Persistence of the resistance to persuasion induced by various types of prior belief defenses.

The following hypotheses were tested: (a) the immunity conferred by refutational defenses decays less rapidly than that conferred by supportive defenses; (b) within the refutational-defense conditions, the conferred resistance to attacks by counterarguments (other than the explicitly refuted ones) decays less rapidly than resistance to attacks by the very counterarguments refuted; (c) there is a delayed action effect in the immunity to attacks by novel counterarguments conferred by the refutation defense. Ss served in 2 experimental sessions, the 1st involved reading defensive articles on medical truisms, the 2nd a defensive treatment on another truism and then attacks on previously defended and undefended truisms. All 3 hypotheses were confirmed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivated sensitivity to preference-inconsistent information.

If preference-inconsistent information initiates more effortful cognitive analysis than does preference-consistent information, then people should be more sensitive processors of information they do not want to believe than of information they do want to believe. Three studies supported this prediction. Study 1 found that inferences drawn from favorable interpersonal feedback revealed a correspondence bias, whereas inferences drawn from unfavorable feedback were sensitive to situational constraint. Study 2 showed this sensitivity to the quality of unfavorable feedback to disappear under cognitive load. Study 3 showed that evaluations of the accuracy of favorable medical diagnoses were insensitive to the probability of alternative explanation, whereas evaluations of unfavorable diagnoses were sensitive to probability information. The importance of adaptive considerations in theories of motivated reasoning is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceived choice and resistance to persuasion.

An experiment was conducted to test the prediction that the greater the perceived choice in taking a position, the more resistant to influence the position would be. The Ss were shown summaries of an application for admittance to graduate school in psychology, and were asked to rate the candidate. The ratings were made under conditions of either high or low choice. All Ss were then presented with a strong countercommunication and final ratings were made. The results indicate that high choice in the initial decision increased resistance to influence by the countercommunication. It further appears that, at least in this case, this resistance is manifested primarily by an increased tendency to reject the communication and the communicator rather than in any distortions in memory or ratings of the relevant information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivated feeding in the absence of glucoprivic control of feeding in rats.

Feeding to decreased intracellular glucose utilization was assessed in 13 Sherman female albino rats with bilateral damage to the medial forebrain bundle and in 7 normal rats. Brain-damaged Ss that did not feed to glucoprivation, those that ate normally to glucoprivation, and normal Ss were tested on 3 traditional indices of food-motivated behavior: quinine adulteration of diet, barpressing on a variable-interval schedule of 30 sec, and barpressing on a schedule with a progressive ratio of 2. 4 of the 7 brain-damaged Ss that did not eat to glucoprivation performed like normal Ss on all 3 motivational indices, while all 7 performed normally on at least 2 of the 3. Results support the conclusion that the glucoprivic mechanisms is not necessary for the occurrence of normal food-motivated behavior. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Resistance to persuasion conferred by active and passive prior refutation of the same and alternative counterarguments.

College students were Ss in a study to test hypotheses regarding the vulnerability of arguments to counterarguments. The effect of prior active or passive participation in defense of an idea held; the strength of the present counterargument, and whether the counterargument involved the same or novel material, upon attitude chance was investigated. Differential interaction effects were found which indicated that immunization against change was best only under certain conditions. The results are related to previous work by the author and others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical and in situ cellular responses to Haemophilus ducreyi in the presence or absence of HIV infection

This study examined the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors among low-income women and assessed the level of awareness and attitudes about these risk factors in the community. A survey instrument was developed and administered by a single researcher to a convenience sample of women in health clinics and nonclinical community settings. These settings included: an academic clinic, community clinics, women's shelters, free meal sites, community centers, public housing units, and private homes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Two hundred two women were selected without regard to age or race. The mean number of cardiovascular risk factors per subject was 2.6 (SD 1.4). Each of eight established cardiovascular risk factors was identified by 4% to 34% of subjects. Among those women with a specific risk factor, only 0% to 45% reported that they were at increased risk due to the presence of that factor. The prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors among low-income women is substantial. Knowledge and understanding of these risk factors is suboptimal, particularly among women personally affected by risk factors for cardiovascular disease.     

Dispelling the illusion of invulnerability: The motivations and mechanisms of resistance to persuasion.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 87(4) of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (see record 2007-16901-001). On p. 535, second column, in the third sentence of the Demonstrated vulnerability treatment section, all scale labels should have been included. The sentence should read as follows: The initial question asked them to indicate how convincing they found the ad on a 7-point scale labeled not at all convincing (0), somewhat convincing (1), fairly convincing (2), convincing (3), quite convincing (4), very convincing (5), and extremely convincing (6).] Three studies examined the impact of a treatment designed to instill resistance to deceptive persuasive messages. Study 1 demonstrated that after the resistance treatment, ads using illegitimate authority-based appeals became less persuasive, and ads using legitimate appeals became more persuasive. In Study 2, this resistance generalized to novel exemplars, persevered over time, and appeared outside of the laboratory context. In Study 3, a procedures that dispelled participants' illusions of invulnerability to deceptive persuasion maximized resistance to such persuasion. Overall, the present studies demonstrate that attempts to confer resistance to appeals will likely be successful to the extent that they install 2 conceptual features: perceived undue manipulative intent of the source of the appeal and perceived personal vulnerability to such manipulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitude importance and resistance to persuasion: It's not just the thought that counts.

This research examined individual differences in attitude importance (J. A. Krosnick, 1988a) as a moderator of resistance to persuasion. In 2 studies, individuals who favored allowing gay people to serve openly in the military were aurally presented with a counterattitudinal message. Participants who considered their attitude high (vs low) in personal importance were more resistant to the message. Process analyses revealed that both thought listings and self-reported affect mediated this attitude importance effect. A 2nd study, which also examined message quality, showed that both high- and low-importance individuals were more resistant to a weak (vs strong) message. This effect was explained by the fact that the weak (vs strong) message engendered more irritation and negative affective elaborations. Results highlight the role of attitude importance in motivating resistance to persuasive communications and reveal that the resistance process is both cognitive and affective. Implications for contemporary models of persuasion are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of exogenous changes in heart rate on facilitation of thought and resistance to persuasion.

Conducted 2 experiments to examine the effects of accelerated heart rate (HR) on information processing and resistance to persuasion. Exp I addressed the effects on cognitive performance of manipulating HR exogenously for brief periods. 14 healthy outpatient volunteers wearing implanted demand-type cardiac pacemakers performed reading comprehension and sentence generation tasks while HR was either accelerated or not. Results show that performance was better when HR was accelerated than when it was not. Exp II addressed the effects on counterargumentation and resistance to persuasion of manipulating HR using the cardiac-pacing technique employed in Exp I. 22 Ss read highly involving counterattitudinal communications while their HR was either ostensibly or actually accelerated. Accelerated HR resulted in the generation of more total thoughts and counterarguments than did basal HR; resistance to persuasion was related significantly to the number of counterarguments generated. The methodology provides a means by which social psychologists can study the effects on social processes of actual but unperceived changes in physiological processes. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivated information processing, social tuning, and group creativity.

The extent to which groups are creative has wide implications for their overall performance, including the quality of their problem solutions, judgments, and decisions. To further understanding of group creativity, we integrate the motivated information processing in groups model (De Dreu, Nijstad, & Van Knippenberg, 2008) with work on epistemic social tuning (Lunn, Sinclair, Whitchurch, & Glenn, 2007). Three propositions were advanced: (a) Groups produce more ideas when members have high rather than low epistemic motivation, especially when members also have a prosocial rather than pro-self motivation; (b) these ideas are more original, appropriate, or feasible when a group norm favors originality, appropriateness, or feasibility; and (c) originality is valued more in individualistic cultures (e.g., the Netherlands), whereas appropriateness is valued more in collectivist cultures (e.g., Korea). Four studies involving 3-person groups generating ideas supported these propositions: Epistemic motivation (mild vs. intense time pressure; presence vs. absence of process accountability) stimulated production and originality, especially when prosocial rather than pro-self motives were present and participants were Dutch or originality norms were experimentally primed. When appropriateness norms were primed or participants were Korean, epistemic motivation stimulated production and appropriateness, especially when prosocial rather than pro-self motives were present. We discuss implications for research on group processes and for work on culture and creativity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Use of elaborative interrogation to help students acquire information consistent with prior knowledge and information inconsistent with prior knowledge.

32 factual statements were processed by 140 6th and 7th graders. Half of the statements were consistent with the Ss' prior knowledge, whereas the remaining facts were inconsistent with the Ss' prior knowledge. Half of the Ss were instructed to read the sentences for understanding (reading controls). The remaining Ss were instructed to use their prior knowledge to answer why each fact was true (elaborative interrogation). Two tests of recall (free and cued) and 2 tests of recognition (immediate and 14-day) followed. In Exp 2, Ss also completed 75-day and 180-day recognition tasks. Across all memory measures, elaborative-interrogation Ss performed significantly better than did reading controls. In general, the quality of the elaborative-interrogation study responses did not affect learning. All Ss recognized more prior-knowledge-consistent facts than prior-knowledge-inconsistent facts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relative efficacy of various types of prior belief-defense in producing immunity against persuasion.

"It was postulated that people characteristically defend their beliefs… by avoiding exposure to contradictory information… . Since the person is unmotivated to develop a defense of his belief to the extent that he considers it invulnerable, it was hypothesized that such beliefs are more effectively immunized against persuasion by preexposure to counterarguments… . Second, since the person is unpracticed in the defense of such beliefs, it was predicted that immunizing pretreatments would lose effectiveness to the extent that they required the person to participate actively… in the defense. Finally, an interaction effect was predicted such that the detrimental effect of requiring active participation is greater with the defense involving pre-exposure to the counterarguments than with the supportive defense." The hypotheses were supported. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4GD27M. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivated information processing, strategic choice, and the quality of negotiated agreement.

The authors tested a motivated information-processing model of negotiation: To reach high joint outcomes, negotiators need a deep understanding of the task, which requires them to exchange information and to process new information systematically. All this depends on social motivation, epistemic motivation (EM), and their interaction. Indeed, when EM (manipulated by holding negotiators process accountability or not) was high rather than low and prosocial rather than proself, negotiators recall more cooperative than competitive tactics (Experiment 1), had more trust, and reached higher joint outcomes (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 showed that under high EM, negotiators who received cooperative, rather than competitive, tactics reached higher joint outcomes because they engaged in more problem solving. Under low EM, negotiators made more concessions and reached low joint outcomes. Implications for negotiation theory and for future work in this area are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affect as information in persuasion: A model of affect identification and discounting.

Three studies examined the implications of a model of affect as information in persuasion. According to this model, extraneous affect may have an influence when message recipients exert moderate amounts of thought, because they identify their affective reactions as potential criteria but fail to discount them as irrelevant. However, message recipients may not use affect as information when they deem affect irrelevant or when they do not identify their affective reactions at all. Consistent with this curvilinear prediction, recipients of a message that either favored or opposed comprehensive exams used affect as a basis for attitudes in situations that elicited moderate thought. Affect, however, had no influence on attitudes in conditions that elicited either large or small amounts of thought. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Heuristic versus systematic information processing and the use of source versus message cues in persuasion.

In Exp I, 183 undergraduates read a persuasive message from a likable or unlikable communicator who presented 6 or 2 arguments on 1 of 2 topics. High involvement (HI) Ss anticipated discussing the message topic at a future experimental session, whereas low-involvement (LI) Ss anticipated discussing a different topic. For HI Ss, opinion change was significantly greater given 6 arguments but was unaffected by communicator likability. For LI Ss, opinion change was significantly greater given a likable communicator but was unaffected by the argument's manipulation. In Exp II with 80 similar Ss, HI Ss showed slightly greater opinion change when exposed to 5 arguments from an unlikable (vs 1 argument from a likable) communicator, whereas LI Ss exhibited significantly greater persuasion in response to 1 argument from a likable (vs 5 arguments from an unlikable) communicator. Findings support the idea that HI leads message recipients to employ a systematic information processing strategy in which message-based cognitions mediate persuasion, whereas LI leads recipients to use a heuristic processing strategy in which simple decision rules mediate persuasion. Support was also obtained for the hypothesis that content- vs source-mediated opinion change would result in greater persistence. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Retrieval of attitude-relevant information from memory: Effects on susceptibility to persuasion and on intrinsic motivation.

Examined the distinction between (a) classical views of attitudes as stable dispositions based on beliefs and prior experiences accessed from memory and (b) the self-perception analysis of attitudes as relatively transitory responses dependent on current contextual cues. The access of 159 undergraduates to relevant information in memory was assessed by the number of issue-related beliefs and prior experiences they could retrieve. In Exp I, Ss read a counter-attitudinal message. As expected, Ss with little access to beliefs and prior experiences, in comparison to those with greater access, changed their opinions to be more consistent with the message position. In Exp II, Ss agreed to advocate a pro-attitudinal position for a reward or no reward. As expected, Ss with access to little relevant information in memory inferred their attitudes from their decision to proselytize: Rewarded Ss explained their decision less in terms of their own belief in the position than did Ss who had greater access to information in favor of the position, who tended to attribute their decision to a belief in the topic, regardless of the presence or absence of the reward. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality and persuasion: Need for cognition moderates the persistence and resistance of attitude changes.

Hypotheses about the persistence and resistance of attitudes and beliefs formed by individuals scoring high or low in Need for Cognition (NC; J. T. Cacioppo and R. E. Petty, 1982) were derived from the Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986). In Study 1, both high-NC and low-NC individuals formed evaluatively similar attitudes toward an unfamiliar attitude object (a new product) after exposure to a persuasive message (an advertisement). The newly formed attitudes of high-NC individuals decayed less than the newly formed attitudes of low-NC individuals over a 2-day period. In Study 2, both high-NC and low-NC individuals were persuaded by an initial message that a food additive was unsafe. However, when immediately exposed to a 2nd countermessage arguing that the product was safe, the initial experimentally created beliefs of high-NC individuals were shown to be more resistant to change than the experimentally created beliefs of low-NC individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measurable components of openness to experience.

Administered a questionnaire containing 114 true-false items to 383 undergraduates. 16 factors were extracted which indicated openness to particular kinds of experience. Correlations of these factors to other variables were examined using a personality battery. 7 large-variance factors were further studied using 219 Ss. Results support the validity of the factors. The final 83-item questionnaire, the Experience Inventory, contains scales assessing (a) aesthetic sensitivity vs. insensitivity, (b) unusual perceptions and associations, (c) openness to theoretical or hypothetical ideas, (d) constructive utilization of fantasy or dreams, (e) openness to unconventional views of reality vs. adherence to mundane and material reality, (f) indulgence in vs. avoidance of fantasy, and (g) deliberate and systematic thought. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affective and cognitive meta-bases of attitudes: Unique effects on information interest and persuasion.

The authors investigated the predictive utility of people's subjective assessments of whether their evaluations are affect- or cognition driven (i.e., meta-cognitive bases) as separate from whether people's attitudes are actually affect- or cognition based (i.e., structural bases). Study 1 demonstrated that meta-bases uniquely predict interest in affective versus cognitive information above and beyond structural bases and other related variables (i.e., need for cognition and need for affect). In Study 2, meta-bases were shown to account for unique variance in attitude change as a function of appeal type. Finally, Study 3 showed that as people became more deliberative in their judgments, meta-bases increased in predictive utility, and structural bases decreased in predictive utility. These findings support the existence of meta-bases of attitudes and demonstrate that meta-bases are distinguishable from structural bases in their predictive utility. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)