Epilogue

Abstract

We began this monograph with questions about the likely effectiveness of televised speeches given on New Year’s Day by the American president and the Soviet premier to national audiences in each other’s countries. The research and theory presented in this volume have indicated that communications such as these can produce persuasion via two fundamentally different routes. One route is based on the thoughtful (though sometimes biased) consideration of arguments perceived central to the merits of the issue under consideration, whereas the other is based on affective associations or simple inferences tied to peripheral cues in the persuasion context. When variables in the persuasion situation render the elaboration likelihood high, the first kind of persuasion occurs (central route). When variables in the persuasion situation render the elaboration likelihood low, the second kind of persuasion occurs (peripheral route). Importantly, there are different consequences of the two routes to persuasion. Attitude changes via the central route appear to be more persistent, resistant, and predictive of behavior than changes induced via the peripheral route (see Figure 1-1).