Psych 586: Psychology of Persuasion Historical Perspective

1
Psych 586 Psychology of PersuasionHistorical
Perspective

• Professor Icek Aizen
• Office Tobin 625
• Email aizen_at_psych.umass.edu
• Tel [phone]

2
Political Commercials

• Sample TV commercials from 1960, 1980, 1984, and
  2004 presidential elections.

3
The Hovland Paradigm(After Hovland Janis, 1959)
4
Elements of a Persuasive Communication
5
Example of Persuasive Communication (Eagly,
1974) Introduction and Preview of Conclusion

• Introduction of Communicator
• The lecture that you will read is about sleep
  research. It was delivered by a physiological
  psychologist who agreed to participate in this
  study. He is a faculty member in the Psychology
  Department who has been doing research on sleep
  for the past five years. He has published a
  number of journal articles on sleep and is
  currently completing a book on the subject.
• Persuasive Message
• In recent years, there has been a considerable
  amount of research on the nature and function of
  sleep. Recently there have been some important
  discoveries about sleep and I want to tell you
  about them. You may find many of the things that
  I'll tell you quite novel because they go against
  conventional ideas--even against some of the
  classic psychological theories about sleep.
• Let me present this research to you by first
  telling you my overall conclusion. This is that
  you are probably sleeping too much. It is not
  necessary for the average person to sleep the
  eight hours each night that we have all been
  taught to believe is best. In fact,
  psychological research demonstrates the overall
  superiority of only about three hours for the
  average person provided that these hours are of
  a very special type. As I will explain, there is
  really no danger in cutting down sleep to three
  hours (if you do it in a certain way), and there
  certainly are some advantages.
• I would like to review for you the evidence that
  leads me to this conclusion. I will make six
  main points.

6
Example of Persuasive Communication(Eagly,
1974) First Argument

• My first point about the cultural nature of
  how much we sleep is a background fact that you
  should understand. The amount we sleep is
  actually arbitrary. People believe that 8 hours
  are necessary mainly because they have been told
  this is so and have been 'taught to sleep a lot
  when they were children. A University of
  California anthropologist pointed out that in
  some cultures, the norm is markedly less sleep
  than 8 hours while in other cultures, people are
  expected to sleep even more than in our society.
  Also anthropologists point out that the amount of
  sleep people get varies with the season,
  especially for primitive and peasant peoples who
  live close to the land--they sleep when it is
  dark, so sleep more in the winter. Northern
  people like Laplanders and Eskimos sleep,
  according to one study, 1.8 times more in the
  winter than in the summer. In industrialized
  civilizations, we are not so affected by these
  rhythms of nature sleep patterns become more
  purely cultural.

7
Example of Persuasive Communication(Eagly,
1974) Second Argument

• My second point is very important studies show
  that how rested a person feels when he wakes up
  depends on how much REM sleep he gets rather than
  his total amount of sleep. This REM sleep gets
  its name from the words Rapid Eye Movement since
  during this type of sleep, persons move their
  eyes back and forth rapidly. We also know that
  most dreaming takes place during REM
  sleep--though not all of REM sleep coincides with
  dreaming.
• For reasons we don't understand completely,
  dreaming and REM sleep make us feel rested.
  Sleep without these Rapid Eye Movements occupies
  much of the night, but it doesnt do nearly as
  much good as REM sleep and can largely be
  dispensed with. Experiments were done that
  involved awakening people after differing amounts
  of REM and non-REM sleep and interviewing them on
  how they felt (and also putting them through
  certain laboratory performance tasks). These
  experiments (which have so far involved 347
  subjects from all walks of life) show that REM
  sleep brings 2½ times as much reduction of
  fatigue as does non-REM sleep. This is a new and
  important discovery about sleep. Thus, one hour
  of REM sleep is as effective as 2½ hours of
  non-REM sleep. Simply stated "It's REMs that
  rest us."
• Also, studies show that if persons are allowed
  to sleep as much as they want but are awakened
  when they enter REM sleep, they remain tired and
  experience adverse effects such as hallucinations
  and other perceptual maladjustments and
  distortions. People even verge on a state not
  unlike schizophrenia after several days of sleep
  without the REM phase.)

8
Example of Persuasive Communication(Eagly,
1974) Third Argument

• My third point comes from some training studies
  that were done at the University of Oregon. They
  took volunteers and retrained them to sleep less
  time per day. Now, there are two things that a
  person must do if he is to sleep fewer hours per
  day he must divide his sleep into at least three
  naps rather than one 8-hour period and he must
  know how to go into REM sleep quickly. Naps are
  important because people go into REM sleep early
  in the night--the last four hours of the 8-hour
  night don't provide much REM sleep. Thus, the
  shorter naps provide more REM sleep since they
  are like the first part of the usual nighttime
  sleep.
• It takes the average person who is untrained at
  least 45 minutes to get into REM sleep. They
  knew that this period had to be cut, and through
  trying different methods, they finally hit on a
  method that works fairly well. This is the
  procedure a person lies down, relaxes his
  muscles very thoroughly, and thinks about a
  single image of what is called a "bland" object.
  11 bland object might be a blank wall or a
  cloudless sky. It is important to concentrate on
  just one object and not to let one's thoughts
  wander. One must not think of activities or
  problems, and not try to think logically. Just a
  single "bland" object. It's a sort of meditation
  technique. Using the bland object technique,
  most people can go into REM sleep within 10
  minutes of falling asleep. There are really no
  special talents involved in being able to do
  this--anyone can do it. By the way, you might be
  interested to know that with alcohol or drugs a
  person tends to miss REM sleep and go right into
  deeper non-REM sleep. This is one reason why
  people don't feel as rested after alcohol or
  drug-induced sleep.
• The program, then, involved training in
  REM-inducing concentration and learning to take
  three or four evenly spaced naps of equal
  duration. Most subjects cut down their sleep a
  great deal and still carried out their daily work
  at what they felt was their usual level of
  efficiency. Still, the program didn't work for a
  few subjects, but these people evidently didn't
  do a very good job of spacing out the naps and
  were trying to do most all of their sleeping at
  night.

9
Example of Persuasive Communication(Eagly,
1974) Fourth Argument

• A fourth line of evidence comes from studies of
  the physical effects of longer periods of sleep 
  these were done primarily by a psychobiologist at
  Princeton University. Subjects were put into
  quiet rooms and encouraged to sleep for long
  periods--given the right conditions, most
  subjects could sleep between 10 and 16 hours.
  Measurements showed that reaction time was
  impaired, as was the ability to solve complex
  logical syllogisms. Many people have personal
  experience with this--they have known the
  sluggish feeling and dull headache that follow
  long periods of sleep. Also, sleeping for long
  periods is bad for a person physically because
  his body is in such a lowered state of arousal
  during a long period of sleep-his heart rate is
  slow, his muscles are completely relaxed. His
  heart and internal organs tend to lose muscle
  tone. If a person puts his body under strain
  after a long period of sleep, he is more apt to
  be injured--or, in the extreme, to suffer a heart
  attack. While long sleep weakens a person, the
  body is not so severely affected by shorter
  periods of sleep. Also, a study relating length
  of life to number of hours of sleep showed a
  slight, but statistically significant,
  relationship between the hours a person sleeps
  and the length of life. This means that persons
  who live longer tend to sleep less than average
  while those who die younger sleep more than
  average. Of course, other factors affect length
  of life, but sleep is involved here.

10
Example of Persuasive Communication(Eagly,
1974) Fifth Argument

• As a fifth point, let me explain that sleep can
  be defensive. People often sleep to escape from
  their problems It's a socially acceptable mode
  of escape while other forms of escape seem odd or
  even a little crazy to people This idea about
  sleep being an escape has some empirical support
  in a study by a Swedish psychologist Lindstrom.
  He related the number of hours a person sleeps to
  tests of psychoneurotic symptoms (projective
  tests) and found that people who sleep a lot have
  more neurotic symptoms. Therapists often realize
  that excessive sleeping is a habit that must be
  broken in getting a patient to face reality. I
  guess that many people are only mildly affected
  by this psychoneurotic sleep syndrome--but
  excessive sleeping can become pronounced during
  periods of special stress.

11
Example of Persuasive Communication(Eagly,
1974) Sixth Argument and Recommendation

• As my sixth point I want to comment on how sleep
  relates to achievement. Many successful people
  sleep considerably less than 8 hours. Some
  notable examples of persons known for their
  tendency to sleep much less than average are
  Charles Percy, Robert McNamara, Thomas Edison,
  and Henry Ford. One likely reason for the
  success of these men is the fact that they were
  able to use the day effectively and to devote
  rather little time to sleep. After all, the
  extra time gained from sleeping less is a
  tremendous advantage since the average person
  works 8 hours, sleeps 8 hours, and then spends
  (according to one study) about 4h hours in
  routine tasks such as commuting, eating, and
  such. This leaves less than 4 hours for
  important things like reading, entertainment,
  leisure, working to develop talents and
  interests, and doing special work connected with
  one's job or schooling. It is clear that cutting
  down sleep would give a person more time for his
  own personal development.
• To summarize most people are sleeping their
  lives away. My recommendation to the average
  person is that he or she make the effort to learn
  more about how sleep really works. Then he could
  benefit considerably if he developed a living and
  napping pattern that involves only about three
  hours of sleep during each 24.

12
Message Opposed to Fraternities Attitudes of
Fraternity Members (Festinger Maccoby, 1974)
13
Cognitive Response Model of Persuasion(Brock,
Greenwald, Petty, Cacioppo, 1970s)
14
Counter-Arguments and Attitude Toward Tuition
Increase (Osterhouse Brock, 1970)
Distraction Ps call out which of 4 lights
come on. 12/min vs. 24/min.
Attitude
Counter- arguments
15
The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)(Petty
Cacioppo, 1986)
16
Comprehensive Exam Strong Argument(Petty
Cacioppo, 1986)

• The National Scholarship Achievement Board
  recently revealed the results of a five-year
  study conducted on the effectiveness of
  comprehensive exams at Duke University. The
  results of the study showed that since the
  comprehensive exam has been introduced at Duke,
  the grade point average of undergraduates has
  increased by 31. At comparable schools without
  the exams, grades increased by only 8 over the
  same period. The prospect of a comprehensive
  exam clearly seems to be effective in challenging
  students to work harder and faculty to teach more
  effectively. It is likely that the benefits
  observed at Duke University could also be
  observed at other universities that adopt the
  exam policy.

17
Comprehensive Exam Weak Argument(Petty
Cacioppo, 1986)

• The National Scholarship Achievement Board
  recently revealed the results of a five-year
  study conducted on the effectiveness of
  comprehensive exams at Duke University. One
  major finding was that student anxiety had
  increased by 31. At comparable schools without
  the exam, anxiety increased by only 8. The
  Board reasoned that anxiety over the exams, or
  fear or failure, would motivate students to study
  more in their courses while they were taking
  them. It is likely that this increase in anxiety
  observed at Duke University would also be
  observed, and be of benefit, at other
  universities that adopt the exam policy.

18
Postmessage Attitudes Toward 20 Tuition Increase
(Petty, Well, Brock, 1976)
19
Postmessage Attitudes Toward Comprehensive Exam
(Petty Cacioppo, 1979)