Tag: COMM 450 Sp20

Tanner Dean

One or Many: Many Short Messages as More Persuasive Over One Fully Explained Message

Loneliness is a silent struggle of many people. Most people are fearful of talking to others, think they do better on their own, or sometimes are just silent when in public spaces. What if there was a way to convince people to go up to strangers? Could loneliness be combated with persuasive appeals? People processes appeals centrally and peripherally, but which one is more effective? Central route processing of messages is taxing. Most people think that they are quite efficient at determining the validity of information. Most of the time people don’t have the mental capacity to think over every bit of information of every argument that is presented to them. That is why people often default to peripheral route processing of information. Many small appeals can be more effective at persuading someone in the long term over a single long detailed message.

COMM 450, Persuasion

Doyle Srader

11:30 AM – Noon

Join the Zoom discussion afterward. The presenter and faculty advisor both have the password.

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Flint Du Tell

Talking to strangers while social distancing

A pandemic is probably the worst time to try and encourage people to talk to strangers. This is this turned out to be the assigned task for the term project in Doyle Srader’s Communication 450 persuasion class in 2020. The plan was to conduct a scientific study to determine if scientific based facts given to a group of test subjects who are low conversationalists,  and see if the new scientific information encouraged them to be more outgoing and talk with strangers. The same goal was also sought for a second group of test subjects but with Biblical based facts. . At the end of the study, the Test subjects would be questioned to see if the new information encouraged them to be more of a conversationalist to strangers. I would then take the data and determine if the scientific or Biblical information was more persuasive in encouraging people to be more outgoing.  The Carona Virus pandemic swept across the world, so in the middle of the experiment, I started to receive negative feedback from my participants about being in close enough contact with strangers to have a conversation with them. They were very skeptical about doing this in  the middle of government and every media outlet advising them to stay home and “social distance” I was sup to try and convince people to be more sociable and talk to strangers. I would then remind them, this experiment was designed to test your willingness to talk to strangers, rather than if you actually do it or nlt. So, an added element to the experiment was convincing my test subjects there were not going to be in any danger by continuing with my experiment. Do to this and other complications, this experiment is still underway. Results will be available when it is finished.

COMM 450, Persuasion

Doyle Srader

11:30 AM – Noon

Join the Zoom discussion afterward. The presenter and faculty advisor both have the password.

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Kaylyn LeRoy

What’s More Persuasive: Social Media or Texting?

The idea behind this study was to see if it was possible to use a set of persuasive messages to try and get people to talk to strangers more often. The study consisted of 2 groups of people who were receiving the same persuasive message, the only difference is that some people received it over a Snapchat video and some received it over a text message. My hypothesis was that sending video messages over Snapchat would be more persuasive than text messaging due to the person being able to see my face and the expressions that I was making when I sent the message. The participants willingness to comply with talking to strangers was measured by an entry level survey on how willing they were and an exit level survey on how willing they were, with the hope that they would become more willing after hearing a series of persuasive messages on why it would be good for them to talk to strangers. After all of the persuasive messages were sent and the exit level survey was completed, the hypothesis of video messages being more persuasive was proven to be true by just a bit more than the participants that received text messages.

COMM 450, Persuasion

Doyle Srader

11:30 AM – Noon

Join the Zoom discussion afterward. The presenter and faculty advisor both have the password.

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Ben Womack

Research Based or Affectionate messages

The purpose of this study was to find out if research based or affectionate messages were more persuasive? The hypothesis for this study was that messages that cite research from experts would be more persuasive than messages with expressions of affection and references to shared experiences. Nineteen people participated in the study. The study consisted of an entry survey, a series of persuasive messages sent to the participants, and an exit survey. The entry survey determined the participants willingness to interact with strangers. Then over a six week span a series of research-based messages were sent to a group and a series of affectionate messages were sent to another group persuading them to interact with strangers. The exit survey reassessed their willingness to interact with strangers. The Research conducted in the study showed that messages with expressions of affection and references to shared experiences were more persuasive than messages that cite research from experts.

COMM 450, Persuasion

Doyle Srader

11:30 AM – Noon

Join the Zoom discussion afterward. The presenter and faculty advisor both have the password.

Return to timetable