What doesn't kill me makes me stronger: The effects of resisting persuasion on attitude certainty.

The present research proposes a metacognitive framework for understanding resistance to persuasion. It is suggested that when people resist persuasion, they can become more certain of their initial attitudes. Several experiments demonstrated that when participants resisted persuasion, attitude certainty increased, but only when the attack was believed to be strong. For attacks believed to be weak, certainty was unchanged. It was also demonstrated that attitude certainty only increased when people actually perceived that persuasion had been resisted. This increased certainty was shown to have implications for resistance to subsequent attacks and the correspondence between attitudes and behavioral intentions, These findings suggest that when people perceive their own resistance, they form inferences about their attitudes that adjust for situational factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Unpacking attitude certainty: Attitude clarity and attitude correctness.

Attitude certainty has been the subject of considerable attention in the attitudes and persuasion literature. The present research identifies 2 aspects of attitude certainty and provides evidence for the distinctness of the constructs. Specifically, it is proposed that attitude certainty can be conceptualized, and empirically separated, in terms of attitude clarity (the subjective sense that one knows what one's attitude is) and attitude correctness (the subjective sense that one's attitude is correct or valid). Experiment 1 uses factor analysis and correlational data to provide evidence for viewing attitude clarity and attitude correctness as separate constructs. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrate that attitude clarity and attitude correctness can have distinct antecedents (repeated expression and consensus feedback, respectively). Experiment 4 reveals that these constructs each play an independent role in persuasion and resistance situations. As clarity and correctness increase, attitudes become more resistant to counterattitudinal persuasive messages. These findings are discussed in relation to the existing attitude strength literature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A new look at the consequences of attitude certainty: The amplification hypothesis.

It is well established that increasing attitude certainty makes attitudes more resistant to attack and more predictive of behavior. This finding has been interpreted as indicating that attitude certainty crystallizes attitudes, making them more durable and impactful. The current research challenges this crystallization hypothesis and proposes an amplification hypothesis, which suggests that instead of invariably strengthening an attitude, attitude certainty amplifies the dominant effect of the attitude on thought, judgment, and behavior. In 3 experiments, the authors test these competing hypotheses by comparing the effects of attitude certainty manipulations on univalent versus ambivalent attitudes. Across experiments, it is demonstrated that increasing attitude certainty strengthens attitudes (e.g., increases their resistance to persuasion) when attitudes are univalent but weakens attitudes (e.g., decreases their resistance to persuasion) when attitudes are ambivalent. These results are consistent with the amplification hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Resisting persuasion by the skin of one's teeth: The hidden success of resisted persuasive messages.

Recent research has suggested that when people resist persuasion they can perceive this resistance and, under specifiable conditions, become more certain of their initial attitudes (e.g., Z. L. Tormala & R. E. Petty, 2002). Within the same metacognitive framework, the present research provides evidence for the opposite phenomenon--that is, when people resist persuasion, they sometimes become less certain of their initial attitudes. Four experiments demonstrate that when people perceive that they have done a poor job resisting persuasion (e.g., they believe they generated weak arguments against a persuasive message), they lose attitude certainty, show reduced attitude-behavioral intention correspondence, and become more vulnerable to subsequent persuasive attacks. These findings suggest that resisted persuasive attacks can sometimes have a hidden yet important success by reducing the strength of the target attitude. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Guilty by mere association: Evaluative conditioning and the spreading attitude effect.

Five experiments investigated the phenomenon that attitude formation is not confined to the co-occurrence of an attitudinal object with an evaluated experience. The pairing of a target with a (dis)liked person not only affects the evaluation of the previously neutral person but spreads to other individuals who are (pre)associated with the target (spreading attitude effect). Exps 1 and 2 provided evidence for the spreading attitude effect in appetitive as well as aversive evaluative conditioning. Exp 3 showed that the spreading attitude effect is a robust phenomenon resistant to extinction. Exp 4 demonstrated that attitude spread can be transferred to 2nd-order conditioning. Finally, Exp 5 supports the notion that the spreading attitude effect is not dependent on cognitive resources. Implications for social as well as applied psychology are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The pursuit of self-interest: Self-interest bias in attitude judgment and persuasion.

Self-interest affected the direction of attitudes in 4 studies exploring attitude judgment and persuasion. Experiment 1 showed that both self-interest and symbolic concerns predicted attitudes. The biasing role of self-interest in producing the well-known persuasion effects of personal relevance and argument strength was examined by disentangling the competing effects of personal costs and benefits. Experiment 2 used a standard personal relevance manipulation in the absence of supportive arguments and showed that perceptions of personal costs associated with the advocated policy partially mediated its negative effects on attitudes. Experiments 3 and 4 independently manipulated the onset of personal costs associated with an issue and the onset of issue-related benefits conveyed by supportive arguments. Postmessage attitudes were an additive function of personal costs and argument-specified benefits, and perceived costs and benefits biased information processing in a self-interested manner. A revised conception of personal relevance and argument strength is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exploring the structure of strength-related attitude features: The relation between attitude importance and attitude accessibility.

One of the most significant current controversies in the attitude literature involves the latent structure of attitude attributes related to their strength. Four studies were conducted to explore whether 2 strength-related attributes (importance and accessibility) are affected identically by various manipulations (which would suggest that they reflect a single latent construct) and whether the attributes cause one another (which would suggest they are distinct constructs). Three laboratory experiments and 1 survey study show that (a) repeated expression and personal relevance manipulations have different effects on importance and accessibility and (b) increased importance can cause heightened accessibility. Thus, these 2 attitude attributes appear to constitute related but independent constructs. These studies therefore help to illuminate the nature of attitude strength and the interplay of its sources. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The time for doing is not the time for change: Effects of general action and inaction goals on attitude retrieval and attitude change.

Implicit in many informal and formal principles of psychological change is the understudied assumption that change requires either an active approach or an inactive approach. This issue was systematically investigated by comparing the effects of general action goals and general inaction goals on attitude change. As prior attitudes facilitate preparation for an upcoming persuasive message, general action goals were hypothesized to facilitate conscious retrieval of prior attitudes and therefore hinder attitude change to a greater extent than general inaction goals. Experiment 1 demonstrated that action primes (e.g., “go,” “energy”) yielded faster attitude report than inaction primes (e.g., “rest,” “still”) among participants who were forewarned of an upcoming persuasive message. Experiment 2 showed that the faster attitude report identified in Experiment 1 was localized on attitudes toward a message topic participants were prepared to receive. Experiments 3, 4, and 5 showed that, compared with inaction primes, action primes produced less attitude change and less argument scrutiny in response to a counterattitudinal message on a previously forewarned topic. Experiment 6 confirmed that the effects of the primes on attitude change were due to differential attitude retrieval. That is, when attitude expression was induced immediately after the primes, action and inaction goals produced similar amounts of attitude change. In contrast, when no attitude expression was induced after the prime, action goals produced less attitude change than inaction goals. Finally, Experiment 7 validated the assumption that these goal effects can be reduced or reversed when the goals have already been satisfied by an intervening task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Autobiographical elaboration reduces memory distortion: Cognitive operations and the distinctiveness heuristic.

Retrieval monitoring enhances episodic memory accuracy. For instance, false recognition is reduced when participants base their decisions on more distinctive recollections, a retrieval monitoring process called the distinctiveness heuristic. The experiments reported here tested the hypothesis that autobiographical elaboration during study (i.e., generating autobiographical memories in response to cue words) would lead to more distinctive recollections than other item-specific encoding tasks, enhancing retrieval monitoring accuracy at test. Consistent with this hypothesis, false recognition was less likely when participants had to search their memory for previous autobiographical elaborations, compared to previous semantic judgments. These false recognition effects were dissociated from true recognition effects across four experiments, implicating a recollection-based monitoring process that was independent from familiarity-based processes. Separately obtained subjective measures provided converging evidence for this conclusion. The cognitive operations engaged during autobiographical elaboration can lead to distinctive recollections, making them less prone to memory distortion than other types of deep or semantic encoding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exhaustive and heuristic retrieval processes in person cognition: Further tests of the TRAP model.

The twofold retrieval by associative pathways (TRAP) model (L. Garcia-Marques & D. L. Hamilton, 1996) proposes that two distinct modes of retrieval typically underlie recall and frequency estimation. The model accounts for the simultaneous occurrence of greater recall of incongruent information and higher frequency estimation of congruent information. Three experiments provided further tests of the TRAP model. Experiment 1 manipulated cognitive load (at encoding and at retrieval) and the selectivity of the retrieval goal. Under either high load or a selective retrieval goal, incongruent items ceased to be better recalled. Experiment 2 manipulated the accessibility of expectancy-congruent, -incongruent, or -neutral episodes and found corresponding effects in frequency estimates. Finally, Experiment 3 showed that providing part-list retrieval cues inhibits recall but increases frequency estimates. The TRAP model predicted these results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implicit ambivalence from attitude change: An exploration of the PAST model.

Traditional models of attitude change have assumed that when people appear to have changed their attitudes in response to new information, their old attitudes disappear and no longer have any impact. The present research suggests that when attitudes change, the old attitude can remain in memory and influence subsequent behavior. Four experiments are reported in which initial attitudes were created and then changed (or not) with new information. In each study, the authors demonstrate that when people undergo attitude change, their old and new attitudes can interact to produce evaluative responses consistent with a state of implicit ambivalence. In Study 1, individuals whose attitudes changed were more neutral on a measure of automatic evaluation. In Study 2, attitude change led people to show less confidence on an implicit but not an explicit measure. In Studies 3 and 4, people whose attitudes changed engaged in greater processing of attitude-relevant information than did individuals whose attitudes were not changed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The perceived diversity heuristic: The case of pseudodiversity.

One of the normative ways to decrease the risk of a pool with uncertainty prospects is to diversify its resources. Thus, decision makers are advised not to put all their eggs in one basket. The authors suggest that decision makers use a perceived diversity heuristic (PDH) to evaluate the risk of a pool by intuitively assessing the diversity of its sources. This heuristic yields biased judgments in cases of pseudodiversity, in which the perceived diversity of a pool is enhanced, although this fact does not change the pool's normative values. The first 3 studies introduce 2 independent sources of pseudodiversity—distinctiveness and multiplicity—showing that these two sources can lead to overdiversification under conditions of gain. In another set of 3 studies, the authors examine the effect of framing on diversification level. The results support the PDH predictions, according to which diversity seeking is obtained under conditions of gain, whereas diversity aversion is obtained under conditions of loss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why do implicit and explicit attitude tests diverge? The role of structural fit.

Implicit and explicit attitude tests are often weakly correlated, leading some theorists to conclude that implicit and explicit cognition are independent. Popular implicit and explicit tests, however, differ in many ways beyond implicit and explicit cognition. The authors examined in 4 studies whether correlations between implicit and explicit tests were influenced by the similarity in task demands (i.e., structural fit) and, hence, the processes engaged by each test. Using an affect misattribution procedure, they systematically varied the structural fit of implicit and explicit tests of racial attitudes. As test formats became more similar, the implicit-explicit correlation increased until it became higher than in most previous research. When tests differ in structure, they may underestimate the relationship between implicit and explicit cognition. The authors propose a solution that uses procedures to maximize structural fit. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the social nature of nonsocial perception: The mere ownership effect.

Assumes that ownership of an object causes the owner to treat the object as a social entity because ownership creates a psychological association between the object and the owner. Three experiments investigated whether Ss would evaluate an object more favorably merely because they owned it, a bias analogous to other self-serving biases people display. Study 1 confirmed the existence of this mere ownership effect. Study 2 showed that the effect was not due to Ss having greater exposure to an owned object relative to an unowned object. Study 3 showed that the effect may be a specific instance of a general tendency of people to make self-enchancing judgments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of an implemental mind-set on attitude strength.

The authors investigated whether an implemental mind-set fosters stronger attitudes. Participants who made a decision about how to act (vs. those who held off) expressed a more extreme attitude toward an issue unrelated to the decision (Experiment 1). Participants who planned the implementation of a decision (vs. deliberated vs. control) exhibited less ambivalent (Experiment 2) and more accessible (Experiment 3) attitudes toward various objects unrelated to the decision. Moreover, an attitude reported by planning participants better predicted self-reported behavior 1 week later (Experiment 4). Finally, results suggest that the effect of an implemental mind-set on attitude strength toward unrelated objects is driven by a focus on information that supports an already-made decision (Experiment 5). Implications for attitudes, goals, and mind-sets are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Judgment under emotional certainty and uncertainty: The effects of specific emotions on information processing.

The authors argued that emotions characterized by certainty appraisals promote heuristic processing whereas emotions characterized by uncertainty appraisals result in systematic processing. The 1st experiment demonstrated that the certainty associated with an emotion affects the certainty experienced in subsequent situations. The next 3 experiments investigated effects on processing of emotions associated with certainty and uncertainty. Compared with emotions associated with uncertainty, emotions associated with certainty resulted in greater reliance on the expertise of a source of a persuasive message in Experiment 2, more stereotyping in Experiment 3, and less attention to argument quality in Experiment 4. In contrast to previous theories linking valence and processing, these findings suggest that the certainty appraisal content of emotions is also important in determining whether people engage in systematic or heuristic processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethnic diversity and distributed information in group decision making: The importance of information elaboration.

Ethnic diversity may impede groups' use of distributed information in decision making. This is not so much because diversity interferes with groups' ability to reach agreement, but because ethnic diversity may disrupt the elaboration (exchange and integration) of distributed information. The authors find evidence for this proposition in an experiment (N = 63 groups) in which ethnically diverse groups are shown to benefit more from instructions emphasizing information integration than ethnically homogeneous groups when dealing with distributed information, whereas neither ethnic diversity nor information integration instruction affected decision making performance in groups with fully shared information. These effects were mediated by a behavioral measure of group information elaboration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The damaging effect of confirming feedback on the relation between eyewitness certainty and identification accuracy.

The authors investigated eyewitnesses' retrospective certainty (see G. L. Wells & A. L. Bradfield, 1999). The authors hypothesized that external influence from the lineup administrator would damage the certainty-accuracy relation by inflating the retrospective certainty of inaccurate eyewitnesses more than that of accurate eyewitnesses (N=245). Two variables were manipulated: eyewitness accuracy (through the presence or absence of the culprit in the lineup) and feedback (confirming vs control). Confirming feedback inflated retrospective certainty more for inaccurate eyewitnesses than for accurate eyewitnesses, significantly reducing the certainty-accuracy relation (from r=.58 in the control condition to r=.37 in the confirming feedback condition). Double-blind testing is recommended for lineups to prevent these external influences on eyewitnesses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Factors underlying expectancies of success and achievement: The influential roles of need for cognition and general or specific self-concepts.

It has been assumed that task-specific self-concepts are more important than general self-concepts in determining expectancies of success and subsequent achievement. The authors argue here that the influence varies depending on need for cognition (NFC). Findings from Study 1 (N = 104) showed that expectancies of success in an academic task could be predicted from specific self-concept for individuals with a high NFC and from general self-concept for individuals with a low NFC. In Study 2 (N = 193), where cognitive load was manipulated, given a high cognitive load, only general self-concept was predictive of success expectancies, independent of NFC. In Study 3 (N = 197), given a high relevance of correct expectancy ratings, only specific self-concept was predictive of expectancies and actual achievement, independent of NFC. In Studies 4 and 5, the results from Study 1 concerning the prediction of expectancies (as well as achievement) reappeared in a physical and a social domain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)