Social_Influence_Theory

Applying Social Influence Theories Applying the Social Influence Theory Have you ever wondered why people choose to do the things they do' Is it the right thing to do, are they being influence by something are someone' Social influences change the way people think and the way they react to certain situations. Understanding why they react to these individual changes and beliefs will be the first step in creating persuasive messages. “Three important theoretical perspective can shed light on the process of persuasion: Cognitive Dissonance Theory Elaboration Likelihood Model, and Social Judgment Theory. Though there are many theories that explain the same areas of behavior, these three are among the more popular and serve the purpose of giving a more comprehensive understanding of the process of social influence”( Module 6 Reading). Society and individuals are overwhelmed with messages from a variety of sources including TV and magazines to name a few. These messages promote not only products, but moods, attitudes, and a sense of what is important and what is not important. Commercials affect people more than we realize, they have hidden messages in them and they have always been appealing to society. An example of a mass mediate persuasive message that affected me when I was watching a recording of my favorite soap opera, during the commercial break Whataburger was showing a new bacon and cheese burger, of course it made me hungry and I thought about that burger for hours because of the commercial and I got in my car and headed to Whataburger to buy what I saw on the television, I was not hungry because I had just eaten lunch 2 hours earlier, but I had to have it. Imagine what children think when they see these messages in the media. Fast food is all around us the majority of us eat it and do not realize how it effect our health. Social environment influence what we eat and what we feed our children and the commercials dictate what our children see as healthy, you rarely see commercials talking about sugar free foods are healthy foods but as a society we buy into the hype. Childhood obesity around the world, and particularly in the United States, is a growing problem that is detrimental to our children’s health and this will follow them into adulthood. Parents seem to be oblivious to it all. Allowing their children to watch numerous hours of television or playing video games doesn't seem to be helping the problem. Feeding them fast food simply because it’s easier and quicker is just like adding fuel to the fire. I am very passionate about this, I have an obese child and this is a daily struggle for our family and what he see in the Media does not help. We look to the media for advice and what we see everyone else doing but when It comes to our children’s health we should think about what works best for us and not society turn off the television and get back to basics. In order to understand how we are affected by the mass media and their persuasive messages we must understand what causes us to believe are think the way that we do and this is why we must have an understanding of the social influences which can cause us to change the way we think are act. References DeFleur, M. L., & Ball-Rokeach, S. B. (1989). Theories of mass communication. (5th ed.) New York: Longman. Institute of Medicine. (2004). Childhood Obesity in the United States: Facts and Figures. Retrieved April 1, 2011 from http://www.iom.edu/Object.File/Master/22/606/FINALfactsandfigures2.pdf Module 6 Reading : retrieved March 31, 2011from http://angel03.gcu.edu/section/default.asp'id=678691