6.5 Dual Processing Models

The last model commonly used in Persuasion courses is not a single model, but rather three closely related ones: Petty and Caccioppo’s Elaboration Likelihood Model, Chaiken’s Heuristic-Systematic Model, and Kahneman’s System 1 vs. System 2 Thinking Model. The scholars themselves would explain how these models differ, but to many audiences, they all seem to drive at the same idea: when a listener hears or sees a persuasive pitch, they can respond in two distinctly different ways — sometimes giving the pitch a lot of careful thought, and other times responding in very simple ways or making quick decisions.

Petty and Cacciopo’s model is called the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) because one mode involves the listener elaborating on the model, referred to as “central processing” (picture the cerebral cortex responding to the message by kicking into gear and processing the message thoroughly). They call the other mode “peripheral processing” because the listener’s decisions are based on less important factors, such as how something looks.

Chaiken’s Heuristic-Systematic Model of Information Processing uses similar terms, calling the first mode systematic processing of the message, while the alternative is to rely on shortcuts (known as “heuristics” or simple rules of thumb) that bypass the need for deep thinking.

Daniel Kahneman’s model was introduced in a 2011 book called Thinking Fast And Slow, which emphasizes the relative speed of these two modes of thought: System 1 is fast, instinctive, and emotional; System 2 is deliberate, slow, and logic-driven.

In the table above, the elements in the “Complex” column are explored in Chapter 7, the chapter about reasoning and logic; here we’ll focus on elements in the “Simple” column.

In the 2007 film No Country For Old Men, Llewelyn Moss (played by Josh Brolin) needs to cross the border from Mexico into the U.S., and the border guard has reason to be suspicious: Llewelyn has no identification and is wearing only a hospital gown. The guard makes it clear that he alone has the decision-making power, and his tough talk suggests that he is going to base his decision on careful thought: “How do I decide [who enters the country]? I ask questions, and if I get sensible answers, then they get to go to America, and if I don’t get sensible answers, they don’t.”

If the guard knew the reality of the situation — that Llewelyn has stolen a suitcase full of drug money, and is being chased by a hit man — he would not let him in, so the guard would presumably want to know a lot about his situation, citizenship status, and why he doesn’t have identification. But after asking just one question (“How did you come to be out here with no clothes?”), he switches to a different line of questioning: “Are you in the [military] service?” Llewelyn reports that he served in Vietnam in the 12th Infantry Battalion, and the guard is satisfied and lets him in. What level of thinking is that?

The guard’s decision seems to be primarily based on one thing: Llewelyn is a veteran, so he must be a law-abiding, honest citizen (he isn’t). The guard makes his decision in less than 30 seconds, which definitely qualifies as “thinking fast,” he is relying on a heuristic (military means honest), and he spends no time elaborating on the message he hears. Assessments about credibility [Chapter 9] are often made on the basis of appearances, associations, or assumptions — and shouldn’t be.

Heuristics / Peripheral Cues. People in peripheral processing mode employ “mindless reliance on nonessential cues.”^[1] What counts as nonessential or mindless? For this discussion, we can narrow it down to three things:

1. Simple associations
2. Visual appearance
3. “Following the herd” (sometimes called “social proof”: looking to other people as guides for behavior, and assuming that if a lot of people are doing it, it must be the right thing to do).

Beginning with simple associations, let’s think about Russian researcher Ivan Pavlov, and his famous experiment with dogs. He started with the observation that when dogs see food, they start to salivate — a natural (“unconditioned”) response to help them swallow the food. He also recognized that there is no natural reason why a dog should have a physiological reaction to a bell; it’s a sound that on its own means nothing to a dog. When Pavlov put food in front of his dogs, he also rang a bell, getting them to associate that sound with food. After doing this enough times to fix the association in each dog’s mind, he took the food away and the dogs salivated at the sound of the bell alone — an unnatural, “conditioned” response.

Two key points about this kind of association: it’s easy to form, and it doesn’t require any logical or natural basis for the association. A century later, this simple idea has become the basis of a large percentage of advertising. You may think the purpose of advertising is to tout the benefits of a product, but if you look closely at a lot of ads, you’ll see that they don’t actually say anything about the product: their whole purpose is simply to make an association between the product and a lifestyle or a feeling.

If you’re selling a perfume or cologne, for example, people might want to know how it smells, how much it costs, and perhaps how it’s made — but I dare you to find a perfume/cologne commercial that mentions any of those three factors. Instead, you’ll find countless commercials featuring very attractive people living cool lives, with the vague implication that if you buy that same scent, your life will become that cool as well. Similarly, this is why so many banks and financial institutions buy naming rights for sports stadiums: “When you think of your beloved team, think of our bank.”

In terms of visual cues, appearance may or may not mean that a computer is a good one, but Steve Jobs was insistent that Apple computers looked and felt cool, knowing that many people would buy those computers (and later, Apple phones) based on those factors. Appearance is especially important for websites: given the statistics about how much time people spend “sizing up” a website (an average of 52 seconds), it is vital that a home page look attractive. And salespeople know that “dressing for success” is important, shelling out for expensive cars and jewelry early in their career, when they can’t really afford it, because it conveys the message that they must be good at their job.

As for group factors, although many people see themselves as independent thinkers who aren’t influenced by their group, research proves that people imitate those around them much more than they realize.^[2] Think about voting maps such as this one, which shows geographic voting patterns:

If people made up their minds individually about who to vote for, why would there be any geographic patterns at all? Or think of one specific form of political persuasion: yard signs. They rarely contain information beyond the candidate’s name, so how can they have much persuasive power? Even without any details, they do seem to perform two vital functions: they increase name recognition (contributing to the attention phase discussed earlier), and they tell people who their neighbors are going to vote for. Do people really look around and find out what the neighbors are doing before they make up their own minds? So it would seem.

If there are two distinct mental processes that people can use when they are exposed to a persuasive message, why go one way or the other? The choice seems to boil down to three main factors: motivation, ability, and personality.

Imagine a friend who launches into a lengthy argument about why Major League Baseball should institute a hard salary cap. If you care deeply about the topic, your motivation has probably already led you to spend a lot of time thinking about it, and you won’t be swayed to change your mind by simple arguments. But if you’re a casual baseball fan and your friend seems to be making even a small amount of sense, that will probably be enough to get you to agree with them. Is it worth it to you to look up a lot of articles, read them, and take the time to think them through? No; five minutes is about as much time as you want to spend on that topic.

Ability is another factor: if you have a good grasp of the economics of baseball and can track a long discussion about the relative merits of the Competitive Balance Tax vs. a hard salary cap, you’ll stay on it. But if you can’t follow what your friend is talking about, you’ll slip into peripheral processing mode and just think “My friend seems passionate about it, so they’re probably right.”

Finally, some people have the type of personality that is drawn to complex thought, and perk up their ears when someone says “Actually, it’s more complicated than that…”. (In psychology terms, they have a “high need for cognition”). Other people get a headache when things get too complicated, and are more comfortable looking at the world in black-and-white terms.

This mental processing takes place inside the mind of the receiver, of course, so the persuader doesn’t have ultimate control over how the audience responds to the message. However, you can easily recognize when the persuader is encouraging central processing (by posing thought-provoking questions, providing a lot of information, or giving the audience means to do further research, such as including hyperlinks to articles), and when they want the audience to be in peripheral processing mode instead (prioritizing imagery over words, relying on Pavlov-style associations, and keeping things very simple). Since central processing / systematic thinking means that the receiver ultimately makes up their own mind, and since it can take a long time, it’s easy to recognize why most advertisers prefer their audience to be in peripheral / heuristic mode. This is why perfume/cologne commercials don’t tell you anything about the product; it would put the audience in the wrong mindset.

If you are reading this book, that might mean that you have a high need for cognition, just like me (and most college teachers and students). And if you turn on the television and see a lot of commercials that are mindless and simplistic, instead of shaking your head and thinking “Why do they make ads so stupid?,” you can just recognize that you are not in the target audience. (See Chapter 5).