Blog Post 2

I think the first effect of robocalls, yard signs, and bumperstickers is that it exposes you to the name of the candidate. This serves a very practical purpose on the basic level, which is that it lets you know who is running for the office. On top of that, though, it actually persuades you to vote for that candidate by a psychological principle called the familiarity effect. The familiarity effect says that the more familiar you are with an idea or person, the more you will favor it over others and the more you will feel warmly about it. Therefore, if you see a million road signs that say vote John Johnson, then one or two that say vote Robert Robertson, odds are you will favor John Johnson. Of course, in this case there is another dynamic – peer pressure. Despite the instant vision of middle school that this term conjures, peer pressure and the desire for conformity are a huge driving force. In fact, I can recall watching a study (again, in psychology) where the participant is put in a room with a group of actors, and is told that he/she is to participate in a perception study. Then the whole group is shown small groupings of lines so that they could say which line was longest, and the actors (pretending to be participants) would all choose the same wrong line. Eventually, the actual participant would simply agree with the rest of the group, despite seeing that the other members are obviously wrong.

As to rhetoric strategies, I would say that they usually appeal to your emotions, which is a very strong appeal, and which allows them to use somewhat less than factual claims. However, they appeal to different audiences. Robocalls, I would say, would only work on the older generation, or people who have more patience. For example, I know that I would never sit through a political recording over the phone, but my grandmother would listen to the whole thing before telling them at the end that she is a strong republican. Yard signs, I would say, are more useful on people who are driving or living near the person with the sign, simply based on repetitious viewing (again, familiarity and peer pressure). Bumperstickers are slightly different. There is absolutely no room for actual information, and so they use catchy slogans to attempt to get you to remember the idea, but again is there to get you to become familiar with and favor the idea that it put forward.