Summary
Contents
Subject index
The Persuasion Handbook provides readers with cogent, comprehensive summaries of research in a wide range of areas related to persuasion. From a topical standpoint, this handbook takes an interdisciplinary approach, covering issues of interest to interpersonal and mass communication researchers as well as psychologists and public health practitioners. Persuasion is presented in this volume on a micro to macro continuum, moving from chapters on cognitive processes, the individual, and theories of persuasion to chapters highlighting broader social factors and phenomena related to persuasion, such as social context and larger scale persuasive campaigns. Each chapter identifies key challenges to the area and lays out research strategies for addressing those challenges.
Evidence
Evidence
It seems implausible that three decades ago the literature on the use of evidence in Persuasive messages would foster the impression that “reactions to argument may have little or nothing to do with whether the argument includes fully documented or completely undocumented evidence, relevant or irrelevant evidence, weak or strong evidence, or any evidence at all” (Gregg, 1967, p. 180). The reasons for such conclusions, ironically, were later seen to be due to faulty theory and research data (see Kellermann, 1980; Reinard, 1988, 1998; Reynolds & Burgoon, 1983). We are now able to say with little reservation that when an advocate “quotes” information in support of an argument and the recipients of the message process the information as legitimate evidence, the advocate will be more Persuasive than if the information was not presented or was not processed by receivers. In short, there are at least three conditions for the effective and Persuasive use of evidence: The receivers must be aware that evidence is being presented, they must cognitively process the evidence, and they must evaluate the evidence as legitimate. Before returning to these conditions, a general survey of the research on evidence is in order.
What we Know so Far about Evidence
The General Persuasive Effects of Evidence
There are a few recent affirmations for the Persuasive effects of evidence. McLaughlin, Cody, and French (1990) showed that challenges in traffic court rarely win without supporting evidence. Allen and Burrell (1992) supported the claim that people assent to Persuasive messages based on the quality of the justification provided. Indeed, Reinard (1998) offered meta-analytic results indicating that up to 26% of the variance in Persuasion (which Reinard claimed is associated with up to 63% Persuasive “success”) could be attributed to the use of legitimate evidence quotations. Nevertheless, caution is in order given that between 20% and 30% of people appear to be willing to believe almost anything they are told. At least so claims the DiMassimo Brand Advertising research company (Rivenburg, 1999), which conducted a study in which it recruited 200 people to tell friends and neighbors relatively incredulous bits of information (e.g., http://Amazon.com is an Internet site for portly women, George W. Bush, Jr., is running for president as a Democrat, Kenneth Star is the president of Starbucks Coffee). The researchers found that 20% to 30% of the friends later indicated in a survey that they believed what they had been told.
Research that speaks of a clear effect for the use of data-like assertions and evidence can be seen in a number of studies. Hample (1978) pointed out that the conception of “no evidence” is faulty because arguments with no clear use of evidence will cause the receiver to inherently fill in the implied evidence. Nevertheless, studies that contain conditions with enthymematic arguments (i.e., with a premise implied or assumed) should offer comparisons to messages that clearly contain evidence. When Reinard (1988) chronicled the 18 major studies clearly supporting the effects of evidence, 15 had control groups with “no evidence (vague general statements)” (p. 11). Recall of the support for certain messages was found to combine with other communication or attitude variables to predict adoption of favorable attitudes toward the propositions (Burgoon, 1975). Hample (1977, 1978, 1979) tested models for the processing arguments and supportive data in messages and reported moderately high correlation coefficients (.50s to .60s) between predicted and obtained belief scores. In summary, the use of evidence produces more attitude change than the use of no evidence.
...
- Loading...
Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL
-
Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life -
Read modern, diverse business cases
-
Explore hundreds of books and reference titles
Read next
More like this
Sage Recommends
We found other relevant content for you on other Sage platforms.
Have you created a personal profile? Login or create a profile so that you can save clips, playlists and searches