Significant Effect and Influence (eBook)

Basis for the Scientific Investigation of Persuasion

Mathew John (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
100 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
978-0-00-110041-1 (ISBN)

Infos

Significant Effect and Influence: Basis for the Scientific Investigation of Persuasion is a profound exploration of how persuasion operates as both an art and a science. This book delves into the psychological, behavioral, and communicative foundations that make influence such a powerful force in human interaction. Through clear analysis and research-backed insights, it examines how messages shape beliefs, drive decisions, and impact societies at large.

Perfect for students, researchers, and professionals in communication, psychology, marketing, and behavioral science, this work offers a framework for understanding persuasion beyond surface-level tactics. It highlights the mechanisms of cognitive processing, emotional triggers, and the subtle cues that determine whether a message succeeds or fails.

By connecting theory with practice, Significant Effect and Influence challenges readers to think critically about the ethical dimensions of persuasion and its role in shaping human thought and behavior.

Textauszug

Chapter 1: Instruments of Impact

 

She called me at that very moment. I was under the impression that I was aware of what had taken place, yet I informed her that in order for me to provide an accurate explanation, she would be required to let me tell you a story that I have. In all honesty, it is not my tale; rather, it is about my mother. It is a part of the relatively new scientific discipline of ethology, which is the study of turkeys and research conducted on animals in their natural environments.

 

 

Mothers of turkeys are wonderful. They are defined as caring, vigilant, and protective. They dedicate a significant portion of their time to tending to, warming, washing, and huddling the young placed beneath them. However, there is something peculiar about the way that they approach things. Essentially, the machine's "cheep-cheep" sound is what triggers the mothering process in tiny turkey chicks during their early stages. Other characteristics that could identify the chicks include their odor, touch, or appearance, all of which seem to have a relatively minimal impact on the mothering process's behavior. According to the "cheep-cheep" sound that a chick makes, the mother will take care of it; if she does not, the mother will ignore it or even kill it outright. This one sound was the source of the incredible dependence that maternal turkeys had on it.

Provided a vivid illustration of this. During his description, W. The experiment involved a mother turkey and a stuffed polecat as participants. The polecat, a natural enemy of the mother turkey, reacts to its approach with hysterical behaviors like squawking, pecking, and clawing. Indeed, the researchers found that a human sketch of a stuffed polecat, when aimed at a mother turkey, elicited an immediate and furious reaction. On the other hand, the same stuffed copy had a small compartment inside, housing a recorder that would play the "cheep-cheep" sound of baby turkeys. Not only did the mother accept the approaching polecat, but she also gathered it under her. Upon turning off the machine, the polecat model resurfaced, leading to a vicious attack. In these circumstances, a female turkey appears utterly absurd.

 

 

The mere sound of the "cheep-cheep" prompts her to mistreat or even kill one of her own chicks, a duty she neglects. Her appearance resembles a machine, amplifying parental impulses through the use of a single sound as an automatic control mechanism. According to the ethnologists, the turkey is not the only animal that exhibits this kind of behavior. They have developed the ability to recognize consistent, mechanical patterns of behavior in a large number of different species. This type of pattern is known as fixed-action patterns, and it can entail complex sequences of behavior, including several rituals associated with mating or wooing. The fundamental concept and unique characteristic of these patterns lies in the near-unity and consistent sequence of the behaviors that comprise them.

The creatures seem to record these patterns on cassettes, playing the wooing cassette during courtship situations and accessing the maternal-behavior cassette when child-rearing situations arise. The relevant tape is triggered when you click; the whirr and out rolls are produced. The typical order in which these behaviors occur and the manner in which the recordings are composed is the aspect of all of this that is most fascinatingly stimulated. One example of this would be when a male animal defends his territory. The presence of another male of the same species triggers the warning signal for the territorial defense tape, which includes strict vigilance, threat, and, if necessary, conflict. There is, however, a peculiarity in the system. The trigger is not necessarily the male competitor as a whole, but rather a specific characteristic of him.

 

 

When it comes to the whole, the trigger feature is frequently simply a single, insignificant component. That is the intruder who is getting closer. Sometimes, a specific hue triggers the feature. For instance, ethnologists' tests have shown that a male robin would react as if a rival robin had invaded its territory, aiming to aggressively attack and establish a clump of robin-redbreast feathers. Another thing it will almost certainly ignore is a perfectly stuffed pastry reproduction of a male robin that doesn't have red breast feathers. Similar results have been seen; its presence has been found in a different type of bird, the blue throat, where it is found, because a certain shade of blue breast is the trigger for territorial defense of the feathers.

To avoid getting too cocky about how easily trigger characteristics can lead lower animals astray into reacting in ways that are completely inappropriate for the situation, we can come to two conclusions. Firstly, we can consider the regular, fixed behavior patterns of these animals, which are exceptionally effective in the vast majority of cases. Because only normal, healthy turkey chicks are capable of producing the strange sound that baby turkeys make, it makes perfect sense for mother turkeys to react in a maternal manner to that one "cheep-cheep" sound. When a typical mother turkey responds to a single stimulus, she almost always behaves appropriately. When it comes to making her tape like, it takes a sleazy scientist to pull it off. The reaction seems absurd.

 

 

Ellen Langer, a social psychologist at Harvard, conducts an experiment that effectively illustrates this parallel form of human automatic action. According to a well-established principle of human behavior, when we ask someone for a favor, if we provide a reason, we will have a greater chance of being successful. It's just that people want to have explanations for the things they do. Langer, the devil, revealed this unsurprising truth when I asked for a small favor from the people in line for a copy machine in the library. I said, "Excuse me, I need to copy five pages." Could it be that you believe I use the Xerox machine because I'm in a hurry? The efficiency of using this system was nearly complete, with ninety-four percent of those who asked for permission to skip ahead of others in the queue. How does this success rate stack up against the results?

She only requested an exemption because she had five pages to finish. Could I please use my Ph.D.? Robert B. Coalmine, Number Three: This is the Xerox machine, correct? Given such conditions, just sixty percent of the candidates concurred with the request. Initially, it seems that the crucial difference lies in the timing of the new information—the phrase "because I'm in a hurry"—between the two queries. However, the individual attempted a third type of request, which Langer proved was not the case. Apparently, it was not the case for the entire string of words, but it was the initial word, "because," that created the difference. Langer's third proposal lacks a genuine justification for compliance, and the request's use of the word "because" merely restates the obvious:

 

 

 

Excuse me, I have five pages. If I may, I need to use a Xerox machine to create some copies. As a result, nearly all participants (93 percent) expressed agreement, despite the lack of a clear explanation, necessitating the addition of new information to support their compliance. Similar to the innate mothering response elicited by turkey chicks making their "cheep-cheep" sound, the word "because" also triggered an automatic comp liability response in Langer's subjects, even when they were not provided with any information about the study. The whirr, click! 4. Despite Langer's subsequent discoveries demonstrating numerous instances where human behavior does not function in a mechanical, tape-activated manner, what truly amazes me is the frequency with which it occurs.

For example, take into consideration the peculiar behavior of those customers at the jeweler store who, only after the event, swooped down on a portion of the turquoise pieces that were available, which had been inadvertently offered at twice the price that they had originally been sold for. I am able to It is impossible to make sense of their behavior unless it is interpreted in terms of click and whirr term. Those consumers, who are primarily wealthy vacationers with less background information as a guide, we were applying a standard principle, which is a stereotype, regarding turquoise.

 

 

 

According to their purchasing: "expensive = good." As a result, vacationers, who desired to The turquoise items were regarded as being significantly more valuable than the "good" jewellery. And desirable as a result of the fact that the only thing that was improved was the price. Price was the only factor that could be used to determine quality, and it had become a dramatic An increase in price alone had resulted in a significant rise in sales among purchasers who are focused on quality. The whirr, click! When tourists make rash choices regarding their purchases, it is easy to point the finger at them. But a closer inspection reveals a more favorable perspective. Those individuals, referred to as "you get what you pay for," repeatedly demonstrated this principle throughout their lives, regardless of its visibility. It wasn't long before they had expensive = good," which is the conclusion that may be drawn from the rule when it is translated.

In the past, they had found that the stereotype worked rather effectively for them because, in general, when the value of an item rises, so does its price; a higher price is typically indicative of a higher value. Better quality is shown by the ally. So when they discovered that they were in a position to desire high-quality...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 11.11.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie ► Sozialpsychologie
• ISBN-10: 0-00-110041-6 / 0001100416
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-110041-1 / 9780001100411