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Part III. How We Influence and Are Influenced by Others

Module 6:

Persuasion

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Module 6: Persuasion

Module Overview

The second section of the textbook covered the three main ways we better understand

ourselves and others. That knowledge gives us a solid base that helps us navigate our world. The

next section will look at how we influence and are influenced by others. Everything we have

already learned will continue to be built upon as we now come to understand persuasion,

conformity and group influence. In the last module on attitudes, we learned that our evaluation of

things, or our attitudes, can be changed, sometimes by our own inconsistencies, but often through

persuasive communication attempts. This module will focus on those persuasive communication

attempts as well as our attempts to persuade others. We will focus on how we process these

attempts, when they are most successful, and how we can resist them.

Module Outline

• 6.1. Processing Persuasive Communication

• 6.2. Factors that Lead to Successful Persuasion

• 6.3. A Closer Look at Cults: Dangers and Resistance to Persuasion

Module Learning Outcomes

• Explore the idea that we have a persuasion schema or bag of tricks for persuading and

being persuaded by others

• Explain how we process persuasive attempts through the dual processing models

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• Investigate what characteristics make a communicator more or less persuasive,

specifically focusing on credibility and attractiveness

• Explore types of messages that successfully persuade

• Clarify the danger of cults and how we can resist being persuaded by them

6.1. Processing Persuasive Communication

Section Learning Objectives

• Explore the persuasive schema perspective.

• Describe the dual processing models.

6.1.1. Persuasion Schema

We spend our days persuading and being persuaded. You may have just emailed your

teacher asking for an extension or tried to get your child to eat their lunch. You might also have

had two ads pop up while you were on Facebook: one is for this amazing new bra and another

one is for a blanket for your daughter that looks like a mermaid tail. Persuasion serves an

important function in a social society. If you are not successful in persuading others, you could

miss out on job opportunities or have poor relationships or no relationships. If you are unaware

of persuasion attempts, then you could be taken advantage of.

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For Further Consideration

Take a moment and think about who tries to persuade you on a daily basis and whom do
you try to persuade. Make a list of these people. What kinds of things do people persuade
other people (their friends, their family, or their enemies) to do? What are the different
techniques people use to get these people to do what they want?

A research study done by Rule, et al., (1985) set out to determine if we have a persuasion

schema or package of behaviors (tricks) for how we persuade people and are persuaded by them.

They completed three different studies to find these answers. In the first study, they asked

participants to report whom they persuaded and who persuaded them. They found that students

reported others were persuading them more than they were persuading other people. When asked

how they persuaded others a list of 12 reasons/goals was generated. You can see this list in Table

6.1a. How do these responses match with your answers from above? Are they similar/different?

In the second study they took this list of 12 reasons/goals for persuading and asked the

participants to write all the ways that they could achieve these persuasion goals and then rank

them by most likely to use. In Table 6.1b you will find the 15 different approaches. They found

that it didn’t matter who was persuading or being persuaded. There seems to be a standard order

of persuasive strategies. How do your responses fit with the second table? Do your answers fit

the research findings?

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6.1.2 Dual-Processing Models and How We Process Persuasion

Our days are spent navigating the enormous amounts of information that are being sent

our way. We get up in the morning and the radio DJ tells us about the latest news stories. We

check our email and we have 13 new emails from co-workers, family, friends and in my case,

students. Our social media is full of advertisements trying to sell us the latest products, and as we

drive around town there are billboards advertising stores and the local college football team.

Which of these pieces of information or persuasion attempts will be successful? Which ones will

persuade us to do something, to buy something or to change our attitude about something? The

first step in understanding persuasion is to examine how we process or think about these

persuasive attempts.

It is impossible to spend a lot of time thinking about all the information that we are

bombarded with — we would be driven mad or pushed to mental exhaustion. So, as motivated

tacticians, Chaiken et al., (1989), says we will be very selective of the moments we use our

limited cognitive resources. This small set of information that we select will be fully analyzed

and investigated. Everything else we come into contact with will be responded to automatically.

We won’t spend much time thinking or considering, but rather automatically responding using

our mental shortcuts or heuristics that are triggered from the context of the information. Is the

person presenting the information attractive? We have a “What is beautiful-is-good” heuristic

— this mental shortcut results in us automatically connecting the source’s attractiveness with the

qualities of being good, kind, smart, etc. For example, Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was

considered attractive and would lure women to their deaths by asking for help. The women he

asked were happy to help. They automatically responded to the “what is beautiful-is-good”

heuristic, assuming he was kind and trustworthy and they went to help someone who would end

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up killing them. Researchers Petty & Cacioppo (1986); Petty et al., (2009) and Chaiken, et al.,

(1989) found that these two ways of thinking best fit into a dual-processing model. We either

follow the deep/thoughtful path, which the researchers call the central route or systematic

processing, or we follow the superficial/automatic path, which the researchers called the

peripheral route or heuristic processing.

The central route to persuasion will be followed or systematic processing will occur

when we carefully consider the message content. In order to follow this path or use this

processing we need to be motivated and able to think about the message. What motivates us? It is

not surprising that we are pushed to think more deeply when something is related to or about us,

also called personal relevance (Petty, 1995). For example, when I was a senior in high school,

we were told that they might change the school day from hour-long periods to block scheduling.

They gave presentations to the students and we were all going to be able to vote and give our

perspective on the possible change. All students, including the seniors who this would not

impact, were going to vote. Since it wasn’t about me (not personally relevant), I didn’t follow the

central route, but my younger sister who was a freshman and would be impacted did. Because it

was personally relevant to her and going to directly impact her, she paid attention to the

messages we were being given. She wanted to know how this would impact her day and if it

would improve her learning. The only way she would vote in favor of this change was if the

message was strong and demonstrated that this new structure was the best choice for learning. I,

on the other hand, wasn’t going to be impacted by this change, so I did not waste my precious

resources thinking about the message. We will see in a moment what my thinking did look like.

The other reason we will follow the central route of persuasion is if we are able to think

about it. In order to be able to think about it, there needs to be limited distractions. We can’t be

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rushed or in a hurry, and we have to be able to understand the message being presented to us. It

also helps if the message is repeated and written down (Petty, 1995). If a pharmaceutical

company wants to persuade you to use their new drug, but their message is full of jargon and

scientific information you can’t follow, then you aren’t likely to pay attention to the message or

be persuaded to use the drug. So, in the example above, if the school board and employees

pushing for the change want the students who find the issue personally relevant to get on board,

they also need to give them time to process the message and they need to make sure that the

message is something adolescents can understand. It would also help if they have an opportunity

to see it more than once and can read the arguments at their pace. The situational determinants of

being motivated and able are key to following the central route, but there is a dispositional

determinant as well, the need for cognition (Haddock, et al., 2008). This concept deals with

enjoyment from engaging in effortful cognitive activity. Individuals who score high on the need

for cognition measure spend more time carefully processing the message, following the central

route to persuasion (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982).

As noted earlier, it is adaptive for us to rely on heuristics and automatic processing of our

world. It saves us time and our limited cognitive resources. For the majority of us, we mostly

follow the peripheral route or heuristic processing (Petty, 1995). The context or situation that

the message is delivered in is more important than the actual message. These context or

situational cues trigger automatic responses and we quickly move forward in our lives. (Cialdini,

2008). Remember our example from earlier where my high school was proposing changes to our

daily scheduling. I followed the peripheral route to persuasion. I am a busy senior who doesn’t

really have the time to think about the message, and since it isn’t going to impact me, I really

don’t care to spend time carefully evaluating the message. So, how can they persuade me to vote

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in favor of block scheduling? They need my automatic acceptance from situational cues. I would

probably be persuaded by an authority or an expert on the topic, and if I am in a good mood, I

will probably also go along with what is presented. In fact, this is what the school did. They

brought in attractive and trustworthy experts, and they always had food and drinks during

presentations. So, for those of us that weren’t personally impacted, we were likely to

automatically be persuaded by those situational cues. More examples can be found in Robert

Cialdini’s (2008) book, Influence: Science and Practice.

It is clear that we need to examine the persuasion situation more closely to understand

exactly when our persuasive attempts will be most successful. Our motivations in persuasion will

determine which path we want our audience to follow. If we want a more permanent attitude

change, we will want the person or group we are attempting to persuade to follow the central

route. If we just need them to go along right now or buy something once, then the peripheral

route is a good choice. The next section will focus on the factors that lead to successful

persuasion and how our processing route influences their effectiveness.

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Figure 6.1. The Elaboration Likelihood Model

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6.2. Factors that Lead to Successful Persuasion

Section Learning Objectives

• Explain what type of person is most persuasive

• Clarify what aspects of the message make it persuasive

6.2.1. Persuasive Communicators

The first factor that can impact the success of the persuasion attempt is the person

communicating or the source of the persuasion. There are different ways that a source will be

presented to us. They can be obvious — we see them. It could be a celebrity advertising a

product on a television commercial or it could be an average American selling a new cooking

tool in a social media ad. However, sometimes during a persuasive attempt, the source isn’t clear

or obvious. They might be a narrator you can’t see or a print ad without any visible source of the

persuasion (Petty & Wegener, 1998). What makes someone a persuasive communicator? Are

there certain qualities that will make someone more or less persuasive to the audience? Research

has found that credibility and attractiveness are important in successful persuasion.

[Link] Communicator/Source credibility. Let’s start with credibility. A review done

by Pornpitakpan (2004) on studies from 1950-2004 found that using highly credible sources

resulted in more persuasion. What makes someone credible? Perceived expertise and perceived

trustworthiness are key to credibility. Perceived expertise is defined as someone we perceive to

be both knowledgeable on a topic and has the ability to share accurate information with us (Petty

& Wegener, 1998). In situations where we have low personal relevance or ability to process the

message, it serves as a peripheral cue. Expertise will trigger us to automatically go along with the

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persuasive attempt because we believe that this person knows what they are talking about. Can

you think of some examples? We often use heuristic processing while watching television. Let’s

say you’re watching a toothpaste commercial. There is a dentist in a white lab coat discussing

how effective a brand of toothpaste is. If you are persuaded in this instance, it is because of the

cue of the dentist. You automatically think this is a good toothpaste because this expert told you

it was.

Perceived trustworthiness is the other aspect of credibility we need to look at more

closely. Research, not surprisingly, has found that when we do not feel like the person has

anything to gain and that they are sincere, this is a strong indicator of persuasion. If people view

someone as trustworthy, they will automatically be persuaded by the attempt. However, if the

source is viewed as untrustworthy, even people who have a low need for cognition (don’t want to

think deeply all the time) will engage in a similar amount of message analysis as individuals who

are high in need for cognition (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982). Have you ever had the experience of

shopping at a store where the employees are working on commission and only make money if

they convince you to buy something? When I was growing up, I often shopped at a clothing store

that used this model with their salespeople. When you went in, you were immediately

approached and often they continued to interact with you while you shopped, hoping that you

would buy something and they would get paid more. Their perceived trustworthiness dropped

because it was in their best interest to persuade me to purchase something. So, when they told me

that I looked great in that outfit, I was likely to be skeptical of their authenticity. I often avoided

that store for that reason. Is there anything they could do to appear more trustworthy? It would

benefit them to argue against their own self-interest. If they were to tell you that something you

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tried on wasn’t the right piece for you, that would actually make you more likely to be persuaded

by them and buy the other clothes they recommended.

[Link] Communicator/Source attractiveness. Another characteristic that can help the

persuasive attempts of a communicator is attractiveness. Attractiveness can include both physical

attractiveness and likeability. As was mentioned earlier in the module, we hold a heuristic

(mental shortcut) where we believe “what-is-beautiful-is-good”. Research has found that people

associate talent, kindness, honesty and intelligence with beauty (Eagly, et al., 1991). These same

studies have been done in a variety of contexts and individuals who are highly attractive are

more likely to be voted for, hired for a job and granted leniency in the judicial system. When we

aren’t motivated and able to think deeply, we follow the peripheral route and this is when

peripheral cues like appearance can have the greatest impact on persuasion.

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For Further Consideration

Can you think of ads or products that use really attractive communicators? For me,
one example that comes to mind is the store Abercrombie and Fitch. Most of the time
they have been in business, they have been known for their hiring practice of only
employing physically attractive models who have a certain body type and sex appeal
to sell their clothes. In 2015, they decided to change these discriminatory practices. It
would be interesting to see if they are still as successful in selling clothes with their
changes in advertising.

HYPERLINK "[Link]
leadership/wp/2015/04/24/abercrombie-fitch-says-it-will-no-longer-hire-workers-based-on-
body-type-or-physical-attractiveness/?utm_term=.dfa24fd68f27"
[Link]
it-will-no-longer-hire-workers-based-on-body-type-or-physical-
attractiveness/?utm_term=.dfa24fd68f27

What are your favorite celebrities currently advertising? Is it perfume, their own
clothing line or something unexpected? Do you notice that just their association with
the product makes you like it more? Had you considered their impact on your feelings
toward the product?

Another powerful aspect of attractiveness is likeability. One of the things that can

increase liking is similarity. We like people who are like us (Byrne, 1971). This includes sharing

opinions, personality traits, background, lifestyle and even when people mirror our behavior,

posture, and facial expressions (Cialdini, 2008). A classic example of the power of similarity

comes from a study done in the 1970s with clothing style. During this time period young people

wore primarily two types of dress, what is referred to as “hippie” or “straight” fashion. The study

had confederates wear one of these types of clothing and then approach people who were

wearing one of the two types of clothing and ask for a dime to make a phone call. The results

support the fact that similarity has the power to persuade. When the confederate’s clothing

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matched the person they asked, they were more likely to get a dime from them (Emswiller,

Deaux, Willits, 1971).

6.2.2 Persuasive Messages

After assuring you have the appropriate communicator, the next step is to determine what

types of message content will be the most effective. There are several questions we need to

answer in order to completely understand the role of message content in persuasion. What is

actually contained in the successful message? Is it full of logical arguments and evidence or is it

presented to elicit certain feelings? Two emotions often used to persuade are pleasant feelings

and fear. Another question we need to answer is: will the way the message is presented make it

more or less persuasive? We will also have to decide how to present our perspective. Do we just

present our side or do we present both our side and the other side? These answers will all be

impacted by the audience’s processing route.

[Link]. Solid arguments vs. emotion-based appeals. Let’s begin with an example. We

are trying to persuade people to care about the amount of plastic impacting the environment and

to change the way they think about plastic consumption. What kind of argument should we use?

Should we present an argument filled with solid, logical, evidence including reasons for why we

need to rethink plastic consumption, or would our audience be more likely to be persuaded by an

emotional appeal where we scare them or make them feel sad about the impact of plastic on our

planet? First let’s look at the research and then we will look at three news story links to see how

information was presented to the audience.

We know that audiences who are motivated and able will follow the central route of

persuasion. Remember, we are motivated to pay attention to the message when it is personally

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relevant to us. We also need to be able to process it. We need the time to think about it, and the

message needs to be presented in a way that we can understand and really think about what is

being said. If these conditions aren’t met, then we follow the peripheral route. We are going to

respond based on peripheral cues, like credibility, attractiveness, etc. So, I am sure you predicted

at this point that when someone is following the central route, they are going to be more

persuaded by solid arguments. Those individuals who are following the peripheral route will be

more persuaded by emotional appeals (Cacioppo, et al., 1983). We also need to consider if our

audience is likely to have a larger number of individuals with a high need for cognition. This

could impact the success of our persuasion attempt. We need to have more solid arguments if we

have more of these individuals present.

Another important thing to consider is how the people originally formed their attitude.

You might remember in Module 5 on attitudes, we discussed the different bases or components

of an attitude: affect, cognition and behavior. We discussed that some people do not have all

three bases for each attitude and that some attitude bases are stronger than others. This impacted

our ability to predict their behavior with respect to that attitude. These findings address that. If

your original attitude formation is more affective or emotion-based, then you will respond to

persuasive attempts that are made with emotional appeals. However, if the origin of an attitude

resulted in a stronger cognitive base, then not surprisingly, you will be more likely to be

persuaded by a solid argument (Fabrigar & Petty, 1999). As you might imagine, it can be

challenging to figure out what kind of audience you are dealing with. If they are mixed or you do

not have the ability to determine which base is strongest, it might make the most sense to have an

argument that contains both reason and emotion.

Alright, let’s return to our example. Here are links to three stories on plastic pollution.

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[Link]

[Link]

[Link]

The first story is a summary article from a respected peer-reviewed journal. I chose this because

the messages here are solid, logic-based arguments on the impact of plastic. The second reading

has an emotion-based focus. It is about the plight of the albatross and finding the dead birds’

stomachs filled with plastic that killed them. The final reading is from BBC news and it contains

both appeals. Let’s think about the audiences who might consume these different presentations

on the same issue. If you are reading a journal article, it is likely you have a high need for

cognition and are following the central route. This second reading and similar blog posts about

people’s experiences with this problem might drive you if you seek out emotional appeals about

the topic. These individuals have a stronger affective base for plastic pollution. Finally, the last is

a news source that might be read by both types of people. How can the writer reach them? To be

effective, they will draw you in with emotional appeals, stories of individuals, animals and the

landscape that are impacted negatively by this pollution. However, you will also see a large

amount of information about the amount of plastic and other relevant arguments related to this

problem. Both reason and emotion are needed.

[Link]. Types of emotional appeals. There are different types of emotional appeals that

we can make when trying to persuade people. Let’s start with evoking good feelings in our

audience. When we make our audience feel good, we increase their positive thoughts and

through association, we make a connection for them of good feelings and the message. When we

are in a good mood, we are more likely to rely on the peripheral route. We don’t spend much

time thinking about the message. We see that when people are unhappy, they spend more time

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ruminating or going over and over things. They aren’t persuaded by weak arguments (Petty, et al.

1993). When we watch cable television, we are afforded an opportunity to analyze these

emotional appeals.

For Further Consideration

Can you think of some recent commercials you saw that attempted to make you feel
good so they could sell their product to you? Ads selling soda are often good examples
of this. For example, Coca-Cola had a campaign using the slogan “Open Happiness.”
You will feel so good if you consume this product.

Another common emotional appeal is to elicit fear. Fear can be very effective most of the

time. There are, however, a few situations when it will not work. Fear doesn’t work when you

are trying to convince people to stop doing something that makes them feel good, like having sex

or laying in the sun. It also doesn’t work when you use too much of it and don’t give the

audience a solution to avoid their fear. In that case, it is easier for the audience to deny and

continue the behavior. Humor and fear combined have also been found to be more persuasive

(Mukherjee & Dube, 2012). A great example of something that fear alone isn’t effective at

persuading but in combination with humor is very persuasive is sex and condom use. The fear

appeals would want you to think of having your life stolen from you with unwanted pregnancies

and potentially losing your life from HIV/AIDS or the discomfort of sexually transmitted

diseases. The addition of humor can be seen in Trojan condom ads. These ads are generally

funny and they combat the fear of negative things that come from something we see as

pleasurable, or sex.

[Link]. The way the message is presented. The message can be presented in different

ways and these strategies can impact how persuasive the message ends up being. There are

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several strategies that work most effectively when you are processing things heuristically or

peripherally, which we know happens quite frequently. We can start by looking at foot-in-the-

door phenomenon. The terminology for this comes from the idea of door-to-door salespeople. If

they can get into your home, they feel confident in making the sale. What does this strategy

entail? The communicator will first make a small request. Once you agree to the small request

the communicator will ask for something larger. Remember, this person’s goal is the larger

request, but in order for you to agree to it, they are using a strategy that plays on our need to be

consistent. Once we have made a commitment, we will feel pressure to remain consistent and

avoid the unpleasant feeling of hypocrisy. One of my favorite studies demonstrating this involves

having people agree to sign a petition that driver safety is important. Then two weeks later, they

ask for the larger request. All told, 76% agreed to place a billboard in their yard. Yes, you read

that correctly: a BILLBOARD (Freedman & Fraser, 1966). Our need to be consistent and not be

viewed as hypocrites is powerful.

Another technique, a variation of the foot-in-the-door technique is called lowballing.

Lowballing is a fascinating strategy. The communicator will put forward an attractive offer, one

that is hard to say no to. Once the offer is agreed to, you will come up with new reasons for why

you are glad you made the commitment to this offer. This is where it gets interesting. The

original offer is removed. The whole reason you went along with it was because of that desirable

offer and now it is gone. What should we expect - are we upset, do we change our mind about

what we have agreed to because it isn’t as good as the original offer? No, we don’t. We go along

with it and are happy about it. Cialdini (2008) discusses this in his book Influence: Science and

Practice. The examples he gives are great. The first one is a traditional sales situation. How

many of you have bought a car from a dealership? Did you agree to a price with the salesperson

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and then they leave you to make sure that their manager agrees to it? This is where the lowball

begins. You agreed to the attractive offer from the salesperson. They will sell you the car for the

price you want. While they are gone, you are coming up with all these new reasons for why you

made this decision. The car has great mileage, horsepower, sunroof, tinted windows, a backup

camera and great sound system. When the salesperson comes back and removes this original

offer (which is why you agreed in the first place), you still take the car and you are happy about

it. This technique is regularly used in car sales. Another great example occurred with one of

Cialdini’s friends, Sarah. She had been dating Tim for a while, and she wanted to get married.

Tim wasn’t interested in marriage. Sarah ended the relationship, met someone else and was

engaged to be married. Tim comes back into the picture and offers Sarah a great deal. He will

marry her if she comes back to him. She leaves her current engagement and returns to Tim. She

comes up with all these new reasons for why Tim is the right guy for her. Then Tim lowballs her,

removes his original offer of marriage and Sarah happily stays with him. She has all these new

reasons for being with him, so when he takes away one (even though it was the initial reason for

her taking him back), it doesn’t matter because it is just one reason. She is committed to him,

happy and not married.

The last technique we will discuss is called door-in-the-face. I know that two of these

strategies have the word door in them and this can seem tricky when you are taking a test over

the material, but a good way to remember the difference is to actually think about what the

phrase says. With foot-in-the-door you can picture a small part of your body getting in and then

once that small part is in the door, the rest of you is not far behind. Small to large. With door-in-

the-face, something large is presented and the metaphorical door is slammed in your face

because the request is too big. Then you knock and offer a smaller request, which is usually

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accepted. The smaller request is what you really are trying to get. The two processes that are

working to make this technique effective are reciprocity and perceptual contrast. Reciprocity

is another peripheral cue. When someone does something for us, we feel indebted to them and

want to immediately return to equity in our relationship. This makes sense — survival would

have depended on successful relationships and sharing resources. If you were known as a taker

or moocher then this would have negatively impacted your relationships. We still see this in our

relationships today even though survival might not be at the core of them. So, with door-in-the-

face, when your initial offer is denied and you come back with a smaller one, the other person

feels like you gave in or gave them something with the compromise you are attempting to make.

They then are more likely to accept that second smaller offer because they feel indebted to your

compromise.

The second reason you went along was perceptual contrast. This cue deals with the

change in perception related to how things are presented. So, in the door-in-the-face situation, we

are presented with something large and then something small. The second presentation of the

smaller item after the large item changes our perception and we now see it as smaller than if we

had just been presented with the small item alone. Let’s look at a few examples. First, I want you

to clean the whole house. You don’t want to. Okay, how about you just clean your room? Well,

based on what we just learned, this should drastically increase the likelihood that you will clean

your room than if I had originally just asked you to clean your room. First, you want to

reciprocate my compromise, and second, your room seems much smaller after being compared to

the WHOLE house. This will be a great tool for persuading roommates, spouses, or children to

do the small things you want (just clean your room).

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For Your Consideration

Can you think of something large that you want? What would be a way of using foot-in-

the-door to get it? Can you think of a time foot-in-the-door was used on you? Have you

ever experienced lowballing or used it one someone else? What was the situation? What

was the initial attractive offer and what other reasons kept you from changing your mind

when the initial offer was removed? What was your initial offer you used and then took

away? Finally, think of an example of door-in-the-face? Were you the persuader or the

person being persuaded? What was the situation?

[Link]. One-sided or two-sided appeals. The last common question about message

content has to do with whether you can be more successful with just presenting your side of the

argument or if you need to present both sides to be effective. Again, it really depends. One-sided

appeals work best when the audience agrees with you. A one-sided appeal can be the wrong

choice if the audience processes through the central route. It will motivate them to seek out the

other side and could result in trust issues. Which if you remember from earlier in this section, if

you are not seen as a trustworthy source, that can really damage your effectiveness. The two-

sided appeal is most effective and enduring when the audience disagrees with you. It can be

useful right from the start to address the opposing side and then present your argument. If you

watch television with courtroom scenes you often see this technique. The prosecutor or defense

attorney will start with “my opposition is going to tell you X, but I want you to see it this way”.

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When they don’t do this, you are going to spend more time thinking of the opposing arguments

while they are talking rather than listening to their case.

An illustrative example comes from a study done at a university encouraging recycling.

They placed signs on the trash cans that said “No Aluminum Cans Please!!! Use Recycler

Located on First Floor Near Entrance.” Underneath that sign was a smaller one that said, “It may

be inconvenient, but it is important.” After adding the second sign, which turned the one-sided

appeal into a two-sided appeal, 80% recycled compared to 40% before it was added (Werner, et

al., 2002).

For Your Consideration

Return to our example of plastic pollution from the beginning of the section. How do the
different types of readings present the message? Are they one-sided or two-sided? Plastic
obviously serves us well in a lot of situations. In fact, it may be impossible to completely
avoid it. So, who is the audience? If you are reading a blog or an emotionally geared
piece, then it is quite likely that they are only using a one-sided appeal. However, if part
of your audience might disagree or have a high need for cognition, you should use the
two-sided appeal.

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6.3. A Closer Look at Cults: Dangers and Resistance to Persuasion

Section Learning Objectives

• Exemplify what a cult is

• Examine the persuasion processes used against us

• Clarify ways to resist these attempts at persuasion

We should start by acknowledging that persuasion can be good, neutral or bad (which we

will look at more closely with our cult examples). We can persuade people to stop bad habits,

vote for someone who can positively change our world, think more about their plastic

consumption, clean their rooms, and/or marry you. The focus of this section is on the dangers,

which we see when people attempt to take advantage of our tendency to automatically respond to

peripheral cues or triggers as we save our cognitive resources. Salespeople, con artists,

politicians, and crappy relationship partners, are a variety of people who can use our natural

tendencies against us. This section will focus on the danger of cults. There are two we will look

at and the persuasion techniques that were utilized. We will then look at some suggestions for

fighting against our automatic tendencies.

6.3.1. Two Examples of Cults

The first example of a cult is from the late 1950s and is not a well-known cult. In fact, I

couldn’t find anything about it through casual searches without its connection to the

psychological researchers who studied it. Festinger, who you might remember for his work with

cognitive dissonance, was interested in how doomsday cult members could continue on with the

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group after the predicted end didn’t arrive. A great resource that covers this is the original source

— a book written by Festinger, Riecken, & Schacter and published in 1964 about their

experience participating in this very small doomsday cult in Chicago. They called themselves the

Seekers and were originally smaller than 30 members. They were led by two middle-aged

individuals and the study gave them alias names to protect their identities. The male was named

Dr. Armstrong and he was a physician at the college. The female, and person receiving the

messages from the aliens called Guardians, was given the name Mrs. Keech. She predicted that

an end of the world event would occur before dawn on Dec. 21, 1954 and the true believers

would be picked up at dawn by the Guardians (aliens). This alone is interesting, but the more

interesting part is that three psychologists gave us an inside view of exactly what happened from

the announcement of the “end” and then through the weeks leading up to the event and the night

of the so-called “end”. As reported by the psychologists who were present, when the aliens

didn’t pick them up, everyone sat in silence, visibly upset. They sat together waiting for the time

of the flood and the end of the world. This time also came and went without incident. Mrs.

Keech immediately afterward received a new message from the Guardians saying that all of their

light and faith had prevented the tragic event. One person got up and left, disgusted by this —

that was it. Mrs. Keech then received another message that they needed to contact the media and

anyone who would listen. They needed to get the word out about their group and recruit

members. Everyone left and started following the message. What is interesting about this

approach is that prior to the failed end of the world event, they were extremely secretive and

reluctant to add new members. However, at least that night and for a while after, the members of

this group increased their commitment to the cult. Today we know Mrs. Keech’s actual name

was Dorothy Martin, a housewife from Chicago. The group in Chicago didn’t remain and after

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being threatened with commitment to a mental facility, she moved to Peru where she continued

to receive messages and changed her name to Sister Thedra, starting the Association of Sananda.

This organization continued until 1992 when she died.

For more on this group, please visit: [Link]

almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/association-sananda-and-sanat-kumara

What kind of persuasion principles were employed in this situation? We see prior to the

doomsday event that members made drastic decisions; they quit jobs, sold houses, and cut ties

with family/friends who didn’t understand. They needed to remain consistent with these choices,

and their commitment to the cult was very high. When the event passed and nothing happened,

they used social proof — our heuristic that if others are doing it, it must be correct — through

the recruitment of new members and the publicizing of their group to help them stay committed

to the group. In the end, most people left the group, but this isn’t the case for most cults.

The second example is Jonestown and cult leader Jim Jones. Jim Jones started as simply a

pastor of what seemed like an all-inclusive church in Indiana in 1955. In a time of segregation

and ostracism of those that were different, Jim created a utopian environment where all were

accepted. It was a place where those without family could find family and those who sought a

place of equality for all could find it. He moved the church to California in 1965, fearing nuclear

war. It was from this point that the church (now called the People’s Temple) started traveling

down a more sinister path. Most members started by just attending once a week and then

committing to more nights a week. They would encourage their friends and family to join. They

gave a small amount of money to the church, and that slowly increased until they gave their

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whole paycheck. When they moved to California, they lived and worked on the church property,

which means they sold their houses and cut ties with family who didn’t support the church. Jones

also encouraged the children to be adopted by others in the church and for spouses to have sex

with other members of church, especially Jim. He aimed to break their bonds within the church

and outside of the church. They eventually moved to the jungle of Guyana as an attempt on Jim’s

part to protect his people and church. He believed they were under attack from everyone. After a

visit from a Congressmen, who was worried people were being held against their will, was shot

and killed at Jim’s request, Jim forced everyone at gunpoint to drink poisoned Kool-Aid. A few

who escaped into the jungle and a few from the Congressman’s group who lived, helped us to

better understand what happened (Nelson, et al., 2007). This cult and the subsequent deaths are

so fascinating, there are many documentaries and stories written about what happened. People

often think how could this happen? Why didn’t they leave? How could they let someone do these

things to them? People think that they would never allow these things to happen to them.

Let’s look at the persuasion techniques that were used and how people automatically

responded to them. They had no idea that they were being persuaded to someday voluntarily kill

themselves. If you look, foot-in-the-door (which we discussed earlier) is running rampant, as

well as lowballing. Jim had them commit to many small requests and over time slowly increased

his requests. He did this with church attendance and church work, money donated to the church,

giving up custody of their children and then breaking their marital bonds. Eventually, large

requests like moving to another state and then another country were easy to make because they

had already committed to so much. In order to remain consistent, they had to make these larger

commitments as well. They had given everything up for this church’s mission. Jim used

emotional appeals to initially get certain kinds of members; those who were ostracized or didn’t

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have anyone such as the homeless. He would perform miracles for these individuals. The

members who were doctors, lawyers and more likely to follow the central route were recruited

with strong social and political messages. He provided a utopia where everyone was equal and

where the elderly were given medicine and taken care of. He recruited with attractiveness and

liking. He made himself credible — a trustworthy expert. It wasn’t until later that people saw a

different side to Jim. It’s clear that these individuals committed to something that later didn’t

look anything like the initial offer.

6.3.2. Resisting the Temptations of a Cult

How can we resist the dangers of situations like this? Cialdini (2008) offers some great

tips to avoid the main techniques that are used. We will focus here on how to fight commitment

and consistency’s powerful pull. He suggests two ways to combat it. Listen to your stomach and

your heart. He says that consistency is often important and good for us in our lives. However, it

isn’t always, as seen above with the cults. When you feel trapped by your commitment to a

request, you often feel a tightening and discomfort in your stomach. He suggests that in this

instance, the best way to combat that feeling is to bring this attempt to the persuader’s attention.

“I am not going to go along with your request because it would be foolish to just remain

consistent when I don’t want to go along.” He says we can’t always feel our stomach signs, so

ask in our heart of hearts ‘does it feel right?’ Ask yourself if you could go back to beginning with

the information you know now, would you make the same choices? If no, then the pressure of

consistency should lessen and you can say no.

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Module Recap

Persuasion is a complex topic, but hopefully you made it out with a much greater

understanding of how you process information and persuasion attempts, either centrally or

peripherally. You now know what types of communicators and messages are most effective in

different contexts and with different audiences. Finally, you are more aware of the dangers of

being taken advantage of by individuals who are aware of our frequent automatic responses to

peripheral cues. The next module will continue our journey through social influence by

examining conformity more closely.

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