Immunization—with and without Use of Counter-Arguments

Abstract

A n experimental study of the effects of a two-sided message suggests that it may reduce the cognitive effects of subsequent counter-propaganda but be inferior to a one-sided message in effects upon emotional responses. Both implicit and explicit twosided messages were used.the man who presents his message first has an opportunity to "immunize" his audience against subsequent arguments by an opponent. This phenomenon was demonstrated shortly after World War I1 when Lumsdaine and Janisl found that 61% of high school pupils exposed to an original two-sided message, i.e., one containing counter-arguments, still showed its effects after counter-propaganda, as compared with only 2% o f the pupils exposed to an original onesided message. Recent studies by Papageorgis andMcGuire2 have shown that such immunization generalizes to counter-arguments not specikally "previewed" in the original, two-sided message. They conclude that there is little necessity to guess what specific counter-arguments *The author is assodate professor and dlrector of the Research Program in Marketing Communication at the University of Notre Dame. The article is based upon his doctoral dissertation in communication research at Stanford University. lArthur A. Lumsdaine and Irving L. Janis, "Resistance to 'Counterpropaganda' Produced by One-sided and Two-sided 'Propaganda' P r m t ations," Public Opinion Quarterly, 11:311-18 (Fall 19S3). lDemetrius Papageorgis and William J. M o Guire, "The Generality of Immunity to Persuasion Produced by Pre-Exposure to Weakened Counterarguments," Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, undated. (Mimeographed.)will be used later, since any counterarguments will immunize.

A Meta-Analysis of Research on Inoculation Theory

“…Yet, some scholars have found results inconsistent with the theory (e.g. Adams & Beatty, 1977;Benoit, 1991;Burgoon & Chase, 1973;Burgoon & King, 1974;Compton & Pfau, 2004;Crane, 1962;Farkas & Anderson, 1976;Lessne, 1983;Pashupati et al, 2002;Pryor & Steinfatt, 1978;Sawyer, 1973). In these experiments, inoculation treatments have been shown to be ineffective at conferring resistance.…”

“…These results help clarify the body of research on inoculation. Although a number of researchers found that inoculation can confer resistance to persuasion (e.g., McGuire, 1961aMcGuire, , 1961bMcGuire, , 1962McGuire, , 1964McGuire, , 1966Pfau et al, 1997Pfau et al, , 2001aWood, 2007), several published (e.g., Adams & Beatty, 1977;Benoit, 1991;Burgoon & Chase, 1973;Burgoon & King, 1974;Crane, 1962;Pashupati et al, 2002;Pryor & Steinfatt, 1978;Sawyer, 1973) andunpublished (e.g., Lessne, 1983) studies have documented results that failed to support the theory or failed to support specific predictions of inoculation theory. The results of this meta-analysis suggest that, across a sample of 41 published and unpublished research reports involving over 10,000 participants, inoculation treatments are more effective than no-treatment controls or supportive treatments in fostering resistance to attitude change.…”

“…Several scholars have rejected inoculation as a cause of resistance (e.g. Cronen & LaFleur, 1977;Tannenbaum, 1966;Tannenbaum, Macaulay, & Norris, 1966;Tannenbaum & Norris, 1965), others have found inoculation to only work under specific circumstances (e.g., Compton & Pfau, 2004;Crane, 1962;Pryor & Steinfatt, 1978;Sawyer, 1973), and others reported instances where an inoculation induction was no more effective (or even less effective) than a supportive message induction or a no-message control in promoting resistance (e.g., Adams & Beatty, 1977;Benoit, 1991;Burgoon & Chase, 1973;Burgoon & King, 1974;Farkas & Anderson, 1976;Lessne, 1983;Pashupati, Arpan, & Nikolaev, 2002). Meta-analysis makes it possible to clarify the inconsistent findings in the body of research on inoculation theory.…”

The Attitude Base as a Moderator of the Effectiveness of Inoculation Strategy

“…Apart from Crane (1962) who suggested that immunization should distinguish between cognition and affect, most early inoculation studies have considered attitudes to be mainly cognitively structured, thus ignoring the potential role of affect in inoculation theory. However, more recent studies have recognized the importance of affect in inoculation (Lee & Pfau, 1997;Pfau et al, 2001) and resistance (Jacks & Devine, 2000;Zuwerink & Devine, 1996).…”

Literature Review on the Proposition and Application of the Inoculation Theory

“…The purpose of inoculation theory is to keep faith, so not only can the basic process influence the effect, but also external forms affected it. Crane (1962) pointed out that the inoculation theory was influenced by the external features of attitudes [7]. He thought that we had emotional attitude and cognitive attitude which he didn't research deeply, and many researchers just studied the cognitive attitude rather emotional attitude.…”