Explanation of a Few Communication Theories

Inoculation theory is concerned with the way that people resist persuasion and attitude change. After the Korean War the United States found that many of its soldiers had willingly given up information regarding the United States army without being under the duress of torture. It seemed the soldiers were unable to defend their country from basic attacks on the United State's social and political system. As developed by William McGuire inoculation theory states that in order to pre-emptively prevent persuasion or attitude change one must warn the subject of an attack, provide a weak attack, and then allow the receiver to actively defend the attack. Politicians use this tactic very often. Promotional materials, pamphlets, mailing, and advertisements will. For example, an politician may start with the statement "During the campaign, you may hear a lot of bad things about me from my opponent." This is warning of the attack. He might then continue with "I may be accused of 'X'." The example he gives will most likely be a weak version of what the opponent will say. He might conclude with "However, you should know that I actually did 'A', 'B', and 'C'." This is giving the subject material with which to defend the candidate.

Cognitive dissonance is regarded as an aversive state that occurs when an individual has two or more conflicting beliefs and/or acts in a contrary manner to their stated belief. There are a couple categories of cognitive dissonance including post-decisional dissonance and counter-attitudinal dissonance.

Post-decisional dissonance results when someone needs to make a hard decision. There is the most cognitive dissonance when the alternatives are equally balance with pluses and minuses. Many people experience this kind of dissonance when choosing colleges and careers. For example, after choosing a particular college you may discover that there are characteristics about it that you really don't like. You may start to doubt your decision. However, the human tendency is to stick with the decision you have made so you will most likely begin to 'bolster' your decision. Bolstering your decision requires that you focus only on the good things about your decision and only the negatives of the option you didn't choose. This subconscious selective attention reduces your amount of cognitive dissonance.

Counter-attitudinal dissonance results when a belief or attitude conflicts with another belief or attitude or a behavior or action. Essentially, when you have two or more incompatible behaviors and attitudes, cognitive dissonance results. As with post-decisional dissonance, the natural tendency is to reduce the cognitive dissonance. The three main ways that people go about reducing this kind of cognitive dissonance are to reduce the importance of the dissonance, add more consonant beliefs to the conflicting behavior or attitude, or to completely get rid of the dissonance For example, if you buy an expensive car that is uncomfortable the reality of the expensive car will clash with your belief that an expensive car should be comfortable. You might reason away the importance of the dissonance by saying that it doesn't really matter because the car is only used for short trips. You might add more consonant beliefs to the car conflict by noting that the car is very safe and gets excellent gas-mileage. The last way to rid yourself of this cognitive dissonance would be to get rid of it.

A real life example of cognitive dissonance is seen many times in battered and abused women. Women who are abused often experience dissonance over the fact that someone who loves them should not be hurting them. In their situation, reality is conflicting with their beliefs. Some women reduce the importance of the beating by noting that it only happened a few times so it's not really that bad. Others will mention how kind their partner is later or how good of a parent they are. Finally, some will leave their partner, completely eliminating the cognitive dissonance.

Compliance gaining strategies are used to make people say yes. As mentioned in class, car salesmen, telemarketers, and charities often use compliance gaining strategies such as a low-ball offer, the door-in-the-face technique, and the foot-in-the-door technique. However, many other communications scholars have detailed dozens even hundreds more compliance gaining strategies. One of the most basic taxonomies of compliance gaining was detailed by theorists G. Marwell and D.H. Schmitt in 1967. These strategies included many everyday tactics such as offering a reward and threatening punishment, strategies which parents use very often with their children. One theorist name Kelton Rhoads cited compliance gaining strategies as techniques for a quick fix to a social problem rather than a true form of persuasion. For example, right now in the dorms there is an ongoing recycling competition against various other college's dorms. This competition offers rewards for mass recycling but offers no truly persuasive information on why you should recycle other than that you will be rewarded.