Communication
has always been a natural occurrence within the human race. We were all born with voices to tell stories,
give orders, persuade, and if we were lucky enough sing. Sometimes however, when conflict emerges we
use these voices to argue in the hopes of resolution. To specify, argumentation is indeed a process
of communication that we are all known to.
The argumentation-process is said to have a persuasion aspect where one
person tries to persuade another into justifying the opposite’s opinion/message. The most intriguing part of argumentation is its channel of
persuasion. Effective communication is
persuasive, for example: politicians argue, or rather, debate all the time by
channeling persuasion into their messages/propositions. When we argue or debate issues with another
individual we process messages. This aspect
of processing is called the Elaboration Likelihood Model where two
specific types of processing contribute to the retention of a certain message. The two types of message processing are the central
route and the peripheral
route. You could even say that
message retention may contribute to persuasion, which again is effective
communication. The peripheral route is
where the masses of what we hear are processed and not stored for long-term
memory. The central route is where we
apply cognitive effort and carefully attend to important messages that are then
stored for long-term use. Argumentation/Debate
if practiced appropriately is centrally routed according to the ELM because it
requires able attention and able motivation.
However, when two conflicting opinions collide theories like Cognitive
Dissonance and Selective Exposure come into play alongside
the ELM. Cognitive
dissonance is defined as the distressing
mental state that people feel when they find themselves doing things that
don’t fit with what they know, or having opinions that do not fit with other
existing opinions they hold. For
example, imagine an individual who knows the entirety about the health issues
that smoking can cause yet still smokes which inevitably gives his/her child lung cancer due to second-hand smoking.
When arguing/debating with their spouse, their spouse will predictably
express opinions that will cause mental distress or cognitive dissonance in the
individual that smoked. For natural
reasons, this distress or discomfort will want to be avoided which is where
selective exposure becomes significant.
Selective exposure is almost self-explanatory but is defined as the
avoidance of situations that are likely to cause dissonance and acts as a
preventive measure. Politicians
experience selective exposure and cognitive dissonance frequently while in a
debate.
Of course it wouldn’t
be much of a blog without a signature Bond video depicting the theories we’ve
just learned. Here is a video where Bond
attempts to read the body language of the villain in a very significant poker game. According to the ELM, Bond processes his
opponents bluff and body language centrally by applying cognitive effort and
attention to his reads. Cognitive dissonance
begins to occur when Bond believes his opponent is bluffing but isn't a hundred
percent sure. This distress causes selective exposure in
his reads triggering Bond to debate against himself. Ultimately Bond decides to go “all-in” and loses everything.
From a communicative-perspective, his
opponent used effective and purposeful communication through the use of non-vocal persuasion and interpersonal-influence to defeat Bond. Enjoy!
