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Resistance & Persuasion summary - chapters + articles
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Summary for the course resistance & persuasion, including chapters of the book and articles, per lecture.
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Resistance & Persuasion 6880080-M-6
Summary articles + chapters per (seminar) lecture.
Lecture 1
Resistance and Persuasion – Chapter 1
Knowles, E. S., & Linn, J. A. (2004). The importance of resistance to persuasion. In E. S. Knowles & J. A. Linn (Eds.), Resistance
and Persuasion, (pp. 3-9). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
To accomplish persuasion, you have to manage resistance.
This book:
- How resistance can be reduced (and therefore persuasion achieved), by:
o Training people to be appropriately resistant
o Postponing consequences to the future
o Focusing resistance on realistic concerns
o Forewarning that a message will be coming
o Acknowledging resistance
o Raising self-esteem and a sense of efficacy
o Consuming resistance
Definition of resistance
(a) The act of resisting, opposing, withstanding, etc.
(b) Power or capacity to resist
(c) Opposition of some force … to another or others
(d) A force that retards, hinders, or opposes motion
Definition (a) references resistance as a behavioural outcome. Definitions (b), (c) and (d) reference
more motivational aspects of resistance, as a power or oppositional force.
Resistance = a reaction against change, and becomes evident in the presence of some pressure for
change.
McGuire’s definition of resistance to persuasion = the ability to withstand a persuasive attack.
Strategies to increase resistance (McGuire, 1964)
1. Increasing motivation to resist
2. Arming with weapons needed to accomplish that resistance.
Outcome vs. motive
Resistance has a dual definition in psychology:
- Outcome the outcome of not being moved by pressures to change
- Motivational state the motivation to oppose and counter pressures to change
Problems with outcome
- A persuasive message can have no effect
- A message can have a boomerang effect: recipient changes in the opposite direction
- Are these the same? Are they both resistance?
1
,Problems with motivation
- Motivations to oppose may not result in behavioural resistance
Resistance as attitude
3 components of resistance
- Affective (“I don’t like it”)
- Cognitive (“I don’t believe it”)
- Behavioural (“I won’t do it”)
Source of resistance
- The source of resistance can sometimes be more attributed to the person, and sometimes
more to the situation.
Reactance is caused by external threats to one’s freedom of choice. It is an uncomfortable
state, creating motivation to reassert that freedom.
Factors that determine the amount of reactance:
- Freedoms that are threatened how many and how important (more = more reactance)
- Nature of threat arbitrary, blatant, direct and demanding requests will create more
reactance than legitimate, subtle, indirect and delicate requests.
4 faces of resistance not four different kinds, but different perceptual stances towards it
1. Reactance the influence attempt is an entegral element of resistance. Reactance is
initiated only when influence is directly perceived and when it threatens a person’s choice
alternatives.
a. Underlies affective and motivational sides of resistance.
2. Distrust spotlights the target of change, people have a general distrust of proposals. They
wonder what the motive behind the proposal might be and what the true facts are.
a. Underlies affective and cognitive sides of resistance.
3. Scrunity a general scrunity that influence, offers or requests create. When people are
aware of an influence attempt, they attend more carefully and thoughtfully to every aspect of
the situation. Puts emphasis on the proposal itself. Arguments are carefully evaluated.
a. Underlies cognitive side of resistance.
4. Inertia a quality that focuses more on staying put than on resisting change. Attempts to
keep the attitude system in balance (no changes in affect/behaviour/belief).
Lecture 2
Resistance to persuasion as self-regulation: Ego-depletion and its
effects on attitude change processes
Wheeler, S. C., Briñol, P., & Hermann, A. D. (2007). Resistance to persuasion as self-regulation: Ego-depletion and its effects
on attitude change processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 150-156.
Introduction
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,People are motivated to resist persuasion, in order to maintain attitudes, freedom, psychological
consistency and a sense of control.
- Resistance is influence by multiple factors, such as characteristics of the attitude under attack
or characteristics of the message recipient.
- Counterargument is the most common means of resistance.
This study test the effects of a self-regulation construct, ego-depletion, on individuals’ ability to
resist counterattitudinal messages.
Ego-depletion = a state in which one’s self-regulatory resources are diminished, and this
diminishment is proposed to occur because acts of self-regulation and volition draw upon a single,
limited intrapsychic resource.
- Strength metaphor exertion in one situation is followed by a period of reduced ability in a
subsequent situation.
- Exertion of willpower or self-regulation in one task reduces subsequent self-regulation in a
second, unrelated task.
Counterarguing persuasive messages involves actively processing the message information, retrieving
or generating new contradictory information, and applying it to the message content to refute it. If
this draws on the same limited resources as other self-regulatory processes, then engaging in these
tasks should impair the ability to resist counterattitudinal appeals.
Self-regulation failure can increase acceptance of something without protest.
Predictions:
- Ego-depletion will lead to higher levels of favourability in thoughts and attitudes.
- However, the effects of ego-depletion on persuasion can differ across the strong and weak
message conditions effect of depletion manipulation on persuasion should be larger in
weak argument condition.
Method
- 68 students (24 M, 40 F, 4 not stated)
- Randomly assigned to an ego-depletion condition
- Depletion
a. Cross out every ‘e’
b. Manipulation:
1. Low depletion repeat same task
2. High-depletion circle every ‘e’, except when another vowel followed the ‘e’ or
when a vowel was one letter removed from the ‘e’
- Counterattitudinal appeal manipulated weak/strong arguments
- Attitudes 9 point scales
- Cognitive response participants listed their thoughts and indicate whether they were
positive/negative/neutral toward the proposal
- Other amount of effort, attention and thought participants reported devoting to
processing the persuasive message
Results + discussion
- Strong arguments were more persuasive and led to more positive responses than weak
arguments
3
, - Depleted participants tended to report more positive attitudes toward the proposal than
non-depleted participants (only marginally significant)
- Non-depleted participants were more persuaded by strong arguments than by weak
arguments
- Depleted participants did not distinguish between strong and weak arguments.
- Depleted and non-depleted participants were equally persuaded + more favourable attitudes
by strong arguments, but depleted individuals were more persuaded by weak arguments
than non-depleted individuals.
Self-regulatory resources are involved in resisting counterattitudinal messages. Such resistance can be
accomplished by reduced self-regulatory capacity.
Depleted participants (reduced self-regulatory resources) reported more positive attitudes toward a
counterattitudinal policy than those less depleted.
These effects occurred primarily among individuals who received weak messages.
Acts of Benevolence: A Limited-Resource Account of Compliance with
Charitable Requests
Fennis, B. M., Janssen, L., & Vohs, K. D. (2009). Acts of benevolence: A limited-resource account of compliance with
charitable requests. Journal of Consumer Research, 35, 906-924.
Introduction
What makes consumers sign a petition, donate money, volunteer to invest time and effort supporting
a cause on behalf of a nonprofit organization that they may have never heard of before?
- This article examines the internal process that takes place when consumers are approached
by a fundraiser or social marketer who asks for a contribution to a charitable cause.
Current study test how and why social influence techniques promote charitable behaviour.
Consumers are induced to comply with a charitable request at much higher rates when approached
with a social influence technique than when the request is made without a scripted warm-up period.
- The key reason that the preliminary stage of a scripted influence tactic is so effective is that it
induces a state of self-regulatory resource depletion.
- This weakened volitional state enhances compliance with a subsequent request, but only
when the request contains heuristics aimed at promoting compliance.
Social influence techniques
- Foot-in-the-door = start with a small request, followed by a larger request.
- Door-in-the-face = start with a relatively large request, followed by a smaller request.
- Lowball technique = start with an offer or request, presented in a particularly attractive lights,
which is subsequently modified to the actual (less attractive) target request after initial
acceptance.
- Disrupt-then-reframe technique
The effectiveness of influence techniques depends on consumer automaticity or ‘mindlessness’. In
these states, consumers are more prone to employ simple heuristics that increase compliance rates
(e.g. principles of consistency, reciprocity, liking).
- Mindlessness can be produced by multiple decision moments or sequential requests.
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