In search of reliable persuasion effects: III. The sleeper effect is dead. Long live the sleeper effect

The sleeper effect in persuasion is a delayed increase in the impact of a message that is accompanied by a discounting cue. Despite a long history, the sleeper effect has been notoriously difficult to obtain or to replicate, with the exception of a pair of studies by Gruder et al. (1978). We conducted a series of 16 computer-controlled experiments and a replication of the Gruder et al. study to demonstrate that a sleeper effect can be obtained reliably when subjects (a) note the important arguments in a message, (b) receive a discounting cue after the message, and (c) rate the trustworthiness of the message communicator immediately after receiving the discounting cue. These operations are sufficiently different from those used in earlier studies to justify a new differential decay interpretation of the sleeper effect, in place of the dissociation hypothesis favored by most previous sleeper effect researchers. According to the differential decay interpretation, a sleeper effect occurs when message and discounting cue have opposite and near-equal immediate impacts that are not well-integrated in memory. The effect occurs, then, if the impact of the discounting cue decays faster than that of the message.     

Access to attitude-relevant information in memory as a determinant of persuasion: The role of message attributes

Recipients with access to attitude-relevant information in memory were thought to draw on these beliefs and prior experiences to evaluate the validity of message arguments. Consistent with this idea, persuasion for these recipients was largely a function of the perceived validity of message content: Messages containing high-quality arguments were more persuasive than messages containing lowquality arguments, whereas variations in a structural attribute of the message (its length) proved to have little impact on opinion change. In contrast, people who tend to retrieve little attitude-relevant information were believed to be less able to evaluate the validity of message arguments in terms of information accessed from memory. Instead, it was anticipated that they would base their opinion judgments on a more superficial analysis of persuasion cues, focusing on attributes like message length. Consistent with this reasoning, these recipients were more persuaded by long than short messages. Recipients with moderate levels of retrieval functioned much like the high-retrieval subjects.     

Making message recipients "feel right": how nonverbal cues can increase persuasion

Nonverbal cues are an inherent component of most persuasive appeals. We use regulatory-fit theory as a framework for understanding the effect of nonverbal cues on a message's effectiveness, and as a foundation for developing a new persuasion technique. We propose that when the nonverbal cues of a message source sustain the motivational orientation of the recipient, the recipient experiences regulatory fit and feels right, and that this experience influences the message's effectiveness. Experimental results support these predictions. Participants experiencing regulatory fit (promotion-focus participants viewing messages delivered in an eager nonverbal style, prevention-focus participants viewing messages delivered in a vigilant nonverbal style) had more positive attitudes toward a message's topic and greater intentions to behave in accordance with its recommendation than did participants experiencing nonfit. Feeling right was also greater for participants experiencing fit than for those experiencing nonfit and was associated with greater message effectiveness. Regulatory-fit theory provides a framework for making precise predictions about when and for whom a nonverbal cue will affect persuasion.     

Relevance override: on the reduced impact of "cues" under high-motivation conditions of persuasion studies

This research addressed the reduced impact of cues under high processing motivation of persuasion experiments. The results of 3 studies suggested that such reduced impact is due to a relevance override whereby any more subjectively relevant information swamps the effects of any less subjectively relevant information, given the recipient's sufficient motivation to process both. Because, in much persuasion research, cues may have been perceived as less relevant to the attitudinal judgments than message arguments, the relevance override hypothesis provides a general explanation of the reduced cue effect.     

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.     

Biassed processing of persuasive information: on the functional equivalence of cues and message arguments

Research on persuasion has shown that inferences based on heuristic or peripheral cues can bias the subsequent processing of persuasive messages. Two studies (total N = 296) examined the additional possibilities that a message argument can serve as a biassing factor and cue‐related information can serve as the target of processing bias. It was demonstrated that a message argument can bias (a) the processing of subsequent other message arguments (Study 1) and (b) the processing of subsequent cue information (Study 2). Results are discussed within dual‐process models and the recently developed unimodel of persuasion. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The cultural congruency effect: Culture, regulatory focus, and the effectiveness of gain- vs. loss-framed health messages

The present study contributes a cultural analysis to the literature on the persuasive effects of matching message frame to individuals’ motivational orientations. One experiment examines how members of cultural groups that are likely to differ in their regulatory focus respond to health messages focusing on either the benefits of flossing or the costs of not flossing. White British participants, who had a stronger promotion focus, were more persuaded by the gain-framed message, whereas East-Asian participants, who had a stronger prevention focus, were more persuaded by the loss-framed message. This cultural difference in persuasion was mediated by an interaction between individuals’ self-regulatory focus and type of health message. Thus health messages framed to be culturally congruent led participants to have more positive attitudes and stronger intentions to perform the health behaviors, and the interaction between self-regulatory focus and message frame emerged as the pathway through which the observed cultural difference occurs. Discussion focuses on the integration of individual difference, socio-cultural, and situational factors into models of health persuasion.     

Perceptions of source efficacy and persuasion: Multiple mechanisms for source effects on attitudes

When communicators are perceived as likely to bring proposed outcomes to fruition, they have source efficacy. Although perceptions of source efficacy are common in persuasion settings, this construct has received little direct research attention. The present research explored how source efficacy may impact persuasion in different ways at different levels of motivation to process messages. Across three experiments, participants encountered message arguments of varying quality from a source manipulated to be relatively efficacious or inefficacious. When motivation to process the message was low, source efficacy served as a peripheral cue (Experiment 1). When motivation was high, efficacy information learned before the message biased processing of ambiguous messages (Experiment 2), but source efficacy learned after the message affected the amount of confidence people had in their message‐related thoughts (Experiment 3). These effects of source efficacy were distinct from effects of perceived source expertise/credibility. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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, subjects read either a strong or a weak message attributed to either an in-group member or to another group. Subjects were more persuaded by a strong message from the in-group than a weak one, suggesting content-focused processing of the in-group message. Subjects 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, subjects 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, subjects 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.     

Colour cues or spatial cues? Context-dependent preferences in the European greenfinch (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Carduelis chloris</Emphasis>)

Using featural cues such as colour to identify ephemeral food can increase foraging efficiency. Featural cues may change over time however; therefore, animals should use spatial cues to relocate food that occurs in a temporally stable position. We tested this hypothesis by measuring the cue preferences of captive greenfinches Carduelis chloris when relocating food hidden in a foraging tray. In these standardised associative learning trials, greenfinches favoured colour cues when returning to a foraging context that they had encountered before only once (“one-trial test”) but switched to spatial cues when they had encountered that scenario on ten previous occasions (“repeated-trial test”). We suggest that repeated encounters generated a context in which individuals had a prior expectation of temporal stability, and hence context-dependent cue selection. Next, we trained birds to find food in the absence of colour cues but tested them in the presence of visual distracters. Birds were able to learn spatial cues after one encounter, but only when visual distracters were identical in colouration. When a colourful distracter was present in the test phase, cue selection was random. Unlike the first one-trial test, birds were not biased towards this colourful visual distracter. Together, these results suggest that greenfinches are able to learn both cue types, colour cue biases represent learning, not simply distraction, and spatial cues are favoured over colour cues only in temporally stable contexts.     

Source Credibility and Attitude Certainty: A Metacognitive Analysis of Resistance to Persuasion

Recent research (Tormala & Petty, 2002) has demonstrated that when people resist persuasion, they can perceive this resistance and become more certain of their initial attitudes. This research explores the role of source credibility in determining when this effect occurs. In two experiments, participants received a counterattitudinal persuasive message. When participants counterargued this message, they became more certain of their attitudes, but only when it came from a source with high expertise. When the message came from a source with low expertise, resisting it had no impact on attitude certainty. This effect was shown using both a traditional measure of attitude certainty (Experiment 1) and a well‐established consequence of certainty—the correspondence between attitudes and behavioral intentions (Experiment 2). In addition, the effect was confined to high elaboration conditions, and occurred even when participants were not explicitly instructed to counterargue. These results are consistent with a metacognitive framework proposed to understand resistance to persuasion.     

Resisting persuasion by illegitimate means: a metacognitive perspective on minority influence

The present research tests a new metacognitive perspective on resistance in minority influence situations. It is proposed that when people initially resist persuasive messages from sources in the numerical minority, they can lose attitude certainty if they perceive that they have based their attitudes on the source's minority status and also believe this is an illegitimate basis for resistance. In three studies, participants were presented with a message from a minority source. In Study 1, participants became less certain of their attitudes after resisting this message. In Study 2, this effect only emerged when participants were led to believe they had based their attitudes on the source's minority status and this was an illegitimate thing to do. In Study 3, this effect was shown to have implications for persuasion in response to a second message. The implications of these findings for classic minority influence effects are discussed.     

Style Versus Substance: Multiple Roles of Language Power in Persuasion

This research explores how message style influences persuasion in conjunction with message substance. Using the elaboration likelihood model, the study operationalizes message style as language power and message substance as argument quality , then considers the multiple roles language power can assume in persuasion. The authors investigate whether language power acts as a (a) central argument, (b) peripheral cue, (c) biasing influence on assessment of arguments, or (d) distraction that inhibits argument processing. Additionally, they manipulate exposure time to examine how processing ability influences which persuasive roles language power assumes. The authors find empirical support for the multiple-roles perspective and conclude that the role of message style depends partially on the ability to process message details.     

The Effects of Source Credibility in the Presence or Absence of Prior Attitudes: Implications for the Design of Persuasive Communication Campaigns

Most theories of persuasion predict that limited ability and motivation to think about communications should increase the impact of source credibility on persuasion. Furthermore, this effect is assumed to occur, regardless of whether or not the recipients have prior attitudes. In this study, the effects of source credibility, ability, and motivation (knowledge, message repetition, relevance) on persuasion were examined meta-analytically across both attitude formation and change conditions. Findings revealed that the Source Credibility × Ability/Motivation interaction emerged only when participants lacked prior attitudes and were unable to form a new attitude based on the message content. In such settings, the effects of source credibility decayed rapidly. The implications of these findings for applied communication campaigns are discussed.     

Discerning the role of optimism in persuasion: the valence-enhancement hypothesis

The valence-enhancement hypothesis argues that because of their active coping strategies, optimists are especially likely to elaborate on valenced information that is of high personal relevance. The hypothesis predicts that as a result, optimists will be more persuaded by personally relevant positive messages and less persuaded by personally relevant negative messages than pessimists. It also predicts that when the message is not personally relevant, optimism and persuasion will not be related in this manner. The results of 3 studies support these predictions and supply evidence against several alternative hypotheses. The possibility that the observed effects are not due to optimism but to the confounding influence of 7 additional variables is also addressed and ruled out. Implications are discussed.     

Influence of text cohesion on the persuasive power of expository text

The present study examined how global text cohesion affects persuasion and memory for message arguments presented in expository text. Sixty-nine participants who held a neutral prior attitude towards NATO read a persuasive text about NATO that was either high or low in global cohesion. After reading, participants voted whether Finland should seek NATO membership and filled in an attitude questionnaire. After a 1-week delay they returned for a surprise recall task. The results showed that the high cohesion text was more persuasive than the low cohesion text. Moreover, attitude after reading but not text cohesion predicted later recall of the message arguments. The results show that global text cohesion increases text's persuasive power and that readers who form a positive attitude have better memory of the persuasive arguments after a delay than readers who are less persuaded.     

Lies and bullshit: The negative effects of misinformation grow stronger over time

In a world where exposure to untrustworthy communicators is common, trust has become more important than ever for effective marketing. Nevertheless, we know very little about the long-term consequences of exposure to untrustworthy sources, such bullshitters. This research examines how untrustworthy sources—liars and bullshitters—influence consumer attitudes toward a product. Frankfurt's (1986) insidious bullshit hypothesis (i.e., bullshitting is evaluated less negatively than lying but bullshit can be more harmful than are lies) is examined within a traditional sleeper effect—a persuasive influence that increases, rather than decays over time. We obtained a sleeper effect after participants learned that the source of the message was either a liar or a bullshitter. However, compared to the liar source condition, the same message from a bullshitter resulted in more extreme immediate and delayed attitudes that were in line with an otherwise discounted persuasive message (i.e., an advertisement). Interestingly, attitudes returned to control condition levels when a bullshitter was the source of the message, suggesting that knowing an initially discounted message may be potentially accurate/inaccurate (as is true with bullshit, but not lies) does not result in the long-term discounting of that message. We discuss implications for marketing and other contexts of persuasion.     

Persuasion by a Single Route: A View From the Unimodel

Major current notions of persuasion depict it as attainable via 2 qualitatively distinct routes: (a) a central or a systematic route in which opinions and attitudes are based on carefully processed arguments in the persuasive message and (b) a peripheral or heuristic route in which they are based on briefly considered heuristics or cues, exogenous to the message. This article offers a single-route reconceptualization that treats these dual routes to persuasion as involving functionally equivalent types of evidence from which persuasive conclusions may be drawn. Previous findings in the dual-process literature are reconsidered in light of this "unimodel," and novel data are presented consistent with its assumptions. Beyond its parsimony and integrative potential, the unimodel offers conceptual, empirical, and practical advantages in the persuasion domain.     

The effects of message recipients' power before and after persuasion: a self-validation analysis

In the present research, the authors examined the effect of a message recipient's power on attitude change and introduced a new mechanism by which power can affect social judgment. In line with prior research that suggested a link between power and approach tendencies, the authors hypothesized that having power increases confidence relative to being powerless. After demonstrating this link in Experiment 1, in 4 additional studies, they examined the role of power in persuasion as a function of when power is infused into the persuasion process. On the basis of the idea that power validates whatever mental content is accessible, they hypothesized that power would have different effects on persuasion depending on when power was induced. Specifically, the authors predicted that making people feel powerful prior to a message would validate their existing views and thus reduce the perceived need to attend to subsequent information. However, it was hypothesized that inducing power after a message has been processed would validate one's recently generated thoughts and thus influence the extent to which people rely upon their thoughts in determining their attitudes.     

Majority versus minority influence: the role of message processing in determining resistance to counter‐persuasion

Two experiments examined the extent to which attitudes changed following majority and minority influence are resistant to counter‐persuasion. In both experiments participants' attitudes were measured after being exposed to two messages, delayed in time, which argued opposite positions (initial message and counter‐message). In the first experiment, attitudes following minority endorsement of the initial message were more resistant to a second counter‐message only when the initial message contained strong versus weak arguments. Attitudes changed following majority influence did not resist the second counter‐message and returned to their pre‐test level. Experiment 2 varied whether memory was warned (i.e., message recipients expected to recall the message) or not, to manipulate message processing. When memory was warned, which should increase message processing, attitudes changed following both majority and minority influence resisted the second counter‐message. The results support the view that minority influence instigates systematic processing of its arguments, leading to attitudes that resist counter‐persuasion. Attitudes formed following majority influence yield to counter‐persuasion unless there is a secondary task that encourages message processing. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.