In social psychology, the Yale attitude change approach (also known as the Yale attitude change model) is the study of the conditions under which people are most likely to change their attitudes in response to persuasive messages. This approach to persuasive communications was first studied by Carl Hovland and his colleagues at Yale University during World War II.Aronson, Elliot, Timothy D. Wilson, and Robin M. Akert. Social Psychology. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson Education, 2010. Print. The basic model of this approach can be described as "who said what to whom": the source of the communication, the nature of the communication and the nature of the audience. According to this approach, many factors affect each component of a persuasive communication. The credibility and attractiveness of the communicator (source), the quality and sincerity of the message (nature of the communication), and the attention, intelligence and age of the audience (nature of the audience) can influence an audience's attitude change with a persuasive communication. Independent variables include the source, message, medium and audience, with the dependent variable the effect (or impact) of the persuasion.
The Yale attitude change approach has generated research and insight into the nature of persuasion. This approach has helped social psychologists understand the process of persuasion and companies make their marketing and advertising strategies more effective. Like most other theories about persuasion and attitude change, this approach is not perfect. Not a systematic theory about persuasive communications, this approach is a general framework within which research was conducted. The Yale researchers did not specify levels of importance among the factors of a persuasive message; they emphasized analyzing the aspects of attitude change over comparing them.Carl I. Hovland, Irving L. Janis, and Harold H. Kelley "Communication and Persuasion: Psychological Studies of Opinion Change" New Haven: Yale UP, 1953 Print.
Persuasive communication depends on who says what to whom
Defining the : the source of communication The effects of credibility rely on the aspects of the speaker to be of "high trustworthiness" or "low trustworthiness". Prominent, credible speakers can drastically persuade more people than others who are not credible. Credible speakers also have a sense of reputation where what they say matters to whom they are speaking to. In addition, attractive speakers have a stronger influence than those who are unattractive, depending on the condition. A study was conducted testing both attractive/unattractive females, as well as strong/weak messages in reference to promoting a sunscreen. They found that people were more willing to be persuaded by a strong message by an attractive female. Contrary to a weak message by an equally attractive female.Hovland, Carl I.; Weiss, Walter (January 1951). "The Influence of Source Credibility on Communication Effectiveness", Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 15, Issue 4, 1, Pages 635–650.
Defining the : the nature of the communication The characteristics of the nature of the communication impacts the degree of attitude change. One such characteristic is the design of the message; people tend be more persuaded by messages that don't appear to be targeted for them. By nature, there is a primacy effect that occurs with speakers. People are more influenced by what they hear first. The first speaker is recorded stronger than the following speakers even if the arguments following the first speaker are stronger. If there is a delay after every speech, then it is better to go last because of the recency effect where people remember the most recent event the most.
Defining the : the nature of the audience Attitude may change depending on the characteristics of the audience. Audiences that are distracted during the persuasive communication will often be persuaded less than audiences that are not distracted. From the ages of 18–25, people are very susceptible to attitude change. After those ages, people tend to be more stable and resistant to attitude change. Additionally, an audience member that is less intelligent tends to be more persuadable than those with higher intelligence. People who do not enjoy thinking can rely on experts and trustworthy sources to conserve their cognitive resources. If the expert source is untrustworthy, then the person might have to evaluate the material on their own. In most cases, people are not knowledgeable enough to interpret the information themselves or have very low confidence in the issue, thus they must rely on knowledgeable others (expert and trustworthy sources).Petty, R. E., & Wegener, D. T. (1999). The elaboration likelihood model: Current status and controversies. In S. Chaiken & Y. Trope (Eds.), Dual-process theories in social psychology (pp. 37–72). New York: Guilford Press.
History The Yale attitude change approach (also referred to as the Yale model of persuasion) is considered to be one of the first models of attitude change. It was a reflection of the Yale Communication Research Program's findings, a program which was set up under a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.
During World War II, political persuasion and propaganda analysis became important fields of study in light of the success of Nazi propaganda campaigns. The Research Branch of the Army's Information and Education Division was assigned this research. Carl Hovland was appointed the Chief Psychologist and director of Experimental Studies for the U.S. He and others undertook the responsibility of conducting, analyzing, and planning experiments that explored the effectiveness of war propaganda. After the war, Hovland, Lumsdaine, and Sheffield published a report of their research findings. These experiments are considered an antecedent to the Yale groups' research. Interest in persuasion remained strong after the war due to advancements in telecommunications. Hovland and others within the "Yale school" returned to Yale in order to continue researching the topic. They established the Yale Communication Research Program which aimed to understand and examine factors that influenced attitude change. It was considered the first modern attempt of such a task.
The Yale Communication Research Program was a "cooperative research and study group" that encouraged members to pursue research in their line of interest regarding the subject of persuasive communication and their effects on behavior and opinion. The Yale group examined attitude change from a learning theory perspective and information processing approach. The Yale school's approach is considered convergent: it started with identifying a phenomenon (attitude change) and then searched for an explanation by looking at variable factors and their effect on the phenomena. This is in contrast to a divergent approach which starts with a theory that is then applied to a phenomenon. The Yale school also suggested that message processing take place in stages: attention, comprehension and acceptance. In essence a person must "first notice the message, and pay attention to it, then comprehend its meaning, and finally accept it". They also introduced the concept of incentive as a crucial variable in influencing attitude change. It was not enough for a response to be learned but that motivation was provided in order to preference one opinion over another.
Hovland, Janis, and Kelly published the group's first empirical findings in 1953. They paralleled their research to Laswell's (1948) statement, "who says what to whom with what effect". In the publication they categorized their findings on the analysis of four factors: "1) the communicator who transmits the communication; 2) the stimuli transmitted by the communicator; 3) the audience responding to the communication; 4) the responses made by the audience to the communication". The Yale school had a breakdown of sub-factors that they observed for each topic (the communicator, the communication, the audience). The fourth topic, which they deemed "responses", was composed of two subtopics which explored the "expression of the new opinion" and "retention of the opinion change". The Yale group had a total of five publications reporting the findings of their experiments (including Communication and Persuasion) that further explored each factor under the same model.
Initial/notable studies
Characteristics of the communicator
The Yale group observed the effects of credibility on persuasion. Credibility was composed of; 1) expertness: the degree to which the communicator was knowledgeable in the field, and 2) trustworthiness: in reference to the intentions of the communicator.
Hovland and Weiss in 1951 exposed participants to identical newspaper and magazine articles. Some were attributed to high-credibility sources (like Robert Oppenheimer); others to low-credibility sources (like the Soviet newspaper Pravda). Participants regarded sources with higher credibility more favorably. They attributed this effect to the expertise of the source and the confidence in the sources' sincerity in delivering the message. They also observed that effects from both positive and negative sources tended to dissipate after several weeks.
An exception to the gradual dissociation of the effects of a persuasive message were reported in studies conducted by Hovland, Lumsdaine, and Shieffield. Results showed that opinion change increased gradually over time, despite forgetting the source of the information. They coined this phenomenon the sleeper effect.
Content of the communication The Yale school focused on factors such as motivating appeals and organization of arguments in regards to the content of the communication. In particular they focused on emotional appeals which were considered a class of stimuli whose contents could arouse emotion, in contrast to logical/rational appeals. In particular the group looked at fear-arousing appeals.
Janis and Feshbach in 1953 explored degrees of intensities of fear appeal and their effects on conformity in the context of the consequences of poor dental hygiene. The study showed that messages were more effective when contained low-leveled threat references such as "cavities" or "tooth decay" instead of "strong appeal" references, such as exclaiming serious infections that could cause paralysis and kidney damage. The results suggested that appeals of high intensity would be less effective than milder ones.
Hovland, Lumsdaine, and Sheffield explored the effectiveness of one-sided and two-sided messages (containing pros and cons). The 1948 study looked at whether a message given to American soldiers would be more effective if it only advocated one position or if it advocated both sides of the position. It was found that two-sided messages were more effective on budging educated men's opinions. Additionally, two sided arguments were also better at generating change of opinion in those soldiers who opposed the argument initially. For less educated men who also supported the government's position, the one-sided argument was more persuasive. Their findings not only suggested that the content of the communication has an impact on attitude change but so do the attributes of the receiver.
A 1953 follow up study conducted by Lumsdaine and Janis explored the resistance of opinion change motivated by argument structure. The findings summarized that two sided messages were more effective to resistance of counter propaganda regardless of initial position held (even if the initial belief was counter to the new developed belief). Two sided messages were more effective in maintaining sustained opinion change.