Persuasiveness of in-group and out-group political messages: The case of negative political campaigning.

Two experiments investigated the processes underlying evaluation of in-group and out-group political messages from candidates involved in a negative political campaign. The effectiveness of different types of attack messages depended on (a) the political affiliation with the source and target of an attack message and (b) the justification provided for the attack. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the content of the attack messages affected evaluations of an in-group candidate but not of an out-group candidate. Experiment 2 indicated that the use of "apparent justification" for attack messages resulted in more positive evaluations of an out-group source but diminished preference for an in-group source. The results indicate that although participants were sensitive to message content from both in-group and out-group sources, less stringent criteria were used when evaluating out-group political messages that when evaluating in-group political messages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Majority and minority influence: Source-position imbalance as a determinant of message scrutiny.

Two experiments addressed the issue of whether endorsement of a position by a numerical majority or a minority leads to greater scrutiny of the information presented in a persuasive message. In Exp 1, a counterattitudinal position was endorsed by a majority or a minority and was supported by strong or weak arguments. Argument quality had a larger impact on attitudes with majority than with minority endorsement. In Exp 2, a proattitudinal or a counterattitudinal message was endorsed by a majority or a minority and was supported by strong or weak arguments. When the source and message position were unexpected (i.e., majority-counter and minority-pro messages), argument quality had a larger impact on attitudes than when the source and message position were expected (i.e., majority-pro and minority-counter messages). Thus, either majority or minority endorsement can enhance message scrutiny if the source-position pairing is surprising. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of referential communication: Deciding that a message is uninformative.

Investigated whether young children typically attend to the age of the speaker when they lack knowledge of other communicative rules. Two experiments compared how children evaluate 3 types of uninformative messages (ambiguous, incomplete, inconsistent) and whether and why the speaker's age affects the evaluation of each. In Exp I, 22 1st and 22 4th graders played a referential communication game with either a peer or an adult speaker. In Exp II, 22 1st graders played the same referential communication game used in Exp I, but Ss who were interacting with the peer speaker were told that the speaker was very smart and Ss who were interacting with the adult speaker were told that the speaker was very stupid. Overall results indicate that incomplete messages were the easiest to evaluate and inconsistent messages were the most difficult. The evaluation of ambiguous messages was affected by the age of the S and the age of the speaker. Although older Ss attended solely to the quality of the message, 1st graders based their evaluations of ambiguous and inconsistent messages on the age of the speaker. Adult speakers' messages were evaluated more positively than peers' because the young Ss thought the adults were smart and therefore more likely to be good communicators. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mood effects on attitude judgments: Independent effects of mood before and after message elaboration.

Investigated the independent effects of induced mood on the encoding of persuasive messages and on the assessment of attitude judgments. In Exp 1, positive or negative mood was induced either before the encoding of a counterattitudinal message or before the assessment of attitude judgments. When mood was induced before message presentation, Ss in a bad mood were more persuaded by strong than by weak arguments, whereas Ss in a good mood were equally persuaded by strong and by weak arguments. When Ss encoded the message in a neutral mood, however, the advantage of strong over weak arguments was more pronounced when Ss were in a good rather than in a bad mood at the time of attitude assessment. In Exp 2, Ss exposed to a counterattitudinal message composed of either strong or weak arguments formed either a global evaluation or a detailed representation of the message. Positive, negative, or neutral mood was then induced. Ss in a good mood were most likely and Ss in a negative mood least likely to base their reported attitudes on global evaluations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Should I believe you, or what you say? Children's belief of children's statements.

Two experiments with 4–11 yr olds examined the determinants of Ss' belief or disbelief of statements made to them by other Ss. The relative age and social dominance of the S transmitting the message were varied against message type and against the age of the S receiving the message. In Exp I, conducted with 320 Ss, messages were solutions to a practical problem and varied only in plausibility; belief was assessed in terms of solution adoption. In Exp II, messages were personal statements about the transmitter, truth/falsity and objectivity/subjectivity of messages were additionally varied, and belief was assessed by requesting a judgment from the S receiving the message. Data show that in the older Ss (7 and 9 yrs), complex inferences from transmitter characteristics to truth were flexibly deployed as a supplement to a greater capacity to discriminate between message types. Differential responses in the 2 studies and on the objectivity/subjectivity dimension are interpreted as supporting Piaget's claim that younger children do not assess statements in terms of the speaker's intentions. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Processing of persuasive in-group messages.

Two studies investigated the processes mediating the persuasive impact of messages representing in-group opinions. In the 1st study, Ss read either a strong or a weak message attributed to either an in-group member or to another group. Ss were more persuaded by a strong message from the in-group than a weak one, suggesting content-focused processing of the in-group message. Ss were equally unpersuaded by either a strong or a weak message from the other group, and showed little sign of message processing. In the 2nd study, Ss listened to in-group or other-group messages about issues that varied in their relevance to in-group membership. When the issue was relevant to the in-group, Ss were persuaded by a strong message from the in-group, unpersuaded by a weak message from the in-group, and equally unimpressed by strong and weak messages from the other group. When the issue was irrelevant to the in-group, Ss accepted the position advocated by the in-group regardless of message quality, and again ignored messages from the other group. These results suggest that increased message processing, and not merely the impact of source persuasion cues, can underlie in-group-mediated attitude change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Regulatory Fit and Persuasion: Transfer From "Feeling Right."

The authors propose that when a message recipient "feels right" from regulatory fit (E. T. Higgins, 2000), this subjective experience transfers to the persuasion context and serves as information for relevant evaluations, including perceived message persuasiveness and opinions of the topic. Fit was induced either by strategic framing of message arguments in a way that fit/did not fit with the recipient's regulatory state or by a source unrelated to the message itself. Across 4 studies, regulatory fit enhanced perceived persuasiveness and opinion ratings. These effects were eliminated when the correct source of feeling right was made salient before message exposure, supporting the misattribution account. These effects reversed when message-related thoughts were negative, supporting the claim that fit provides information about the "rightness" of one's (positive or negative) evaluations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vividness can undermine the persuasiveness of messages.

Research that presented messages on 2 social issues tested the idea that vividness effects are most likely when message recipients are not constrained to pay attention to the information. When a low level of attentional constraint was established by presenting a message to Ss in a seemingly incidental manner, vivid messages were less memorable and less persuasive than pallid messages. Process data suggested that the vivid elements in a message (i.e., colorful language, picturesque examples, and provacative metaphors) interfered with Ss' reception of its essential meaning and thereby reduced its memorability and persuasiveness. In contrast, when Ss' attention was constrained by instructing them to attend to a message, its vividness had no impact on their memory for its contents or on it persuasiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of presenting a message in written form on young children's ability to evaluate its communication adequacy.

Conducted 2 experiments to test the hypothesis that a total of 90 1st-grade beginning readers could evaluate the referential-communicative adequacy of simple, 2-word messages better if they saw them written out while hearing them spoken than if they only heard them spoken. Oral-plus-written messages did prove significantly easier for the Ss to evaluate than did oral-only ones. They were also easier to evaluate than control oral-plus-written messages, in which the words were written as 2 illegible scribbles rather than printed clearly. This facilitation effect was equally strong whether the legible written message remained visible during message evaluation or was erased almost immediately after being written. Reading the message apparently did not improve message evaluation by improving message recall: Message evaluation and message recall were uncorrelated. The results seem consistent with D. R. Olson's (1981) theory that learning to read and write helps children attend to and analyze the literal meaning of a message. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bartlett effect and the persistence of induced opinion change.

As a result of more rapid forgetting of qualifications inconsistent with the body of a message (see 7: 3691), it was hypothesized that the persuasive impact of a qualified message would decline less with time relative to that of an unqualified message. Opinions following qualified and unqualified written messages were obtained from 155 undergraduate Ss at 4 different time intervals up to 41 days. Qualifications were forgotten more rapidly than message main points. The unqualified messages had consistently greater persuasive impact than the qualified. Thus the Bartlett effect for retention was confirmed but received little, if any, support for opinion change. 1 reason for the latter is the partial independence of content recall from opinion change. (23 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why Are You Bringing Up Condoms Now? The Effect of Message Content on Framing Effects of Condom Use Messages.

According to prospect theory (A. Tversky & D. Kahneman, 1981), messages advocating a low-risk (i.e., easy, low-cost) behavior are most effective if they stress the benefits of adherence (gain framed), whereas messages advocating a risky behavior are most effective if they stress the costs of nonadherence (loss framed). Although condom use is viewed as a low-risk behavior, it may entail risky interpersonal negotiations. Study 1 (N = 167) compared ratings of condom use messages advocating relational behaviors (e.g., discussing condoms) or health behaviors (e.g., carrying condoms). As predicted, loss-framed relational messages and gain-framed health messages received higher evaluations. Study 2 (N = 225) offers a replication and evidence of issue involvement and gender as moderators. Results are discussed with reference to the design of condom use messages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Young editors: Preschoolers' evaluation and production of ambiguous messages.

Two experiments were conducted on 56 4–5 yr old preschoolers' metacognitive message evaluation skills and the relation of these skills to message production. Exp I showed that perceptual context facilitated detection of referential ambiguities in text. Better message evaluators also produced messages with more informative and fewer uninformative cues. Exp II used 2 types of overt verbal self-regulation training (question asking and question-asking?+?message evaluation) to specify the sufficient conditions for inducing discriminative questioning of ambiguous messages. Training in a question-asking verbal rule over 3 brief sessions proved sufficient to induce appropriate questioning, which was maintained over 2 wks and generalized to a new task. It is suggested that Ss were already capable of evaluating message ambiguity. Message evaluation training did benefit message production performance, suggesting that similar metacognitive skills underlie listening and production. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's responses to ambiguous messages and their understanding of ambiguity.

Conducted 4 experiments to investigate whether a total of 212 young children (aged 4 yrs 6 mo to 7 yrs 3 mo) could respond differently to ambiguous and unambiguous messages if they were prevented from pointing at the potential referents. The exact nature of the bias that was operating was examined in the final 2 experiments, which investigated whether the differential responding to ambiguous and unambiguous messages was based on an understanding of ambiguity or on an awareness of certainty and uncertainty about the interpretation of ambiguous and unambiguous messages. It was found that Ss were more likely to respond differently to ambiguous and unambiguous messages if they were prevented from pointing at the potential referents. It was also found that the improvement in differential responding was not accompanied by an improvement in verbal judgments of message quality, and the differential responses were closely related to judgments of certainty and uncertainty about the interpretation of the message. Ss who did not know that verbal messages could be ambiguous could nevertheless respond differently to ambiguous and unambiguous messages by attending to their own certainty or uncertainty about the interpretation of those messages. They were more likely to do that when they were prevented from pointing at the potential references. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When motives clash: Issue involvement and response involvement as determinants of persuasion.

College students heard a strong or weak message after learning whether the message issue would have relevance to their personal lives outside the laboratory (high or low issue involvement) and whether they would later discuss the message issue (high or low response involvement). Judging from subjects' recall of message information, either high issue involvement or high response involvement was sufficient to instigate high levels of attention to the message. Issue-involved-only subjects, however, were most strongly influenced by message quality. They agreed more with and had more favorable thoughts about strong relative to weak messages, and they were most likely to engage in attitude-consistent behavior. Response-involved-only subjects were not affected by message quality, either on public attitude and thought measures or on a private behavioral measure. Response-and-issue-involved subjects were in between these extremes. Message quality had modest effects on their thoughts and attitudes, but not on their behavior. These results suggest that issue involvement encourages systematic processing that is sensitive to how well message arguments concur with personal standards. In contrast, response involvement encourages expression of attitudes that satisfy self-presentational needs. This expression may be mediated by message processing that is either biased toward moderation or nonintegrative, or by outward impression management, or both. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceived susceptibility to breast cancer moderates the effect of gain- and loss-framed messages on use of screening mammography.

Objective: This study examined the role of three distinct beliefs about risk (risks associated with screening, construal of the function of screening as health-affirming or illness-detecting, and perceived susceptibility to breast cancer) in moderating women's responses to framed messages that promote mammography. Design: Three hundred fifty-five women recruited from an inner city hospital, nonadherent to guidelines for receiving annual screening mammograms,were randomly assigned to view a gain- or loss-framed video message about the importance of mammography. Main Outcome Measure: Mammography screening was self-reported at a 3-month follow-up. Results: Only perceived susceptibility to breast cancer significantly moderated the effect of message framing on screening. Women with average and higher levels of perceived susceptibility for breast cancer were significantly more likely to report screening after viewing a loss-framed message compared to a gain-framed message. No effects of framing on reported screening were observed for women with lower levels of perceived susceptibility. Conclusion: The study identifies a key role for perceived susceptibility in shaping responses to framed messages that promote cancer screenings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Issue involvement can increase or decrease persuasion by enhancing message-relevant cognitive responses.

Two experiments with 96 undergraduates tested the hypothesis that high issue involvement enhances thinking about the content of a persuasive communication. Exp I varied involvement and the direction of a message (pro- or counterattitudinal). Increasing involvement enhanced persuasion for the proattitudinal but reduced persuasion for the counterattitudinal advocacy. Exp II again varied involvement, but both messages took a counterattitudinal position. One message employed compelling arguments and elicited primarily favorable thoughts, whereas the other employed weak arguments and elicited primarily counterarguments. Increasing involvement enhanced persuasion for the strong message but reduced persuasion for the weak one. Together the experiments provide support for the view that high involvement with an issue enhances message processing and therefore can result in either increased or decreased acceptance. (43 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of culturally specific cessation messages on theoretical antecedents of behavior among low-income african american smokers.

Previous research has highlighted the importance of cultural relevance in health risk communications, including tobacco interventions. However, few studies have examined the active components of smoking cessation messages targeting low-income African American smokers. This study tested the influence of message content and culturally specific framing in a sample of adult smokers. In a 2 × 2 factorial experiment, 243 African American smokers (M = 19 cigarettes/day) recruited from the community (55% women; mean age = 43 years) were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions: culturally specific smoking messages, standard smoking messages, culturally specific exercise/weight messages, or standard exercise/weight messages. The primary outcome measures were theoretical antecedents to behavior change, including risk perceptions (general, personal, and culturally specific), readiness to quit smoking, and smoking-related knowledge. The results showed that the smoking messages produced greater culturally specific risk perceptions, readiness to quit smoking, and smoking-related knowledge. The culturally specific messages produced greater personal risk perceptions and intentions to quit. Culturally specific risk perceptions were most affected by culturally specific smoking messages. Findings support the roles of message content and culturally specific framing in the efficacy of brief written interventions for smoking cessation in this population. Future research is needed to examine the influence of these constructs on behavior change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of increasing the salience of message ambiguities on kindergartners' evaluations of communicative success and message adequacy.

Previous research has shown that kindergarten children often appear uncertain or confused when they try to execute inadequate instructions but then go on to indicate that they had succeeded in doing what the instructor intended and that the instructions had been adequate. The present study was conducted with 72 kindergartners to test this research. Results confirm these findings and demonstrate that Ss' positive evaluations of inadequate messages were not due to forgetting their initial uncertainty. Extra emphasis on the ambiguous nature of the instructions helped Ss realize that they might not have succeeded in doing what the instructor intended them to, but it did not help them realize that the instructions had been inadequate. In contrast, emphasizing exactly what they were to achieve did not help them recognize either their possible failure in the task or the inadequacy of the instructions. Ss' performance resulted from a poor understanding of message quality and the role it plays in determining the success or failure of a communication. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning to detect deception.

Administered a lie detection test—a videotape presenting the faces and voices of senders delivering truthful and deceptive messages—to 191 undergraduates. For each message, Ss were asked to judge whether the sender was lying or telling the truth. Information identifying messages as truthful or deceptive was given to some Ss (learning conditions) but not to others (control). The information was provided either after Ss recorded their judgment on a particular item (post-message) or before the item itself was presented (premessage). The number of items for which information was provided was also varied. Accuracy of lie detection was calculated for all experimental conditions (when premessage information was given). In general, the more information (either pre or post) about deceivers' messages, the more accurate the detection of lies enacted by the same deceivers. However, the increase in accuracy did not generalize to accuracy of detecting lies enacted by other deceivers. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)