Resistance and Persuasion

Eric S. Knowles, Jay A. Linn, Eric S. Knowles, Jay A. Linn

• Editorial: Psychology Press
• Año: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781135626372
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Psychologie
• Categoría: Histoire et théorie en psychologie

Resistance and Persuasion is the first book to analyze the nature of resistance and demonstrate how it can be reduced, overcome, or used to promote persuasion. By examining resistance, and providing strategies for overcoming it, this new book generates insight into new facets of influence and persuasion. With contributions from the leaders in the field, this book presents original ideas and research that demonstrate how understanding resistance can improve persuasion, compliance, and social influence. Many of the authors present their research for the first time. Four faces of resistance are identified: reactance, distrust, scrutiny, and inertia. The concluding chapter summarizes the book's theoretical contributions and establishes a resistance-based research agenda for persuasion and attitude change. This new book helps to establish resistance as a legitimate sub-field of persuasion that is equal in force to influence. Resistance and Persuasion offers many new revelations about persuasion: *Acknowledging resistance helps to reduce it.*Raising reactance makes a strong message more persuasive.*Putting arguments into a narrative increases their influence. *Identifying illegitimate sources of information strengthens the influence of legitimate sources.*Looking ahead reduces resistance to persuasive attempts.
This volume will appeal to researchers and students from a variety of disciplines including social, cognitive, and health psychology, communication, marketing, political science, journalism, and education.

Strategies for Overcoming Resistance

7

Approach-Avoidance Model of Persuasion: Alpha and Omega Strategies for Change

Eric S. Knowles
University of Arkansas

Jay A. Linn
Widener University

“The Lord God said, … ‘of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat For in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’”

(Genesis, 2:15)

“But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die.’”

(Genesis, 3:4)

Persuasion is among the oldest of human experiences. It is the lubricant of social organization, the medium of interpersonal coordination. Because of this, the study of persuasion is at the core of social psychology, communication, rhetoric, advertising, and public relations.

This chapter develops an approach-avoidance model of attitudes and judgments, and it explores its ramifications for change and persuasion strategies. The approach-avoidance model implies two different tactics for change. Alpha strategies, which are widely known and have been the focus of much past research, attempt to persuade by increasing the approach forces. An offer or a message can be made more attractive by adding incentives, creating more convincing reasons, finding more credible sources, and so on. Omega strategies, which are relatively understudied and a primary focus of this book, attempt to persuade by decreasing avoidance forces. Thus, Omega change strategies work by removing or disengaging someone’s reluctance to change.

The book of Genesis reports the first persuasive messages used to change someone’s behavior. The serpent said to Eve, “You will not die!” Notice that the serpent did not say, “Great things come from the knowledge of good and evil,” or “Trust me, I’m an expert in the benefits of knowledge,” or “Eat of the tree and you will get not only knowledge, but also beautiful clothes.” No, the serpent said, “I know you’re afraid of the possibility of death, and I want you to know that death will not happen.” The serpent used an Omega change strategy to deal directly with Eve’s resistance. The serpent’s Omega strategy was successful and, according to Genesis, changed human experience profoundly.

APPROACH-AVOIDANCE MODEL

Kurt Lewin (1951) told a story of a child at a beach whose toy floated in the surf at the water’s edge. The child ran toward the ocean to retrieve the toy. But as she got closer, the pounding of the surf and the splashing of the waves began to scare her. She stopped 10 steps from the toy and was immobilized there. If she went further back, up the beach, her desire for the toy would impel her forward. If she went closer, the danger of the surf would push her back. She was stuck between approach and avoidance.

This story of the child with the toy epitomizes the approach-avoidance conflict and illustrates its various facets: (1) The goals, such as retrieving the toy, are complex events, with multiple meanings. Retrieving the toy means not only recapturing one’s possession, but also putting one’s self at risk. Most situations, attitude objects, messages, and offers are complex events, engaging many meanings and motives. (2) The meanings vary in many ways—in valence of affect, in breadth of applicability, in depth of engagement. Nonetheless, motives generally can be separated into two classes (Lewin, 1947, 1958). Those that promote movement toward the goal can be thought of as approach motives. Those that inhibit movement toward the goal can be thought of as avoidance motives. (3) Approach and avoidance motives may be of very different quality and aim, as is the attractiveness of the toy and the aversiveness of the surf. These two sets of forces may attend to different aspects of the goal or the situation. (4) Goals are acted on in context, not in the abstract. The desire for the toy is not a detached wish; it is a desire for this toy in this context. It is a desire that can only be understood at this time, in this place, in this way, and with these conditions and constraints.

Dollard and Miller (1950; Miller, 1944, 1959) formalized Lewin’s descriptions into a sort of psychological gravitational model (Knowles, 1989). They believed that when one was far away from a goal, the approach cues were more salient than the avoidance cues. But as one moved closer to the goal, the avoidance gradients arose more steeply than the approach gradients. Dollard and Miller’s (1950) famous depiction of these qualities showed a crossover point; closer than this point, the avoidance gradient has greater force than the approach gradient. This crossover point is the equilibrium point that froze Lewin’s child at the beach, making her unable to move forward for fear of the surf, but unable to move away because of wanting the toy.

The Dollard and Miller approach-avoidance conflict model describes a basic mixed motive situation that characterizes numerous social interactions. We see this model applied to spatial behavior (Knowles, 1980), to optimal distinctiveness (Brewer, 1991), to group behavior (Wheeler, 1966), and to self-regulation (Forster, Grant, Idson, & Higgins, 2001). In this chapter, we apply the approach-avoidance model to the process of attitude, attitude change, and persuasion (see also, Knowles, Butler, & Linn, 2001). The model we apply is this: (1) Goals, attitude objects, offers, and opinions are complex stimuli that engage multiple motives. (2) Some of these motives are approach motives, pushing opinions and behaviors toward the goal. Others of these motives are avoidance motives, pushing opinions and behaviors away from the goal. (3) When the approach forces are greater in total strength or salience than the avoidance forces, then there is movement toward the goal. But when the approach forces are less compelling than the avoidance forces, then there is no movement toward the goal and perhaps even movement in the opposite direction. (4) To persuade or foster movement toward a goal, a change agent may increase approach forces or decrease avoidance forces.

TWO STRATEGIES FOR CHANGE

The approach-avoidance model has a number of implications. One implication, the one we focus on here, is that there are two fundamentally different ways to create change, two different strategies for promoting movement toward some goal. Alpha strategies promote change by activating the approach forces, thereby increasing the motivation to move toward the goal. In contrast, Omega strategies promote change by minimizing the avoidance forces, thereby reducing the motivation to move away from the goal.

Alpha Strategies

The empirical study of influence has focused almost exclusively on the study of Alpha strategies. Most influence texts review the many ways to make goals more desirable. Table 7.1 lists a number of these general strategies. We will only briefly mention them here, including a few key referents. We refer readers desiring more thorough treatments and discussions to Cialdini (2001), O’Keefe (2002), Perloff (2003), Pratkanis and Aronson (2001), Wilson (2002), or any general-survey social psychology text.

Make messages more persuasive	Create strong arguments that justify and compel action (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).
Add incentives	Add extra inducements for compliance, including interpersonal ones such as being liked for your opinion or choice.
Increase source credibility	Make the source more expert or attractive to increase their persuasiveness.
Provide consensus information	Show that many, many people are doing it, thinking it, wanting it.
Emphasize scarcity	Tell the target that few exist for only a short time. Scarcity makes the opportunity more attractive.
Engage a norm of reciprocity	Small gratuitous favors obligate the recipient to reciprocate, but you control the avenue of reciprocation.
Emphasize consistency and commitment	Create small actions or reframe the target’s prior actions to appear consistent with the requested behavior.

TABLE 7.1
Alpha Persuasion Strategies

Make Messages More Persuasive

The classic, first-line strategy for persuasion is improved rhetoric. When people are willing and able to listen to a message, strong arguments are more persuasive than weak arguments (Langer, 1989; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Pollock, Smith, Knowles, & Bruce, 1998). Petty and Cacioppo (1986) have shown that messages are more persuasive when they give more cogent reasons for an action or belief, when they raise someone’s interest in listening to the message, and when the are phrased in a way that allows easy understanding.

Research has identified additional characteristics that affect the persuasiveness of messages. The vividness of a message (Frey & Eagly, 1993), the appeal of the messages to fear and emotion (Block & Keller, 1997; Maddux & Rogers, 1983; Rogers, 1983), and the use of humor in the message (Duncan & Nelson, 1985; Smith, Haugtvedt, & Petty, 1994) have all been explored, showing some conditions when these variables increase persuasion yet other circumstances when they decrease persuasion. Arguments are more persuasive when generated by listeners themselves than when merely read or heard (Gregory, Cialdini, & Carpenter, 1982). And, of course, reasonable arguments heard repeatedly are more persuasive than arguments heard only once (Haugtvedt, Schumann, Schneier, & Warren, 1994; Schumann, Petty, & Clemons, 1990).

Add Incentives

Another common way to promote change is to sweeten the deal by lowering the cost or by adding other inducements. “Free gifts,” bonuses for “acting now,” and other versions of the “that’s-not-all” technique are effective sales strategies. Burger (1986) showed that the deal needs only to appear sweeter, not to actually be sweeter. Thus, people were more likely to purchase a 75-cent cupcake with a free cookie than they were to purchase a cupcake and cookie combination for 75 cents! The incentives need not be only monetary or product related. Thus, a persuader may imply that friendship or respect will be an added bonus to the deal (Cialdini, 2001).

Increase Source Credibility

Generally, a message will be more persuasive when delivered by a more expert or trustworthy source (Hovland & Weiss, 1951). Other source characteristics that influence persuasion are similarity to the target (Byrne, 1971) and the attractiveness of the source (Chaiken, 1979; Shavitt, Swan, Lowery, & Wanke, 1994). Source credibility may be less influential when people have the desire or ability to scrutinize the message (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).

Provide Consensus Information

Often people use other people’s actions as referents for what is appropriate and desirable (Sherif & Sherif, 1956). Cialdini (2001) calls this the influence principle of “social proof.” The perception that other people find an alternative attractive often increases a person’s appreciation of that alternative. Fads and panics are extreme examples. Thus, one Alpha strategy is to let people know that an alternative is the most popular, or that others have also made this selection. Of course, people have a competing desire to think of themselves as unique, so this strategy can backfire unless carefully and subtly applied (Snyder & Fromkin, 1980).

Emphasize Scarcity

Making a person think that there are only a few items left, or that time for a decision is limited, can sometimes be an effective Alpha strategy. Scarcity is the ignition for several processes (Cialdini, 2001; Pratkanis & Aronson, 2001). First, scarcity implies social consensus that the item is desirable, that it is scarce because other people want it. Second, scarcity implies competition, and obtaining a scarce good implies that one has won the competition. Third, scarcity, especially time scarcity, burdens the decision-making processes, generally producing more heuristic-based decision processes.

Engage a Norm of Reciprocity

The opportunity to pay off an interpersonal obligation or debt is another sort of incentive that may make an offer more attractive. This Alpha strategy involves doing a small favor for someone before making a request of that person. The small favor creates a relationship (Dolinski, Nawrat, & Rudak, 2001) and engages a norm of reciprocity, an obligation to return the favor (Gouldner, 1960). Regan (1971) found that offering a potential customer a soft drink doubled the sales of raffle tickets that were two-and-a-half times more expensive than the drink. This reciprocation effect occurred even when the salesperson was relatively unfriendly.

Cialdini, Vincent, Lewis, Catalan, Wheeler, and Darby (1975) proposed that the door-in-the-face influence technique worked because of reciprocal concessions. The influence agent makes a very large req...