Attitude Change Social psychologists have found that as

Chapter 5, Problem 55A

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Problem 55A

Attitude Change Social psychologists have found that as the discrepancy between the views of a speaker and those of an audience increases, the attitude change in the audience also increases to a point but decreases when the discrepancy becomes too large, particularly if the communicator is viewed by the audience as having low credibility. Suppose that the degree of change can be approximated by the function

D(x) = –x4 + 8x3 + 80x2,

where x is the discrepancy between the views of the speaker and those of the audience, as measured by scores on a questionnaire. Find the amount of discrepancy the speaker should aim for to maximize the attitude change in the audience. Source: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.