[1] Unlike the direct technique of Persuasion, Self-persuasion is indirect and entails placing people in situations where they are motivated to persuade themselves to change.
[2] Thus, with self-persuasion, people are convinced that the motivation for change has come from within, so the persuasion factors of another person's influence is irrelevant.
Self-Persuasion, also has an important influence in Social judgment theory, Elaboration Likelihood Model, Cognitive Dissonance and Narrative paradigm.
It wasn't until later that the theory of self-persuasion was developed by Dr. Carl Hovland, of Psychology, who had conducted studies during his time at Yale University during the 1940s and '50s.
His argument in creating the concept of self-persuasion was that the factors within us determine our decision-making; for example, one's personality, self-esteem, education, or interest.
A good example would be if a parent informs their child to do well in school and if levels of success are achieved, then rewards will follow.
Next, they judged the validity of a standard set of statements representing both views and again expressed their opinions on the same issue.
Final opinion judgments were influenced by the assigned position's direction even though the role-playing task was not performed.
It was concluded that the effectiveness of role-playing in inducing opinion change may be due in large to its success in getting subjects to evaluate.
Role-playing is also a way for people to develop certain skills such as listening, conflict resolution, and management effectiveness.
Issue importance, within self-persuasion, is to be treated in terms of the priority of self-interest that is at stake for individuals as members of a significant group.
[14] However, individuals who utilize self-persuasion before a speech or a social gathering, can alter their attitudes before they receive a message.
Anticipatory shifts occur when individuals merely expecting to hear a counterattitudinal communication, will then change their attitudes in the direction of the anticipated message.
Based on theory, the research identified that attitudes served a multitude of purposes and needs involving the importance of psychological function.
Many attitudes serve a utilitarian function,[15] helping to maximize the rewards and minimize the punishments obtained from objects in the environment.
Such utilitarian attitudes serve to summarize the outcomes intrinsically associated with objects and to guide behavioral responses that maximize one's interests.
In the pro and counter approach, self-persuasion relates directly to the ice cream and whether or not to take part in it.
In theory, when trying to self-persuade, the counter-attitude effects one's mind can have on self-persuasion could be related to the counter-effects within the body.
A fundamental of the social judgment theory surrounds two internal elements present with every individual, the first being the anchor point more commonly referred to as attitudes.
The key factor in selecting the routes in ELM is involvement; how much a person thinks and invests in a subject to form an opinion.
When a person is actively thinking and internally processing the content of a subject, elaboration is high and will most likely follow the central persuasive route.
However, when a person is not interested in a subject elaboration is low, which will result in information processed through the peripheral route.
This model proposes that when people are motivated to process information and are cognitively able to engage in the subject, they make decisions through the central route.
For example, a person who suffers from lung cancer may be more motivated to consume information on smoking cessation programs actively.
Festinger theorized the key to relationships between various cognitions fall into one of three categories: The amount of dissonance, and the corresponding mental distress relies on two basic factors: 1) the importance of the cognitions, where the greater the personal value of the elements is, the greater the resulting level of dissonance.
In one interpretation, drive is a key factor, “Dissonance theory, in general, concerns the relationship between various cognitions.
[24] One of Festinger's rivals, as referred by many - Daryl J. Bem offers his alternative to the theory and calls it self-perception.
“Self-awareness, one's ability to respond differently to his behavior and its controlling variables, is a product of social interaction”(p. 199).
[26] Walter Fisher's Narrative Paradigm Theory posits that all meaningful communication is a form of storytelling or giving a report of events and that human beings experience and comprehend life as a series of ongoing narratives, each with its conflicts, characters, beginning, middle, and end.
The primary function of the paradigm is to offer a way of interpreting and assessing human communication that leads to critique, a determination of whether or not a given instance of discourse provides a reliable, trustworthy, and desirable guide to thought and action in the world.