Every day, other people try to persuade us into changing our attitudes and behavior. In this lesson, we discuss a couple of ways to resist persuasion – using attitude inoculation, in particular. We define attitude inoculation and explain how it can prevent attitude change in spite of persuasion efforts.
Resisting Persuasion
We have discussed several ways in which others can change our attitudes and even our behavior.
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As it frequently occurs without our knowledge, it can be scary to think about how easy it can be to manipulate us. The good news is that there are ways for us to resist persuasion. Several studies have found that simply being aware of the possibility of an upcoming attempt at persuasion makes us less susceptible to that attempt.For example, one reason that product placement in a TV show or movie works is because people do not realize that someone is trying to influence them. If we are aware of the use of product placement as advertisement, we are likely to avoid attitude change as a result of this awareness.
An even more effective method of resisting persuasion that expands upon simple awareness of persuasion techniques is attitude inoculation – the subject of this lesson.
What Is Attitude Inoculation?
Attitude inoculation is a technique used to make people immune to attempts to change their attitude by first exposing them to small arguments against their position. It is so named because it works just like medical inoculation, which exposes a person’s body to a weak version of a virus. The weakened virus triggers the production of antibodies in response, but it is not strong enough to overwhelm the body’s resistance. Later, when exposed to the full virus, the body knows what to expect and is better able to resist than it would have been before the inoculation.Attitude inoculation, then, exposes a person to a weak logical argument that is contrary to their preexisting attitude.
This triggers the creation of counterarguments in response. Later, when exposed to a strong persuasion technique that attempts to change their preexisting attitude through logic, the individual already has arguments to use in defense.
William McGuire’s Experiment
For example, imagine you are the parent of a young boy and want to do everything you can to help him resist the peer pressure to smoke that he may encounter one day. One thing you could do to help is to facilitate attitude inoculation. By role-playing some actual scenarios your son may face, you could help him devise strategies to resist the pressure to smoke.
As a matter of fact, real research conducted in junior high and high schools have shown that using attitude inoculation dramatically reduces rates of teenage smoking.Another example of attitude inoculation comes from an experiment conducted in the early 1960s. William McGuire was the social psychologist who developed the theory of attitude inoculation. In his classic study, he separated participants into two groups.
One group received information that argued that brushing one’s teeth may do more harm than good. This was followed by a group discussion and presentation of information that refuted the evidence in favor of the original belief that brushing one’s teeth is very beneficial. The second group did not receive any information, nor did they have a discussion about the topic.One week later, both groups were presented with a strong argument against frequent brushing.
As you likely suspect, members of the first group – the one that was inoculated – had a number of counterarguments ready and were more able to resist the persuasion. Members of the second group, who never had the opportunity to think about the subject beforehand, were much more susceptible to the persuasive argument.Although it may seem odd that people would be so easily convinced that a widely accepted fact is untrue, McGuire explained that it is easy to change people’s minds about things that they have always taken for granted. This is because most people have very little – if any – practice defending an attack on an attitude that no one ever questions.
Lesson Summary
In summary, there are ways in which we can resist others’ attempts at persuading a change in our attitudes and behaviors. In this lesson, we mentioned that simply being aware of the possibility of an upcoming attempt at persuasion makes us less susceptible to that attempt.We also discussed attitude inoculation in more depth, which is a technique used to make people immune to attempts to change their attitude by first exposing them to small arguments against their position.
Research has shown that attitude inoculation can help reduce the effects of peer pressure. It has also shown that people are surprisingly susceptible to persuasive arguments against things that they have always taken for granted. This is because most people have very little – if any – practice defending an attack on an attitude that no one ever questions.
Learning Outcomes
You’ll be able to do the following after this lesson:
- Understand how being aware of persuasion attempts can make it easier for us to resist
- Define attitude inoculation and explain how it works
- Summarize research conducted on attitude inoculation
- Explain why people are susceptible to persuasive arguments regarding things that they take for granted
