PSYC 110N Week 4 Attitude and Persuasion Write-Up Example

Course	PSYC 110N Psychology
Week	4
Paper type	Attitude and persuasion write-up
Length	About 520 words, 5 pages
Format	APA 7 student paper
School	Chamberlain University
Program	BSN general education
Updated	October 2026

Free sample paper for PSYC 110N Week 4

Attitude and Persuasion Write-Up on a Roommate's View of the Flu Shot: The Attitude Taken Apart Into Belief, Feeling and Readiness to Act, Which Messages Arrived and From Whom, Which Route Changed It and Why Specificity Matters

Student Name

Chamberlain University

PSYC 110N: Psychology

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

What this page is doingThe title splits the attitude into its components and asks which route the change came by, which keeps the write-up from treating attitude as one thing.

The Attitude, Taken Apart

My roommate, an accounting major, said in September: "I don't do flu shots. They make you sick and I never get the flu anyway." Belief: the vaccine causes illness and is unnecessary. Feeling: mild dislike and a memory of a sore arm two years ago. Readiness to act: no intention of getting vaccinated.

What this page is doingBreaking the attitude into belief, feeling and readiness shows which part any message would need to change.

What Arrived, and From Whom

Message 1: a campus email from student health with statistics on flu hospitalizations. Message 2: a social media post from a favorite athlete saying the athlete got a flu shot. Message 3: my explanation, as a nursing student, that the flu vaccine contains inactivated virus or a protein and cannot cause the flu, and that a sore arm is a common side effect.

The three messages differed in source, form and how much thought they asked of the listener. That variety is what lets the write-up ask which one did the work.

What this page is doingListing each message with its source sets up the comparison of routes that follows.

Which Route the Change Came By

The elaboration likelihood model distinguishes a central route, in which people think carefully about the strength of arguments, from a peripheral route, in which cues such as an attractive or famous source drive change without much thought (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). My roommate ignored the email, liked the athlete's post and argued with me for twenty minutes, asking how an inactivated virus works. That argument was central-route processing. In October my roommate said, "Fine, it can't give you the flu. My arm will hurt though."

The Attitude Against the Conduct

The belief changed, but the behavior did not follow at once. My roommate still had not been vaccinated by Halloween. Attitudes predict behavior better when the attitude and the behavior match in how specific they are: a general attitude toward vaccines predicts general patterns, while an attitude toward getting this flu shot at this clinic this week predicts that act (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977).

What this page is doingExplaining the gap between changed belief and unchanged behavior with the specificity principle shows the write-up applying theory, not repeating it.

Matching the Specificity

I asked, "Would you get it if the pharmacy on campus does it in five minutes on your way to class Wednesday?" My roommate said yes, and did, on November 5.

What It Shows

Central-route change produced a durable belief. The behavior followed only when the intention was made specific. A peripheral cue may have helped by making the topic seem normal, but there is no way to tell from one case.

It also suggests something about my role. I did not change my roommate's mind by being a nursing student; the argument changed it, and my roommate did the thinking. A source can open a conversation, but the change came from the content.

References

Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1977). Attitude-behavior relations: A theoretical analysis and review of empirical research. Psychological Bulletin, 84(5), 888-918. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.84.5.888

Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 19, 123-205. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60214-2

What the PSYC 110N Week 4 assignment asks for

Choose one attitude held by someone you know, with their permission, or one of your own. Break it into belief, feeling and readiness to act, quoting the person where possible. List the messages that reached the person and who sent each. Use a persuasion model from the unit to explain which message changed which part of the attitude, and by what route. If behavior did not follow at once, explain the gap with a principle about attitudes and behavior. Report what finally changed the behavior, if anything did. Close with what the case shows and what it cannot show, such as whether a peripheral cue helped. Keep personal details of the other person to a minimum.

How this PSYC 110N Week 4 example is built

The attitude section quotes the roommate and separates the belief that the vaccine causes illness, the feeling from a sore arm and no intention to act. The messages section lists a student health email, an athlete's post and the writer's explanation of inactivated virus, and notes how much thought each asked for. The route section uses Petty and Cacioppo (1986) to read a twenty-minute argument as central-route processing. The gap section explains delayed action with Ajzen and Fishbein (1977) on specificity. The matching section reports the roommate agreeing to a five-minute campus pharmacy visit and getting the shot on November 5. The last section separates the source from the content.

PSYC 110N Week 4 rubric: what full points look like

Instructors look for an attitude analyzed in parts and a model applied to evidence. A paper that describes a conversation and concludes the person was persuaded loses the most. Credit goes to belief, feeling and readiness separated, messages listed with sources, a route identified with evidence such as the person's questions, the attitude-behavior gap explained and an outcome reported. Health information in the paper must be accurate. Both persuasion and attitude-behavior sources should be cited in APA. Respect for the other person's privacy and views should be visible in how they are described. A paper that shows which part of the attitude moved first, and what was still needed for action, uses both theories as they were meant to be used.

PSYC 110N Week 4 help: mistakes that cost points

Write-ups most often slip by treating attitude as one thing, so the paper cannot say which part changed. Another frequent gap is naming the central route without evidence of careful thinking. Some papers assume behavior follows belief at once and do not explain a delay. Others include health claims without checking them. If the person's attitude did not change, analyze why the messages failed using the same model. A write-up that shows exactly which part moved, and what finally turned an intention into an act, shows the theory doing explanatory work. Write down the person's questions during the conversation; they are your best evidence of which route their thinking took.

Get a PSYC-110N Week 4 example written to your instructions

Send the assignment instructions and rubric from your own classroom and a PSYC-110N Week 4 write-up comes back inside 24-48h, the evaluation taken apart, the route argued and the gap measured. There is no charge for the first. If your section supplies the episode, send it across and the write-up gets built onto that material instead.

More PSYC 110N papers and BSN general education samples

PSYC 110N Week 4 questions, answered

Does the episode have to be a real conversation?

No. A constructed episode scaled the same way works as well, and in this course it often works better, because the write-up is about the evaluation the person is carrying rather than about the craft of the message. What the marked rows need is a before state, an influence arriving under describable conditions, and conduct afterward. A word-for-word record is neither required nor especially useful.

What if the attitude did not change at all?

That is a legitimate paper and sometimes a stronger one. Resistance has its own account in the course material: the person had thought the question through already, the source triggered a push back against being steered, or the message asked for more than a small step. Name the mechanism you think held the evaluation in place, then forecast what a different approach would have to do to move it.

Does the write-up have to commit to one persuasion theory?

Commit to one as the main account, then note where a second would read the episode differently. Running two at equal weight across a short paper usually produces two half-arguments and no verdict. The exception is where your classroom's instructions ask for a comparison outright, in which case the comparison is the assignment and the example is built that way instead.

Where can I find a free PSYC 110N Week 4 sample paper?

Read the full PSYC 110N Week 4 write-up on a roommate's view of the flu shot below, from belief and feeling to the specific plan that led to vaccination.

Why did behavior lag belief in the PSYC 110N Week 4 sample?

The roommate's general belief changed, but attitudes predict acts best at the same level of specificity; a plan for a five-minute shot on Wednesday finally matched the act.