Central Route To Persuasion Essay

The dual process models of persuasion is a model that accounts for the two basic ways that attitude change occurs, which is either with or without thought. Furthermore, these two models are the central and peripheral models/routes of persuasion. The central route to persuasion is the way people are persuaded when they focus on the quality of the arguments in a message. This route requires effort and is argument based thinking. Attitude change in this route is likely to be stable and more resistant to change. People use the central route when they have both motivation and the ability to do so. On the other hand, the peripheral route to persuasion is the way people are persuaded when they focus on factors other than the quality of the arguments in a message. For example, they may instead just focus on the sheer number of arguments. In the peripheral route there is an absence of argument scrutiny, and is a shortcut based, conditioned response that yields to social

expectations and superficial cues.
Additionally, people will be motivated to change their attitudes through each of the routes with different factors.

Overall for both routes, in order for a person to be motivated, the topic must be important to them. Like before the central route needs both motivation and ability. Ability means that the person needs to be able to process the message. Which means they will need energy and cognitive resources, so they will be unable to use the central route if they are distracted. Therefore for the central route, persuasion is more likely to be achieved when the person is provided a high quality persuasive argument. However if the person is distracted and does not have the ability to process the argument, they will use the peripheral route. Therefore using salient peripheral cues such and attractiveness and credibility will provide the person with a shortcut for information and persuasion. However, there is another way to persuade both routes at the same by manipulating the audience’s motivation or

ability.
Moreover, people change their attitudes due to three basic factors which are to hold a more accurate view of the world, to be consistent with themselves, and/or to gain social approval and acceptance. There are multiple shortcuts used for accuracy, since people want to be accurate, but don’t always have the time to examine the evidence closely. The sources used are credible communicators (or people they trust), others’ responses, and ready ideas which occur when the idea is presented several time or if the person is imagining the idea. Another factor to attitude change is to be consistent. People want to be consistent because it’s an admirable trait, and people usually become uncomfortable when there isn’t consistency. Finally a person may change their attitude in order to gain social approval, since people are motivated to make good impressions on others.