It is important to understand the difference between causation and correlation, as both persuaders and those receiving persuasive messages.
In this forum, you will be required to explain the difference between those concepts, as outlined in Magee, and apply them to a specific scenario.
Here is the scenario
Bob is in charge of the local waterpark. At the beginning of the summer, he built a new waterslide for his park. At the end of the summer, he saw that his ticket sales were double what they were a year ago. Based on this limited information, please do the following:
Explain the difference between causation and correlation. Explain whether we can assume the introduction of a new waterslide “caused” an increase in ticket sales: Explain why it is important to determine causation when creating and analyzing a persuasive message. Your initial response must be 300 to 350 words in length. Please support your claims with examples from the text, required and recommended material, and/or scholarly articles, and cite your sources.
Week 2 Discussion
Causation and correlation might happen at the same time, however, correlation does not simply imply causation. Therefore, causation simply applies where action A had caused or produced the outcome B. On the other hand, correlation simply denotes that Action A relates to B. However, not necessary that action A had caused action B (Madhavan, 2019). From the scenario given, we can assume that the introduction of the slide caused an increase in ticket sales. Therefore, many of the tickets sold last year were get doubled after the introduction of the new water slide. Here we can assume that the selling of the tickets was related to the introduction of the waterslide.
It is so because, before the introduction of the new waterslide, the waterpark was still earning great profits and selling around 700 to 1000 tickets a day. Hence, it will be wrong in saying that both events are interconnected with each other. Moreover, the term causation implies an important and huge role in persuasive messages. The attribution theory suggests that the casual nature of the message influences people’s judgment about message accuracy and helps in undertaking persuasive message analysis. The theory of attribution had been characterized as one of the persuasive influences on social psychology (Hunt, Donzal & Kernan, 2022).
The narrative persuasion is also important to be considered and analyzed in causation because it implies how the narrative communication may affect the attitudes and behavior of the people during the event (Dahlstrom, 2010). Therefore, it hardly considers structural variables which might affect the delivery of the event causation. Causation in a persuasive message helps in understanding the credibility of the message as to what caused the event and what the outcomes associated with it. Therefore, the sender of the message may know that the respective event had provided profits for the organization or losses.
References
Madhavan, A. (2019). Correlation vs Causation: Understand the Difference for Your Product. Retrieved on 25th July 2022, from: https://amplitude.com/blog/causation-correlation
Hunt, J.M, Donzal, J.T & Kernan, J.B. (2022). Causal Attributions and Persuasion: the Case of Disconfirmed Expectancies. Retrieved on 25th July 2022, from: https://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/6009/volumes/v09/NA-09
Dahlstrom, M.F. (2010). The Role of Causality in Information Acceptance in Narratives: An Example From Science Communication. Retrieved on 25th July 2022, from: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0093650210362683
