Elaboration likelihood model
According to the theory's developers Richard E. Petty and John T. Cacioppo, they intended to provide a general "framework for organizing, categorizing, and understanding the basic processes underlying the effectiveness of persuasive communications".
[3] The study of attitudes and persuasion began as the central focus of social psychology, featured in the work of psychologists Gordon Allport (1935) and Edward Alsworth Ross (1908).
Petty and Cacioppo suggested that different empirical findings and theories on attitude persistence could be viewed as stressing one of two routes to persuasion which they presented in their elaboration likelihood model.
[2] With the peripheral route, they are more likely to rely on general impressions (e.g. "this feels right/good"), early parts of the message, their own mood, positive and negative cues of the persuasion context, etc.
If they succeed in accessing and constructing appropriate beliefs, they may feel justified in concluding that they will be academically successful, not realizing that they also possess knowledge that could be used to support the opposite conclusion.
[2] Ability includes the availability of cognitive resources (for instance, the absence of time pressures or distractions) and the relevant knowledge needed to examine arguments.
(See more examples in Postures) For an individual intent on forming long-lasting beliefs on topics, the central route is advantageous by the fact that arguments are scrutinized intensely and that information is unlikely to be overlooked.
It is not worthwhile to exert considerable mental effort to achieve correctness in all situations and people do not always have the requisite knowledge, time, or opportunity to thoughtfully assess the merits of a proposal.
[31] In a study conducted by Rollins and Bhutada in 2013, ELM theory was the framework used to understand and evaluate the underlying mechanisms describing the relationships between endorser type, disease state involvement and consumer response to direct-to-consumer advertisements (DTCA).
[32] This study has suggested that to some extent companies should engage audience in a systematic processing way in social media advertisings, as consumers elaborate along central route will generate more positive attitudes and higher purchase intentions.
The studies showed none of the metrics listed above had a significant effect on the purchasing habits of "educated working consumers,"[33] which means they either have graduate or post-graduate degrees.
[33] Authors Alexis Campbell and Jee Young Chung published an article in the spring of 2022 that explored how consumers reacted to social media advertisements featuring alcohol across the platforms of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
In 2009, Angst and Agarwal published a research article, "Adoption of Electronic Health Records in the Presence of Privacy Concerns: the Elaboration Likelihood Model and Individual Persuasion".
[43] This research studies electronic health records (EHRs), (an individual's) concern for information privacy (CFIP) and the elaboration likelihood model (ELM).
The two researchers aimed to investigate the question, "Can individuals be persuaded to change their attitudes and opt-in behavioral intentions toward EHRs, and allow their medical information to be digitized even in the presence of significant privacy concerns?
It was found that when consumers have higher levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness, central route website contents would be more favorable for eliciting utilitarian shopping value; whereas when consumers have higher levels of emotional stability, openness, and extraversion, peripheral route website contents would be more critical in facilitating experiential and hedonic shopping value", Chen explained.
First, highly skeptical consumers tend to stick with their original impression than been influenced by other factors (Central Route); which means, they are biased against certain types of information and indifferent to the message quality.
[54] The study applied the ELM to online livestream shopping by looking at how millennials would react to other customers' impulsive spending tendencies, ways the people got persuaded, and how different information influenced decisions.
The streaming market has become oversaturated because of this, it is clearly shown in the study which, concluded that "approximately 1.23 million streamers are struggling with low conversion rates on selling products.
[62] Bootb-Butterfield and Gutowski conducted an experiment by providing students with strong or weak arguments from high or low credible sources in print, audio, or video modes.
[63] "Structured evaluations of 12 smoking prevention messages based on three strategies derived from the ELM were conducted in classroom settings among a diverse sample of non-smoking middle school students in three states.
The ELM may provide a useful strategy for reaching adolescents at risk for smoking initiation, but particular attention should be focused on lower academic achievers to ensure that messages are appropriate for them.
"[63] Another research directed by Boyce and Kuijer was focusing on media body ideal images triggers food intake among restrained eaters based on ELM.
She directed a study focusing on the persuasion effects of informational (anecdotal evidence) and testimonial messages (personal stories or experience) in text or audio modes.
[67] Nekmat et al. have suggested that the overabundance of information on social media might not induce audience to heuristic processing; instead, source attributes such as credibility and personalness (which means the closeness of friends in a circle) will be mediated by elaboration cognition.
[94] "While the ELM theory continues to be widely cited and taught as one of the major cornerstones of persuasion, questions are raised concerning its relevance and validity in 21st century communication contexts.
Considering that the ELM was built upon previous empirical research and a diverse literature base to unify disparate ideas, the model is inherently descriptive because of the intuitive and conceptual assumptions underlying.
[100] This area of critique basically lands on the nature of ELM being a dual-process model, which indicates that the receivers will rely on one of the routes (central or peripheral) to process messages and possibly change attitude and behaviour.
Mackenzie et al (1986) advocated a dual mediation hypothesis (DMH) that allow receivers to process the ad's content and its execution at the same time with reasonable vigilance.
Although drawing on the fundamental conception from ELM, such as motivation, ability and continuum, the unimodel suggests a normative and heuristic rules for human to make judgement based on the evidence.
