Can You Use Persuasion or Social Influence to Change Prejudice or Stereotyping?

Prejudice and racism have long plagued the United States since its inception. Over the years, racial prejudice has become very unpopular, and it has gone from something that was at one point in time spoken openly to something that people keep to themselves or only said around like-minded people. In order to address these issues, psychologists are ever increasingly trying to come up with ways in order to influence and change behavior. One of the strategies that can be used is the foot-in-the-door strategy in order to facilitate positive behavior towards a disliked group.

The foot-in-the-door strategy involves getting someone to say to a small request immediately before asking for a bigger request (Cialdini & Sagarin, 2005). The whole premise is to create compliance. A way this strategy can be implemented could be to ask someone to watch a five or ten-minute trailer about the disliked group that highlights the plight of the disliked group. If he or she agrees to watch the video, a request to watch a longer thirty minute to an hour long documentary could be use to follow up with that request. The hope would be to create empathy among the viewer in order to influence attitude change (Amodio & Devine, 2005). The whole premise is dependent on whether or not a person agrees to the initial request. If it’s a small enough request, there is a chance that a person will agree to it. If the trailer is convincing enough, there is a chance that he or she would be interested in watching the longer video. The possibility for long-term change is there if the video can create dissonance with the person’s prior belief and how they feel after watching.

As an example, I can use Indians as the target group and the behavior could be an aversion with regards to Indian coworkers. Among the tech industry, there is typically a divide between American workers and Indians because many Americans feel that Indians are taking their jobs. However, a lot of them migrate here seeking a better life than the one they have in India. This could be highlighted by showing video and images of the living conditions in India as well as the state of fighting that is going on over there. The poverty level could be used as a point to create empathy. A lot of Indians I have met send their money back over to Indian because it is more than just themselves they are supporting.

Another tool that can be used in persuading people to change their views is cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance comes about when a person holds two or more contradictory beliefs (Fazio & Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2005). As a result, stress and discomfort build, and a person will seek to relieve that stress by changing their attitude. For example, there is a lot of stigma with regards to people who have a mental illness. It does not matter which mental illness a person has because, in a lot of people’s minds, the illnesses are all the same. The view is typically that people with a mental illness are crazy and that they are harmful to their self and others. Induced compliance could be used in order to change the behavior in a work environment by getting a coworker who holds negative views about people with a mental illness by working on a project with a person who is mentally ill. The hope is that despite the fact that he believes people with a mental illness are dangerous, his experience will show him otherwise and that they are as safe as he is. The dissonance that would be caused is due to his previously held beliefs differing with his current belief and experience.

Lastly, attitude change can be done by way of the central route to persuasion. Many work environments feature countless numbers of people from all across the United States and the world. However, one of the things that happen in these environments is that people tend to stick with the people they know and can relate to. Therefore, despite people of different cultures working in the same workplace, it’s not very diverse. Diversity is about learning from others who are not the same and about creating workplace environments and practices that encourage learning from others.

Under the central route to persuasion, a person reviewing a persuasive message will interpret and form beliefs about its arguments as long as they have the motivation and ability to do so (Petty, Cacioppo, Strathman, & Priester, 2005). Some of the arguments that could be used to promote multicultural diversity is that it promotes culture awareness, employee relations, and it allows people to exchange innovative ideas. In the event that my target audience is not motivated by the message, the message can still be communicated by way of the peripheral route of persuasion. A person may not be motivated by the message, but he or she may decide to agree with it if the person is an expert. If the source appears to be knowledgeable, it is a fair gamble to agree with the message. A person may not want to or cannot think carefully about the persuasive message, so they rely on peripheral cues like source expertise.

References

Amodio, D.M. & Devine, P.G. (2005). Changing prejudice. In T. C. Brock & M. C. Green (Eds.), Persuasion: Psychological perspectives (2nd ed., pp. 249-280). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ↩
Fazio, R.H., Roskos-Ewoldsen, D.R. (2005). Acting As We Feel. In T. C. Brock & M. C. Green (Eds.), Persuasion: Psychological perspectives (pp. 41-62). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ↩
Cialdini, R.B. & Sagarin, B.J. (2005). Principles of interpersonal influence. In T.C Brock & M.C. Green, Persuasion: Psychological perspectives (2nd ed., pp. 143-169), Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage Publications ↩
Petty, R.E., Cacioppo, J.T., Strathman, A.J., & Priester, J.R. (2005). To Think Or Not To Think. In T. C. Brock & M. C. Green (Eds.), Persuasion: Psychological Insights and Perspectives (2nd ed., pp. 81-116). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ↩