The dialogue
surrounding climate change has been around since I developed the cognitive
tools necessary to reflect on my world intellectually. Having always had a
respect for academics and now as a student of science myself I never once doubted
the large host of research converging towards climate change being an impending
threat for life on earth as we know it. However, I must also admit that whilst
I knew this in the back of my mind I never consciously deliberated the matter
or made changes to my behaviour. I certainly never hit the streets in protest
or thought I’d write a blogpost on it.
Yet here we are! This post is dedicated to a documentary I finished watching just 20 minutes
ago. I needed those 20 minutes to
process and collect my thoughts and so it is in the frenzied aftermath of my
watching ‘Before the Flood’ that I write this. This documentary has been pivotal
for me in terms of revaluating the impact my lifestyle and behaviours have on
my home – this beautiful blue planet. I could write about climate change and
why, in the words of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, it is the “single
greatest threat to a sustainable future”. Instead I’ll stick to my own area of expertise and, in light of the
Yale Attitude Change Approach, illustrate exactly how this documentary was able to
convey its message so persuasively and subsequently influence my behaviour to
change.
The Yale
Attitude Change Approach is the study of the conditions under which people are
most likely to change their attitudes in response to a persuasive message.
According to this approach, there are certain factors and effects that come
into play in each of the components of a persuasive message (Hovland, Janis
& Kelley, 1953). The basic paradigm of this approach is "who
said what to whom"—the
source of the communication, the nature of the communication, and the nature of
the audience (Aronson, Wilson & Akert, 2013).
Who (source of communication):
· The speaker should be attractive to the audience
Leonardo DiCaprio,
the primary messenger in this documentary, consistently appears on various
lists for the ‘sexist men’. For example, Empire magazine listed him 31st
in a list for the 100 sexiest male move stars ("100 Sexiest Movie Stars: The Men", 2013). As shallow as it may
appear, the research does support that attractive people make for more
convincing messengers. For example, one study by Chaiken (1979) supported that
participants are more easily persuaded by the message of an attractive
messenger as opposed to an unattractive one. A study by Patzer (1983) found
that in a marketing context there are strong positive correlations between
physical attractiveness and source credibility. The science clearly implicates,
even if only in part, Leo’s sandy locks and American brogue in my persuasion.
· The speaker should be credible to the audience.
Furthermore,
Leonardo DiCaprio is an Academy Award winning actor and a UN Messenger of
Peace. These are important titles to have. His acting award tells us that he is
a talented and renowned individual in his field. This plays into his title as
UN Messenger of Peace as only distinguished individuals, carefully selected
from the fields of literature, science, entertainment or other fields of public
life and who are dedicated to the work of the UN make the cut. This cultivates
an air of credibility as it not only displays his philanthropy but also puts him on
par with other illustrious Messengers of Peace such as Jane Goodall, Paulo
Coelho and HRH Princess Haya. What’s more, leaders such as US
President Barack Obama, Pope Francis and other notable academics in the fields
of economics and environmental science were a part of the documentary to spread the message alongside himself. These
people all have important titles in common. Studies have shown what a powerful
tool of influence this can be. One devastating account of the authority of
titles comes from a study involving the gross over prescription of an
unauthorised drug by a doctor to a hospital patient (Hofling et al., 1996). In
the study, a person claiming the title ‘doctor’ told a nurse over the phone to
prescribe a large amount of an unauthorised drug to a patient and a shocking
95% of the time the nurse, with relevant professional intelligence of their
own, simply complied. The researchers concluded that the experiment strongly confirms the overbearing influence a mere title can have. Perhaps my persuasion becomes
a little more understandable in this light.
Says what (nature of communication):
· Present two-sided arguments (refuting the ‘wrong’ argument)
If we go back and
consider how the documentary was structured we find that before we are even
presented with the devastating reality of climate change we were inoculated
against the opposing message, namely - that climate change is a myth. Pfau
(1992) has shown that inoculating consumers with an opposing message can result
in deflecting the persuasiveness of comparatives in the realm of advertising. A
study conducted by Pfau and Burgoon (1988) involving the U.S. Senate campaign
during October 1986 found that political campaign messages can be designed to
inoculate supporters of candidates against subsequent attack messages of
opposing candidates. A substantial body of research has accumulated concerning
the persuasive effects of two-sided arguments of this kind (for a review see
Allen, 1991). Two-sided messages labelled "refutational," include
supporting arguments directly refuting the opposing ones (e.g., McCroskey,
Young, & Scott, 1972). The accumulated research shows refutational
two-sided messages are more persuasive than both one-sided messages and
nonrefutational two-sided messages (Allen, 1991; Allen et al., 1990) – ‘non
refutational’ being composed of both arguments favouring the source's position
and opposing arguments, but not including direct refutation of the opposing
arguments (e.g., Bettinghaus & Basehart, 1969). When we analyse ‘Before the
Flood’ we observe the refutational two-sided message
technique being utilised highly effectively through the initial presentation of the opposing message – that climate change is not a
scientific fact - before it being empirically and very powerfully refuted throughout
the rest of the documentary.
To whom (the nature of the audience):
· The
best age range is 18-25.
The Yale Attitude
Change Approach argues that young adults are the most susceptible to persuasive
messages. One explanation is the impressionable
years hypothesis. The hypothesis posits that the socializing influences
individuals experience when they are young have a profound impact on their
thinking throughout their lives (Hess & Torney, 1967). Newcomb and
colleagues (1967) found evidence of significant political socialization between
ages 18 and 25 and other research has shown that beyond the ages of 18-25
people’s attitudes are more stable and resistant to change (Krosnick &
Alwain, 1989; Sears, 1981). It makes sense why I might have been so moved by
‘Before the Flood’ as I am 20 years old and, according to the impressionable years hypothesis, in the
process of defining important aspects of my self-concept. In terms of climate
change I see this as a positive impact. It is people my age who are going to be
the leaders, economists, academics and corporate CEOs of tomorrow. Thus, it is
important that this message is ingrained in each and every one of us so we do not
leave this beautiful planet in irrevocable ruin for our successors. Or as the
Native American proverb so poignantly puts it “we do not inherit the earth from
our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”
And on that note, here's a little food for thought.
Allen,
M. (1991). Meta-analysis comparing the effectiveness of one-sided and two-sided
messages. Western Journal of Speech
Communication, 55, 390-404.
Allen,
M., Hale, J., Mongeau, P., Berkowitz-Stafford, S., Stafford, S., Shanahan, W.,
Agee, P., Dillon, K., Jackson, R., & Ray, C. (1990). Testing a mode! of
message sidedness: Three replications. Communication
Monographs, 57, 275-291.
Bettinghavis,
E. P. & Basehart, J. R. (1969). Some specific factors affecting attitude
change. Journal of Communication, 18,
227-239.
Aronson,
E., Wilson, T. D., Akert, R. M. (2013) Social
Psychology. Boston, Massachusetts: Pearson.
Chaiken,
S. (1979). Communicator physical attractiveness and persuasion. Journal of Personality and social Psychology, 37, 1387.
Hess,
R. D., & Torney, J. V. (1967). The
development of political attitudes in children. Chicago: Aldine.
Hofling,
C. K., Brotzman, E., Dalrymple, S., Graves, N., & Pierce, C. M. (1966). An
experimental study in nurse-physician relationships. The Journal of nervous and mental disease, 143, 171-180.
Hovland, C. I., Janis, I. L., &
Kelley, H. H. (1953). Communication and persuasion; psychological studies of
opinion change.
Krosnick, J. A., & Alwin, D. F.
(1989). Aging and susceptibility to attitude change. Journal of personality and social
psychology, 57,
416.
McCroskey,
J. C, Young, T. J., & Scott, M. D. (1972). The effects of message sidedness
and evidence on inoculation against counterpersuasion in small group
communication. Speech Monographs, 39,
205-212.
Newcomb,
T. M., Koenig, K. E., Hacks, R., & Warwick, D. P. (1967). Persistence and change: Bennington College
and its students after 25 years. New York: Wiley. Nunn, C. Z., Crockett, H.
Patzer, G. L. (1983). Source
credibility as a function of communicator physical attractiveness. Journal of business research, 11,
229-241.
Pfau, M. (1992). The potential of
inoculation in promoting resistance to the effectiveness of comparative
advertising messages. Communication Quarterly, 40, 26-44.
Sears, D. O. (1981). Life stage effects
on attitude change, especially among the elderly. In S. B. Kiesler, J. N.
Morgan, & V. K. Oppenheimer (Eds. ), Aging: Social change (pp. 183-204).
New York: Academic Press.
The 100 Sexiest Movie Stars: The Men. (2013, 7 October). Retrieved from
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