1. Yale Attitude Change Approach
“Who said what to whom.”
In social psychology, the Yale attitude change method studies the factors under which people are most likely to alter their attitudes in response to persuading messages.
The Source (who)- The Speaker should be credible, qualified, and appealing to the audience.
The Message (what)- The message must contain two-sided arguments (pros & cons), with the emotional appeal preferred over logical ones.
The Audience (who)- The audience’s attention, intellect, maturity, and character affect the attitude change through the persuasive message.
A significant study of attitude changes and persuasion. This method has helped businesses improve their marketing and advertising strategies and social psychologists better understand and conduct varied research on the process of persuasion.
2. Information Manipulation Theory
“Have you ever told your friend you will be late for the meeting because of traffic but the truth is, you have not even left home?”
Information Manipulation Theory (IMT) was formulated by Steven A McCornack (1992) at Michigan State University. To persuade or deceive the audience, when a speaker intentionally and subtly breaks one of the principles of information – quantity, quality, relation, and manner.
- Quantity: Not telling the whole truth or a piece of information.
- Quality: Distortions or omissions within the information.
- Relevance: Information is irrelevant or vague to the subject matter of the conversation in hand.
- Manner: things will be presented in a way that hinders others to understand the given information.
3. Sleeper Effect
Usually, with time, the persuasiveness of information gradually fades away. The credibility of the source and the message itself matters. Even though they initially reject the message or the source, people occasionally tend to get persuaded over time. This delayed persuasion is called the sleeper effect.
This phenomenon has an interesting history of origin. The very first instance of the Sleeper effect was documented during World War II by Carl Hovland, Arthur Lumsdaine, and Fred Sheffield in 1949 while conducting research on the effects of a World War II propaganda film on American soldiers. The soldiers initially rejected the message knowing the propagandist purpose behind it however with time the soldiers rather started showing an increase in acceptability of the message.
The passage of time usually makes us dissociate the link between the information and the unreliable source and we start accepting it, the frequent presentation of fake propaganda news on the internet is its real-time example however the only way to overcome this effect is to always go back to check the source of the information and its reliability before accepting it.
4. Amplification Hypothesis
“If there is something you want from a person you know will not give it easily, the very first step should be never to disagree with them”.
The theory says that to persuade someone you need to align your attitude with the attitude of others. Hence, if someone provides an opposing opinion, you should only show a general agreement, because people tend to harden their beliefs when challenged directly and it can cause resistance; however, the minute they express a better opinion, you must agree wholeheartedly.
5. Scarcity Principle
“We all want what we cannot have.”
A heavily used persuasive marketing technique based on the principle that people usually long for what is difficult to have. This theory works wonders around the concept of FOMO (fear of missing out) experienced by consumers in the market today. This also explains how these high-end luxury brands come with limited edition products and manage to sell them at sky-soaring prices. This encourages the ‘exclusive members-only attitude.
Blog By : DEEBHA SITHTA
