Persuasion.html

Persuasion

To be effective, a persuasive message can take one of two routes, central or peripheral. The central route to persuasion is direct, where an individual is aware of the issues and actively seeks to change or not change behaviors, attitudes, or beliefs of other individuals or groups. The peripheral route to persuasion is indirect, where individuals or groups are influenced by incidental cues.

When discussing the routes to persuasion, the question that arises is, which of the two routes is more effective? In social psychology, what is more fascinating is how people are persuaded by the peripheral, or indirect, route. Let’s discuss a study conducted by Gardner (2005) that revealed that even seemingly minor and innocuous cues, such as a Post-it note on a questionnaire, can increase the desired results.

Gardner conducted a series of studies to analyze how persuasive a Post-it note can be if attached to a survey.  For each of the studies, he used different questionnaires comprising research questions based on the manipulated variables.

In the first study, Gardner randomly distributed three different questionnaires to participants (150 full-time faculty members). The first questionnaire was a survey accompanied by a handwritten Post-it note that requested completion of the survey.  The second questionnaire was a survey with a handwritten message on the cover letter, requesting completion, and the third questionnaire was a cover letter only (control condition).

The results revealed that of the participants who returned the completed surveys, the majority were those who had received the Post-it note.

Although the return rate of the questionnaires was much lower (with a common return rate of 30 percent as a typical acceptance rate for some surveys), what made this study interesting was its potential applicability of persuading individuals who received surveys (especially mail surveys) to complete them.

Garner, R. (2005). Post-it note persuasion: A sticky influence. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 15(3), 230–237.