Personality and Persuasion
Are certain people more gullible than others? What differentiates the gullible from the canny? Should communicators take personality into account when devising messages?
These questions are the ones typically asked when we think about the role personality plays in persuasion. It is commonly believed that certain people are more susceptible to persuaders' wiles than others. When you read about schemes to defraud the elderly, Internet credit card hoaxes, and religious cults' success in attracting new recruits, you may suspect that certain people are more vulnerable to persuasion than others. This issue has intrigued researchers and is the focus of this chapter. As has been true of other topics, the myths surrounding the issue of personality and persuasion are plentiful. The first section of the chapter reviews, then debunks, simplistic notions of personality and susceptibility to persuasion. Subsequent sections focus on personality factors—stable aspects of an individual's character—that influence persuasibility, or susceptibility to persuasive communications.
We commonly assume there is a certain class of people who is most susceptible to persuasive communications. Researchers have tried mightily to discover just who these people are. Initially, researchers speculated that people low in self-esteem might be especially inclined to acquiesce to persuasive communicators. They argued, in essence, that if individuals were “down on themselves” or doubted their abilities, they should be highly likely to yield to others, particularly experts. However, this hypothesis has not received much empirical support. Individuals with low selfesteem are not invariably more suggestible than those high in self-regard