Developing the Contribution of Information Processing Activities in Forming Persuasion

Abstract

Research on persuasion or attitude change has been approached through singleprocess models. The focus of this research is to explain more clearly that persuasion only occurs through a process that is directly caused by social influence. However, the use of this approach produced contradictory results. On the one hand, social influence increases persuasion, but other research finds the opposite. This article discusses the possibility of using a dual-process model approach, which is expected to address the inconsistency of social influence on persuasion in single-process models. Dual process models are proposed to be able to provide new explanations regarding the possibility of multiple effects of social influence variables on persuasion by including information processing activity variables. Through the dual process model approach, it is possible to explain that a certain effect can be caused by different processes and that a certain variable can work differently and in different situations. Social influence has different mechanisms for determining persuasion, which can act as a simple cue when the thinking level is low and can have more than one role (multiple roles) when information processing activities are at a high thinking level.
 Keywords: elaboration likelihood models, information processing, persuasion, social influence