+ Real world application – It dealt with attitude change in practical ways and, indeed, much of the research is still relevant today and can be seen in advertising, speech writing and use by ‘spin doctors’ such as Alastair Campbell.
- Doesn’t explain how persuasion actually happens – Perhaps the greatest weakness of the Hovland-Yale approach is that it only really concentrates on the steps in the persuasion process, and doesn’t really offer an explanation of how persuasion actually occurs.
- Assumption that understanding a message leads to persuasion – The model assumes that attitude change always derives from an understanding of a message. This is obviously an important factor and probably the main reason behind persuasion and attitude change, but this does not guarantee that people are persuaded. For example, the Elaboration Likelihood model shows that persuasion can still occur even when a message is not fully understood or learned.
- Methodological issues – A lot of the research into persuasion and attitude measurement is faulty. For example, one of the main methods used is self-reports such as questionnaires, these can be unreliable and result in invalid date.
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