Persuasion and Influence

Toxic masculinity - there is #strengthinspeakingup

The issue & why is the problem important/evidence:

Mental health issues can make living a normal day-to-day life a tremendous struggle, which can lead to detrimental effects on those affected by it as well as their loved ones. Recent statistics show that it appears to be a particularly prominent issue for men, with one dying by suicide globally every minute (‘’Men’s mental health,’’ 2019) and it being the leading cause of death in those under 45 (Bell, 2018). Moreover, in 2013, 78% of all suicides recorded in the UK were male. The problem contributing to this is that men are less likely than women to reach out for help and support, with statistics from a survey by YouGov (2016) showing that 35% of men waited 2 or more years or never disclosed a mental health problem to a friend or family compared to only 25% of women, a decision which only prolongs or heightens the emotional pain that they are going through. So why are men less likely to speak out? ‘Toxic masculinity’ is an issue where men are told by societal ‘norms’ that they cannot be as emotional as women. With phrases such as ‘man up’, they are told that they must live up to the stereotype of being strong and that to reach out for emotional help would make them come across as ‘weak’. Research has found this to have a negative effect on the well-being of men, thus it is a pressing issue that must change (Gerdes & Levant, 2017).

Target audience and how the project is tailored for them:

Therefore, this project is targeting men in order to change ingrained beliefs that men cannot be emotional, and instead show them that they are not alone and can reach out to receive help and guidance for any current or future mental health issues they might have. This is tailored for men in this way by the focus of the video showing and talking about mental health issues and statistics in men specifically and offering links to organisations that they can talk to. However, the secondary target for this project is everyone in general to help reduce stigma towards men and raise awareness of just how many are affected by mental health issues. We hope that this can encourage people to open up in offering their support towards their male friends, family and colleagues.

What we did:

In order to try to encourage an attitude change regarding toxic masculinity and to get men to reach out for help, we have created a video compromised of celebrities speaking out about mental health issues, as well as statistical information and where help can be sought. This video has been shared through our social medias and by 21 others. So far this amounts to a total of roughly 900 views.

Persuasion techniques used:

The Yale Attitude Change approach:

This approach to persuasion comprises of certain characteristics of the source, the message and the audience that can help to influence an attitude change.

One characteristic of the source that influences attitude change is how similar they are to the audience. As our target audience is mainly for men, we implemented this idea by having male celebrities in our video talk about mental health issues, thus allowing the audience to relate by a shared gender and subsequently encouraging them to be able to share their issues in the same way that those in the video have done. Furthermore, by having these males be celebrities, the audience may idolise one or more of them, meaning that they will be likely to have positive feelings towards them, thus making those in the video represent values or skills that the target audience would like to have. This is even more prominent as we have used Dwayne Johnson, known as ‘the Rock’ in our video. He is admired by many and is seen as very ‘manly’. Feedback from some people have said it was amazing that ‘the Rock’ spoke up about his mental health, as they would not have expected it from him at all. Hopefully this gives some indication that this technique has been influential.

A characteristic of the message that influences attitude change considers primacy and recency effects. This suggests that the audience are most likely to remember the thing that occurred first and the thing that occurred last in a message. The phenomena of primacy and recency effects involves an individual’s tendency to be better at remembering and recalling information at the beginning (primacy) and the end (recency) (Murdock, 1962). Research shows that information in the middle of a task was forgotten much more readily than information at either the beginning or end. The results exhibited were attributed to this ‘serial position effect’ (Murdock, 1962). In order to apply this phenomenon to our own project, we included the definition of toxic masculinity alongside the issue we were presenting at the beginning of the video to encourage others to remember the key information. Additionally, the statistics featured at the end of the video alongside actions for viewers to take in order to get the key message across and encourage the recency effect.

Furthermore, repetition is another aspect of the message that is thought to increase perceived validity, therefore we have included the hashtag ‘strength in speaking up’ on the video itself and alongside when we have shared it on social media.

A characteristic of the audience to consider is their intelligence. As our target audience is for men in general, regardless of intelligence, the messages and statistics we have included in our video are brief and put in a simple way that is easily understandable. This ensures that it does not discriminate against varying levels of intelligence.

Elaboration Likelihood Model:

Central and Peripheral routes to persuasion:

A further behaviour change approach which our project includes is the elaboration likelihood model which consists of two routes to persuasion: The central route and the peripheral route.

A central route to persuasion is one which requires a person to reach a certain threshold of ability and motivation to pay attention. In addition to this, it also requires a high level of reasoning and focus on taking information in. Taking a peripheral approach to persuasion requires less motivation and ability to pay attention, alongside low levels of effort to digest the material. Our video contains both influences of a central and peripheral nature. It draws upon the central route to persuasion through the use of strong and accurate statistics gathered from accurate sources such as the National Health Service (Bell, 2018), additionally to many services dedicated to mental health such as Movember (‘’Men’s mental health,’’ 2019) and Mind (Cambule, 2017). Our motives for including factors of the central route to persuasion were that this may optimally relate to those who personally connect with our project; either experiencing this themselves or knowing someone who has. We also chose to incorporate the peripheral route to persuasion into our project. We believed that this would most strongly assist in catching the attention of those who do not have a personal experience surrounding mental health and also those who do not know much about it. Therefore, in our video, we have merged clips of many famous people such as the likes of Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and George Ezra in an attempt to help people to connect with our message less effortfully, and to take responsibility in helping make this an issue of only the past and not the future.

How the project may be expanded in the future:

In an ideal world, we would expand this project by gaining more access to important, influential people talking directly about the issue that we are trying to address. Unfortunately, as undergraduates we were not able to do this in the current project due to limited time, money and contact with outside parties. We would approach celebrities directly asking them to back our project, and perhaps asking academics and professionals on the subject, such as from the NHS, or APA, to provide some information for our video. Doing so would rely more on a central route to persuasion, which we hope will be fitting as more and more people begin to become aware of, and care about the issue of toxic masculinity. Having a more direct influence from celebrities will also increase the number of people exposed to the video project, giving it the potential to be even more influential through mere exposure.

References:

Bell, P. (2018). Tackling men’s mental health is the lynchpin to suicide prevention. Retrieved February 12 2019, from https://www.england.nhs.uk/blog/tackling-mens-mental-health-is-the-lynchpin-to-suicide-prevention/.

Cambule, L. (2017). “Man up”? Getting more “men” in mental health. Retrieved February 10 2019, from https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/your-stories/man-up-getting-more-men-in-mental-health/#.XHZvZvZ2vIU.

Gerdes Z., Levant R. (2017). Complex relationships among masculine norms and health/well-being outcomes: Correlation patterns of the conformity to masculine norms inventory subscales. American Journal of Men’s Health, 12, 229-240.

Hovland, C.I., Janis, I.L., & Kelley, H.H. (1953). Communication and persuasion in psychological studies of opinion change. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Men's health - Mental health and suicide prevention. (n.d.). Retrieved February 17 2019, from https://uk.movember.com/mens-health/mental-health. 

Murdock, B. B. (1962). The serial position effect of free recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64, 482–488.

YouGov (2016). Survey of people with lived experience of mental health problems ... Retrieved February 16 2019, from www.mentalhealth.org.uk/ news/survey-people-lived-experiencemental-health-problems-reveals-menless-likely-seek-medical