30 Minute Lecture Presentation

Emotion and Persuasion

Mood & Central Processing

1. Judgments of Expertise Source expertise (a more peripheral cue) carries a greater weight than argument quality when the audience is experiencing a positive mood.

2. Judgments of Argument Quality This is not as influential when people are in positive moods compared to when they are in neutral moods.

Explanations (neither one has been proven better than the other)

1. Lack of Motivation People like their good moods, so they may spend more energy thinking about maintaining them than about the quality of arguments in a message.

2. Lack of Capacity Positive moods activate positive memories, which reduce the person’s cognitive capacity to critically evaluate arguments from incoming messages.

Fear Appeals Appeals that emphasize possible harmful consequences that may befall the receivers if they do not make the attitude or behavioral choices recommended by the source.

Effectiveness of Strong vs. Weak Appeals

Messages that induce greater fear generally will enhance the effectiveness of the message

Success at Arousing Fear Some appeals may be shocking or gory and ineffective, but not necessarily because they arouse too much fear. The appeal actually has to arouse the fear.

Perception of what Fearful 1. Fear is different for everyone. 2. Fear appeals also work differently on different groups. -- ANTI-____ Ads aimed at teenagers and adults

What is Risk? Risk Deminis Principle Risk = Hazard + Outrage

Conditions Necessary For Fear Appeals to Work

Severity of Threat The consequences of not complying with the fear appeal must be severe enough to bring about action. - IF you don’t comply you will DIE!!!!

Audience Vulnerability to threat (relevance) The threat must be relevant to the audience. The threat must directly effect the audience. -- I’m invulnerable – nothing will hurt me!!!!

The Audience is able to do Something Doing what I say will alleviate the threat! If you do not do what I say, you will be harmed by the threat!