chap 4 react.

This chapter is about social scientific approaches to persuasion. The first kinds of theories are dual-process theories. This is when two different modes of information processing operate in making decisions and judgments. The first theory is the Elaboration likelihood model which is a model of how attitudes are formed and changed. Second is the heuristic-systematic model and this is a shortcut to comprehensive treatment of judgment-related information. Lastly, the automatic activation of attitudes treats the mind as a place where vast amount of information is stored.
Hovland considered the variable-analytic approach to persuasion as a person’s need for motivation to process information that will change their existing attitudes and the actions that flow from them. There are source effects in this which is the source’s credibility and the source’s attractiveness to the receiver.
There are also alternatives to dual-process models. These are alternative approaches to persuasion that don’t fit within a dual-processing framework. Balance and cognitive consistency theory is when a person wants to balance or reduces stress or discomfort. Fritz Heider’s balance theory states that one person is connected or seen as being a unit with the object or third person. Balance happens if the two people like each other and have a positive or negative judgment of one another. Recent advances in persuasion have identified the importance of the mental processes of the brain. This is in accessibility and activation of attitudes. Recent studies have focused the importance of storage of information in memory, accessing that memory, and changing stored attitudes in the memory.
Overall, the importance of affect in the persuasive situation is gaining more respect from researchers. The problem is that this does not approach the mainstream ideas of persuasion today plus it’s not a complete consideration of the persuasion literature.