MODULE 4
Unit 1 Attitude Change and Persuasion Unit 2 Mental and Emotional Preparedness Unit 3 Building Trust
Unit 4 Building and Transforming Peace from Below Unit 5 Conflict, Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation:
An Overview
UNIT 1 ATTITUDE CHANGE AND PERSUASION
2.0 OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit, you should be able to
1. Explain the role of attitude change and persuasion in conflict resolution; and
2. Highlight the need for comportment on the part of the mediator.
3.0 MAIN BODY
3.1 Attitude Change and Persuasion
Our program’s communication goals involve developing skills in writing and speaking to influence the decision making and behavior of others. The encyclopaedia defines attitude as a psychological tendency that expresses like or dislike for an entity. Attitude develops on the basis of evaluative regarding. Attitudes develop on the ABC model (affect, behavioral change and cognition). For an attitude to form, an individual goes through the steps of responding to an entity on an affective behavioural change of cognitive level. The affective response is a psychological response that expresses an individual’s preference for an entity. The behavioral intention is a verbal indication of the intention of the individual. The cognitive response is a cognitive evaluation of the entity to form an attitude. Most attitudes in individual are a result of social learning from the environment.
The link between attitude of behaviour exists, but depends on attitude specificity, attitude relevance, personality factors, social constraints and timing of measurement. Several factors play a role for an attitude to cause a behaviour. For example, a person may have a positive attitude towards blood donation but may not necessarily go to a blood bank to donate his blood.
Attitudes can be changed through persuasion. Persuasion is the process of source attempting to change the attitude of a target. There are several factors that affect this processes:
Source characteristics: The major source of characteristics are expertise, trusthwordiness and attractiveness
Message characteristics: The nature of the message plays a role in the persuasion process sometime presenting both side of a story it useful to help change attitude.
Target characteristics: People with higher self esteem and less easily persuaded than people with lower self esteem. The mind frame and mode of the target also play a role in this process.
Cognitive characteristics: A message can appeal to an individual’s cognitive evaluation to help change an attituide. In the central route to persuasion the individual is presented with the data and motivated to evaluate the data and arrive at an attitude changing conclusion. In the peripheral route to attitude change, the individual is encouraged to not look at the message contents but are the source characteristics.
A. If we now return to our assumptions regarding decision- making, we can deduce that to influence decision making (and behavior if we view behavior as a rational choice process, e.g., expectancy Theory of motivation), we must influence one of the three components of decision-making:
Criteria, alternatives, cause/effect beliefs (Cognitions).
B. Individuals attempt to maintain consistency among components of attitude and between attitudes and behavior. When inconsistency exists, a condition termed cognitive dissonance, develops. Individuals are motivated to make some change to reduce this cognitive dissonance.
In changing cognitions what you are attempting to do is create cognitive dissonance between the cognition you are presenting and the one that the target presently holds.
When this dissonance is created, the target can either discredit the presenter or change his / her cognition to eliminate the dissonance (a simplification, but one that helps us develop a working model). Whether the target changes his/her cognition or discredits the communicator is largely a function of the communicator’s credibility.
1. Target’s perception of the communicator’s Expertise. This is enhanced when the target has knowledge of the communicator’s credentials, education, experience, accomplishments, etc. The establishment to a communicator’s expertise is one the important roles of someone introducing the communicator. While a speaker can establish her/his own expertise, he/she runs the risk of overdoing this part of a presentation and turning off the audience.
2. Target’s perception of communicator’s Trustworthiness.
Trustworthiness is established through deed and targets experience with communicator, by information obtained form trusted sources and by attribution of self interests. For example:
a. Speakers attempting to convince an audience to do something that is clearly in the speaker’s self interest tend to elicit low trust.
b. When the audience perceives to have no direct stake or interest in the topic, there is most often moderate initial trust.
c. When the speaker appears to be speaking against her/his self-interests, there is most often high initial levels of trust.
3. Persuasive communication influences decision making (i.e., persuades the target to choose a particular alternative or course of action) mainly through attitude change or changing the target’s cause/effect beliefs. Therefore, when developing a presentation plan (written or oral) some of the guidelines taken from the perspective of attitude change theory are:
3.2 Presentation Purpose
a. Be clear as to what you are attempting to influence.
b. Have specific objectives for your presentation 3.3 Audience Analysis
3.3.1 Decision Process
Understand the target’s (audience’s) decision making process:
1. What criteria are they using?
2. What alternatives are they considering?
3. What is their definition of the problem – What meaning does the audience attributes to the issues you are presenting?
4. If you are likely to encounter resistance, is this resistance based on disagreement with your goals, criteria, or interests, or is the resistance based on disagreement with your assumptions, theories, or beliefs? That is, are you likely to be confronted with value conflict “I understand and agree with you that we could save money using your approach, but is not important to me that we save money”) or theory conflict (“I would love to save money, but I do not see how your plan will save us money”
3.3.2 Audience Attitudes
1. What are their present attitudes (cause/effect beliefs) 2. Are present attitudes rooted in cognition or affect?
3. Will the audience have a strong position on your issue?
4. If so, what are the interests behind this position?
3.3.3 Understand the audience’s sources of motivation – Is your audience predominantly driven by:
1. Instrumental concerns
2. Interpersonal concerns (self concept external) 3. Personal standards and goals (self concept internal) 4. Group or organizational goals (goal internalization) 3.3.4 Audience Cognitive Style
What assumptions are you making with respect to the cognitive style of the audience?
1. Is the audience primarily extraverted or Introverted? This will impact the type of interaction both during and after the presentation.
2. Is the audience predominately Intuitive or sensing? Hits will affect whether you use an inductive or deductive persuasive strategy. Whether you speak in literal or figurative terms.
3. Is the audience Thinking or Feeling? This will determine the effectiveness of a cognitive or affective approach.
4. Is the audience Judging or Perceiving? This will affect its openness to new approaches and ideas.
3.3.5 Audience State of Change
What stage of change do you expect to find your audience?
1. Pre-contemplation (2) contemplation
3. Preparation (4) Action
5 Maintenance 3.4 Speaker Analysis
a. What is your credibility with the audience?
b. How will you develop credibility (expertise and trustworthiness) with the audience?
c. What is the affective or evaluative orientation of the audience to you?
d. What techniques will you use to build audience identification with you?
3.5 Persuasive Strategies
a. How are you going to support your ideas?
b. What data and the forms of evidence are you going to use to
c. Make sure the target knows what you want her/him to do.
d. Are you going to use a cognitive, affective or mixed approach?
3.6 Categories and the Cognitive Process of Categorization 1. Categories are mental representations of the entities one
perceives in the environment. Categories can be very broad, such as the category, public university, or very narrow such as public universities in the northeast with enrollments of less than 7000.
Mental structures are complex networks of categories and sub categories. Categorization occurs through all sensory modalities and is performed effortlessly and unconsciously.
2. Four models have been proposed to explain the processes used by individuals to categorize sensory stimuli. These are:
3.6.1 Exemplar Models
In exemplar models, a category is represented with memories of specific exemplars that is specific people or objects we have encountered. For example, Commander Data (Star trek) or Chet Hickox are my exemplars of Thinking Types. In this approach categorization of unknown entities is achieved when the cognitive system (using parallel search, performed automatically and unconsciously) finds an exemplar that is most similar to the entity.
3.6.2 Prototype Models
Prototype models represent categories with prototypes, or single centralized categories representations. The cognitive system abstracts properties that are representative of a category’s exemplars and integrate them into a single average or modal representation.
3.6.3 Classical/Rule Models
In the classical view, categorization is achieved through the application of rules which specify properties that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for category membership.
3.6.4 Mixed Models
Based on a large body of research evidence has been found to support all three types of processes. Most theorists agree that categories have multiple representations and that individuals use all three cognitive mechanism in categorization.
3. Attitudes are attached to categories. Objects (people, things, etc.) placed in a category are assigned the attitudes associated with that category. A change agent can either attempt to change the attitudes associated with a category, thus changing the target attitude regarding an individual element in that category (hard job) or use the strategy of differentiation whereby the agent attempt to remove the attitude object from a category and place it into a category with a more desirable attitude or create a sub- category with a different attitude structure that allows the target to hold dissimilar beliefs of the target than the main category (easier job).
4.0 CONCLUSION
We are advised in this unit of the importance decision(s) and how the influence the resolution of conflicts. Our attitude and the decision we take when, for instance we encounter resistance in our dealings is important. And if we have to able to achieve success we should be able to take the above discussions into consideration.
5.0 SUMMARY
This unit has treated attitude change and persuasion, presentation purposes, audience analysis, persuasive strategies, categories, and the cognitive process of categorization.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT 1. What is attitude?
2. Distinguish between attitude and attitude change?
3. What are the four categories proposed in explaining the processes used by individuals to categorize sensory stimuli?
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS
Batten, T.R., (1965) The Human Factor in Community Work, London:
Oxford University Press
UNIT 2 MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL PREPAREDNESS