Exam 8: Persuasion

Samantha wants to persuade her roommate Larissa to allow her to get a dog, even though Samantha does not have very strong arguments for wanting the dog. According to research on mood and persuasion, when should Samantha approach Larissa if she wants her roommate to be most likely to be persuaded?

Some residents in your town want to build a new elementary school, but others do not. You are leaning toward the pro-school camp. One day, you receive a flyer from the pro-school camp that warns you that the anti-school camp is going to hold a demonstration at a local park. The flyer briefly summarizes how the anti-school camp will attack the pro-school position. Further, the flyer asks you to think about how you can refute the attack before the demonstration occurs. The pro-school camp's strategy is an example of ________. It should ________ your resistance to stronger, more detailed attacks if you end up attending the demonstration.

Stacie listens to a radio commercial for toothpaste. She finds the soothing voice of the announcer appealing, so she buys the toothpaste he advocates. This illustrates the research finding that when people primarily attend to aspects of a message that are tangential to the substance of the message, they are taking the ________ route to persuasion.

Bill views himself as a Democrat. He is watching a television broadcast of a debate between two congressmen, a Republican and a Democrat. His roommate starts to vacuum the apartment. Bill asks his roommate to shut off the vacuum only when the Democrat is speaking. This scenario illustrates ________ in action.

Research on mood and persuasion suggests that people may be persuaded differently depending on their mood. Explain how a positive or a negative mood can influence persuasion and why. Give an example demonstrating how a politician might alter audience members' moods in order to make them more susceptible to persuasion.

Define the concept of embodiment and give one example of how it can influence persuasion.

Recall that Ziva Kunda (1990) conducted research on selective evaluation and resistance to persuasion. She asked male and female participants to read a newspaper article about how caffeine consumption by females is associated with increased risk of fibrocystic disease. Kunda's results showed that

Research on the hostile media phenomenon has shown that

Which finding concerning the effects of standard mass communication efforts on attitudes and behaviors is INACCURATE?

Distinguish between the central and peripheral routes to persuasion. Then, describe the conditions under which people are more likely to take one route over the other.

According to the self-validation hypothesis, under what circumstances can greater source credibility, which might prompt recipients of a message to be more confident, lead to less persuasion?

Who is most likely to be influenced by peripheral cues when processing a televised message from an antilittering campaign?

Metacognitions about thought confidence arise from

Describe a real or imagined situation in which public commitments increase resistance to persuasion, and explain why public commitments have this effect.

In Petty, Cacioppo, and Goldman's (1981) study, students were asked to read either eight weak arguments or eight strong arguments in support of implementing a comprehensive exam at their university. Some students were told that the exam would be initiated the following year, and others were told it would be initiated in ten years, well after the students' graduation. Finally, the researchers varied the expertise of the source of the arguments-that is, participants were told the arguments were generated either by a local high school class or by a prestigious "Commission on Higher Education." The researchers measured students' attitudes toward the exam. What was the main result of this study?

Which of the following statements about the effects of subliminal stimuli is most accurate?

Pablo wants to persuade his coworkers to adopt his product plan and has many high-quality arguments detailing why his plan is sound. Which of the following should NOT be an attribute of his persuasive message?

How do independent and interdependent cultures differ in the types of message characteristics that are likely to be most persuasive?

George Gerbner and his colleagues (1986) studied whether the media (e.g., prime-time television programming) shape a person's conception of social reality. They found that people who watched a lot of television

Recall that Carl Hovland and his colleagues broke down persuasive messages into three components. Which of the following questions emphasizes the component called source characteristics?