Persuasive Influence

Understanding how communication changes attitudes is of interest to psychologists, especially regarding resistance to change. 

Psychological influence refers to the ways in which a person’s attitudes or behavior are affected by communication from others. This process, known as persuasion, involves a series of steps: presentation of the communication, attention to its content, comprehension, yielding or agreement with the message, retention of the new position, and ultimately, action based on the new attitude.

Several factors play a role in how persuasive communication can be:

Perception: The way a message is perceived affects its persuasive qualities. Preconceptions of the receiver are as important as the message content.

Cognitive Processing: The elaboration-likelihood model (ELM) emphasizes that when people reflect on the content and arguments of a message, attitude change is more likely to be firmly established and resistant to counter-persuasion.

Motivational Aspects: Functional theorists emphasize that people's activities and beliefs serve to fulfill personal needs, which may influence their attitudes and actions.

Conflict Resolution: People aim to find a reasonable compromise between conflicting forces such as individual desires, existing attitudes, new information, and social pressures.

Source, Message, Channel, Receiver, and Destination. Each aspect is appraised for its persuasive efficacy in terms of presentation, attention, comprehension, yielding, retention, and overt behavior.

Persuasive communication with psychological influence is used in various settings, from advertising to inspiring virtuous behavior. Understanding how communication changes attitudes is of interest to psychologists, especially regarding resistance to change. Ethical considerations arise because persuasion can involve manipulation, but it is also seen as a necessary form of social control.

Posted in: Communication,Thinkingaire