Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion (10 marks)

One model of persuasion is the elaboration likelihood model which suggests two routes to persuasive communication depending on whether the audience is likely to focus on the message itself of on other factors surrounding the message.

​The First route, The Central Route, focuses on the message itself and requires the audience to really think about what is trying to be put across to them. Therefore the message must be put across convincingly and it is more likely to be effective when the message is personal or important such as a charity appeal. The second route, The Peripheral route, focuses on the content of the message rather than the message itself and does not require the audience to think about the message as much. This involves things such as celebrity advertisement and is more likely to e used when the message is less important such as a sales advert.

Petty and Cacioppo (1981) say that people differ in their need to know more about a topic based on facts or ‘need for cognition’. Those who have a high need for cognition are more likely to be persuaded using a central route and those with a low need for cognition more likely to be persuaded using a peripheral route.

Vidrine et al (2007) supported peoples different need for cognition by exposing them to either a fact-based (central route) or emotion-based (peripheral route) smoking risk campaign. It was found that those with a higher need for cognition were more influenced by the fact-based message whereas those with a low need for cognition were more affected by the emotion-based message. This supports the Elaboration-Likelihood Model for persuasion as it shows that people are more influenced by different messages supporting the need for two different routes.

A criticism of the ELM however is that it is oversimplified as it assumes that the two routes do not occur at the same time, but Benoit (2008) suggested that two routes can be processed at the same time and overlap each other and that you can be both thinking about the message and thinking about the context of the message both at the same time. It is also a very westernised model which may not apply to the persuasive effects of the media in other cultures.

Although it can be praised for taking into account peoples free will and individual differences and recognises that similar messages can be processed differently by different people which a lot of models, such as the Hovlnd-Yale Model, fail to take into account.