Propaganda and Persuasion

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Propaganda and Persuasion

Second is response reinforcing. If the people in the audience already have positive attitudes toward a subject, the persuader reminds them about the positive attitudes and stimulates them to feel even more strongly by demonstrating their attitudes through specified forms of behavior. Much persuasion in today's society is response reinforcing (e.g., blood drives, fundraising, pep rallies, helping others), but people have to be motivated to go out and do these things year after year. Very little controversy surrounds these situations, but people's emotional needs have to be aroused to get them to get out and give blood or money or team support and other activities requiring effort, time, and money. Third is response changing. This is the most difficult kind of persuasion because it involves asking people to switch from one attitude to another ("Support universal health care"), to go from a neutral position to a positive or negative one ("Support the community's recycling program"), to change behavior ("Practice safe sex"), or to adopt a new behavior ("Host an international student for the summer"). People are reluctant to change; thus, to convince them to do so, the persuader has to relate the change to something in which the persuadee already believes. This is called an anchor because it is already accepted by the persuadee and will be used to tie down new attitudes or behaviors. An anchor is a starting point for change because it represents something already widely accepted by potential per-suadees. Anchors can be beliefs, values, attitudes, behaviors, and group norms. In 1943, during World War II, the illustrator Norman Rockwell used the anchors of the four freedoms declared by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom to worship, and freedom of speech) in posters to get people to buy savings bonds. The freedom of speech poster proclaimed "Save freedom of speech, buy war bonds" (see Figure 1.7). Beliefs A belief is a perceived link between any two aspects of a person's world (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975, p. 131). A belief expresses a relationship between two things ("I believe that a laptop computer will help me get better grades") or a thing and a characteristic of that thing ("I believe that life once existed on Mars"). We have thousands of beliefs. To change old beliefs or to create new ones, a persuader has to build on beliefs that already exist in the minds of the audience. A persuader has to use anchors of belief to create new belief. The stronger the belief of a receiver, the more likely it is to influence the formation of a new belief.