Cognitive schemas and thought as determinants of attitude change

It was hypothesized that thought would result in greater attitude polarization than distraction and that this effect would be more pronounced with better developed schemas (naive theories) for thinking about the attitude object. In Study 1, it was reasoned that persons have better developed schemas (e.g., implicit personality theories) for thinking about individuals than for thinking about groups. In Study 2, it was reasoned that men have better developed schemas for thinking about football and women have better developed schemas for thinking about women's fashions. In both studies, the hypothesis was significantly confirmed.     

Evaluative language,cognitive effort and attitude change

The present article deals with the effects of the use of evaluatively biased language on attitudes, and with the role of cognitive effort. We tested whether active information processing — formulating arguments on the basis of evaluatively biased language — was a necessary condition for attitude change. Results of the present study support the prediction that using evaluative language can infuence attitudes, but that these effects depend on the amount of cognitive effort.     

Numerical support,information processing and attitude change

In two experiments we studied the prediction that majority support induces stronger convergent processing than minority support for a persuasive message, the more so when recipients are explicitly forced to pay attention to the source's point of view; this in turn affects the amount of attitude change on related issues. Convergent processing is the systematic elaboration on the sources position, but with a stronger focus on verification and justification rather than falsification. In Experiment 1 it was found that numerical support is related to information processing as predicted: The greater the support, the more convergent the processing. Experiment 2 replicated this result, and furthermore confirmed our expectations regarding attitude change: The more convergent processing occurs, the less subjects change their attitude on related issues.     

Distraction,counterarguing and the internalization of attitude change

The hypothesis that distraction during a persuasive communication enhances the resulting attitude change by disrupting counterarguing was critically examined. Although previous research using Brock's postcommunication counterarguing index has shown that distraction inhibits counterarguing, the relationship was re-evaluated in the present experiments with a more direct measure of counterarguing. In these experiments, the direct measure of counterarguing was shown to increase with distraction, contradicting hypotheses that attribute the distraction effect to counterarguing disruption. Furthermore, with a wide range of distraction, Brock's measure was nonmonotonically related to distraction. Since observed attitude change is also predicted to be nonmonotonically related to distraction, Brock's index was interpreted us a correlate rather than a mediator of measured attitude change. The results suggested that distraction actually inhibits the internalization of the message and that the apparently enhancing effects of distraction are a result of the demand characteristics and/or evaluation apprehension created by the experimental task of paying attention to both a message and a distractor. The implications of the results for the theoretical role of counterarguing in mediating the internalization of persuasive communications were discussed.     

Openness to attitude change as a function of temporal perspective

Three studies investigated the impact of temporal perspective on people's dominant social goals and explored the implications of these goals for openness to attitude change. Participants who perceived time as limited expressed social preferences in accordance with emotion-regulation goals (Study 1), were more prone to modify their attitude to bring it into line with the attitude of an anticipated social partner (Study 2), and were more likely to go along with peer consensus opinion on a campus issue (Study 3) than were participants who perceived time as expansive. These studies demonstrate that perception of time plays a vital role in motivating social goals within the persuasion context.