| Abstract: | Two experiments were conducted to assess the susceptibility of attitudes formed by either direct experience (DE) or indirect experience (IE) to proattitudinal or counterattitudinal messages delivered by a highly credible or a less credible source. The results were generally consistent with Fazio and Zanna's (1981) theory of DE and IE attitudes and with predictions derived from Petty and Cacioppo's (1981, 1986) elaboration likelihood model. In Experiment 1, DE attitudes proved to be more resistant to a counterattitudinal appeal than were IE attitudes. Moreover, the final attitudes of DE participants reflected these subjects' cognitive elaborations of the message arguments (i.e., the central route to persuasion), whereas the attitudinal responses of IE participants were affected more by source characteristics (i.e., peripheral cues). In Experiment 2, DE attitudes became more extreme in response to a proattitudinal appeal, but IE attitudes did not. In addition, the polarization shifts shown by DE participants were in keeping with these subjects' predominantly favorable elaborations of the message, whereas the attitudes of IE participants were more closely related to subjects' impressions of the communicator. Thus, DE attitudes were more resistant to attack and, yet, more susceptible to proattitudinal influence than were attitudes originating from IE. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
