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Elaboration
Likelihood Model (ELM)
Petty
and Cacioppo's Elaboration Likelihood Model
Two
"Routes" to Persuasion
Involvement
and Cognitive Responses
Argument Quality
Argument Quantity
Source Factors
Evaluation of the ELM
Glossary
References
Self-Test
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Two
"Routes" to Persuasion
Petty
and Cacioppo (1986a,
1986b) state that there are two
“routes” to persuasion: central and peripheral. The central
route to persuasion consists of thoughtful consideration of
the arguments (ideas, content) of the message. When a receiver
is doing central processing, he or she is being an active
participant in the process of persuasion. Central processing
has two prerequisites: It can only occur when the receiver has
both the motivation and the ability to think
about the message and its topic. If the listener doesn’t
care about the topic of the persuasive message, he or she will
almost certainly lack the motivation to do central processing.
On the other hand, if the listener is distracted or has
trouble understanding the message, he or she will lack the
ability to do central processing.
The peripheral route to persuasion occurs when the
listener decides whether to agree with the message based on
other cues besides the strength of the arguments or ideas in
the message. For example, a listener may decide to agree with
a message because the source appears to be an expert, or is
attractive. The peripheral route also occurs when a listener
is persuaded because he or she notices that a message has many
arguments -- but lacks the ability or motivation to think
about them individually. In other words, peripheral cues, like
source expertise (credibility) or many arguments in one
message, are a short-cut. I don’t want to or can’t think
carefully about the ideas in this persuasive message, but it
is a fair gamble to go ahead agree with the message if the
source appears to be knowledgeable or if there are many
arguments in support of the message. This route occurs when
the auditor is unable or unwilling to engage in much thought
on the message. Receivers engaged in peripheral processing are
more passive than those doing central processing.
Why does it matter which “route” an audience member takes
when hearing or watching or reading a persuasive message?
A key prediction of the ELM is that attitudes which are
changed through the central route to persuasion will have
different effects from attitudes changed via the peripheral
route. Petty and Cacioppo explain that “Attitude changes
that result mostly from processing issue-relevant
arguments (central route) will show greater temporal
persistence, greater prediction of behavior, and greater
resistance to counter persuasion than attitude changes that
result mostly from peripheral cues” (Petty & Cacioppo,
1986a, p. 21). It should be obvious that these are important
outcomes: Surely in most cases, persuaders would very much
want to know how to make attitude change last longer, have a
greater influence on behavior, and be more resistant to
change. However, even though central processing has
advantages, receivers do not always oblige us by having the
motivation and ability to think about the message. We need to
understand both of these processes of persuasion because both
of them occur in receivers.
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