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Not a systematic theory about persuasive communications, this approach is a general framework within which research was conducted. The Yale researchers did not specify levels of importance among the factors of a persuasive message; they emphasized analyzing the aspects of attitude change over comparing them. [3]
Carl Iver Hovland (June 12, 1912 – April 16, 1961) was a psychologist working primarily at Yale University and for the US Army during World War II who studied attitude change and persuasion. He first reported the sleeper effect after studying the effects of the Frank Capra propaganda film Why We Fight on soldiers in the Army.
Source credibility is "a term commonly used to imply a communicator's positive characteristics that affect the receiver's acceptance of a message." [1] Academic studies of this topic began in the 20th century and were given a special emphasis during World War II, when the US government sought to use propaganda to influence public opinion in support of the war effort.
Self-persuasion came about based on the more traditional or direct strategies of persuasion, which have been around for at least 2,300 years and studied by eminent social psychologists from Aristotle to Carl Hovland, they focused their attention on these three principal factors: the nature of the message, the characteristics of the communicator, and the characteristics of the audience.
Hovland's approach to studying persuasion was influenced by Freudian psychoanalytics theory and Clark Hull's behaviorism and stimulus-response theory. During his post as the Director of the Institute of Human Relations at Yale University, Hovland addressed a large number of social problems in his research using multidisciplinary approaches.
Carl Hovland and his band of persuasion researchers learned a great deal during World War 2 and later at Yale about the process of attitude change. [35] High-credibility sources lead to more attitude change immediately following the communication act, but a sleeper effect occurs in which the source is forgotten after a period of time.
Figure A: Normal Decay Figure B: Sleeper Effect. The sleeper effect is a psychological phenomenon that relates to persuasion. It is a delayed increase in the effect of a message that is accompanied by a discounting cue, typically being some negative connotation or lack of credibility in the message, while a positive message may evoke an immediate positive response which decays over time.
Anderson, N. H. & Hovland, C.I. The Representation of Order Effects in Communication Research. In C.I. Hovland (Ed.), The Order of Presentation in Persuasion, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957 Anderson, N. H. Test of Averaging, Balance, and Congruity Theories. Paper presented at summer conference on mathematical models in social psychology.