hi friends welcome to chapter five Communicator characteristics and persuasion in this lecture we'll cover three sections the first section will cover demographic variables and persuasion and section two we'll take a dive into the psychological and communication States and traits of a target audience and in section three we'll discuss how to go about analyzing and adapting to our audience so let's go ahead and get started first with demographics um so When developing a persuasive message we want to take into consideration the demographics of the audience and by doing so we take an audience centeredness approach and this approach essentially is keeping the audience foremost in mind at every step of the preparation and the presentation of a persuasive message so we know that persuasion seeks a desired response from the intended audience and in order to seek a desired response from the audience we first have to know how to achieve that response and knowing how to achieve that desired response is rooted in understanding the audience understanding the audience includes uh understanding the demographic variables and also as we will soon find out the psychological predispositions of the audience essentially we want to think about how can we as a persuasive Communicator adapt to the audience and being able to adapt we're going to have to know as much as we possibly can of the audience so that we again we can tailor our message to fit their needs so some of the standard demographic variables that we might want to assess or to measure or to gain uh information on it will include age so whether or not this is a specific uh persuasive message tailored to a target audience this might include crafting a message that is going to resonate to a particular age group or if we're you know let's say given a presentation where the audience may include members of different age ranges we want to understand uh you know those age ranges how many of our participants will be you know part of a younger generation versus an old older generation educational level will influence their knowledge on a topic potentially gender we know that there are some gender differences in uh persuadability we might want to know their socioeconomic status in terms of what's going to motivate people to pay attention or be persuaded by a message and this could relate to the socioeconomic status a political party affiliation will determine again values in society race and ethnicity and then also religion so these are some just standard demographic variables that if we're crafting a persuasive message we want to know how old our participants are or the target audience we're trying to read their education their gender this socioeconomic status political party affiliation if it's relevant race ethnicity City because we do see some cultural variations in Persuasion and then again religion if it's uh pertained to the topic and primarily because we assess religion is because a lot of people uh find value or some of their strong-held beliefs may stem from a particular religious viewpoint so let's go ahead and first talk about age we know through research that some age groups are more susceptible to influence than others particularly children and the elderly are more susceptible to persuasion so children are not as cognitively developed as adults such as yourself and myself they're less Adept at resisting advertisements so uh children are still developing their cognitive awareness their cognitive abilities and oftentimes they cannot distinguish between uh what is you know information like purely factual information what is an advertisement trying to get them to buy a particular toy we know that children are more easily swayed by lure so the textbook offers an in-depth explanation of some of the dangers of persuasion as it relates to children so I wanted to give two brief examples uh the first one is uh from uh the first one is uh blippi um so after babysitting uh my nephew for a couple of times uh he was always wanting to watch uh blippi and so uh I was like okay I have no idea what blippi is but sure let's go ahead and check it out uh and then soon after I found myself captivated in the content that uh blippi was uh sharing so essentially blippi uh you know is uh this uh young guy who just creates uh these educational silly videos uh for kids uh and post them on YouTube so surprisingly enough he started doing this for his own uh nieces and nephews currently uh his net worth is 18 million dollars uh for just again making uh silly videos for kids so we see that you know the appeal of blippi um is definitely being monetized uh you know he's definitely catering his content to fit a particular age demographic uh we see that uh Ryan's toys reviews again another uh huge uh YouTube uh Channel recently uh faced a lawsuit uh of 170 million dollars where the FTC uh launched this lawsuit against YouTube uh primarily because uh Ryan's toys reviews uh was using sponsored content uh as a form of advertisement um a product placement without disclosing in that content that they were being subsidized or paid or this content was sponsored um primarily because again some ethical questions arise in terms of you know children and advertisements you know children aren't fully aware that maybe they're being manipulated or swayed or persuaded in order to buy a particular we know that elderly Also may experience a cognitive decline so we see that while blippi in Ryan's toys reviews might not be targeting an elderly population to get their message across or to persuade them we do see other people taking advantage of uh you know the elderly and this could include scammers uh and one of the reason why scammers Target the elderly is due to maybe a sense of loneliness that sometimes accompanies elderly people oftentimes elderly people may have a nest egg or large savings or maybe that they're on a fixed income and so the elderly may be motivated to engage in these scammers especially if they uh promise some sort of profit or an increase in uh you know monetary value so we see that the elderly are also acceptable to persuasion this is taken into consideration by the life stages hypothesis and this is essentially where we see a curvier linear relationship between age and gullibility so a circular linear relationship is when a variable decreases over time but then it hits this a critical point in time where the variable starts to then increase and so we see that gullibility is high among children because again they're cognitive abilities are still being developed but as we grow as adults we learn through experiences we learned how to decipher information and so as adults we're pretty low in this gullibility but once again this variable increases the gullibility increases as we get older in approaching the golden years of our lives right and so you see I here on the left Life Alert you know help I've fallen I can't get up you know those those uh persuasive messages targeted to older people and you know maybe trying to use fear as a motivation to buy a product let's go ahead and talk about uh gender and persuasion the book offers an extensive discussion on gender and how it relates to persuasion so we do see some gender differences in Persuasion males tend to be more persuasive than females not because of the male's ability or skills so keep in mind that while yes Society generally views males as more persuasive than females it's not because males are inherently better at persuasion or they have better skills in fact it's usually the opposite so gender stereotypes cause audience to perceive males as more competent than females and to expect females to be warmer and nurturing than females so this is really rooted in some of these stereotypical gender Norms we see women experience this double bind when it comes to persuasion so they must not only perform better than men in order to stand out or to be considered equally competent but they are also perceived negatively when they try to be direct assertive and forceful so again double standards you know when it comes to this this is explained by reinforcement expectancy Theory which suggests that when influencing patients female doctors for example compared to male doctors are at a disadvantage because they are constrained by stereotypes regarding appropriate influence tactics for females so this reinforcement expectancy Theory may take into consideration why we see some gender differences so early studies indicate that women were more persuadable than men but later studies find no such difference between men and women so we're equally persuaded by messages around us so if gender differences in persuadability are observed it may be because of the following one women may be more empowered today than they were in previous studies were conducted so you know we're at a different uh standpoint or different time in history where the gender gap is slowly declining uh so another example another reason why this may be the case is the cross-x effect in which people are more persuaded by members of the opposite sex than by members of the same sex and third men and women made different differ in terms of their goals their plans their beliefs in the resources and these in turn may lead to gender differences in Persuasion so let's go ahead and briefly discuss culture ethnicity and so we see two broad categories when it comes to cultural Dynamics the first is individualistic cultures and the second are collectivistic cultures in individualistic cultures these cultures tend to Value Independence individual autonomy and individual goals they're very much focused on individual success these countries or cultures are usually persuaded by appeals to individual benefits essentially when we consume persuasive messages or advertisements or look at a product we're thinking to ourselves what's in it for me like how is this product service is going to benefit me and my life and typically we're persuaded by messages that really accentuate the individual benefits um personal success how does this message relate to my success essentially you know you're probably paying attention to this uh presentation or maybe even you're paying attention to uh your academic Journey because uh again your personal success is uh contingent on how well you perform in college um so these uh cultures these individualistic cultures are usually uh persuaded by those individual benefits uh how it relates to uh personal success and often very direct strategies however in collectivistic cultures where the group is more important than the individual these cultures tend to Value Harmony concern for others group goals over personal goals uh subsequently they're going to be persuaded a little bit different they're going to be persuaded by appeals to the group benefit and not necessarily the individual benefits so they're probably thinking how will the us this product the service uh you know this persuasive message benefit the group they often uh respond well to appeals to Authority consensus liking and reciprocity in addition they often appeal or they respond to appeals to group controlled sanctions so there's often a fear of social isolation or ostracization from a group and so they usually respond to persuasive messages that um essentially have the power to enact some sort of controlled sanctions um so oftentimes uh individuals from a collectivistic culture are persuaded by indirect strategies uh such as uh hinting so let's go ahead and talk a little bit about the psychological and communication States and traits as it relates to persuasion so let's first look at the psychological States and traits essentially traits are characteristics patterns of thinking feeling and behaving that generalized across similar situations and remain rather stable across time so these are traits these are innate to who you are and they're pretty consistent straight across the board right so we could look at anxiety trait level anxiety for example uh and this is where anxiety is persistent in an individual's life straight across the board doesn't matter if they're given a presentation or if they're in a social situation or waiting in the doctor's office they're going to experience this trait level anxiety this high level of anxiety in all dimensions of life however we see that states are characteristics of uh patterns of thinking feeling and behaving in a concrete situation at a specific moment in time so let's say maybe you don't have trait anxiety but if you were to maybe go to your dental appointment your anxiety levels would increase because that is a common uh situation where people feel anxiety is visiting the dentist right and so we see that in the graph to the right this is uh anxiety scores moments before participants went into a dentist's office right so State anxiety would be anxiety Associated to a particular situation so maybe you don't have any anxiety associated with communicating only except when you're in front of a class presenting a class presentation then that would be State anxiety so think about these traits and States traits again are consistent straight across the board they're they're stable whereas states are again situational so let's go ahead and take a look at the psychology of the audience we know that people's self-esteem their self-evaluations can influence how they experience persuasion so we see that high self-esteem persons are more receptive to persuasion but may resist to yield to that persuasive attempt so high self-esteem people essentially are receptive they are in tune they know when they're being persuaded but because they feel uh maybe confident or they have a positive self-evaluation they may resist that persuasive attempt whereas look people with low self-esteem are less receptive to persuasion so they are as in tune to the persuasion primarily because uh individuals with low self-esteem are preoccupied uh with their maybe their own self image and you know decide hiding whether or not they're fitting into a particular situation so they're they're less receptive uh to persuasion however they're more likely to yield to a persuasive message uh because again maybe they want to fit in or they want uh you know maybe that reinforcement or affirmation and so they tend to uh again yield to persuasive messages so moderate esteemed individuals are more likely to receive and yield to a persuasive message anxiety this is the psychological stress and arousal that we experience in certain situations or maybe straight across the board if it's a trait anxiety we see that low anxious individuals may be less vulnerable to anxiety arousing messages so you know if you're trying to use uh fear or in a fomo for example fear of missing out as a persuasive tactic to motivate your audience to let's say take advantage of a cell or buy a product or take action regarding climate change or change some sort of Health if individuals have low anxiety these messaging strategies might not work however High anxious persons may be more vulnerable but again less receptive right so that's anxiety and psychological stress and arousal we see a consistency this is the congruence between attitudes and behavior is important so different levels of preference for consistency can influence the process of persuasion right so we all have preferences for our attitudes and behaviors so people who have a high preference for consistency strive to be consistent and are often more susceptible to the effects of cognitive dissonance and again that's a concept that we learned previously self-monitoring this is essentially the extent of awareness and regulation of One's Own Behavior we see that high self monitors more responsive to social reward and image based ads um so self-monitors have a high need to tailor their Communication in order to fit into a situation and so they're more motivated by social rewards and image-based ads like is this product going to make me look better right so you know bind that teeth whitening toothpaste because everyone wants a brilliant smile you know people who are high self-monitors and value that are going to be more persuaded by that whereas low self monitors these individuals are essentially uh I can they're consistent with who they are straight across the board They Don't Really tailor their behavior or their communication to match the situation um they're essentially their authentic self uh despite the situation so low self-monitors um more responsive to message message content and their own judgments so they aren't really concerned about social Rewards or the image based ads um and how these ads are going to make their uh you know life better they're more concerned with the actual validity of an argument or the content of a message and their own judgment for that matter so we could also take into consideration social judgment Theory um so social judgment ego involvement how important an issue is to art self-identity so we see that ego involvement these individuals are motivated uh by a persuasive message or to pay attention to a persuasive message when there is a value relevant involvement that is tied to one's values and self-concepts so they have a need to pay attention to persuasive messages or be persuaded by messages when the they're involved in an issue that is directly tied to their values or self-concept um however we do see issue involvement these are outcome relevant involvement so people operating from this uh usually are tied to particular goals or outcomes they're more concerned with um you know what's going to be the outcome how is uh this persuasive message going to uh match the goals or intended outcome so there's a correlation between ego involvement and extreme attitudes so we see that high ego involvement have small latitude of acceptance and large latitude of rejection so if you're trying to persuade individuals who have high ego involvement on you know taking a particular change you would first want to figure out what their latitude of acceptance and rejection are low ego involvement have larger latitude of acceptance and a small latitude of rejection High credibility can increase latitude of acceptance so this is the basic premise of social judgment theory that in any given a situation or in a variety of different topics and opinions that we are faced with and everyday people are going to have an anchor Point The Anchor Point is essentially what they've seem as acceptable and so if you're let's say using the example from the textbook if you're trying to convince someone of the you know uh enacting the death penalty on someone you would first want to figure out uh you know their ego involvement are they uh you know value relevant involvement is it tied to one's value and self-concept are they firmly against or firmly for the death penalty uh because if so and their ego is involved chances are they're going to have a smaller latitude of acceptance for uh other positions um and we see that in this uh graph where their latitude of rejection is really big they're going to probably reject every you know persuasive attempt and essentially you're operating in this narrow window trying to get their Anchor Point to move uh you know in either direction whereas people who are issue involvement um or maybe low in that ego involvement they're going to have a larger latitude of acceptance so they're you know they aren't really necessarily sure on maybe what they believe and so they're acceptable to being persuaded to uh accept a larger range of possibilities so they have a smaller latitude of uh rejection so let's explore some other factors that the textbook presents uh dogmatism and authoritarianism so these are essentially when high values are associated with authority uh these individuals tend to be close-minded uh and tend to be influenced by high status Authority rather than a message itself so again if someone is falling on the dogmatism authorityism uh scale they might respond well to very high credible or high status uh individuals or sources of information we see that the book talks about social vigilantism which perceives their beliefs as Superior to other beliefs they counter argue more than their counterparts they tend to dominate conversations and get emotionally upset and they often engage in belittling other others who disagree we see that narcissism plays a factor in Persuasion essentially narcissism they love themselves and have little concern for others and are often persuaded by things that make them look better or stand out or messages that are tailored to their conceit we also see cognitive complexity uh functioning as a persuasive Factor those who use more constructs to view the world around them are usually persuaded by quality arguments than those who have a low need for cognition who are often persuaded by those peripheral cues as outlined in the elaboration likelihood model um another uh point the book makes is this a verbal argumentativeness versus a verbal aggressiveness so argumentativeness is a constructive form of assertiveness whereas aggression is uh destructive and so obviously uh you know if if a Persuader is trying to use aggression um you threats name calling belittling these tactics don't really respond uh people don't usually respond well to these uh aggressive attacks as a form of persuasion in fact what it usually does is alienates people or entrenches them in their attitudes and beliefs right and I think that's why we see so much uh political divide in the the polarization within our country is because you know the aggression that is often taking place uh you know directed towards the opposite side of the political spectrum and essentially if you're very aggressive and in your persuasive tactics like that's just going to push those people away from uh what you're trying to persuade them to do right so another uh interesting Theory and we won't necessarily get into the uh this Theory but it's uh Foss and Griffin's Invitational rhetoric where you know the idea of you know rhetoric is to invite the other person to explore things from your point of view and vice versa and by creating a safe place where people can engage in dialogue that's where actually persuasion can take place okay so let's uh briefly touch on analyzing and adapting to the audience so what does this all mean to to us uh as it relates to persuasion you know we talked about uh you know uh audience analysis uh you know understanding the psychological uh components of communicators so that we can tailor a message so much of persuasion resides in the ability to complete these uh six things first to analyze the audience and collect as much information about them as we possibly can uh to view the world from the target audience's point of view so again that using that cognitive complexity and trying to understand you know the other person's point of view and how how they operate as a communicator as someone uh living in the world so if we know how people are viewing the world around them then that gives us insight into their thought patterns their behavior patterns and then we as a persuasive Communicator can tailor our message in a way that fits the frame uh or the viewpoints of the audience third keep in mind how a message will fulfill an audience's needs so the book briefly touches on Maslow's hierarchy of needs but essentially um Maslow would uh structure human needs in a pyramid shape the base of that pyramid are these physiological needs like we all need food Water Shelter to be able to survive and so humans have that basic physiological need in order for survival it once we have completed those needs then we move into these safety needs once we have the safety needs once we feel secure we have maybe shelter or home you know then we move into these uh the next level of needs and that's uh these uh belonging needs like where you know we want to belong to some sort of group uh we want to belong to in a relationship we want to experience intimacy and connection with other people then once we have those needs fulfilled then we move into the esteem needs where we have a need for a Prestige and bettering ourselves and so forth and then the top need is that self-actualization which is essentially reaching one's fullest uh potential so uh keep in mind how we tailor our messages and how they're going to uh match the audience's needs and so we could use Maslow's hierarchy of needs to guide how we do that and which need that we Target in order to package our fourth adapt messages to meet the audience's values and beliefs five adjust a message to audiences culture and gender and then six uh consider personality traits when designed any messages so by doing this what we really are doing is an audience analysis again collecting as much information data about a Target group or you know the intended recipient of our message so that we can again take all that information and make a strategic calculated message that's going to respond well to our target audience so in this brief presentation we covered demographic variables and persuasion we looked at some psychological and communication States and traits that are relevant to persuasion and some things that we should consider When developing a uh persuasive messages and lastly we talked about six steps in analyzing adapting to our audience so thank you so much for tuning in and we'll see you next