Yet Again

The purpose of life is of utmost importance.

Hence, the need to constantly refresh my niyyah (intention).

Alhamdulillah, thank you Allah for the constant reminder.

“Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. -Khalil Gibran-

Checkpoint (III)

Pardon me, for I'm going to rant about the awesomeness of psychological stuff again this time.

And so, I was introduced to the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) by the lecturer as part of the syllabus needed to be covered for my Communication class.

Basically,ELM explains how persuasive influence works with people of high and low cognitive processes using two different routes, namely central and peripheral routes, to bring about attitude change in one self.

Now, the thing with this model is that, it keeps reminding me of how it relates with our roles as servants of Allah.

Aha! Now you might ask how does that even make sense, right?

You know....in the Quran, Allah always mentions of how we're supposed to reflect every single creations of His because that will ultimately lead us to further understand the purpose of them being in this world.

Basically, the message there is to think, think and think, right? Never ever stop thinking...right?

Okay, now I'm getting to the point where this model relates with Allah's words in the Qur'an.

When we keep our mental processes going on and on and on, something is bound to happen to us...jengjengjeng.

Guess what? That attitude of yours towards Allah and His creations gonna change.

Yep, you saw it right. Change of attitudes...!

I mean, on the basis of ELM, the central route states that when a person clearly and deeply think of a message given to him, and finally that message gets through him as to how it works and why it should make sense to him, he will have a strong POSITIVE attitude change in himself on the condition he internalizes the message within himself.

Not a lousy, negative, and temporary attitude change. But a real positive, strong, and long lasting ones!

WOW! Just wow!

Subhanallah! Look at how Allah want to shape us to a fully utilized human being by asking us to use this wonderful and magnificent aqal of ours.

Allah, I am so amazed!!

Just think of this. How many times have you tried thinking the reasons behind Allah's orders and creations?

And with that question in mind, how many times have your understanding towards the matters change?

And finally, how does that change in perception or new understanding cause your attitude to change?

Keep the answers to yourself. Should you find your answers satisfying, do not forget to praise Allah and keep thanking Him for it.

(:

If I were to explain this model in Islamic perspective, it should go like this;

Persuasive message (Message from Qur'an) --> Motivated to Process (Yes) --> Able to Process (Yes) --> Type of Cognitive Processing (Favorable Case) --> Strong Positive Attitude Change (Success!!)

Okay, I think I'm done with the rant. Thanks for making it this far!

If you've read up to this point, that shows that you're one of the people who have high mental effort and is capable of processing Allah's words to bring about strong POSITIVE attitude change in yourself.

p/s: If you are ever interested with ELM, do ask me how the peripheral route works too because that will make the whole idea of taking the central route to process messages more interesting! Haha... ;)