Publisher Summary
This chapter outlines the two basic routes to persuasion. One route is based on the thoughtful consideration of arguments central to the issue, whereas the other is based on the affective associations or simple inferences tied to peripheral cues in the persuasion context. This chapter discusses a wide variety of variables that proved instrumental in affecting the elaboration likelihood, and thus the route to persuasion. One of the basic postulates of the Elaboration Likelihood Model—that variables may affect persuasion by increasing or decreasing scrutiny of message arguments—has been highly useful in accounting for the effects of a seemingly diverse list of variables. The reviewers of the attitude change literature have been disappointed with the many conflicting effects observed, even for ostensibly simple variables. The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) attempts to place these many conflicting results and theories under one conceptual umbrella by specifying the major processes underlying persuasion and indicating the way many of the traditionally studied variables and theories relate to these basic processes. The ELM may prove useful in providing a guiding set of postulates from which to interpret previous work and in suggesting new hypotheses to be explored in future research.

/pdf/the-elaboration-likelihood-model-of-persuasion-3y2y5dyvfe.pdf

The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion

On New Year’s Day, 1986, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and U.S.S.R. Premier Mikhail Gorbachev appeared on television in each others countries. It was the first time that American and Russian leaders had exchanged messages that were simultaneously televised. Reagan’s message, broadcast without warning during the popular Soviet evening news, spoke of world peace and called for the development of new defensive weapons. Gorbachev’s message, which appeared while many Americans were watching coverage of the traditional Tournament of Roses parade, also spoke of peace but decried seeking security with new weaponry. How effective were these messages likely to be? What would be the major determinant of effectiveness—the substance of the messages, or the appearance and demeanor of the speakers? If the messages produced attitude changes, would these changes last and would they lead to changes in behavior?

The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion

Major current notions of persuasion depict it as attainable via 2 qualitatively distinct routes: (a) a central or a systematic route in which opinions and attitudes are based on carefully processed arguments in the persuasive message and (b) a peripheral or heuristic route in which they are based on briefly considered heuristics or cues, exogenous to the message. This article offers a single-route reconceptualization that treats these dual routes to persuasion as involving functionally equivalent types of evidence from which persuasive conclusions may be drawn. Previous findings in the dual-process literature are reconsidered in light of this "unimodel," and novel data are presented consistent with its assumptions. Beyond its parsimony and integrative potential, the unimodel offers conceptual, empirical, and practical advantages in the persuasion domain.

http://www.communicationcache.com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/persuasion_by_a_single_route-_a_view_from_the_unimodel.pdf

Persuasion by a Single Route: A View From the Unimodel

Contents: Preface Part I: Studying "Theory" -- Doing "Research" DW Stacks, MB Salwen, Integrating Theory and Research: Starting With Questions SH Chaffee, Thinking About Theory MJ Beatty, Thinking Quantitatively JA Anderson, Thinking Qualitatively: Hermeneutics in Science Part II: Mass Communication Approaches and Concerns BS Greenberg, MB Salwen, Mass Communication Theory and Research: Concepts and Models PJ Shoemaker, Media Gatekeeping M McCombs, T Bell, The Agenda-Setting Role of Mass Communication N Signorielli, M Morgan, Cultivation Analysis: Research and Practice C Gaziano, E Gaziano, Theories and Methods in Knowledge Gap Research Since 1970 JD Rayburn, II, Uses and Gratifications CT Salmon, CJ Glynn, Spiral of Silence: Communication and Public Opinion as Social Control RL Stevenson, International Communication J Bryant, D Zillmann, Violence and Sex in the Media E Thorson, Advertising Part III: Human Communication Approaches and Concerns JC McCroskey, VP Richmond, Human Communication Theory and Research: Traditions and Models WR Fisher, SD O'Leary, The Rhetorician's Quest MD Miller, TR Levine, Persuasion CR Berger, Interpersonal Communication E Nieva, M Hickson, III, Modeling Cultures: Toward Grounded Paradigms T Steinfatt, DM Christophel, Intercultural Communication B Goss, Intrapersonal Communication AS Ebesu, JK Burgoon, Nonverbal Communication R Hirokawa, AJ Salazar, L Erbert, RJ Ice, Small Group Communication BJ Allen, P Tompkins, S Busemeyer, Organizational Communication Part IV: Integrated Approaches to Communication KK Reardon, EG de Pillis, Multichannel Leadership: Revisiting the False Dichotomy EM Rogers, A Sing

/pdf/an-integrated-approach-to-communication-theory-and-research-rnf1al6ktq.pdf

An Integrated Approach to Communication Theory and Research

Current research practices in communication create problems for both internal and external validity. One serious design flaw, which involves use of a single message to represent a category of messages, occurs in nearly all of the experimental research on communication effects. The problem with such a design is that an observed difference between categories may reflect only differences between individual, idiosyncratic cases. A related error, the “language-as-fixed-effect fallacy,” involves use of several replications of each category, but analysis of the cases as fixed effects. The consequence is that findings cannot be generalized beyond the sample used. Future research should use multiple cases within each message category studied and treat cases as nested random effects. Since the cases cannot be true random samples from message populations, care must be taken to avoid known sources of bias or other barriers to generalization.

Generalizing about messages: suggestions for design and analysis of experiments

This investigation synthesized research from several related areas to produce a model of resistance to persuasion based upon variables not considered by earlier congruity and inoculation models. Support was found for the prediction that the kind of critical response set induced and the target of the criticism are mediators of resistance to persuasion. The more critical acts are focused on arguments presented in a persuasive message, the more likely that the critical act will not be distracting and therefore promote counterarguing which will lead people to be resistant to subsequent persuasive messages arguing on the same side of given attitudinal issue. When criticism is less central to message variables and focuses on speaker and/or delivery characteristics, distraction occurs which decreases the probability of counterarguing and induces people to be vulnerable to forthcoming persuasive messages. This is especially true when negative criticism of speaker characteristics reduces threat to present attitudes and reduces motivation to counterargue to protect privately held beliefs. A completely counterbalanced design employing several manipulation checks was created to rule out competing explanations for differential resistance to persuasion.

Marshall M. Cohen

Papers

An Empirical Test of a Model of Resistance to Persuasion.

The role of profanity and sex variables in interpersonal impression formation