Ego-involvement, discrepancy, source credibility, and attitude change.

Abstract

Social judgment theory and dissonance theory make different predictions about the effect on attitude change of discrepancies between a person's own position and a persuasive communication. Persuasive messages were given to 144 subjects in a three-factor design having three levels of discrepancy, two levels of source credibility, and two levels of ego-involvement. Dependent measures were attitude change, source credibility change, ego-involvement change, changes in latitudes of acceptance and rejection, and message evaluation. More attitude change occurred for low than for high ego-involvement. Attitude change was an increasing monotonic function of discrepancy for low ego-involvement, and a nonmonotonic function of discrepancy for high ego-involvement. After receipt of the persuasive message, low credible sources increased in authoritativeness and the importance of the low-ego-involvemcnt issue increased. A number of findings, significant beyond the .01 or .001 levels, were opposed to dissonance theory predictions. Most of the data arc consistent with social judgment theory.Among the many variables influencing attitude change, three have come into particularly sharp focus during the past decade: the credibility of the source of a persuasive communication, the role of ego-involvement in attitude change, and the discrepancy between a persuasive message and the attitude of persons upon whom influence is being exerted. These three factors are significant for two important, competing theories of attitude change, social judgment theory and dissonance theory.According to social judgment theory, susceptibility to attitude change depends upon the closeness of discrepant information to an attitudinal anchor. An attitudinal anchor is defined in terms of a latitude of acceptance, that is, all the acceptable positions on an attitude continuum. Similarly, a latitude of rejection consists of all the unacceptable positions.

Effects of involvement on persuasion: A meta-analysis.

“…The latter aspect of this involvement manipulation would ordinarily be considered a manipulation of distraction, a different construct. Confounds certainly may have occurred under other circumstances, especially when involvement was varied by classifying subjects according to their own responses (e.g., Powell, 1977) or was manipulated by presenting high-and lowinvolvement subjects with messages on different issues (e.g., Rhine & Severance, 1970). However, lacking proof from data or from separate operations, we cannot be certain that involvement was confounded with other variables in such designs, and these studies were retained in our sample.…”

“…As is shown in Table 3 by the homogeneity statistic (Qw) for each class, only the impression-relevant class was homogeneous) 3 In the value-relevant class, homogeneity was attained after the removal of three effect sizes (20%) identified as outliers, Qw(11) = 18.36, p = .07. In order of decreasing reduction of homogeneity, the removed studies were Aiello (1967), Sereno (1968), and Rhine and Severance (1970). The resulting mean weighted effect size was -0.32 (CI = -0.42 to -0.21).…”

“…Then the study outcomes were combined by. averaging the (text continues on page 301 ) s Our classification of the Rhine and Severance (1970) study as value relevant may be puzzling to readers because the issue used in the highinvolvement condition, the desirability of increasing tuition at the University of California, may seem to be the type of issue that would have activated outcome-relevant concerns among the University of California, Riverside, students who served as subjects. Although the Rhine and Severance study may not be a clear-cut instance of value.relevant involvement, we believe that the issue aroused primarily value.relevant concerns because the study was conducted when "tuition was being actively discussed by the regents of the university, the Governor of the state, the press, the faculty, and the students.…”

The Persuasive Effectiveness of Famous and Non Famous Endorsers in Advertising

“…While a certain support was shown for the positive relationship between the source credibility and persuasion, other studies indicates that the high source credibility has not a greater persuasion as consequence (McGarry andHendrich 1974, Rhine andLaurence 1970). The studies on credibility which concentrated on the expertise dimension, also failed to indicate the positive relationship between expertise and persuasion (Johnson and Steiner 1968).…”

“I Want to Slay That Dragon!” - Influencing Choice in Interactive Storytelling

“…written, oral communication). Even variables that intuitively should work (for example, associating a persuasive message with an expert source) produced increased persuasion in some situations [16], had no effect on others [31] and even resulted in decreased persuasion on others yet [35]. Later research was able to incorporate the different results under the same conceptual umbrella by realizing that there are two different cognitive processes that can be used in the decision making process [26].…”