Does anybody here have a lot of knowledge in social psychology who has an opinion on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM)? The model appears to me to be tautological, but the sources I’ve looked at seem to indicate it’s widely accepted. It feels to me as if the central route vs. peripheral route is determined essentially by whether the participant tells you it’s central or peripheral and strong or weak arguments similarly are determined by the participant’s opinion, and not any objective measure. The model throws off my BS detector, but I can’t dismiss it when a lot of researchers specializing in this field seem to think very highly of it.
Does anybody here have a lot of knowledge in social psychology who has an opinion on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM)? The model appears to me to be tautological, but the sources I’ve looked at seem to indicate it’s widely accepted. It feels to me as if the central route vs. peripheral route is determined essentially by whether the participant tells you it’s central or peripheral and strong or weak arguments similarly are determined by the participant’s opinion, and not any objective measure. The model throws off my BS detector, but I can’t dismiss it when a lot of researchers specializing in this field seem to think very highly of it.