Exam 8: Social Influence and Persuasion

In a classic study conducted by Theodore Newcomb, women who attended Bennington College in Vermont between 1935 and 1939 reported their political attitudes across a period of several years. The women largely came from politically conservative families, but were exposed to extremely liberal points of view during their time at Bennington. Newcomb's major finding was that the women, in general, ____.

Describe the major results from Hovland's research program on persuasion.

Identify and briefly describe three different persuasion techniques based on the principles of consistency and/or commitment.

Advertisers and marketers use the term ____________________ to refer to a condition of inattention and irritation that occurs after an audience has encountered a specific ad many times.

The limited-number technique is based on consistency principles.

The door-in-the-face technique starts with a(n) ____.

Your cousin asks you to pledge $5.00 for a school charity one year. The next year she asks you to pledge $20.00. And the following year she asks you to pledge $50.00. Even though you would have never agreed to pledge $50.00 the first year, her "gradual buildup approach" is successful. In social psychology, this approach to persuasion is known as ____.

Suppose that your friend Victor gives you a bottle of red wine for your birthday, and tells you that only 100 bottles of that wine exist in the world. Suddenly the wine seems very important and special. This would seem to be due to the so-called ____ principle.

Mark has been attending a Bible study with friends from his dorm. He really likes these people, although he thinks that their interpretation of the Bible is dead wrong. Yet in the Bible studies, he tends to agree with them to avoid conflict because he enjoys their friendship so much. Mark is most likely experiencing ____.

Some research has examined the relative effectiveness-across collectivist and individualist cultures-of group-oriented messages (e.g., "Share this breath-freshening experience") versus individual-oriented messages (e.g., "Treat yourself to a breath-freshening experience"). This research has found that the ____.

Leaving explicit conclusions out of advertisements allows people to draw their own conclusions about the product in question. This practice generally ____.

Product placement relies on the same principle ____.

Which of the following is the best example of someone soliciting information and thereby being affected by informational influence?

Given the results of Theodore Newcomb's classic research with women at Bennington College, it is reasonable to expect that the political attitudes that most college students hold today will ____.

People who are processing persuasive messages via the central route tend to rely on surface cues such as source attractiveness and the reactions of others.

Distracting people can be a useful strategy when trying to make a persuasive argument, largely because

Which of the following groups of people is most likely to be simultaneously receptive to persuasive messages, but unlikely to yield to them?

People are more likely to buy cupcakes when they are described as "halfcakes, priced at a bargain price," as opposed to when they are simply described as "cupcakes." This is an example of people being influenced via the ____.

The social influence technique known as the pique technique operates ____.

Suppose that you were attending a lecture on global warming. In evaluating the integrity of the lecture, which of the following would least likely be a peripheral cue?