Elaboration Likelihood Model Summary

The journal article “Examining Sex Differences in Altering Attitudes about Rape: A Test of the Elaboration Likelihood Model” details a study that uses the Elaboration Likelihood Model to examine how attitudes toward rape change and which route, central or peripheral, was more compelling. The researchers clearly state their six hypotheses that focused on the differences in beliefs between men and women during a pretest, posttest, and follow-up assessment regarding rape and sexual assault. This study is important because of the growing epidemic of sexual assault and rape in the United States, but most specifically women on college campuses. According to the investigators, the purpose of this study is to find out if the recent addition of rape education programs truly decreases rape-supportive attitudes. More specifically, if changes in methods of delivery have a greater effect. The analysts define the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) as two routes of attitude change, which are the peripheral and central. The model suggests that when people lack the motivation to hear a message, they are more likely to attend to peripheral cues such as expertness, attractiveness, or trustworthiness of the presenter. Whereas, when people have a high level of personal involvement and are motivated to hear a message, they
They describe the advancements in past research from the first study related to general attitude change in 1968 to the most recent study that incorporated the use of the ELM when measuring attitude change. However, the review only mentions one rape prevention based investigation. The literature review may have benefited from incorporating more studies that are closely related to the specific research topic of rape and sexual assault. In spite of the broadness of the review, the references used in this article are recent in regards to the year the article itself was written, which is