Review Of Central And Peripheral Routes To Persuasion

Social Psychology defines persuasion as a combination of persuasive arguments and the
number of arguments used in a message to influence the persuasion. There are two routes to
Persuasion and they are the Central and Peripheral. The central route states that by using
arguments that are direct and pertinent the likelihood of successful persuasion is high. The
central route is successful in reaching motivated and analytical people. Under the central route, if
arguments are strong and convincing then a change in attitude is greater as opposed to weak and
non-compelling arguments. The disadvantage to the central route is that the receiver must be
motivated to analyze the message if not, then the message will be lost.
The peripheral route persuades the incidental cues associated with pleasure through the senses or
a pleasing environment or situation. The receiver will be persuaded by factors that have nothing
to do with the message, if they are not able to focus on the actual content of the message. The
receiver is not considering the pros and cons of an issue therefore a cognitive responses is less
likely to occur. Factors that can influence the peripheral route are positive and negative cues,
attractiveness and expertise of the factors.
A couple of other factors to consider with persuasion is the involvement with processing the
information. Whether the involvement is high or low for the receiver. The central route has a
high involvement with the receiver which leads to more enduring attitude change. The
peripheral route has a low involvement where persuasion depends on non-message factors.
        The number of arguments is another factor of persuasion. The quantity and quality of   an
arguments play a key part in persuasion. Increasing the number of arguments, the more the better
theory, works well when personal relevance is low. People are too lazy to put in the mental effort
to evaluate a message. Increasing the number of...