Exam 8: Persuasion

Imagine that you have to convince an audience to adopt your opinion on health-care reform, but the specific arguments you present are weak. According to research on attitude change, what should you do to increase your chances of being persuasive?

To persuade a large group, a(n)________argument is generally more effective than a(n)________ argument.

Which of the following slogans is most likely to persuade members of an independent culture to buy a sunscreen product?

Genes have been shown to partially account for

Does consumer advertising have strong or weak effects on behavior? Use research to justify your answer.

Sebastian is high in the need for cognition. This means he likes to

Imagine that your local campus police officers need help solving a crime. They have two witnesses whose accounts of the event are inconsistent, which suggests that one of them is lying. Whom should the local police call to best assist them in detecting the liar?

Jennifer smokes cigarettes. Describe how selective attention and selective evaluation may make Jennifer resistant to antismoking messages.

Imagine you spend an afternoon watching television and notice that all of the commercials have one common theme: an attractive athlete or actor endorsing a product. Why do advertisers hire attractive people to endorse their products?

As you drive in to school, you hear a random radio-show caller arguing that sun exposure really has not been shown to cause skin cancer and that some research suggests that skin cancer is completely genetic and not related to sun exposure at all. At the time, you think that this is a silly argument and that the caller does not know what she is talking about. However, two months later, you are outside without wearing sunscreen, and you find yourself remembering that you had read something about how the sun actually does not cause skin cancer. This process is evidence that ________ has influenced your attitude.

For Valentine's Day, Femi and Maria decide to make lists of all the reasons why they love their boyfriends. Femi attempts to come up with fifty items, whereas Maria sets her goal at five. Drawing on research on metacognition, who is more likely to feel confident about her love for her boyfriend after making the list?

If you want to ________, you should rely on attitude inoculation.

Imagine that you need to design an advertising campaign that promotes safe-sex practices among college students. Assume that your audience is not particularly motivated to hear about safe sex. Describe your ad campaign and explain how the various aspects of the campaign reflect the social psychological principles of persuasion.

The process by which small attacks on our beliefs help counteract larger attacks on our beliefs is called

The sleeper effect occurs in situations in which messages from ________ sources shift attitudes ________.

Jamie is the sort of person who likes to think, puzzle, ponder, and consider multiple perspectives. Compared with people who do not like these activities, Jamie is

________ exemplifies a message characteristic, whereas ________ exemplifies a source characteristic.

Tina, a longtime Republican, is trying to decide how to vote in the upcoming mayoral election. She has researched the candidates and has discovered that the Republican candidate has many strengths but also many weaknesses. How will Tina likely react to the mixed evidence?

Andy, an advertising executive, wants to use subliminal advertising to encourage people to buy his product. What effect will the use of subliminal advertising likely have on product sales?

Explain the principle of attitude inoculation, and give an example of how you could use it to increase resistance to the persuasion attempts you might face in everyday life.