Over the course of one day, keep a diary of all the various attempts to influence your behavior and beliefs and whether or not they were successful. Look for messages coming from a wide array of sources including television, radio, print media, billboards, product packaging, etc. In addition, be sure to make note of persuasive appeals that come from interactions with friends, family, teachers, sales clerks, strangers, and others you encounter during the day. Be on the lookout for any indirect or non-obvious efforts to persuade.

Attitudes may serve a variety of functions. Researchers who support this functional view of attitudes suggest that the best way to change attitudes is to create appeals that address the underlying function of the attitude. Similarly, advertisers often create ads that target a specific attitude function. For example, an ad for a shampoo implying that "Shampoo X leaves your hair clean and shiny" targets the utilitarian function of attitudes. An ad for a shampoo that implies "using Shampoo X controls dandruff so your friends won’t be ashamed to be seen with you" targets a social adjustive function. In this case, the message is that having a positive attitude toward Shampoo X will help you maintain positive relationships with others.

Your assignment is to find examples for THREE of the following five functions: Knowledge, Ego-defensive, Social Adjustive, Value Expressive, and Utilitarian. For each of the functions you select, you should begin by defining the function. Next, describe the ad that targets this function. What is the product? What happens in the ad? And so on. Finally, explain how the ad targets that particular function. The ads you select may be actual ads from television, magazines, billboards, etc. or ads that you create yourself. Attach a copy of the ad if you can. You may use any product, issue, or person as the object of your ads.

Cognitive dissonance arises when two cognitive elements (attitude, beliefs, behaviors) are inconsistent with one another. Dissonance can operate in a variety of situations such as justifying attitude-discrepant behavior, justifying decisions, and justifying effort. Write a paper (2 pages or so) describing a personal dissonance experience. Be sure to specify the kind of inconsistency that created the dissonance (e.g., Was it an inconsistency between attitude and behavior? Between two attitudes?) and explain how you resolved the dissonance. Did you change your attitude or use one of the other dissonance-reduction strategies? If you have not yet resolved the dissonance, describe how you think it will eventually be resolved.

Advertisers often attempt to persuade by making use of heuristic cues, by playing on our basic motivations, and by preparing us to resist persuasion from other advertisers. Listed below are some specific examples of these techniques. In addition to those listed below, you may choose any of the techniques discussed in class or in the readings. For FIVE of these techniques, find an ad that makes use of the technique. Describe the technique, explain why it is often persuasive and when it will be persuasive, describe the ad, and explain how the ad uses the technique to persuade.

Expertise heuristic

Message length heuristic

"You get what you pay for" heuristic

Attractiveness heuristic

Appeals to emotions (e.g., fear appeals, humor)

Classical conditioning

Systematic Processing

This assignment involves writing reaction papers (3-5 pages) to several of the longer readings for class (the Kilbourne book and the Cialdini book). The specific content of these papers is up to you, but can include things like your evaluation of the reading, any personal reactions to the reading, integration of the reading with other material, etc.