Voters Persuasion Analysis

Becoming an Informed Voter: Understanding Factors of Persuasion
By Kafayat Akindele, Emma Dubay, Stephanie Ramos, and Miranda Tilton

Persuasion is a vital aspect of political campaigns. Voters consume persuasive information about candidates through a variety of resources, such as social media, debates, newspaper articles, and television advertisements. Voters use the information they receive to form opinions and make decisions on which candidates and policies they support, which has real consequences in the world of social change; therefore, it is important to be aware of factors of persuasion that can bias political preferences, such as how people encounter information, how personally relevant they find the candidate’s platforms,
For example, a press conference is likely to be advertised by including the general topic to be addressed by the speaker. While forewarning can be helpful to prepare listeners for what they are about to hear, it can also alter the amount of attitude change that results from hearing the persuasive message. One of the most important factors which determine the effects of forewarning on attitude change is the level of personal relevance the topic has to the listener. A study by Petty and Cacioppo (1997) showed that forewarning about a topic that is considered highly relevant to a person’s life (such as requiring students to take a comprehensive college exam to graduate) is likely to induce premature counter arguments before the listener hears the persuasive argument. Since the listener produces counter arguments before hearing the persuasive message, they are more resistant to persuasion and show less attitude change than those who were not warned about the topic. On the other hand, according to Apsler and Sears (1968), if the issue is of low to no personal relevance then people will be less likely to produce premature counter arguments, instead thinking relevantly but not necessarily negatively, and will thus be more susceptible to persuasion by the message. This was seen when their study attempted to
Although beauty often has no logical connection to the trustworthiness of a candidate’s campaign, attractive communicators are usually more likely to promote attitude change through the superficial route of persuasion. Generally, people like and trust physically attractive people, making them more likely to endorse the attitudes they communicate. This is especially true for people whom the candidate’s message is not important and who have little knowledge of the message’s domain. Furthermore, research has shown that people of cross-cultural differences are attracted to similar physical characteristics and features, which is an important factor to be aware of in America given the population’s wide range of diverse racial and ethnic groups. According to the work of Cunningham, Roberts, Barbee, Druen, Wu (1995), people tend to be specifically attracted to female features that are neonate, sexually mature, expressive, and well-groomed. The combination of neonate and sexually mature features suggest desirable qualities of youthfulness, vivaciousness, post-pubescent status, and competency while expressive and grooming features, such as smiling often and shiny, well-kept hair, suggest happiness and group membership status, respectively. Their studies show that Hispanics, Whites, Asians, and Blacks perceive these features, including lighter skin tones, as