We have chosen the Elaboration-Likelihood Model of Persuasion created by social psychologists
Richard E. Petty (left) and John T. Cacioppo (right) in 1981.
![[John T. Cacioppo]](cacioppo.gif)
According to the Elaboration-Likelihood Model, people can be persuaded to learn new information through one of two routes. Richard E. Petty and John T. Cacioppo explain that a message can be transmitted and received by the Central Route or the Peripheral Route to persuasion.
The first question to ask about persuasive communication is whether someone is motivated to process the information. Is the issue one the person is very involved with? Is it something relevant to his or her life? Does it produce dissonance arousal? Is it something an individual needs to know? If so, he or she will proceed through the Central Route. If not, he or she might be persuaded through the Peripheral Route.
The second question centers around ability. Does this motivated individual have the ability to process the information? Are there distractions that would hinder processing? Can the person comprehend the message? Is the issue one the individual would be familiar with? Is it an appropriate schema? Does the issue or information arouse fear? If not, the person would have the motivation and ability to elaborate, which means to seriously contemplate, the issue. A yes answer to any of these questions would hinder ability. Once again, until ability increased, this person might need to be perusaded through the Peripheral Route.
What is the person's initial attitude toward the question? How strong or weak is the argument being presented? If the person has either positive or negative thoughts, the Central Route will continue. If neutral thoughts predominate, the Peripheral Route to persuasion might be effective.
Questions at this point include whether the new information is adopted and stored in the memory, and whether responses to information have changed. If the answer is yes, there is an enduring positive attitude change and persuasion has occurred. If the answer is no, then there has been an enduring negative attitude change, called a boomerang.
One of the advantages of this theory is that as motivation and ability are gained, people originally obtaining information through the Peripheral Route might become individuals who elaborate on and retain information through the Central Route.