Attitude Change and Persuasion - Case Study Example

Attitude Change and Persuasion: Case Study

Introduction

Persuasion is the application of different messages, ideas, pictures, and situations to influence an audience into adopting specific behaviors. Most of the messages that make up a persuasive strategy are observed to be instrumental. For example, companies apply persuasion in the form of promotions and advertising to try to persuade or convince consumers to buy their products. People apply persuasion to make their peers do what they want. In another case, parents use persuasion to instill good behavior on their children. In persuasion, an audience is convinced to do something by wanting to do it and not through forceful means. It therefore applies the psychological perception of people and their attitudes plus norms. There are different mechanisms through which people persuade others to change. Persuasion can also be described as a form of power that uses words and symbols influence and implement change. This type of change affects behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs. Therefore, an analysis of how a video is used to influence people’s behavior is presented. It aims at presenting how use of graphics and visual aspects can be applied to cause an influence on people’s behaviors.

Social Behavior

Social behavior is observed to be predictable in most cases. As a societal framework, persuasion and propaganda can be applied in various settings such as media platforms to shape the behavior of people (Barone, Maddux, & Snyder, 2012). In the modern society, individuals and the society are bombarded with various advertisements and shows through television, radios, and the internet. Additionally, magazines, newspapers, books, movies, and pamphlets define societal norms. The video is used as a correct approach to warn drivers of the dangers of using the phone while driving. The use of the graphic content is intended to persuade the audience that what happened is real, which would drive them to take caution to avoid the same incidence happening to them. It is aimed at initiating an attitude change in all road users.

Propaganda can be referred to as information that is biased and misleading aspect that is applied to the media or political arenas to promote a point of view (Levine, 2003). It is often associated with the psychological science that is intended to influence and alter the belief and attitude of an audience. They are influenced towards a certain action, behavioral change, and a specific cause (Hogan, 2010). It is used to encourage a particular synthesis where messages are used to achieve an emotional and not a rational response. Successful campaigns tend to originate from a centralized and strong decision-making an approach that creates a consistent message throughout the structure (Kenrick, Goldstein, & Braver, 2012). In this case, leadership is often strong and centralized with a definite hierarchy that is built into an organization. The road safety video is a good example of how the authority can take control of the audience’s social behavior by using a real life experience to achieve persuasion. The style applied, in this case, is charismatic personality, ideology, and identification with the entire audience. The campaign is also influenced by a goal, which in this case, is to persuade road users to adhere to road safety.

Fear Appeals

According to Robinson, Shaver, and Wrightsman (1991), the influences created by fear-inducing appeals have been applied extensively in advertisements as a form of warning. Various theories have been used to outline the approximate beliefs through which the fear-inducing appeals affect and achieve influence and persuasion. About protection and motivation theory, appeals and messages that tend to be threatening to persuade people to adopt effective means of changing their behaviors. They offer a control process that includes coping strategies. There is often a maximum acceptance when the perceived threat appears to be real. Thus, for the case of the safety driving video, the theories’ prediction of achieving maximum acceptance of social behavior change is evident (Cooper & Croyle, 1984). Further, an extended parallel process model is seen to link influences to fear and control, and danger control processes. When the threat is seen to be greater than the coping alternative, the reactions of fear can initiative message acceptance through defensive responses (Tesser & Shaffer, 1990). People tend to fear what they can witness is real and not fiction. In this case, videos can be created to appear real so that they can be effective in persuading people to believe a message or change their behavior.

However, some of the common fear control responses are observed to inhibit an adoption of behavior change and self-protection. This causes people to shift their attitudes away from messages that seem to be manipulative and in cases where they believe they cannot cope effectively (Chaiken & Stangor, 1987). Some of the research has investigated the overall effects of fear and danger-oriented media on message processing and social behavior of people. The key problem in planning and designing communication campaigns is to change the behavior of people. It also involves aspects of applying the best persuasion, communication, and behavior change theories. Stages of change model are aimed at providing a framework that can be used to integrate theories of media effect in agenda setting (Olson & Zanna, 1993). Such theories include the persuasion theory, protection motivation theory, and elaboration likelihood theory. Theories of behavior change include social cognitive theory, attitude accessibility, and theory of reasoned action that are applied in communication campaign purposes. This leads to implications for audience segmentation, message design and communication approaches (Maio & Haddock, 2009).

Within a systematic view, most of the independent variables indirectly affect how a message yields persuasion. In many cases, messages are designed to have a social impact on people’s behavior (Jowett & O’Donnell, 2006). Different variables may directly influence a recipient’s willingness and capability to accept the messages conclusion without having to influence acceptance and reception of argumentation. A good comprehension of a persuasive message leads to an opinion change. The video was used as a persuasion tool to change people’s behavior while driving. In many cases, a distraction enhances persuasion through interfering with the audience’s ability to evaluate the argumentation. According to Haddock and Maio (2004), people are persuaded by what they can experience and what seems real to them. The video in the case study applies high-quality effects to depict the injuries and death that can occur when people careless.

Social Cognitive Behaviors

Social cognition is another aspect of persuasion as it illustrates how people react to situations depending on how they view other people’s social behaviors. It is a subtopic of social psychology that concentrates on the way people perceive, observe, interpret, process, and store information about social situations (Forgas, Cooper, & Crano, 2011). Cognitive process plays a big role in the video as it shows how the victims of the accident are subjected to pain and even death. Therefore, it applies to peoples social interactions with the law, society, and real events. The way one thinks about other people contributes to how one thinks and interacts with the society around them (Cull, Culbert, & Welch, 2003). People tend to interpret signals as they are portrayed by the people they interact with. In most cases, their behaviors are influenced by the actions of the neighboring society (Foulkes, 2013). Therefore, people form an impression of the events happening around them. They tend to create meanings from other peoples behaviors and actions.

Therefore, it would be easy to apply a social cognitive approach in persuading people to change their behaviors. This is commonly applied to the media in advertisements and campaign initiatives. Human beings spend their entire life interacting with others, which influences a single social interaction. Persuasion becomes effective when the persuader understands how others think, act, think, and react to certain situations (Pratkanis, 2011). The use of the video is structured to cause fear as it shows people being hurt. Human beings are taught and trained to protect each other’s life by understanding its value. Social cognition is a form of development that changes over the cause of one’s life. As a person grows, they become aware not only of their thoughts and feelings but the mental, physical, and emotional states of others (Shabo, 2008). According to Maio and Haddock (2014), this enables people to understand how to react to social situations such as crime, conflict, and accidents. Therefore, they engage in pro-social behaviors and can take the perspective of others.

Theory of Reasoned Action

The theory of reasoned action is a developmental approach to the information integration theory, which was developed by Icek Ajzen and Martin Fishbein. One important change to this is that the reasoned action uses an extra element in the process of persuasion. The approach is concerned with behavior other than attempting to predict people’s attitudes in the event of an action. It also recognizes that there exist factors that limit the entire influence of attitude on behavior (O'Shaugnessy & O'Shaughnessy, 2004). For example, in the case of the video on using the phone while driving, a driver may be tempted to use their phones but change their minds on remembering the happenings in the video. In this case, a reasoned action predicts a person’s behavioral intention, which is a comprise that comes between stopping at a specific attitude and predicting a certain behavior. The reasoned action draws a line between behavioral intentions from an actual behavior (Simons & Jones, 2011). It also illustrates the factors that allow or limit the influence of attitudes.

A reasoned action applies two key elements, norms, and attitudes. This is the expectations of other people to predict one's behavioral intent. Adverts often use campaign strategies by predicting what people will do once they watch the commercial or advert. The video was applied to change people's attitudes and behaviors towards certain habits (Jowett & O'donnell, 2014). In this case, it is when one's attitudes lead a person to do one thing, but the norms indicate they should do something different (Stevens & Gielen, 2012). It is seen that both factors are applied in the case of the video to influence the audiences’ behavioral intent. However, norms and attitudes are observed to bring challenges in decision making. Many people tend to do what they believe is right other than the suggestions of other people. People’s attitudes are governed by two key components, which are the strength of belief and evaluation (Chaiken, 1980).

It is perceived that people’s actions are determined by their attitude towards a certain invent. In this case, it is possible to change their intentions by understanding their beliefs and attitudes (Wilson & Lu, 2003). The motivation to comply with what others expect of you is another approach in understanding persuasion and propaganda as applied in the video. Therefore, there are several options of trying to persuade someone. The first applicable set of options is the strategies that are identified through the information integration theory. Strengthening the attitude of a person towards a certain belief often supports the persuasive goal (Freedman & Sears, 1965). Another one is to remind the audience of a certain forgotten attitude and a belief that supports the predetermined persuasive goal.

Conclusion

Propaganda and persuasion are applied within a social psychology content to alter and influence the behaviors of people. It involved the application of tools such as messages, pictures, and videos to cause an impact on how people behave towards each other. Different approaches such as the social cognitive theory, reasoned action, and fear appeals are some of the aspects of persuasion in social psychology. Then the respective video is focused on message-based persuasion that changes people’s attitudes on an individual level. Attitudes are social situations that emerge from social phenomena. In this case, it is observed that people tend to be influenced by what they can observe and see. Messages that seem threatening to persuade people to adopt effective means of changing their behaviors. As such, a distraction enhances persuasion through interfering with the audience’s ability to evaluate the argumentation. Fear of failure or danger has been known to affect people’s social behaviors and approaches when it involves their peers.