Heuristic Model Of Persuasion

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The Heuristic and systematic model of persuasion. The heuristic component of the Heuristic and Systematic model of persuasion proposes that persuasive content is processed through the superficial evaluation of extrinsic persuasive cues. These extrinsic cues include surface characteristics, communication characteristics and audience characteristics. These cues are processed through cognitive heuristics which include simple schemas or decision rules. Examples of this can include past experiences and previous observations. For instance, a contextual cue could be a consensus heuristic, in which a previous experience demonstrated that if everybody agrees on an issue that the argument must be correct (Chaiken, 1987). Previous studies have demonstrated …show more content…

Social influence refers to the influence that others have on the opinions, emotions and behaviors of others. Social influence is a dual motive scheme of informational influence and normative influence. Informational influence occurs when the information obtained through others is used as evidence about reality and normative influence involves conforming to the positive expectations of others. Social influence in public settings is believed to be influenced by the presence of a social audience and their surveillance over responses. However, social influence also occurs in private settings which could suggest a social motive to accommodate others indicating that social impact emerges regardless whether the presence is actual, imagined, or implied (Wood, 2000). An imagined or implied social influence may occur as a result of trolling comments. The negative consensus apparent in trolling comments may deter positive perceptions of the content. The informational influence, describes a form of influence that obtains information through others as evidence about reality. Comments reflecting negatively on a persuasive message may influence how the reader perceives the information at hand. The trolling comments may be perceived as evidence about the persuasive content, and interfere with the persuasive …show more content…

Specifically, the essay contained information about the risks or benefits of nanotechnology that pertained to the environment and human health. Dependent on which condition the volunteer belonged to, the persuasive content was either positive towards nanotechnology or negative towards nanotechnology (risks vs. benefits) and they either had trolling comments following the persuasive content or no comments. The trolling comments contained in the experiment followed the operational definitions identified by Coe & Kenski (2014). The experiment incorporated their five key forms of incivility; Name-calling, Aspersion, Lying, Vulgarity, and Pejorative of speech. These five forms of incivility along with several neutral comments were included in two of the conditions to prevent suspicion of the

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