The Elaboration Likelihood Model: A 30-Year Review

Over the past three decades, the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), introduced by social psychologists Richard Petty and John Cacioppo (Petty, 1977; Petty & Cacioppo, 1981; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), has generated a great deal of attention from individuals and organizations interested in better understanding processes underlying attitude change and persuasion. Prior to the development of the ELM, reviews of the persuasion literature documented conflicting findings regarding the influence of many persuasion variables (McGuire, 1968; Wicker, 1969; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1972; Himmelfarb & Eagly, 1974; Kiesler & Munson, 1975; Norman, 1976; Greenwald & Ronis, 1978; Sternthal, Dholakia, & Leavitt, 1978; Rogers, 1983). By organizing existing theories and findings using the overarching theme of the likelihood of elaboration of message content, ELM researchers were able to explain these seemingly inconsistent findings. ELM theorists built on the frameworks developed by their predecessors. The central route of the ELM is based on the 1960s and 1970s cognitive response model of persuasion (Greenwald, Brock, & Ostrom, 1968), which was developed in response to data that did not fit the predictions of the message learning perspective of Carl Hovland and colleagues in the 1940s and 1950s. By positing that attitudes or attitude changes that appear equal could be the result of different underlying processes, the ELM challenged the dominant views of single process models of the time (e.g., Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Awareness of the ELM and other dual processing frameworks (cf. the Heuristic-Systematic Model-see Chaiken, 1980) has led advertising practitioners and researchers to ask a wider range of questions about the manner in which various variables might influence persuasion outcomes.