Elaboration likelihood model and persuasion theory

ELM Outline

The relation of source factors and persuasion roots in the elaboration likelihood model

Source factors can have differing effects based on the persuasion route employed, and can possibly even affect which persuasion route is employed. This is very intriguing because it points to potentials for manipulation on a very fundamental level.

Though previous findings have indicated a somewhat diminished impact of source factors and other heuristic aspects of a persuasion scenario, other more recent research suggests that these factors can have direct and significant impacts on persuasion, attitude change, and behavioral change

Direct impact of source factors on persuasion

The research differs when it comes to assessing the level of influence source factors have on persuasion and decision-making, and the place of source factors in the hierarchy of factors and processes in the elaboration likelihood model

b. Initial research and framework development suggests a low level of influence of source factors on decision-making/persuasion

i. In an extensive review of empirical studies, Petty and Cacioppo (1984) determined that source factors played a role in ultimate persuasion, but that route choice was made independently of these source factors. Source factor was found to be entirely inconsequential in cases of high elaboration, and was used as a summary decisive factor in low elaboration cases, while thinking and thought processes in instances of moderate elaboration were guided throughout by source factors and related considerations.

ii. In another analysis of contemporary research conducted in the same year, Petty and Cacioppo (1984a) found that most framework that had been proposed as alternatives to the likelihood elaboration model could be incorporated into this model, and that most stated differences or deviations -- including some involving source factors -- could be shown to be workable within the elaboration likelihood model and not true deviations at all, limiting the extent to which other factors play a role in persuasion.

iii. A more recent experimental study involving over one hundred female subjects seems at first to support similar conclusions regarding the independence of route choice/elaboration level in the decision-making/persuasion process, finding that source factors had different effects based on elaboration level but that elaboration level was primary to source factor influence (Trampe et al. 2010). The study involved the use of physically attractive models in advertising, and found that when the product advertised was specifically related to beauty and attractiveness the attractiveness of the spokesmodels (i.e. information source) was seen as highly influential on persuasion, with higher levels of attractiveness positively correlated with higher levels of persuasion.

c. Other research -- and other readings of some of the above research -- seems to suggest that source factors can actually play a more fundamental role in the persuasion process in the elaboration likelihood model

i. A different interpretation of the empirical results achieved by Trampe et al. (2010) might suggest that the source factor and the relation of the source to the information being presented actually played a significant role in the level of elaboration desired/sought and the ultimate conclusions made/efficacy of persuasion. This is not empirically proven in the research, however the ontology assumed by the authors is also not empirically founded.

ii. A study involving 164 unmarried college students that were not cohabiting with members of the opposite sex examined the split in persuasion studies between active and passive theories of cultivation, ultimately demonstrating that both modes can be seen to exist in the development of communication patterns and that both can be incorporated into the elaboration likelihood model (Schroeder 2005).

iii. Different populations divided by cognitive proclivities were examined in another experimental study, which found that emotional influences and information, which are affected by source factors and which have been traditionally discounted or downplayed in most understanding and applications of the elaboration likelihood model, are actually highly influential even in groups with higher cognitive desires (Morris et al. 2005). Again, this suggests that source factors and related factors can have a more primary and more significant impact on persuasion than current findings and beliefs hold.

III. There is still a need for ongoing research in this area, as no current studies found directly examine the role of source factors as they are fundamentally perceived in the elaboration likelihood model.

IV. Existing literature does not adequately address the role that source factors and other related factors play in the development of persuasion processes and decision making.