Discussion: Attitudes and Persuasion

Think about one specific attitude you have about something important to you. Why do you think as you do? What has influenced the development of the attitude you have toward this topic? What actions do you take because of this attitude? What would it take to change this attitude if you wanted to? Is an attitudinal change possible?

Attitudes are formed and maintained in many ways. Social psychologists have studied how people form their attitudes for decades and from many perspectives. Why are researchers so interested in attitude? For one thing, your attitude typically influences your behavior. For example, attitudes about political topics such as war, abortion, civil rights, and so on, influence voting behavior. Advertisers attempt to create attitudes about the products they are trying to sell with the ultimate goal of making money for their clients. Persuasion is an attempt to change an attitude. Political operatives, advertisers, and others thoughtfully create persuasive messages to change attitudes and ultimately behavior.

For this Discussion, you examine messages that you have seen recently and consider how they attempted to be persuasive regarding attitude formation or change.

To prepare:

• Read Chapter 7 in your course text, Social Psychology.
• Review the website, “Powers of Persuasion: Poster Art From World War II” to see examples of propaganda messages intended to influence attitudes.
• Think about a particular persuasive message (i.e., a message that is persuasive to you or tries to be persuasive) you have seen recently in the media. It could be a political message; a public service campaign; a commercial on television, radio, or online; a print ad in a magazine or newspaper; or an op-ed piece. Generally, the message should not be a news story if the news story is an objective report with the intent to inform and not persuade.

BY DAY 3

Posta a brief description of the ad/campaign/commercial/etc. and a description of its message. Please provide an Internet link to the message itself if that is where you found it. Who does the target audience seem to be? Then, apply what you have learned about attitude formation and attitude change to the message. In other words, analyze how the message uses attitude theory and information about how to form and/or change attitudes (or behaviors) in its messaging. Be specific and provide examples.

Notes:

• In the subject line of your post, write the topic, issue, or product addressed in the persuasive message.
• Support the responses within your Discussion post, and in your colleague’s reply, with evidence from the assigned Learning Resources.
• You are required to complete your initial post before you will be able to view and respond to your colleague’s postings. After clicking on the “Post to Discussion Question” link, select “Create Thread” to create your initial post.

I will attach a copy of the grading rubric, please make sure to answer and thoroughly discuss all prompts. I will also attach the poster that is listed to use to review so you can look at that as well. Also please cite every source in a separate reference page in APA 7 formate and also use in-text citation throughout the discussion on all information used from any source. I will also send you a link for google drive with the pictures of chapter 7 in our textbook so you can use that and make sure you cite information from the textbook as well.

here is the link for the ad that we are to look at:

https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persua…