Understanding What Is Relevant to Your Audience
It will be hard to get your audience to engage in central processing if you can’t get them to listen to your speech. As you learn in Chapter 6, you need to encourage thoughtful active listening. Although your audience certainly bears some of the responsibility, you can help by making sure that you offer relevant, effective supporting material (Chapter 12) and ensuring that your delivery is easy to listen to (Chapter 14).
Along with appealing to audience needs, you can also persuade listeners—especially neutral listeners—by anticipating their question, “How is this relevant to me?” The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) is based on the belief that listeners process persuasive messages by one of two routes, depending on how important—how relevant—the message is to them (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Petty & Wegener, 1998; see also Kruglanski et al., 2006). When they are motivated and personally involved in the content of a message, they engage in central processing—they think critically about the speaker’s message, question it, and seriously consider the strengths of the arguments being presented. When listeners lack motivation to listen critically or are unable to do so, they engage in peripheral processing of information, giving little thought to the actual message and focusing instead on superficial factors, such as the length of the speech or the attractiveness of the speaker.
Whenever possible, you want your audience to engage in central processing, as it produces deeper, more long-lasting changes in audience perspective than peripheral processing does. Audience members who process peripherally can certainly be influenced, but because they tend to pay attention to things other than the central message, such as the speaker’s reputation or any slogans or emotional manipulation used in the speech (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), they are less likely to experience meaningful long-term changes in attitudes or behavior.
To put the principles of the ELM model of persuasion into practice, consider the following points:
- Make certain that your message is relevant. Use language and examples to connect your message to your listeners’ lives.
- Be sure to present your message at an appropriate level of understanding. You can’t persuade your audience members if they don’t understand the message.
- Establish credibility with the audience. Show your research, cite experts, and (if relevant) clearly explain your own credentials and experience.
- Establish a common bond with your listeners. Ensure that they see you as trustworthy. Clearly explain why you support this specific message; if you have a specific interest in it, let them know.
These steps will increase the odds that your persuasive appeal will produce lasting, rather than fleeting, changes in the audience’s attitudes and behavior (O’Hair, Stewart, & Rubenstein, 2007).