THE ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL - IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PRACTICE OF SCHOOL-PSYCHOLOGY

Understanding the formation and change of attitudes is important to th e practice of school psychology. The review a contemporary theory of a ttitude change, the Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion (ELM, P etty & Cacioppo, 1981, 1986), and address its relevance to school psyc hology. The ELM provides an integrative framework for understanding th e antecedents and consequences of attitude change and specifies the va rious processes by which source, message, recipient, channel, and cont ext variables have an impact on attitudes. A key postulate in the ELM is that attitude change can result from relatively thoughtful (central route) or nonthoughtful (peripheral route) processes. The ELM also ho lds that the more thoughtful the change, the more likely the new attit ude is to persist, resist counterpersuasion, and influence behavior. i llustrations of the utility of the ELM for school psychology are prese nted along with some caveats and research suggestions. (C) 1997 Societ y for the Study of School Psychology.