Lesson 8: Social Influence and Persuasion
What are the Elements of Social Influence and Persuasion?
Persuasion is the process by which a person’s attitudes or behavior are, without duress, influenced by communications from other people. There are 2 widely acknowledged paths to persuasion: the central route and the peripheral route (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). The central route is engaged when people are encouraged to think deeply about an issue by focusing on the strength of the arguments. In contrast, the peripheral route focuses on acceptance of the message without much rational thought. These 2 routes constitute the Elaboration Likelhood Model (ELM, Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).
Say you want to buy a kindle. The first advertisement below is an example of using the central route to persuasion. The central route is obviously much more labor intensive; you have to think through arguments and weigh supporting evidence and that takes time. However, once you do, your acceptance of the message tends to be longer lasting. The second ad uses the peripheral route - it grabs attention and plays on notions of escape and nostalgia. The peripheral route often leads to a quick emotional response and message acceptance, but that acceptance is typically short-lived.
Advertisement using Central Route:
Advertisement using Peripheral Route:
Art is perhaps a meaningful tool in persuasion because it is capable of engaging both routes. Images (as well as music, poetry, etc) can captivate our emotions as well as make us see another perspective and think more deeply.
Take a few minutes to take some notes: Distinguish the central route of persuasion from the peripheral route in Petty and Cacioppo's Elaboration Likelihood Model.
TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE: Central versus Peripheral Route
Remember Psychology as the study of how we think, feel and behave - art is especially useful at directly engaging those all three.
Art Can Influence ...
How you Think
How you Feel
How you Behave
Art Can Influence how we Think
The following are just a few mechanisms for the ability of art to influence cognitive processes
Repetition
Imagery
Emotional Arousal
Storytelling
Art, Attention, and Rehearsal
We tend to pay attention to, discuss and “rehearse” more of what we find beautiful, engaging or moving. Students who may not pay much attention to a lecture on the civil rights movement may be more likely to attend and probably discuss something like this Links to an external site.. And for those among you not likely to attend an exhibit, consider that entertainment may not always be a bad thing and may open doors to difficult conversations, like this Links to an external site..
Art and Imagery
According to Pavio's dual code hypothesis Links to an external site., images are more likely to be remembered because people generally names what they see spontaneously. Thus, images are processed in two ways - as the image itself and as verbal association, increasing the chances it will be remembered.
Art is exceptional at influencing learning and memory
Through evoking imagery, commanding attention and inspiring rehearsal, evoking powerful emotions, and conveying narrative, the Arts are exceptional at influencing learning and memory. Thus, art is very influential within a culture and can be a persuasive shaper and enforcer of cultural values.
Stories and Social Change
One way art has been able to engage the peripheral and central routes to engage social change has been through literature and storytelling. Stories are engaging through the lifespan. It has been shown that children make connections between the plots and events in books and their own lives (Applebee, 1978; Favat, 1977). Also, telling stories from culturally diverse sources supports the creation of multicultural awareness in classrooms (McCabe, 1997). In a 2001 study, Robin Mello asked students to participate in twice-monthly storytelling sessions. As many stories with different viewpoints were told, students began to challenge their own traditional and conformist ideas or to adjust their social consciousness.
“the storytelling experience was both educative and powerful because it allowed students an opportunity of controlling their understanding through a comparison, or negotiation, of real and fantasy worlds.”
--Mello, 2001, pg. 6 Links to an external site.
Take a few minutes to take some notes: What are some ways art/images are rendered memorable?
Art influences how we Feel: Images
Visual Art can provoke feelings. Artists use imagery to create an emotional reaction that hopefully leads to provoking thought. This is often accomplished through polyvalence, or multiple layers of meaning. In the piece below, artist Barbara Kruger uses a twist on a common phrase paired with an image of a man working with film. The placement, phrasing, and the subject's use of an outdated mode of conveying images grabs attention and then "doesn't add up" causing the viewer to think about what he or she is experiencing.
Barbara Kruger discusses this piece here
Links to an external site.
Art influences how we Feel: Song Lyrics
Anderson & Carnagey (2003) reported results from five experiments showing that violent songs led to more aggressive interpretations of ambiguously aggressive words, increased the relative speed with which people read aggressive vs. nonaggressive words, and increased the proportion of word fragments (such as h_t) that were filled in to make aggressive words (such as hit). The violent songs increased feelings of hostility without provocation or threat & this effect was not the result of differences in musical style, specific performing artist or arousal properties of the songs. Even the humorous violent songs increased aggressive thoughts.
Ultimately, history proves that art can influence how we behave. This leads to our next question ...