability. In the initial test of this analysis, Chaiken (1980) found that high (vs. low) levels of response involvement or issue involvement tended to foster systematic (vs. heuristic) information processing: In two experiments, the opinions of high-involvement subjects were more strongly influenced by the amount of argumentation contained in a persuasive message than by 243 the communicator's likability (vs. unlikability), whereas the opinions of low-involvement subjects were more strongly affected by the communicator's likability than by the amount of argumentation he or she provided. As further specified by Chaiken's analysis, opinion change was found to be mediated primarily by message-based (vs. communicator-based) cognitions for high- (vs. low-) involvement subjects. More recent findings reported by Petty, Cacioppo, and Goldman (1981) also supported the heuristic versus systematic processing distinction. Of primary interest here is the idea that, aside from a motivational variable like involvement, contextual features of a persuasion setting, such as communication modality, may influence the degree to which recipients process and utilize communicator cues in making their opinion judgments. As argued earlier, the broadcast modalities may increase the salience of communicator cues, with the consequence that communicator characteristics should exert a greater (positive or negative) persuasive impact when messages are transmitted in videotaped or audiotaped, rather than written, form. The heuristic versus systematic analysis implies further that recipients of videotaped or audiotaped messages should predicate their opinions primarily on their reactions to the communicator and less on their reactions to message content. In contrast, recipients of written messages (for whom communicator cues may be less salient than message content) should show a greater tendency to predicate their opinions on their evaluation of message content.2 To test these ideas, subjects in two experiments were exposed to a videotaped, an audiotaped, or a written persuasive message from a likable or unlikable communicator. We anticipated that with a likable communicator, videotaped and audiotaped messages 2 The current predictions are expected to hold primarily for moderately involving message topics such as the ones employed in the present research. As suggested by the heuristic versus systematic analysis, when involvement is extremely high, recipients may attend primarily to message content (vs. communicator cues), regardless of modality. And, when involvement is extremely low, recipients may attend primarily to communicator cues, regardless of modality. 244 SHELLY CHAIKEN AND ALICE H. EAGLY would be more persuasive than written messages, whereas with an unlikable communicator, videotaped and audiotaped (vs. written) messages would be less persuasive. Because the video and the audio modalities both differ from the written modality by the addition of nonverbal communicator-relat9d cues, and because prior research has typically not found large or systematic persuasion differences between the two broadcast modalities (e.g., Chaiken & Eagly, 1976), we predicted similar findings for videotaped and audiotaped messages. The present research also attempted to obtain relatively direct evidence that recipients pay more attention to the communicator (and perhaps less attention to message content) with videotaped and audiotaped (vs. written) messages. To accomplish this goal, a thought-listing task (Brock, 1967; Osterhouse & Brock, 1970) was included in both experiments, and subjects' cognitive responses were classified according to whether they were communicator oriented or message oriented. Finally, Experiment 2 also explored opinion persistence. Based on the heuristic versus systematic analysis of persuasion and research indicating that opinion change persists longer to the extent that it is bolstered by topic-relevant cognitions (Chaiken, 1980; Cook & Flay, 1978), we hypothesized that, regardless of communicator likability, the presumably source-mediated opinion change manifested by subjects within videotaped and audiotaped modalities would show less persistence than would the presumably contentmediated opinion change manifested by subjects within the written modality. Experiment 1 Method Subjects Subjects were 109 psychology students from the University of Toronto who received extra credit toward their course grades for participating. Data from three subjects were discarded because they questioned the cover story (n = 2) or failed to indicate their opinions (« = 1). Procedure At a mass testing session held early in the academic year, all introductory psychology students completed a large set of questionnaires. One of these questionnaires solicited students' agreement with a pool of opinion items that included the target statement, "The University of Toronto should switch to a trimester system." A list of students who disagreed with this statement and who were under 25 years of age was compiled, and experimental subjects were recruited by phone from this list. Participating in groups of three to nine persons, subjects learned during the laboratory session that the experiment concerned "people's reactions to speeches." The experimenter stated that subjects would read (listen to, view) and give their reactions to a "randomly selected" speech on one of a variety of campus issues. After this introduction, the experimenter announced the topic (see below) of the speech and distributed written transcripts of a "background interview" with the speaker that contained the communicator-likability manipulation (see below). Within each session, subjects were randomly assigned to likability conditions. Next, the experimenter distributed written transcripts or played an audiotape or videotape of the speech (persuasive message, see below). Afterwards, subjects completed a questionnaire that assessed their "reactions" to the speech (dependent variables, see below). Finally, subjects were debriefed and excused. Topic and Persuasive Message The position advocated in the persuasive message was "The University of Toronto should switch to the trimester system of instruction." The message was approximately 700 words long, contained five supportive arguments, and was designed to be relatively easy to understand (see Footnote 1). Independent Variables Communicator likability. In the "background interview," the speaker (communicator) was portrayed as a male University of Toronto (U of T) administrator whose work involved scholarship coordination and bursaries and who had recently come to U of T from the University of British Columbia (UBC) where he'had held a similar position. Communicator likability was established by the communicator's response to the interviewer's question, "How do you like being at U of T compared to UBC?" The communicator's response to this question appears below. Phrases common to both likability conditions appear without parentheses or brackets, and phrases that appear only in the likable or the unlikable version are enclosed in parentheses or brackets, respectively. Well, it's interesting that you asked that question. . . . To tell you the truth, I really (prefer being here at U of T and living in Toronto to being out west) [preferred being out west to being here at U of T and living in Toronto]. For one thing, the people who I've met both in my work and other contexts, including colleagues, students, faculty, and other staff, strike me as (being much friendlier and nicer than) [not being really as friendly and nice as] the people I knew at UBC. . . . Also I think that in terms of the overall ability of the students and faculty here, that U of T is a much (higher) [lower] quality institution than UBC. I feel that U of T students particularly are (especially bright individuals) [really overrated]. . . . I COMMUNICATION MODALITY AND PERSUASION 245 guess that in general, too, I find life here in Toronto to be a lot (more) [less] pleasant. (There's so much more to do here—movies get here sooner, and there are more and better theater groups and the restaurants and night life are really much better) [While there are plenty of things to do here—movies, theaters, restaurants, night life—I really don't think that their overall quality is very high in Toronto compared to other places] For me, I guess U of T and Toronto has (been a really) [not really been a very] good place to be. point scales, subjects indicated how much effort they had expended and how pleasant they had found the experience of reading (listening to, viewing) the speech. Subjects also indicated their age and sex and, just prior to the debriefing, their written interpretations of the experiment. Answers to this open-ended question were coded for suspicion. Communication modality. A 35-year-old male colleague of the first author was trained to deliver the persuasive message. The speaker's final performance was videotaped for use in the videotape conditions, and the audio portion of the tape was played in the audiotape conditions. These versions of the message lasted approximately 5 minutes, and subjects in written conditions were given 5 minutes to read the written transcript of the message. The design included three levels of communication modality and two levels each of communicator likability and subject sex. Because preliminary analyses revealed no significant effects that involved sex on subjects' opinions, the reported analyses ignored this variable. Dependent Variables Opinions. At the pretest, subjects indicated their agreement with the statement, "The University of Toronto should switch to a trimester system," by 'marking a 15-point scale anchored by "agree strongly" and "disagree strongly." In the laboratory, subjects wrote down the communicator's topic and the overall position he advocated ("The University of Toronto should switch to the trimester system of instruction") and then indicated their agreement with this position by marking the same 15-point scale described above. Comprehension. Subjects were asked to summarize each of the communicator's arguments. An argument was scored as correct if, in the opinion of two independent raters (r = .79), it accurately summarized an argument contained in the message. As noted above, subjects were also asked to write down the message's topic and overall position. Cognitive responses. Subjects were given 3 minutes to list their "thoughts and ideas" about "the speaker and his speech." Statements were scored by two independent raters as either message oriented (M) or communicator oriented (C) and as either positively (+), negatively (-), or neutrally (0) valenced. Examples of statements placed in each of the above categories (along with interrater reliability coefficients) are C+ (r = .82), "Speaker has good voice"; C- (r = .79), "He seems unfriendly"; CO (r = .68), "Seems like a nature lover"; M+ (r = .83), "The economic advantages of the trimester seem reasonable"; M- (r = .82), "I'm not sure students would benefit so much from the new system"; MO (r = .73), "He said that many U.S. schools are on the trimester." Source perception. Subjects rated the communicator on 12 bipolar-adjective scales. Positive poles of these 15point scales were likable, knowledgeable, modest, intelligent, approachable, competent, warm, trustworthy, pleasing, sincere, friendly, and unbiased. Other measures. On 15-point scales, subjects rated how distracted they felt from the content of the speech, how difficult it was to understand the speech, the relative amount of time they had spent thinking about the communicator's arguments (vs. his personal characteristics), and the importance of the message topic. Also on 15- Results Check on Communicator Likability Manipulation A factor analysis of subjects' source ratings yielded two rotated factors, labeled Attractiveness (likable, friendly, approachable, pleasing, modest, warm, and unbiased) and Expertise (knowledgeable, intelligent, and competent). These factors accounted for 49.2% and 12.3% of the variance, respectively. Analyses of variance (ANOVAS) on subjects' factor scores indicated that the likable (vs. the unlikable) communicator was perceived as more attractive, F(l, 100) = 41.72, p < .001, and more expert, F(l, 100) = 5.55, p < .025. Other source-perception findings are reported below. Opinions An ANOVA revealed no significant effects on subjects' premessage (i.e., pretest) opinions (all Fs < 1.00). Nevertheless, to control for extremity of initial opinions and for the slight differences between experimental conditions with respect to these scores, subjects' opinion-change scores (postmessage minus premessage opinions) were treated by an analysis of covariance, using premessage opinions as the covariate.3 Mean opinionchange scores (adjusted on the basis of premessage opinions) for the various experimental conditions are shown in Table 1. As expected, the Modality X Likability in3 An ANOVA on change scores yielded virtually identical findings. 246 SHELLY CHAIKEN AND ALICE H. EAGLY Table 1 Dependent Variables as a Function of Modality and Communicator Likability: Experiment 1 Communicator likability Likable Unlikable Dependent variable Written Audiotape Videotape Written Audiotape Videotape Opinion change Communicator-oriented thoughts 3.66 1.05 4.82 1.72 4.87 2.12 3.43 1.00 1.47 1.41 .48 1.44 Note. Higher numbers indicate greater opinion change and more communicator-oriented thoughts. Cell ns range from 16 to 19. teraction proved significant on opinion change, F(2, 99) = 3.74, p < .03. Planned comparisons indicated that, compared to subjects in written conditions, videotape and audiotape subjects (combined) agreed somewhat more with the likable communicator's message (p
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