Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)

Research Report

By Kevin Cenna

Due to a lack of resources in Alden library at Ohio University, I only found one related article which I could use. The article, as it turns out, is probably the one on which Em Griffin used to base most of his ELM chapter.

Since his introduction of ELM, Richard Petty has written many articles regarding ELM with a variety of authors. One such article, I found in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, written by Richard Petty, John Cacioppo, and Rachel Goldman.

A little background is probably in order for you to understand ELM. Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) is the suggestion that there exists two basic routes to persuasion. One is called the Central route, and the other is called the peripheral route. The central route "views attitude change as resulting from a diligent consideration of issue-relevant arguments" (Petty, Goldman, Cacioppo. p.847). The peripheral route attitudes change because the attitude object has been associated with either positive or negative 'cues'" (Petty, Goldman, Cacioppo. p.847). What this is saying is the central route is thought out, considering all sides of an argument. The peripheral route says that people will react the same way they have reacted before, based on certain "trigger words". If the trigger word is positive, the reaction wil lbe positive. If the trigger word is negative, then the reaction will be negative.

In a previous study, Petty conducted an experiment and concluded that "one consequence of the different routes to persuasion was that changes induced via the central route tended to be predictive of subsequent behavior, whereas changes induced via the peripheral route tended to be less predictive of subsequent behavior" (Petty, Goldman, Cacioppo. p.848). Petty found out in this earlies study that people will react the same way in similar situations, if they have thought about the problem at hand, thought about it, and formed their own opinions. Whereas, if a person "flew off the handle", or completely embraced the idea without thinking about it the first time they encountered it, then there is no real way to predict how they will react in similar situations. The only thing you can predict, is the person will be subconsciously looking for a 'cue' to react positively or negatively.

Petty, Goldman and Cacioppo believe that personal involvement in an issue is the most important guiding variable, giving us an idea as to how the individual might possibly react to a given situation. Petty and Cacioppo have shown in previous studies that "messsage-relevant thoughts showed higher correlations with message acceptance when the issue was of high rather than low personal importance" (Petty, Goldman, Cacioppo. p.848).

Thus far, Petty has provided us that people using central route persuasion will react the same way to similar arguments, since they have thought out all sides of the argument, and that the most important variable in determining how a person is going to react to persuasion is the amount of personal involvement in the message.

The result of this study of Petty, Goldman and Cacioppo was interesting, and the primary source (it appears to me) of Em Griffin's chapter on ELM. Petty, Goldman and Cacioppo experiment involved groups of people left to themselves to discuss a given topic, and having no outside influence. The findings were that people that were expert sources on a topic had an increase in favorable attitudes when their involvement decreased. Conversely, when a person wasn't an expert, their attitude increased with an increase in involvement. At the same time, a strong argument against a person, was directly related to lower invlovement and a less favorable attitude. However, when a weak argument was presented against a person, their involvement increased, and their attitude became more favorable.

This most recent study of Petty, Goldman, and Cacioppo has provided us with the conclusion that "although the message content may be the most important determinant of persuasion under some circumstances, in other cicumstances such as noncontent manipulations as source credibility, attractiveness, and so forth, may be even more important" (Petty, Goldman and Cacioppo, p. 852). Their study also showed that if the issue at hand was of low relative importance to a person, the effectiveness of the persuasion was in the peripheral vein. At the same time, if the issue at hand was of high personal importance, the effectiveness of the persuasion was more of the central route.

Some of the reasons why a person might have an increase in involvement with a message that has personal relevance is the fact that they have thought over ideas and messages that concern themselves. If a person has to deal with the same idea many times, they are going to have a well thought out response when the message presents itself again and again. Another reason why a person might have higher involvement in messages that are more important, might be because the person finds that the results of the argument are going to affect them, and the individual doesn't want anyone controlling them.

Petty, Goldman, and Cacioppo conclude by saying they "suspect that any variable that increases the likelihood that people will be motivated and able to engage in the difficult task of evaluating the message arguments increases the likelihood of the central route to persuasion. On the other hand, any variable that reduces a persons motivation and/or ability to think about the message content would make the peripheral route more likely. These moderator variables would, therefore, include such things as message repetition and distraction, the number of people responsible for message evaluation, and individual's need for cognition and others." (Petty, Goldman, Cacioppo. P.854).

Overall, I thought this article was easy to read. The authors used some words that I wasn't too sure of, and I found myself re-reading parts of the article mulitple times in order to understand what they were trying to say. However, once I figured out what the message was, I found the article very interesting, and actually fairly useful. After reading it, I understood why Em Griffin used this article as the basis for most of his elaboration likelihood model chapter.

Citations

Petty, Richard and Cacioppo, John Elaboration Likelihood Model can be found in Griffin,EM.(1997).A First Look At Communication Theory New York:McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Petty, Richard, Cacioppo, John T., and Goldman, Rachel Personal Involvement as a Determinant of Argument-Based Persuasion can be found in American Psycological Association, Inc. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Vol. 41,(1981). pp847-855.

Mr. Bill Waterson is a genius. I thank him very much for providing me with countless memories of Calvin and Hobbes. He has provided me with drawings of how I imagine my parents saw me when I was a little child. Most of the drawings provided herein give you an idea of how I acted when I was little, and a little bit about how I act today at 21.

To return to our home page To the McGraw-Hill Homepage To my speech codes application page To my information systems theory research report page To my Social Judgement Theory home page To my Symbolic Interactionism critique page To see a research report by Gregory Cebular. Gregory did a research report for the technological determinism theory. Technological determinism is an impact/effect theory, just like elaboration likelihood model.

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