This case also seemed to require Nicholas to make two decisions – whether to speak
out about the abuse she had suffered, and whether to do it with Kitchin. Both
decisions were carefully thought out in a process that bears all the hallmarks of CRP‐
based processing. Before exploring that process, it is worth discussing Kitchin’s
approach, which was subtle and multi‐faceted and seemed to operate on both PRP
and CRP levels.
Kitchin’s approach, through Nicholas’ father, helped pave the way to a successful
approach to Nicholas. As will be shown, his approach to her optimised the chances
of success in terms of both ELM and Cognitive Dissonance approaches to
persuasion. Taking the ELM first, his pitch clearly allowed for both peripheral route
(PRP) and central route processing (CRP), whether he intended this or not. To deal
with the PRP first; he emphasised his credibility, by referring to successful cases he
had undertaken. This encouraged Nicholas to see him as an expert – something we
know was important to her, because she later confirmed this by checking him out on
Google. He also emphasised she could trust him, by referring her to people who
could vouch for him. He also used social attractiveness – he dressed in a way that he
thought would appeal to this family on this matter – down to earth, non‐threatening,
certainly not an authority figure. While Nicholas thought him scruffy, she was not
put off by this, and it may in fact have worked as Kitchin intended. Lastly, he had
“kind eyes” and a “good handshake” – both appeals to social attractiveness which
initially at least, made a good impression, and probably helped her process his
message that Dewar may have duped her and there was a cover‐up of her case.
However, as Nicholas makes clear, he did not rely on these peripheral cues alone.
Dewar was not her friend, as he had claimed to be, and therefore to allow Kitchin to
pursue the story. How Dewar had misbehaved was of direct personal relevance to
her, and thus it is easy to see this became an issue of high involvement for her that
required CRP. We know she used CRP because she says that what swung his appeal
to her was that “he had the evidence”(L. Nicholas, 2008). Kitchin’s message, which
presented the “good Dewar” and the “bad Dewar”, was even more persuasive, in
ELM terms, because it was two‐sided, and posed as a question. Further evidence that
she used CRP comes from her quick and accurate recall of this conversation, the
number of thoughts that were generated in response to his message (she checked
him out on Google), and that eventually it predicted her behaviour, in that she did
actually act on her changed attitude about Dewar. However, this action came much
later, so we need to be careful how we interpret this.
The ELM literature is clear that message sender credibility factors, in particular
trustworthiness, expertness and attractiveness, can operate as either peripheral or
central cues, depending on the situation. Also, message senders of questionable
trustworthiness elicit more elaboration than those perceived to be trustworthy (R. E.
Petty, et al., 2009, p. 138). Kitchin came into Nicholas’ life cold, as a complete
stranger, with a difficult message to deliver to someone very disinclined to trust. At
first glance this may seem to have been a disadvantage, but in fact Kitchin’s relative
lack of credibility may have acted to his advantage, by encouraging Nicholas to
think harder about him and the issue in general than might otherwise have been the
case if she had already known, trusted and respected him.
In one sense Nicholas was accepting of peripheral cues, because she said she would
generally give people the benefit of the doubt; but she clearly also thought carefully
about Kitchin’s trustworthiness and expertness. If she had perceived him to be
reliable on both scores, she could simply have accepted his message. As it was, she
was persuaded on the spot by the content of his message (“He had the evidence”)
expertness, and remained “wary”). She had no idea who he was, what the
newspaper was that he came from, and why he was bringing the subject up. When
she found he had expertise, she still reserved judgement on his trustworthiness.
Thus her lack of knowledge about him increased the likelihood of her elaborating on
his message. By emphasising his expertness – mentioning the previous cases he had
done – she was able to check this and quickly establish that his message was
probably worth listening to and processing. Thus she clearly seems to have
processed these peripheral cues centrally – she did not just take his word for it, but
scrutinised it carefully and checked it out. For someone as serially betrayed as
Nicholas, trust of unknowns was clearly a high involvement issue, and it seems to
have operated as a central route cue in this case. As she says, “I was still very wary”
and “over time he proved his honesty and integrity” (L. Nicholas, 2008). Trust and
integrity were not things she simply accepted at his word, and they thus seemed to
function as evidence for a message that was centrally processed. Nonetheless,
because she had already accepted the validity of his message that Dewar had duped
her, she probably did not need to rely too much on these credibility cues for this first
decision about whether to accept his message. But both these cues would become
more important when she came to make her second decision, as we will see shortly.
While Nicholas had accepted Kitchin’s message to pursue the story to see where it
went, she had not at that stage finally decided to go public with it in the news media.
As she says, they needed to do the interview, then Kitchin needed to go away and do
more research, and then look at it again to see if there was a story. While Kitchin had
been successful in changing her attitudes (convincing her that Dewar was not her
friend, and that this issue was worth looking into more), he had yet to persuade her
to change her behaviour (to stop being silent about it).
Nicholas was still wary, but as it became clearer that Dewar had lied, and what he
had lied about, her anger grew. Unlike Smith, she did not appear to have some
she did on another part of the decision); she simply was not entirely convinced at
that point. However, as the evidence accumulated, she became more convinced, and
her anger at her mistreatment grew accordingly. An important moment came when
she realised Dewar had deliberately misled her about whether she had been violated
with a police baton. Dewar had claimed, at the time of her rape trials in the 1990s,
that she had not told him about this incident. Nicholas thought she had. The seeds of
doubt Dewar planted clearly helped undermine her confidence about taking the
issue further. When Kitchin showed her that Dewar was mates with Rickards,
Shipton and Schollum, she realised he had a motive to lie about the baton, and as she
says, “that’s when the anger started”(L. Nicholas, 2008). From there it was a short
step to agreeing to Kitchin’s request to approach Dewar with a hidden microphone
and getting him to admit he had known about the baton incident. Here was clear,
indisputable evidence that Dewar had lied to her. It seems likely that the lingering
self‐doubt about the reliability of her memory suddenly lifted, and was replaced by
anger at the way she had been used. This was hugely empowering moment for
Nicholas, and it is no wonder she recalls it easily.
However, while she had made the decision to pursue the story of Dewar with
Kitchin, she makes clear that the decision to name Rickards was a separate one that
involved further thought. As she says, it was a “huge” decision, because of his
position and influence. She makes clear that eventually his position did not come
into it – he could have been the “King of England”, but he still needed to be held
accountable, despite the potential impact on the offenders’ children (L. Nicholas,
2008). Nicholas makes it clear this was a difficult decision for her. This may be
because her own experience of abuse as a child made her particularly sensitive to the
vulnerability of children to adult behaviours. This concern of hers that children
should not be involved is so emphatically expressed that it should count as a
strongly held value that she had to overcome before she could accept Kitchin’s
Kitchin helped her through this part of the decision‐making process, helping her
clarify her thoughts, and when resolve faltered, reminding her of the need to speak
out, to counter her fears and concerns. This helped her overcome her strongly held
value, in the same way that Smith overcame her concern not to speak ill of people
she was closely connected to. Nicholas also clearly accepted Kitchin’s argument that
these people needed to be held accountable, and that it was important to expose
them to stop the same thing happening to others. Thus Kitchin’s approach operated
on both the peripheral and central route levels; his manner and credibility helped
her accept his arguments peripherally, while the solidity of his factual evidence
meant that when she was able and involved enough to use CRP, the argument was
persuasive on that level too. This case demonstrates also that one simple pitch is not
enough; the journalist has to be constantly in touch, so that each new counter
argument can be dealt with as it arises.
As one review of ELM effects found:
Information will be most successful in producing enduring changes
in attitudes and behaviour if people are motivated and able to
process the information, and if this processing results in favourable
thought and ideas that are integrated in to the person’ relatively
enduring cognitive structure … one of the most important
determinants of motivation to think about a message is the
perceived personal relevance of that message …. An important goal
of any persuasion strategy aimed at enduring change will be to
increase people’s motivation to think about the message by
increasing the perceived personal relevance of the communications
or employing other techniques to enhance processing. (R. E. Petty, et
Kitchin achieved this neatly, in three ways. Firstly, he made clear the potential
outcome of the story, and how it would benefit her. Secondly, he ended his key pitch
with a question: which Dewar did she believe? Thirdly, he used multiple sources;
not just himself, but also her parents.
Characteristics of attitudes changed by CRP include being relatively easy to access
from memory, held with high confidence, persistent over time, predictive of
behaviour, and resistant to change. Nicholas’s attitudes seem to exhibit these
characteristics; her memories were recalled lucidly and easily during the interview,
were expressed with resolve and confidence, and clearly reflected her behaviour.
Thus we can say with considerable confidence that Nicholas used CRP for a
substantial part of her processing of Kitchin’s message.
Merely producing an attitude change does not mean the message recipient will
change their behaviour. (R. E. Petty, et al., 2009). Kitchin’s approach was remarkably
successful at changing Nicholas’s attitudes about Dewar at the first meeting, and
later about Rickards and the others through his subsequent contact with her. But as
she makes clear, she was still undecided about whether she should act on that new
information by speaking out through Kitchin. So in one sense she had two decisions
to make about this core issue for her– one to change her own attitudes, and then
whether to change her behaviour (of keeping silent about the issue).
The second decision was a much harder one. It seems impossible to explain this part
of Nicholas’s decision‐making process without reference to the role of emotion, and
particularly anger. She is clear that the anger she felt helped her finally decide to go
ahead with the story.
As discussed in Chapter Three, the role of emotion in persuasion is still unclear.
Models which suggest how it might work include Nabi’s Cognitive Functional
Model (1999) Turner’s Anger Activism Model (2007), and the Iterative Reprocessing
the level and direction of elaboration, provided the message‐related goal aligns with
the action tendency of the message‐induced emotion. Nicholas was considering
Kitchin’s suggestion that she speak out about Rickards, but she was constrained by
her concern about the impact of publicity about him on his children. While Kitchin’s
message was not explicitly an appeal to become angry, it nonetheless had that effect,
and should be considered an anger appeal in this context. Nicholas became angrier
at Rickards, when she perceived people might think he should not be challenged
because of his position. This anger helped concentrate her mind on the arguments
for and against speaking out, and by her own account, helped influence her to speak
out. This speaking out can be seen as an example of approach, or attack, in line with
the action tendency of anger. Thus, in CFM terms, the message‐related goal
(speaking out) did align with the action tendency (approach, or attack) of the
message‐induced emotion (anger) and did change the level and direction of her
elaboration and led to her speaking out. The AAM develops this idea, but argues
that the extent to which whistleblowers process an anger appeal will depend on the
intensity of their angry feelings and their perception of efficacy. This model also
seems relevant here. Nicholas certainly had intense feelings about Rickards. As she
says: “I got my shit rag out” (L. Nicholas, 2008). A strong argument could also be
made that Kitchin increased her perception of her own efficacy, by giving her an
outlet (publication) and increasing her sense that she could change her situation
through using it. The problem with both of these models, however, is that they don’t
explain how and why the anger arose when it did. Why did she not become angry
earlier, when Kitchin was also suggesting she take on Dewar?
There is also an argument for the application of Cognitive Dissonance Theory here.
Cognitive dissonance can be described as the psychological discomfort felt when a
core belief no longer aligns with reality. A discredited belief – one that no longer
accords with reality – can be maintained if an individual’s support group also
by laying out the opposing scenarios on his first approach. He first showed her the
“good” Dewar – the one she then believed – then laid out the alternative scenario –
the “bad” Dewar. The evidence he had was compelling – at least enough to agree to
help him pursue the story. There is some evidence of the psychological discomfort
necessary for CD at this stage; one of her core beliefs, that Dewar was on her sides,
was starting to crumble; she cringed and thought “you got me” (L. Nicholas, 2008).
Nicholas’s support group – her family – were present when she heard these
arguments and were also convinced and thus could not help her sustain a
discredited belief. Stronger signs of CD came later, when the further evidence
Kitchin produced – that this man in authority had lied – provoked extreme anger in
her, and she “got [her] shit rag out” (L. Nicholas, 2008).
An argument can be made that until that time, despite her negative experiences at
the hands of some relatively junior police, that another core belief was that the
higher levels of the police hierarchy would do the right thing. But after the
revelation of Dewar’s duplicity, and the cover‐up of his duplicity, that core belief
was starting to be challenged as well. However, for this belief to be challenged, she
needed to be persuaded that the police hierarchy knew about Dewar, and did
nothing. This is why her comment about Robinson and other politicians knowing
was important; it stripped away the last prop ‐ that if they had known, they would
have done something. As Kitchin showed her, with evidence, they had known, and
had done nothing (apart from ordering an inquiry and moving Dewar). With Dewar
no longer a person she trusted, and no longer able to maintain her confidence in the
integrity of the police hierarchy, she experienced cognitive dissonance, due to the
anger‐based psychological discomfort she felt at having a core belief challenged.
According to CDT, to reduce the psychological discomfort, she had to act, by
changing her core beliefs, about Dewar, and about the police hierarchy. This she
clearly did; we know that she was convinced by Kitchin’s research that there had
The second instance of CDT was when Nicholas was conflicted over naming
Rickards and the others. She was concerned at the impact it would have on their
children, as she strongly believed children should be protected if possible. Kitchin
helped her through this by pointing out the inconsistencies of her taking
responsibility for protecting the children from their fathers’ actions, given that they
had already been involved by them. Nicholas also experienced discomfort over
accusing Rickards, as she appeared to believe that as a high‐ranking member of
police she was not worthy of accusing him. She resolved this herself, by reminding
herself that regardless of his position he should be accountable. All these situations
meet many of the criteria for CDT; disconfirmed beliefs were present, there was
social support for such beliefs, the issues were important to Nicholas and touched on
her self‐concept (e.g. don’t involve children); Nicholas chose freely to think about the
issues; the messages provoked discomfort, they required extensive thinking to
resolve, and there was evidence of attitude change. Kitchin’s chances of success were
further reinforced because his approach aroused cognitive dissonance, which
required action to resolve. As with Smith, by engaging her close family in the
decision‐making process, he reduced the chances of Nicholas being able to sustain a
disconfirmed belief and therefore being able to maintain an irrational belief.