Since the COVID-19 epidemic has spread, in addition to the depression of being unable to get out of the door due to the third level of alert, the “information intake” during this period has also become a nightmare for many people.
——To be more precise, it is not your own, but the information intake of your relatives and friends around you.
From all kinds of absurd and false information circulating in groups of relatives and friends, to inflammatory remarks publicly spread by some well-known key opinion leaders (KOL). These “poisons” have caused some people to fight against the epidemic prevention policy intentionally or unintentionally, making the frontline epidemic prevention work difficult and even causing unnecessary riots.
This is not the most troublesome. If you have tried to get your relatives and friends to “know your way back”, you should find that the rebound force is unusually large. Minor plots mean arguing and arguing with each other, and serious ones can even plunge the entire social circle into depression, making life in epidemic prevention even more uncomfortable.
Some people will attribute these frustrations to the stubbornness and ignorance of the other person, but from a psychological point of view…it may be that we are using the wrong method.
Like the central approach of head-to-head duels
The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) was proposed by psychologists Richard Petty and John Cacioppo in 1980, specifically to explain the dual process theory of how to “change” people.
Because of the Chinese translation, “thinking about possibilities” may confuse people who see it for the first time and wonder what the theory is about. It is not the “possibility” to “think carefully” about something, but more broadly refers to the possibility that people are willing to spend time to understand the connotation of any topic, and to think carefully and make decisions based on the information at hand.
To put it more plainly, it’s “How much time the person you want to convince is willing to spend on this issue」。
After taking into account preconditions such as personal enthusiasm for the topic, background knowledge possessed, and the strength of motivation for “understanding”, ELM offers two very different persuasive methods: “Central approach“versus”Marginal approach」。
The central path, as its name implies, is to win or lose with the object of persuasion in an upright manner, and convince people with “reason”. The most direct example is –My article(what).
Although the main purpose of popularizing science is to pack boring academic content in a more vivid and lively manner, the effectiveness of the article still depends on the reader’s “understanding”.
In recent years, more and more medical staff have set up fan pages to explain the principles behind vaccines or other epidemic prevention work to the public, so as to eliminate the distrust caused by the people’s misunderstanding or even misunderstanding. This is also a central way of persuasion, presenting all information, good or bad, and expecting the audience to make ideal decisions after absorbing it.
If you succeed in persuading others in this way, this attitude change will be more durable and resistant to other weaker lobbying because it has a solid foundation. If done well, the persuasion results of the central channel can even serve as the cornerstone of cognition, which in turn will lead to changes in other less stable attitudes.
At first glance, the central approach seems perfect, but the reality is cruel.
If you observe carefully, you will find that the carefully collected and aggregated information will often only be transferred to specific ethnic groups, allowing those who originally supported the relevant position to strengthen their choices, but there is no way to achieve “breakthrough to the stratosphere.” Effect.
This is becauseAlthough the central channel is powerful, it eats the audience’s “appetite”。
The central approach is like a healthy menu designed by a nutritionist. It must be nutritionally balanced, and it will have significant health benefits if taken for a long time. But healthy things…you and I know that they are not so close to the people in terms of taste.
To be sweet, you must not only have a certain degree of pursuit of body and health, but also not be too picky and have the ability to taste the original flavor of the ingredients. Converting these conditions into a willingness to take in information is the so-called “Cognitive threshold」。
The effectiveness of the central channel is based onLet the audience “understand” and “recognize” the foundation. In other words, we want the audience to “learn” the benefits of a particular option or position, and then use this as a force point to change the other’s attitude. Once the target group is unable or unwilling to understand so much, the cognitive threshold of the central approach will make people lose their appetite and even suffer from indigestion.
In the end, not only the persuasion failed, but the original interpersonal relationship may be affected by the pressure, and the possibility of subsequent attempts to other methods may be cut off.
Always engage in roundabout ways to sneak attacks
For those who cannot accept the central route, ELM also proposes another persuasion strategy: “peripheral route”. Compared with the central approach that emphasizes “reasoning” and “understanding”, the marginal approach focuses on making use of the persuade’sPerceptual thinking“To influence judgment.
After all, sensibility is a mental activity that takes precedence over rationality. The “impulsive shopping” that everyone often says is the result of being too late to stop sensibility when making a decision. This is why the salesperson in a store or department store is so aggressive, because just let you “Calm down and think about it“It’s easy”The more I think about it, the more wrong」。
Although the persuasive effect produced by the peripheral channel is not lasting, it wins in its high efficiency and low cognitive threshold, and it can even bypass many of the obstacles that the central channel has to make great efforts to break.
Compared with the healthy and boring menus designed by dietitians, the “marginal approach” is fried chicken and fries. Although eating more is harmful to your health, you can always use the most direct “scent” to arouse your appetite.
If you pay attention to the famous brand car advertisements in recent years, you will find that quantifiable data such as “0 to 100 kilometers acceleration in X seconds”, “turbine engine can produce _ _ horsepower” and other quantifiable data, have gradually become “enjoy the ultimate low-key luxury roaming The perceptual description of “sense” and “becoming the emperor on the road”. This is because with the increase of national spending power, the target audience of these advertisements has also fallen from the top of the pyramid to the middle class.
Compared with the goal of “making people who are already playing cars understand how powerful this car is”, “making people who don’t understand cars will be tempted” has a higher commercial potential.
Through the beautiful pictures, music, and the appearance of handsome guys and beauties, our first impression of this car must be positive. In the end, as long as the quotation is within an acceptable range, we can easily come up with the idea of ”as if it can”.
This is the power of the marginal approach. At first glance, you don’t say anything, but you can use these indirect methods.People’s sensibility in turn convinces oneself。
Another common persuasive strategy for fringe channels is “celebrity endorsement.”
Have you ever thought that some medical beauty clinics, clothing brands looking for TV, movie star endorsements can be forgiven, but why even health food, capsule coffee, and even the toilet bowl are looking for these celebrities who can’t beat them?
They are not professionals in this field, but they have the “voice” and “public image” that real professionals do not have. The average consumer is not clear at all about the difference in the effectiveness of different brands of lutein, or the cost and derivation of the actual use of capsule coffee, but the positive image of celebrities will spread to the product, forming the effect of “love house and black”.
Especially some endorsements that break common sense, such as Chanel N°5 With Brad Pitt, Chunghwa Telecom and Takeshi Kaneshiro, bottled tea and Hiroshi Abe, these are the ultimate expressions of personal voice. No matter who the target group of these products is, the blessing of these celebrities alone is enough to explode sales.
This is why most governments nowadays legislate the behavior of “endorsement.” It is precisely by knowing the influence of these endorsement strategies that we must find a way to make the spokesperson self-discipline and prevent irrational fans from being harmed by unscrupulous players.
However, the effectiveness of celebrity endorsements can be used not only to sell things, but also to promote ideology.
Some emerging religions (such as Scientology in the U.S., Happiness Science in Japan) like to absorb movie stars or business giants to teach. Lower your guard. In recent U.S. elections, Hollywood stars have also been seen on social media to stand for the Democratic Party. This is also a fringe way of using celebrity endorsements to win over middle voters, especially young first voters who have not yet had a clear political stance.
You may not think how effective these celebrities are, but just “impressing you” + “not repulsive when thinking about these things” is enough to play a key role in making decisions.
This kind of rendering effect can also be seen in the recent YouTube boom. For example, Taiwan’s YouTuber “One Plus One” made a Taipei Ramen recommendation a few months ago. As a result, the listed shops became famous restaurants in line before the third level of alert, and they often eat. A bowl of noodles will last for an hour or two. Regardless of the exaggerated effect of the film, just making his audience “interested” is enough to cause such a huge impact.
Whether it’s a way of eliciting sensibility or celebrity endorsements to subtly influence your attitude towards certain things, the most frightening thing about the fringe approach is that it usuallyWon’t let you realize that you are being affectedJust like boiling a frog in warm water, the meat will be cooked when you find something wrong.
It is better to persuade them to believe in “this”
After learning a little about ELM, we will come back to the issue of health education for relatives and friends during the epidemic prevention period.
From a caring standpoint (or at least hope that they will not mess with other people), hope that they can get the most adequate information, and “listen to the word” is normal.
However, this expectation is sometimes our wishful thinking.
We enthusiastically wanted to let the other party finish the meticulously prepared Manchu Feast, but we never paid attention to whether they could eat or not, or whether they had an appetite. You may feel that there is no room to care about these trivial things in extraordinary times, so you unconsciously increase your strength and try to use the logic of duck-filling education to deal with their rejection.
But forget that you yourself are also a victim of cramming education. Ask yourself, is this really “effective”?
Knowing that the COVID-19 virus is highly infectious and the risk of severe illness is high, but I don’t feel that I am so unlucky, so I wear a mask halfway and hang out with my friends in private. Isn’t such a contradiction the result of using the central channel to do health education?
The audience received the information but was not persuaded, and the result was even worse than “complete ignorance”-because they knew “what not to do”, they would deliberately hit the sideball, violate the positivity, and create breaches in the invisible corners. In particular, those who are already involved in the construction of the main contractor will be more likely to be affected by the marginal channels of those who are interested because they have a little knowledge of the epidemic and vaccines, and even become disseminators of misleading information.
Although it is said that “Weijiao” has the word “teaching”, it is essentially closer to an ideology. It is not that receiving information can change the result, but the audience has to “recognize” the content from the heart. Rather than saying that we want to “church” the elders, it is better to persuade them that “”this” is better and safer than what you are using now.”
You are not a teacher, but a business that promotes the “correct concept of epidemic prevention.”
Compared with the objective “product quality”, whether you can “confuse” people’s hearts at the moment of sales is the key. In this extraordinary period, it doesn’t matter how long the means are, how to achieve the goal is the key. If there is no way to know the reason, then move it with affection.
If you are misled by a specific person, you can find a way to find “friends” who have similar positions in the heart of the other party but are sharing correct information. But this is a relatively ideal approach. Everyone should be able to understand how thick each stratosphere is. It is not easy to find friendly forces, and it is very likely to be attacked by new ambushes.
Even if we can’t open source, we can still reduce expenditure. If you really can’t find a suitable person, finding a way to destroy the image of this “powerful person” in the hearts of your relatives and friends can also destroy the influence of his speech. For example, looking through the previous scandals of this person, or whether there have been some obvious mistakes in the recent past, these can all be used as breakthrough attempts. However, remember not to be too obvious, if the opponent feels that you are deliberately attacking it, it is easy to fail.
Of course, in turn, emotional blackmailing is also a fringe approach strategy.
It’s just that the essence of emotional blackmail is a gamble on the survival of the “relationship”. Just like the Charity Poker King Tournament takes 3 million US dollars, you must confirm your relationship with the other party before you act, that is, “weigh your own weight”. There is no turning back arrow in the bow, and the emotional blackmail of failure also has no turning back. Please think carefully if you have another intersection.
Even if you really want to blackmail, please try to do it in a roundabout and indirect way. Don’t let the other party clearly feel the intention of “because you didn’t do what I said, so I want to punish you.” Because once the other party treats you as an enemy, there is no longer a peaceful resolution option between you.
At this difficult time when you need each other’s support to persevere, if you push your beloved one further and further because of a moment of impatience, wouldn’t it be the cart before the horse?
Keep your goals in mind and work out the most suitable strategy. This is not only protecting the other person, but also helping yourself.
Reference
- Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1984). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. ACR North American Advances.
- O’Keefe, D. J. (2008). Elaboration likelihood model. The international encyclopedia of communication.
- Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1984). Source factors and the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. ACR North American Advances.
- Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. In Communication and persuasion (pp. 1-24). Springer, New York, NY.
