Subjects With Rational Messages example essay topic

Emotional and Rational AppealsAbstractIn many studies, data has been led to suggest that rational messages may encourage the generation of content based cognitive responses and lead to attitudes heavily influenced by these cognition's. Studies have also led to suggest that people in negative moods are affected by the quality of persuasive messages. Using manipulations techniques, bad mood may result in a different interpretation of anything from a verbal argument to a literal message. Eventhough most studies indicate that good mood manipulations may not have that much effect on one's perception of a scenario, further investigation may do away with that theory. Persuasion in Response to Emotional and Rational Appeals Much research has been done to try and indicate that emotional appeals may influence attitude change. The other side of looking at the spectrum is that rational appeals may do likewise (e. g., Ross elli; Francine; Skelly, John J. ; Mackie, Diane M, 1995).

In one study conducted at the University of California at Santa Barbara, 184 students received partial course credit in return for their participation. Subjects in the experiment were assigned to the cells of a 2 (positive or neutral mood) x 2 (emotional or rational message type) x 2 (strongor weak argument quality). Subjects were in groups of two to six. After this step was established, eight messages in approximately equal length were developed. Each message contained six arguments that were either in favor or against using animals for research purposes. Rational and emotional were used in nature and strong and weak were used in quality.

In the procedure of the experiment, subjects participated in an experimental session that included several tasks that were not directly related to the study. The first test included a survey of the subjects' attitudes toward animal testing. After this was completed, subjects read a persuasive message, then responded to questions concerning the topic of animal research, and finally completed items designed to check the effectiveness of the manipulations. After checking the analysis, indications showed that there was no effects for gender. To add to this, responses to all manipulation check measures were entered into one of four separate groups between subjects analyses of variance (A NOVAs). When looking at the message type, the data had revealed the expected main effect for message type, F (1, 65) = 33.44. p. 0001.

Also as expected, the subjects that were exposed to emotional arguments correctly perceived them to be emotional arguments while subjects that were exposed to rational arguments perceived them to be rational arguments. A surprising part of the data was that a lot of the subjects favored animal testing over animal experimentation. The dependent measure of the study was attitude change. The dependent measure also showed a great effect on the data and was a major factor. In the overall view, subjects displayed a significant attitude change after exposure to the messages. In discussion of this study, the clear goal of it was to investigate attitude change that occurs in response to emotional appeals.

In more specific terms, the experimenters attempted to examine if emotional or rational appeals produce attitude change. With a small hint of foreshadowing, we will see how the experimenter that is proposing will use a variation of this technique by turning the variables around. In conclusion, the results of this experiment show that presenting subjects with rational messages may encourage cognitive responses (as was expected). Emotional appeals seem to indicate that there is potential for encouraging self-centered, or distinct evaluative techniques. To push this even further, results provide more evidence that responses to a persuasive message indicate attitude change. As for the benefit of this study, it is suggested thatthe re should more use of affective responses.

This could help improve the understanding of persuasive methods. In other recent studies, it was found thatsubjects' processing of persuasive communications depends on their affective state at the time. Predictions for this experiment were that people in neutral or negative moods are affected by the quality of the persuasive message and report more acceptable attitudes after being shown strong arguments rather than weak arguments. Seventy-six students at the University of Heidelberg in Germany received DM 10 (about 5$ at the beginning of the experiment) for their participation in the experiment.

Subjects were run in groups of 3 to 6 and were randomly assigned to the conditions of a 2 (positive or negative mood) x 2 (strongor weak arguments) x 2 (mood induced at encoding of judgments) factorial design. Students were informed of the intent of various tasks they would be performing. Tasks included mood induction, the presentation of the persuasive message, and the neutral filler task.