Daniel J. O’Keefe
Owen L. Coon Professor Emeritus
Department of Communication Studies
Northwestern University
Online lectures for undergraduate course
in
persuasion theory and research
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
These are lectures from an undergraduate course at Northwestern University titled “Theories of Persuasion.” The broad purpose of the course was to provide students with a conceptual toolkit for thinking about how to craft effective persuasive messages across diverse circumstances.
The lectures were recorded in 2020 and 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The lecture list below includes links to the recorded lectures, the accompanying handouts (if any), and the “study guide” for the lecture. The study guide, posted after each lecture, consists of questions—not exam/quiz questions, but rather the kinds of questions a tutor might ask in a one-on-one encounter in order to lead a student through the material. The primary purpose of the study guides was to help students prepare for the exams; there was nothing on the exams that wasn’t in the study guides.
LIST OF LECTURES (WITH LINKS)
lecture 00: Spring 2021 first day of class
lecture 01: concept of persuasion, concept of attitude, attitude measurement, assessing persuasion
lecture 02: social judgment theory (part 1)
lecture 03: social judgment theory (part 2)
lecture 04: belief-based approaches to attitude
lecture 05: functional approaches to attitude
lecture 06: reasoned action theory (part 1)
lecture 07: reasoned action theory (part 2)
lecture 08: elaboration likelihood model
lecture 09: balance theory
lecture 10: dissonance theory (part 1)
lecture 11: dissonance theory (part 2)
lecture 12: source factors (part 1)
lecture 13: source factors (part 2), message factors (part 1)
lecture 14: message factors (part 2)
lecture 15: message factors (part 3)
lecture 16: receiver factors
Daniel J. O’Keefe home page
Department
of Communication Studies
School of Communication
Northwestern University