| Abstract: | The effects of censoring a communication, overriding the censor, and the attractiveness of the censor on the potential audience's attitude and desire to hear the communication were studied. Subjects were told that a speech which they were to have heard had been censored by a positively, negatively, or neutrally evaluated group. Some subjects were told that the experimenter had decided to override the censor and that they would hear the communication. Other subjects were told they would not hear the censored communication. The results indicated that censorship, regardless of the attractiveness of the censor, caused the potential audience to change their attitudes toward the position to be advocated by the communication and to increase their desire to hear that communication. These effects were interpreted as resulting from the arousal of psychological reactance. When the censor was overriden and the audience felt that they would hear the communication, their desire to hear it decreased. Further, subjects who had been told that a positively evaluated group had censored the speech changed their attitudes away from the position to be advocated by the communication while subjects who believed that a negative group had censored the speech changed their attitudes toward the position of the communication. These results were interpreted as evidence of cognitive balancing. |
