Page 105 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

98 The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

half (from 10 percent to 5 percent). In the latter presentation, the difference
in the employment rate between programs J and K is not as radical. The
argument for program K loses its validity because the numbers representing
the employment rate in both programs appear to be comparable. This ex-
plains why the subjects evaluating the programs switched their attention to
the inflation rates—12 and 17 percent for programs J and K, respectively.
This difference becomes vital for the presentation oriented toward
employment.
The problem presented above can also be approached within the cate-
gories of positive and negative frames. In the first presentation, unemploy-
ment creates a negative frame. This is why the subjects adopting this
perspective focus on the unemployment rate and choose the program that
promises to reduce it. In the second presentation, the workforce employed
rate creates a positive frame, so the public sensitivity to the issue weakens.
As a result, it is the inflation rate that attracts the most public attention. It
is also evident from the case under analysis that negative and positive
frames are strongly connected with motivational processes: we avoid un-
employment and we strive toward increased employment.
In general, the majority of social issues and the solutions proposed
by various political parties can be presented from either a positive or a
negative perspective. For example, a far more powerful persuasive mes-
sage comes from the presentation of a method by which the number of
homicide cases can be reduced by half (from 4 percent to 2 percent) in
a city populated by more than a million people in contrast to a method
that tries to enhance the sense of safety by just a “tiny ratio”—from
96 percent to 98 percent. Although the real change regarding this societal
issue is exactly the same, the former attempt to define it uses a negative
frame focusing on public dangers, and hence attracts more attention and
evokes increased public alertness. The second method presents the prob-
lem in a positive perspective. It stresses the issue of public safety. The
public focus and public alertness are not as strong when the problem is
presented this way.
The differentiation of societal issues, showing the growing or falling
percentage of the occurrence of these issues, can always be presented in a
positive or a negative frame. However, one must bear in mind that apart
from the frame adopted to increase or decrease the sensitivity of the ad-
dressee to the message, this sensitivity is additionally influenced by the
ratio-difference principle if the problem is expressed in terms of percent-
ages. Research by Kahneman and Tversky (1979) provided solid ground
for the implementation of prospect theory in the field of controlling the
power of persuasive messages in the context of mental accounting. This