Social Inoculation Theory

Tip 1 - Inoculation theory - Oxford Reference

A theory of resistance to persuasion according to which most ordinary attitudes and beliefs are more or less resistant to change through having been exposed to repeated mild attacks. The theory predicts that cultural truisms that most people have never heard being questioned, such as It is a good idea to brush your teeth three times a day if possible, should be more vulnerable to persuasion, and this counter-intuitive prediction has been confirmed by experiments. The theory is based on the biological analogy of an organism that has been raised in a sterile, germ-free environment and that appears robust and healthy but is in reality vulnerable to infection, because it has not had the opportunity to develop defensive antibodies. Cultural truisms have also never been attacked, and defensive arguments have therefore never been developed, but their resistance to persuasion can be markedly increased by a process of inoculation, which involves exposing the recipients to relatively weak arguments against the truisms together with rebuttals that the recipients are either presented with or are required to think up for themselves. When the cultural truisms are later exposed to strong persuasive attacks, they turn out to be much more resistant to persuasion, even when the arguments used in the attacking messages are different from those presented in the inoculation procedure. The theory was formulated in 1964 by the US psychologist William J(ames) McGuire (1925–2007). See also attitude change. [From Latin inoculare, inoculatum to implant, from in into+oculus an eye or a bud]

Tip 2 - Attitude Inoculation: Definition, Explanation & Examples - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

Every day, other people try to persuade us into changing our attitudes and behavior. In this lesson, we discuss a couple of ways to resist...
Tags: Attitude Inoculation: Definition, Explanation & Examples - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

Tip 3 - SurroundHealth: Inoculation Theory

The Inoculation theory, developed by William McGuire in 1961, is useful in preventing a target audience from acquiring a negative behavior. The theory states that if an audience is informed of the dangers and/or negative consequences of a certain behavior, they are less likely to adopt the negative behavior when persuaded to. The attempts at persuading the audience can be done formally through commercial media or informally by a peer. The name of the theory comes from analogy made...

Tip 4 - Have Your Children Had Their Anti-Smoking Shots?

Studies of attitude inoculation, conducted in junior high schools and high schools throughout the country, demonstrated that brief interventions using attitude inoculation dramatically reduced rates of teenage smoking.
Tags: Clinical and Developmental Psychology, Psychology Matters,,attitude inoculation, teenagers, smoking rates, arguments, children,,Children, Parenting, Teens,