Persuasive Influence
Persuasion messages are designed to arouse or stimulate needs. It must cause an action or bring about an attitude. This requires that the message tell the target how to satisfy its needs by following the course of action. In order to get the action or attitude desired, the message must, in the opinion of the target, offer the best solution (or the only logical one) toward solving the problem addressed or in fulfilling target needs.
The social psychology of influence investigates the causes of human change in behavior, attitude and belief. Social influence is employed by an agent or practitioner upon a target. The agent's message is called its advocacy. Inducing attitude change is called persuasion while change in belief is called education or propaganda- depending on perspective. Behavioral change which doesn't require the target to agree with the advocacy but to simply perform a behavior is defined as compliance. (Playing muzak over a loudspeaker will empty a parking lot full of teens without having changed their attitudes. Some restaurants play faster-paced muzak at peak service periods, to make people move faster and clear out.) Six main categories of tactics employed by compliance agents and intelligence practitioners to produce 'yes' responses are related to fundamental psychological principles of persuasion that dominate human behavior: comparison, liking, authority, reciprocation , consistency, and scarcity. These cues appeal to mechanisms like: "Others Are Doing It - I Should, Too"; "I like the Source - I Do What Is Requested"; "the Source Is an Authority - I Can Believe It"; "Someone Gives Me Something - I Should Give Something Back"; "When I Take a Stand - I Should Be Consistent"; "When It Is Rare - It Is Good". These compliance rules are put to best use when the receiver is not carefully, deeply, and systematically thinking but uses heuristic mental shortcuts to save time and effort. The systematic mode refers to a thought process that is active, focused and alert while the heuristic mode is, just thoughtful enough to be aware of the situation, but not thinking carefully enough to catch flaws and inconsistencies. Situational and personality variables like relevance and comprehension affect the mode of thinking. While "arguments" appeal to systematic thinking, a lower level of cognitive attention will be better influenced by cues.