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Riley Flint

Dr. McClanahan

CMST 250

10 April 2019

Influence Communication Theories

Influence is the ability to have an affect on the character, development, or behavior of

someone or something. Influence can also be looked at as persuasion. Persuasion is causing

someone to do something through arguement or reasoning. Many factors go into persuading or

influencing somebody. There are several theories on how and why people become influenced or

persuaded. Two major theories are Social Judgement Theory and Cognitive Dissonance Theory.

Both theories are informative and useful in knowing why people either do or do not get

influenced.

Social Judgement Theory is a self-persuasion theory that focuses on the perception and

evaluation of an idea by comparing it with current attitudes. (Griffin, et al. 178) The main point

of Social Judgement Theory is persuasion happens at the end of the of the process where a

person understands a message than compares the position it favors to the person’s position on the

issue. If someone has an objective opinion about a topic it is much harder to convince them

otherwise. Social Judgement Theory is sometimes referred to as Ego-involvement Theory.

(Griffin, et al. 178) The more ego-involved someone is with a situation, usually the more

knowledgeable in the subject they are, therefore making them much harder to persuade. By

knowing a person’s opinion beforehand Social Judgement Theory predicts how successful the

persuasion will be.

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Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort a person feels caused by a contradiction between

two different beliefs or between a belief and an action. (Griffin, et al. 200) An example of this

would be a smoker who knows smoking is bad for them but continues to smoke anyway.

Although smokers are aware of the health issues of smoking they come up with as many excuses

as possible. Smokers come up with the excuses in order to justify their actions. Although there

are many studies that prove the link between smoking and lung cancer, smokers continue to

convince themselves otherwise. They may justify their actions by saying “smoking helps me

relax”, or “my mother has been smoking for years and she is in perfect health”. By saying these

things, smokers are altering their beliefs about the health risks of smoking in order to reduce the

feeling of discomfort they are experiencing. Cognitive Disonance Theory focuses on the

changes in our beliefs and attitudes in response to cognitive dissonance. (Griffin, et al. 201)

Gender and GMOs: Understanding Floridians Attitudes toward GMOs Through the Lens

of Social Judgement Theory ​is an article written by Joy N. Rumble that applies Social Judgement

Theory to peoples opinions on the use of genetically modified organisms. The article is about a

survey that was given to 500 Florida residents over the age of 18. The survey consisted of 14

questions that related to the use of GMOs. Seven of the questions were adapted from the

National Science Board’s report on public attitudes and understanding of science and

technology, while the remaining seven were researcher developed. (Rumble, et al. 4) All 14

questions were measured on a five point Likert-type scale ranging from strongly agree to

strongly disagree. To apply the the data to Social Judgement Theory, researchers recoded

responses of strongly disagree and disagree into the category of rejection, neither agree or

disagree responses into the category of non-commitment, and the responses of agree and strongly
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agree into the category of acceptance. (Rumble, et al.) The purpose of the study was to determine

the opinions of GM food with Florida residents of different genders. Researchers chose to

compare men to women to strengthen the ideas of Social Judgement Theory. The specific

intentions of this study were to describe the latitudes of acceptance, rejection, and

non-commitment of Florida residents for messages about GM food and determine differences to

gender. (Rumble, et al.) The results of the study proved that women rejected more statements

about GM food and men accepted the statements. According to Social Judgement Theory and

this survey, a person will have better luck convincing a man to be accepting of GMO’s rather

than a woman. I thought this article was very informative. The author explained Social

Judgement Theory, the survey, and how the results of the survey applied to the theory. The

article was well written and easy to understand.

Can Cognitive Dissonance Theory Explain Consumer Behavior? i​ s an article written by

Sadaomi Oshikawa focusing on proving whether or not Cognitive Dissonance Theory affects

consumer behavior. The article is written about an experiement conducted by Ehrlich ​et al​.

Ehrlich ​et al ​took a look at auotmobile consumers. He studied how many consumers read

advertisments for the automobile that they bought versus how many people read advertisements

for the vehicle they thought about buying but did not. He concluded that there was no correlation

to which advertisements consumers chose to read. (Oshikawa 47) Ehrlich ​et al ​found that

“Consumers read automobile advertisements not because they experienced dissonance but

because automobile buying was an infrequent undertaking and the topic of automobiles was

relevant and useful to them.” (Oshikawa 45) According to the author of the article and the

studies conducted Cognitive Dissonance Theory is applicable to very limited areas of consumer
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behavior. Published findings in support of the theory are open up to more than one interpretation,

they fail to show that cognitive dissonace is the only possible cause of observed

dissonance-reducing behavior. (Oshikawa 47) I did not like this article for many reasons. I found

the article confusing and hard to follow. I also do not think the article did a good job of relating

Cognitive Dissonace Theory and consumer behavior together.

Both articles attempted to apply the two different theories to real life situations. However

one article was a lot more successful in doing so. In my opinion The ​Gender and GMOs ​article

covered the theory better than the ​Can Cognitive Dissonance Theory Explain Consumer

Behavior? a​ rticle did. I believe this because the first article provided a thorough explanantion of

the survey that was conducted. It explained how the survey was given, who the survey was given

to, and the results. Whereas the other article did not explain how, when or who. The second

article was very brief and uninformative. I also enjoyed reading the first article much more than

the second. I enjoyed the first one more because it was easy to read and easy to follow. I felt like

the second article was all over the place and did not cover the theory throughily.

According to my research and the articles, I have found that both Social Judgement

Theory and Cognitive Dissonace Theory seem to be useful in determing how people are

influenced. Although I believe both theories are useful, Social Judgement Theory is just a bit

more useful. Social Judgement deals with prior beliefs. When a person feels strongly about a

topic it can be near impossible to convince them otherwise. That is why knowing a person’s

opinion beforehand is very useful in predicting if you will be able to convince them or not. In

today’s world people tend to be very close minded and unwillinging to hear other people out.

Social Judgement Theory is useful because if you already know where a person stands on an
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issue you won’t be as dissapointed when you can not persuade them. That is why I believe Social

Judgement Theory is just a bit more useful than Cognitive Dissonance Theory.

Influence is a big part of communication in our everyday lives. Knowing how and why

people are influenced can be very useful. Social Judgement Theory and Cognitive Dissonance

Theory give us a better understanding of why certain people are influenced while others are not.

Both theories provide excellent and relevant information about the topic of influence. After

researching and reading articles about these two theories I now have a better understanding of

influence in communication.
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Work Cited

Griffin, Emory A. et al. A First Look at Communication Theory. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2006.
Print.

Oshikawa, Sadaomi. “Can Cognitive Dissonance Theory Explain Consumer Behavior?” ​Journal
of Marketing,​ vol. 33, no. 4, Oct. 1969, pp. 44–49. ​EBSCOhost​, doi:10.2307/1248672.

Rumble, Joy N., et al. “Gender and GMOs: Understanding Floridians Attitudes toward
GMOs through the Lens of Social Judgment Theory.” ​Journal of Applied
Communications​, vol. 101, no. 4, Oct. 2017, pp. 1–12. ​EBSCOhost,​
doi:10.4148/1051-0834.1845.