Research (including some that I have done with my coauthors) has indicated that people are typically more persuaded by similar others. Think of a time in your life, however, when this was NOT the case. In other words, can you think of an instance where you were persuaded by someone who was very dissimilar to you? What was the context? Was it an important context?

With the peripheral route, the person whom we're trying to persuade isn't as involved with the message. So they're really not that motivated by the process. The messages that foster peripheral influence are things such as message order, format, and distractions. It's not as likely to happen in a business-to-business integrative negotiation context as it might be in more of a transactional distributive context. So they're probably going to be persuaded by the central route.

In-person communication is always going to be best, but, of course, that may not always be practical. Even if you're trying to communicate with someone by the central route, there's no such thing as a distraction-free environment. So when receivers are distracted, they're less able to engage in issue-relevant thinking, right? The format of the message is also going to be important as well. There are certain characteristics of the source that are going to help foster peripheral influence.

Now the source is the individual that's conveying the message. If you're processing that information by the peripheral route, you might be thinking, OK, well, this individual has a qualification. Of course, what they're saying must be true. Well, not necessarily. Status differences are important. People tend to look up to people who are higher than them in status.

In sales, it's good to use a referral opening. Your associates, the people who you associate with, are also going to be influential in affecting peripheral influence. Persistence and tenacity are important. Don't necessarily try too hard; if people know you're trying too hard to persuade them, they might tune you out. And if they ask enough times, sometimes the parents are going to be like, "Are you happy now?"

Just please stop talking, OK? So sometimes that can be effective when you're trying to affect change by a peripheral influence if you're persistent and tenacious. But don't go overboard. The attractiveness of the source will also be important in affecting peripheral influence. Sometimes they change the way they convey that message.

So what are some aspects of context that foster this peripheral influence as well as some others? Scarcity effects can be very influential when trying to persuade somebody by the peripheral route. If you can artificially induce a scarcity effect, which is a way of saying, perhaps, this is only going to be available for a limited time, then that may influence people to want to adopt your offering. You can also use reward and punishment. I would be very, very careful when doing this, particularly in a sales or business setting.

How can you inoculate yourself against this? He says, "I'll scratch your back; you'll scratch mine," and that can be effective. So what if you're receiving this information by the peripheral route? What if you are the one who's the target of influence, rather than the one who's trying to influence somebody else?