Research studies suggest that ‘immunized’ audiences are surprisingly resistant to later appeals.
Our cat has the daily trauma of making decisions about whether to cross the threshold of the front door to come in or out. It’s her call, and it’s always a tough decision. She prevaricates, pauses, reconsiders, and, when coming inside, frequently looks back as if she will never see the great outdoors again. We wait while she decides. And then we wait some more. I’m told it’s called “threshold anxiety,” a pattern not uncommon among cats. This behavior may explain why they have so successfully evolved. It seems like a waste our of time. Even so, there is a kind of parallel in our behavior. Experimental research on what motivates people to change shows that we are also a wily species prone to stay put.
To humans, an attractive gateway to a new attitude almost always looks like a trap. We don’t like to rearrange the mental furniture that is in our heads. And so we stay as we are, even when what is on the other side of the threshold looks so inviting.
There is a persuasion strategy that builds off this tendency. Used at the right time, it’s almost foolproof.
The effective appeal is called inoculation. An inoculation message is a warning to not be taken in by certain communications from a different source that soon will be heard from. This tactic is entrenched in many forms of persuasion—from political campaigns to court trials to prevention messages in health campaigns. The theory predicts that a persuader who delivers a message of caution about a future ploy to win us over can “inoculate” us to resist. When trial lawyers begin their opening statements to a jury noting that the other side “will try to convince you . . . ” they are inoculating. Likewise, when a friend tells us that another friend is making the rounds looking for volunteers, we may be motivated to arm ourselves with a good excuse to say no. The first warning increases already-high levels of audience skepticism, thereby ruining the second persuader’s chances. The warning is a trigger to freeze in place.
In persuasion research there aren’t many strategies where you can bet the farm on an outcome. But you can pretty much count on an immunized audience to not be effected by a later appeal.
There is strong evidence to suggest that exposure of preteens to inoculation messages work well.
Think of inoculation in terms of its metaphoric origins. Just as immunization can prevent disease by introducing a benign form that triggers the body’s defenses, so it seems equally possible to do much the same in a persuasive message. For example, there is strong evidence to suggest that exposure of preteens to anti-smoking messages work if they play out scenarios that suggest manipulation. For example: “films and friends may try to convince you that smoking is cool,” or “cigarette companies try to make you addicted so that you will be a customer for (a shortened) life.” Older teens? Not so much. It’s clear that a prime condition for effective inoculation involves being the first in line to issue a warning. Older kids have been inoculated in a different way. They have heard so many warnings that they have become immune to new lectures.
His utterances come with a vast victimology that ranges from the press, to former friends and GOP allies, to loyal members of his cabinet.
Our President seems unnaturally sustained by a rhetoric of grievance. Any event that calls for a public comment includes lines that alert us to his belief that he has been the victim of grave injustices. It hardly matters where he is: speaking to the boy scouts, holding a press conference with foreign leaders, in the comfortable womb of a Fox News, or acting out a kind of sundowners syndrome in reverse, with incoherent morning tweets mixing self-pity and verbal abuse. And so one morning we learn that it’s “sad” that even Republicans “do very little to protect their President.” (Tweet of July 23). That self-referential quote is typical and also concerning in its switch to the Nixonian third person. With these kinds of utterances comes a vast victimology that ranges from the press, to former friends and opponents, to loyal members of his own cabinet.
Presidents typically emphasize transcendent values in their comments.
This is all uncharacteristic coming from the person who holds what was until recently the position of “leader of the free world.” And its 180 degrees from where a President’s traditional public rhetoric should be.
Presidents typically emphasize transcendent values in their words. John Kennedy’s quotable Inaugural Address called on Americans to fulfill the nation’s basic goodness. Trump’s will be remembered for his offensive description of America as a dystopian land of “carnage,” a tasteless dig at his predecessor seated a few feet away.
I can remember when the nation was shocked to hear a president level criticism of an American industry. Presidents didn’t do such things. The occasion was the 1962 decision of United States Steel and others to raise the price on its basic product. President Kennedy feared it would feed inflation. In a press conference he bristled with frustration at the news. He thought he had an understanding with company leaders, but was blindsided by the announced price rise anyway. His annoyance was the headline of the day.
Even so, we don’t remember JFK as an angry man. The steel issue consumed no more than a few moments in a press conference. Instead, we remember the countless times he used the presidential pulpit to celebrate American institutions, innovators and ordinary citizens. He had the grace and apparent modesty to let his actions speak for themselves. And we had the sense that he was bigger than his small frame; a charismatic if cautious tactician able to absorb setbacks without demanding that others notice.
For many younger Americans like myself Kennedy was also the model of cool, the presidential equivalent of a musician like Miles Davis or the young actor Ben Gazzara. Their personas were slightly enigmatic and their words were measured, understated to let their talent do most of the talking. They are a long way from the needy billionaire installed in the White House who is defined by his daily whining.
