Welcome to part 2. We'll consider message factor, right? For characteristic of persuasive message, we'll look at whether a one-or two-sided message is more effective, how would you take an advantage in persuasion by manipulating order of message presentation, and finally, how to use fear appeals effectively. Well, let's first start with the one-versus-two-sided.
message like I say in a definition here one-sided one side of the story meaning oh my product is good okay can you give like in some examples one example or many examples of one-sided message you can refer to any advertisement you saw recently yeah either on TV or other media okay just think of one and Perhaps a little more difficult to think of two-sided message. Okay, this is when you tell them both sides of the story, meaning the pros and cons of your product. Oh, this is interesting because like thinking from the marketer's mind, then, oh, you want me to sell my product, but I also tell the customer how bad my... the product is will will it sell it ah that's a very interesting um question to ask right and also it's meaningful in terms of um practice as well like can it be used like in real world like in a real business like selling real product with like the faith of a particular product at stake all right that's absolutely a good thing to think about and then um let me tell you a little bit more These two versus one-sided message as a message strategies has been researched quite a lot and also in terms of application to to like I said before the business and in marketing of products as well and it's been found that it works in like in a specific Details so it doesn't like work like magic all the time for all the product for any kind of presentations, it required some specific sort of context or settings for it. But what we will, intro is always your site, so we're gonna touch base and understand the basic of these.
Start with, how about starting with an example of two-sided message. So you're telling your customer about the product has to be both good and bad side okay how about well the one the classic one i use all the time is salt as a brand of a toothpaste salt is it salty but healthy things like that okay remember that well in thai kem which is salty bad but good so you can see that well this is classic because the structure of how you present the two-sided message is First brief meaning it's under control you only say Salty, but good look or salty but healthy whatever. Okay, it's short It's brief.
It doesn't go on and say how bad your product is This is salty so it has to do with the test of the toothpaste. Okay, and then it ends with the positive note saying but it's just good it is healthy for your gum so that's exactly the the correct pattern of how you should use two-sided message okay but this is because it is an advertisement usually it's time limit i mean like you can say like a very short face like a catchy face or or like a slogan for your toothpaste right but in different kinds of persuasion where the communication can get longer the presentation of two-sided message would be you know can be changed doesn't have to be fixed via this structure okay well bottom line is now you have choices you have two choices to use to change people's mind to adopt either one-sided or two-sided message a question would be which one you choose use yeah pick one then you would ask oh my god then which one is better so we have to ask research okay um they said in general meaning not consider any specific other factors two-sided message is better okay but if you look if um in the situation of the persuasion if it has something like this which one is better it depends depends on what okay um like the audience initial attitude meaning are they initially agree with you already or they are the opposite side totally opposite to the new there's a the word of discrepancy right that you have to make them to do the big job we talked already right and we have to consider audience um prior knowledge you about a topic are they knowledgeable like they know a lot about what you're gonna talk to them like you're gonna talk these villagers into agreeing with you about building like a nuclear plant in their area but they will do they know a lot about nuclear electric plant or now they there's just you know general simple villagers knows not think about the technology at all okay that's initial knowledge okay and the last one whether the audience will expose to the opposite argument in the future will they be persuaded by the order the other party the opposite party from you in the future so if you sell this specific brand of toothpaste will of zolts will call great call call gate or or other brand will come in and like try to sell this their product to the same group of target as well or you can think of Candidate from party a you know comes and you know, give the speech trying to get them People in this village to to vote for him and then a week later, you know The candidate from party B just come in and do the same thing. So the same audience can be persuaded by like a different argument later so it depends on at least three important factors so it is found that a two-sided message is best if your audience is well informed on the topic so they know all and well and that's why you have to acknowledge that yes there's a plus and there's a downside to my product as well or to the argument i'm supporting as well whereas a one-sided message is best if your audience is not well informed so it has to do with you acknowledging that they are savvy okay these are savvy audience and and and that it also adds to your credibility as well right that oh because they know so well what's going on when it comes to this topic and then you also show that you know well and round about this topic oh okay so you you get some points for credibility as well one-sided message however is best if your audience already agrees with you on the message meaning they're they're they kind of see what you're doing they kind of agree with you a little bit already Okay, so you don't have to dig deeper and tell them the other side because they are already on your side. A two-sided message is better for an audience that initially disagrees with you, meaning now in this context, you will show that you acknowledged via a two-sided message that they have some reasons to not agree with you, meaning they have some reason to see your salt product as not good. Yeah, I know it is very salty, tasty, tasting very salty.
Okay, so and then I actually have already said that. What else that the two-sided carry? Can you think of like a communicator really tell the stories, the pros and the cons?
they're like oh i'm gonna lay it on the line with you what else that this action would give Okay, and this is what I told you about the findings from Hovland's group, from the Yale group, in regards to, I think in this study, they persuaded the soldier during World War II to really continue to fight because it's not like one day or two days, like years, right? Like one or two years or longer than that. So you're going to have to have the soldiers agree with you that it's important to join this war and to keep fighting. So we have one-sided and two-sided and it works differently. So one-sided is better for the orange line which represent soldiers who initially greet with you.
However, the two-sided if you look up, you look at the two-sided and then you look up, then you see the blue line is about higher than the orange. So it works better with those who starting disagreeing with you. Okay, continue on from the last point. We talked about how the two-sided message are better than the one-sided one, right?
That for the same audience who will receive like a counter-argument from a different person later in the future, you should give them like two-sided message like we're talking about. The same village, the same group of villagers who now are listening to candidate A from party A but then you know that in the future there will be a candidate B from party B that come in and give the speech and then this guy will talk negatively about candidate A la la la la okay so if you're candidate A it is suggested that you give the villagers your audience two-sided message meaning you show also your negative side your weak side your weak spot and also um highlight your positive spot in terms of your policies and such as well okay and then because of that it is believed that the villagers your audience would be more resistant to what candidate b has to say negatively about you later this is called inoculation effect why don't you think it's common sense in a way Like you are a customer of salt toothpaste because it says it's Kim Daddy, it's salty but healthy. It's healthy.
So oh you already know that it doesn't it tastes funny in your mouth like salty right and then if like a different brand of toothpaste would come in and you look at this brand salt it tastes funny it tastes bad in your mouth yeah you've heard it before right but more important than that you've heard this downside of salt that it is being that the taste isn't good but then there's another message that comes into sight which is the positive the pros one that say but it is healthy it is good for your gum okay meaning well there's a negative side of your product but then it is accompanied by the positive side that kind of help you like overcome the negative one that you presented to okay so that's that's how um two-sided messages should be used right it creates inoculation effect when this the audience can resist later counter persuasion from from like a different party okay this is inoculation effect which is the analogy is the same as our body when we got serum like covid19 serum okay so then you would be you would be resistant to the real disease later right like you got the vaccine yeah i meant to say vaccine like for flu we got this all the time right okay what is injected into you what the doctor gives you actually is a mild um version like a smaller amount of the disease itself actually that would when it enters your body will trigger your immune system to now produce what antibody like antibody right okay so that will help fight the disease in the future What's going on here is that we are not trying to win over the vaccine, the disease in the vaccine, but the disease in the vaccine will elicit your body to... to create soldiers so then it will fight against the real disease that you may expose to in the future. This is the same. This is how two-sided message works.
It is about exposing you to a weak version of the negative and then of course with the accompanying of the positive okay the weak attack right and then that the the the revision the refuse which is the positive side okay the weak attack is salty tastes funny and they they refuse is bad but it's good okay yeah and it's just these just these Okay, the refuted weak counterattacks. These should create resistance to stronger attacks by like I said before a different variant of toothpaste in the future. Okay, why? Because you've heard it before and you have Overcome it already. I mean the weak attacks.
You've heard the weak attack before and you have overcome the weak attack. Now It's a stronger attack. Then you should be ready.
Just like when you have those antibody ready for the real disease. Well, let's take a look at this classic study of McGuire who proposed the inoculation theory and Papagojish, I guess. They got participants and then they presented them with cultural truism which is the beliefs that people would share like in a specific culture that they believe it it is true without having to prove it like it is important to brush your teeth after every meal it sounds good right it sounds like hygienic like you good good it's a good practice so it is believed to be good without having a doctor to approve it okay so this is the truism that will be challenged so there are clearly four conditions.
In the inoculation defense, participants rate some negatives, some arguments against the truism. Let's make it clear that these participants, they already have believed in this truism that, yeah, we should brush our teeth, right? They have the truism and then they're now reading an argument saying, Oh, if you brush your teeth that frequent, you're gonna ruin your animal.
It's like the coat of your teeth that is important to keep, okay? So you're gonna scratch your teeth and it's not good, okay? You're gonna lose the animal. You're gonna destroy the animal, right? And then...
Then followed by the refusal to the argument saying but if you use the soft brush, okay, it would not wear down the animal, the teeth. So yeah, soft brushes could clean the teeth without producing the wearing down effect. Oh, okay.
That's inoculation defense. For the supportive defense, however, participants received only a one-sided message, supporting the truism. Like for example, brushing your teeth after every meal keeps your breath fresh, like, yeah, back home, all day. Smells good all day. Okay.
And then the attack only, they didn't get to read anything. They were measured the beliefs about the truism, and then they don't get to They can get any arguments or message and then they will be attacked later. But then we have the complete control condition. These are folks who are surveyed like the before persuasion only and they receive no attack later. OK, and by attacked, it means two days, two days later, participate in condition one, two and three, but not control.
Uh huh. received another message that Oh, brushing your teeth after every meal is really bad for your teeth, right? So truisms are attacked, meaning brushing your teeth after every meal is not good. It's like supported by a very strong argument. And this is what is called attack.
Well, according to the deceit analogy, this is the real deceit. So after imagine after you got a vaccine, you got vaccinated at a hospital and two days later when you ride on the BTS you read now somebody sneezes on you. Now that the real deceit that you get. Will you be able to stand against it? They found that this is agreement with truism as the dependent variable okay who still agree with truism.
Of course, we have the control with no attack. Okay. The control.
Okay. They believe it at about 12, at level 12. Okay. And then we compare between those who, the three conditions which participants were attacked by the statement that brushing your teeth after every meal is a bad, very bad idea.
Okay. So who still believe in the truism? Well, I see here that the inoculation condition still have the high agreement, okay, as compared to the control.
While the one-sided message under the supportive condition, they now are less agreeing with the truism. Okay, as of so the case for the attack only, like you don't get any information, you believe in the truism, and then now you've got... to expose to the negative information about the truism. This is how you end up agreeing with the truism.
So it's like half way down as compared to the control. What it shows here is that inoculation help keeping the attitude from the attack, from the counter argument later. Okay now, can you imagine the situation that you want People to really have these immune Okay, you would think about peer pressure, right? That you want your teenagers teenagers Kids to believe that smoking it's not a good thing Okay, and then they go to school. They're gonna meet some friends who smoke and Invite him or her to join the pack to smoke as well.
How are you gonna really prepare your kid to be able to say no? Okay, to stand against, to stand firm against the attack. You gotta have to do the inoculation, right? How?
Now let's move on and consider the order of message presentation. Okay, we have two effects here. Prime is the effect in which information that comes to the audience first is more influential, more persuasive.
Okay, and we got the opposite one, the recency effect in which the message presented later, like the second place, is more convincing. But... there has to be a time lag. Okay, well let's see how it works.
So I think this is the question of who goes first. So between like two competitors, two speech givers who will win. Like you're in a competition like um presidential debate how about that like from republican and democrat who would get to speak first. Okay if you get second then Is it true that you would be likely to lose because the other party would get the primacy effect?
Let's take a closer look at a study. This is like a long time ago, meaning classic from Miller and Campbell's jury study. So, of course, there's two parties here, the plaintiff. I don't know much of the court's language, though. Like the suer, the plaintiff who opens the case, and then the defendant is the one being sued.
Who will win, the plaintiff or the defendant? You got like the four possible sequence or orders in terms of presenting the plaintiff's case, that's message one, and defendant's case, that's message two in the orange box. Okay, so they propose this different sequence to participant and then at the end participant to make a judgment in favor of either plaintiff or defendants.
Okay, and we can see, for example, Condition 1, the sequence is the jury get to read Message 1 from plaintiff's case and then got to read the defendant's side back to back, like immediately after Message 1. But then there's one week delay, like, okay, court's adjourned for the day. And then one week later, we're going to come back and make decisions, things like that. One week later, the decision is made.
The thing here is the decision is made in separation of message 2. And in this case, they found that the judgment tend to be in favor of the plaintiff, which is message 1. It is called primacy effect, meaning people tend to go with the plaintiff's case and agree with the plaintiff's. Okay, well. Keep in mind that the messages are the same, the two messages are the same in the other conditions as well So in a different sequence like number two, message one is firstly presented And then there's the one week delay is moved to be after message one and that right before Message two and then decision is made back to back meaning right after message two is presented In this case, they found the recency effect. But you can see the pattern number three, number four, don't produce any advantages for any party, either plaintiff or defendant. So let's go back and look at condition one and what happened.
So message one is presented and back to back. It is message two there. But then one weak decision, that is essential. That's important. That would erase the effect of message two, meaning people want to know what's going on, and then message one comes in and answers to that hunger of information, hence primacy effect.
Message two comes in, but yeah, now you don't want to know anymore. You kind of... got your answer for message one and then also that one-way gap would also you know allow message two to be forgotten easier than message one that sticks with you um harder okay so that one-week gap is not good for message two and then it gives advantage to message one and also the case for condition number two when that one recap is moved up to be right after message one allowing the participant to forget what is said in message one and now be presented with message two followed suddenly with the time to make judgment like you have to make judgment now just freshly after hearing the defendant and this is what would be clear in your mind It would be the defendant's case, right?
It would be the defendant's report to the court, okay? That is when we get the recency effect, okay? Well, the question would be which one is stronger, like overall, just like the case with one-sided versus two-sided message. The two-sided message tends to be, you know, advantages in general.
Well, for this one, yep, prime is the effect. tend to be larger and better than recency effect. But, well, it is good or not, I think.
Even though you don't get to be the first all the time, being the second isn't too bad. Now, as it says, take a deep breath. I really mean it.
Before I show you... Okay, that's um... Hmm, that does like...ew.
Warning! Cigarettes cause mouth diseases. And this is the picture of mild diseases. Meaning, they were from Health Canada, they want you to stop, to quit smoking. Cigarette caused oral cancer.
I think that's what they try to show you. And there are two ads here. Where's your child? Watch around water.
And this is the child like being drowned. And there is just a poster. The real child is walking there still alive.
Okay, so I think they're saying even though the water is like not deep, but then they can still drown. Okay, so be careful when your kids are playing in the water. Okay, and then the fifth head man stop climate change before it changes you.
It's like, oh. I don't think I'm gonna change to look like that, but I think it communicates the idea that our body can change in order to adapt to the climate change somehow and in a negative way. That I believe in. Which would you rather have? A cholesterol test?
Or a final exam? oh i don't i don't like final exam can we don't can we not have final exam well um actually this is the final exam of the school i think it's it's like what a biopsy like he shouldn't have stood so that's just the really final exam that you will get after um repass okay So basically say you want to die, just get a cholesterol test and I believe this is supported to prevent many diseases including those related to heart condition as well. So get the cholesterol test so then you won't die.
Warning cigarettes cause strokes and heart disease. These are guys suffering from those. Even though it's not pleasant to watch at all, I would say that fear arousing advertisement or PSA, public service announcement, in Thailand, to me, is much more scary. I mean, yeah, it's like scarier with the people with a hole on their neck, okay? Not with disrespect, this is with total respect to them and sympathize.
But I sympathize, but then yeah, it looks very scary. And it is supposed to look like that. Yep, these posters are supposed to look scary.
Why? Just keep in mind. And one more.
What pickle this frog could pickle your lung? And this is not the... please do not smoke.
There's formaldehyde in cigarettes. And then you got the germ. And then this is antibacterial. Stick theodorant. Okay, the germ is bad.
So once again, yeah, you don't... you feel bad. Okay, looking at these ads.
Why? Because the key idea is to get you to feel scared, to scare you into doing something, to change before those negative outcomes get to you. Do these or do not do these, like do not smoke.
Do these, for example, get screening, use this product, use the protection. So then you can avoid the negative consequences cited. in this fear appeal persuasion okay and yes you can go back and watch all those posters they mainly about health and you know life and death I mean heart and health okay they use a lot in health prevention is it working that's the first question okay and perhaps you want to say well the the frog thing isn't too bad Ummm, the mouth thing though, the mouth cancer thing though, looks really...
Eww, like mmm dirty and like really unpleasant like you want to look away. So the question is how much fear should be aroused for fear appeals to work for people to change? The classic, the like very first study of Janice and Thesbake answered this question in their dental hygiene study. Basically, they brought a college student in as their participants and told them, like give them a lecture, that it is important to brush their teeth.
But then the amount of fear, appeal aroused was manipulated. So briefly, they scared participants by presenting negative consequences, as you can see, of not taking good care of oral hygiene. using either low, medium or let's strong the high fear arousing message just to see how much fear works best in persuasion.
Okay, and as you can see the result in the graph to everyone's surprise is it the low and then the mid fear condition that was most effective in encouraging teeth brushing and and practices of good dental hygiene. So Wow, the low fear, not the high fear? The high fear is like small height there.
Why? The higher fear was not effective in persuasion, probably because the action recommendation wasn't reassuring enough that it will avert the negative consequences presented in the message. So participants became defensive.
Okay, well, how? They derogated and denied the importance of the threat in order to get themselves out of being fearful. Some of the participants even did the opposite of what's recommended.
So, yes, too much fear backfired in this body. So they proposed the inverted U-shaped relationship between fear level that should be aroused. in a persuasion and the attitude chain so if you cut this um bell-shaped um curve in the middle you would have two halves of the relationship between fear arousal and attitude chain the first half you will get the positive correlation okay the higher the fear the better the greater the attitude chain but then the the the the second half you got the negative correlation meaning more like beyond this point the higher the fear the lower the amount of attitude change and that's a negative um correlation all right so that's it's to help understand how inverted u-shape what inverted u-shape tells you okay so they call this boomerang effect when people get so fearful and then they don't believe they can avoid the threat, avoid the consequences. They have nothing else to do but to deny the message. Meaning you can get, you can have people who are smoking 20 cigarettes per day and then get the fear appealed and then get in denial and say, I'm, I.
you know i barely smoke what you do like 20 cigarettes per day but well they're in denial this is like their their their distortion of the fact already okay why would people do that this is common meaning it's normal for people to protect themselves from the fear you are presenting something threatening to them if you do not present them way out. They will be trapped in fear. We cannot live in fear. You're gonna have to get yourself out through any means, even by being, you know, denied, okay? And people tend to do the opposite to show that, see, I'm fine.
I'm not gonna believe you. I'm not listening to you, okay? This is called boomerang effect. Okay, so it's it says like the overall idea is that to get people to share their fear, fear appeal You're gonna have to use low fear and high fear is bad Okay, however If you follow me if you are following me you see that this is On the condition that you don't give the way out you don't tell them What's the the correct way to breath your teeth and then you won't avoid you can then avoid all the negative consequences of them Infection in the mouth, right?
So what if I asked what if? Every time we use fear appeal to scare people, we accompany it with what is called action recommendation. It's a recommendation to act. So please do this.
If you don't want to get yourself in trouble like this, please do this. If you don't want gum inflammation, do this. Okay, step one, step two, right? Okay. So if we actually give them the action recommendation, the logic is it would not hold anymore that high fear arousal is bad, don't you think?
And it is exactly what contemporary theories of fear appeals propose. They first identify the two possible responses. that people could express, that people could demonstrate after they got the fear appeal persuasion. They could try to control their fear, their fear fulfilling by any means of reactance to the message, like avoiding the message, like I'm not listening to you, I'm gonna forget about it, denying the message, denying that they really are engaging in the risky behavior.
This is not good. We don't want them to respond this way. So let's take a look at the other one. Danger control. Meaning the receiver of the fear appeal now tries to control the danger, the threat.
So they would stand up and try to manage the threat in order to avoid the negative consequences. And this is adaptive. Oh, which one would you prefer?
if you are the persuader, like if you are the health promotion organization, like so, so, so, you really want them to do good things for the health, like stop smoking, for example, that's easy. Okay, just like an easy example. Which one would you want your audience to respond?
Fear control or danger control? I think we have an answer. I think we have the consensus here that we want to go with danger control, but What it shows according to the possible two motivations here is that using fear appeal is tricky in that the number one response can occur as well, right?
So it is risky to be specific that every time you use fear appeal you would, you should expect that some people could be defensive by it. And then they would engage in fear control instead of trying to change their behavior so then they will end up having better well-being as you intend. Okay? So how?
Next question is how? How to get people into the mindset of trying to control the threat to manage to change and then they avoid the negative consequences cited in the message rather than engaging in denial? This... the recipe to use fear repeal effectively you have to have let's um skip the strong fear we come back to that you gotta have what's missing from Janice and Facebook study effective action recommendation meaning if you do this it's guarantee that you will not get the HIV because you wear condom You won't get any STD because you wear condom. If you get screened, you can be confident that you won't get cancer, such and such.
That we're talking about effectiveness of the recommendation. If you participate in this quit smoking program, you'll be able to quit smoking. Okay, so this program is effective. Okay, and then you quit smoking.
Then you won't get to have lung cancer. Okay, and then you're gonna have to boost your audience feeling of confidence that they can do it. You could think of terms like self-efficacy or just, you know, just confidence in themselves. Meaning, if you have an effective recommendation, but people cannot implement it, and then what's the point of...
giving the recommendation when people cannot adopt it or you don't you people it is easy this is this recommendation is easy to adopt but it is not effective um then once again what's the point to do it then okay so you need both i mean effectiveness of the action recommendation has to be there and also the easy nets of deployment or employment of the recommendation has to be there as well. Buckle up. It's easy.
Wear the condom. It may not be so easy for some group of people, but then you're going to have to make it easy for them. These two bodies have to be there.
When you have these two bodies, feel free to use strong fear. Then we go up to the first bullet point. Strong fear can be used.
And it is recommended by contemporary like new theories and fear appeal to use strong fear versus low fear. Can you see why? Well, if you just sit at home and your sister comes in and like, oh, don't do this, it will it will hurt you a little bit. Yeah, then you will just keep doing it because you're not motivated. It's like it hurt you a little bit.
It's not strong enough. to motivate you to do something, you just now yeah you disregard and just keep doing what you do right? But then if she comes in and really make the story that sounds very scary to you that if you keep doing this you're gonna end up in a bad position, in trouble, oh that would now get your attention.
Okay um really okay I don't yeah I don't want that so maybe I have to do something, I have to do what you say. So only strong fear that will fire, only strong fear will fire up your audience, will motivate them to open up and do something. Okay, so this is the recipe.
It will be asked in the exam because it looks like there is a specific way and specific strategies for implementing fear appeal in persuasion and we better get a hold of it let's end this lecture with um the discussion on channel of persuasion as you can see this is like classic long time ago right from by the dragon and igly on which media works best for um persuasion however We have printed audio and video. Yeah, audio and video still exist, but printed? I'm not sure. And then we now have website, Facebook, social media, right?
Which obviously wasn't included here. So this is not so up to date, but then we'll see what's the main point from here. We have printed audio and video. So audio is like radio broadcasting, radio advertisement and video is advertisement on TV with audio and visual things like that. Printed would be like poster, brochure, like any printed document.
And we have amount of ad exchange. However, as you can see this is not simple, meaning it depends on the Complexity of the topic being persuaded. If you're talking about something hard to understand, something difficult, maybe your audience would want to read it twice or as many times as they want. For that, it looks like printed materials would be more advantageous than the audio and video.
However, if the topic is simple, they say the video would work best because now where people will have the visual and also the audio and they can get the idea right away. Okay, so well I think the main idea here is that Whatever media that you will use, don't forget to consider at least the complexity of the topic being presented.