Psychological analysis of persuasion in communicating religious and moral information
Abstract
Persuasion research implies that the impact of verbal and nonverbal messages on listeners’ attitudes may be moderated by the relevance of the issue to their personal values, i.e. involvement. The aim of this article is to present the process of persuasion which takes place while communicating religious and moral information. It concentrates on psychological aspects of communication including vocal styles, argument quality, and involvement in religious issues. It is hypothesized that people process both verbal and vocal information depending on the level of their involvement. In the experiment participants listened to a speaker who presented a persuasive message. Verbal content of the message (strong or weak arguments) and vocal style of the speaker (partnership and domineering) varied. Besides, the participants were analysed in two groups characterized by high vs low involvement. The results suggested that the level of involvement moderated attending to the verbal and vocal content. High involvement participants engaged in extensive and careful processing (central route), whereas low involvement participants were not scrutinizing carefully the presented information (peripheral route). The former group was far more receptive to the verbal and vocal content than the latter.
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