Subject Awareness and Order Effects in Persuasive Communications

Abstract

This study was performed with 128 college students acting as Ss. The primary hypothesis that Ss confronted with a hidden pretest in an opinion change study will yield a significant recency effect, and Ss confronted with an exposed pretest will yield a significant primacy effect, was rejected. A primacy effect is in evidence when the pretest is hidden, and no directional effects are present when the pretest is exposed. The secondary hypothesis that a group exposed to a highly controversial topic will yield a significant primacy effect, and a group exposed to a topic of medium controversy will yield a recency effect, or no effect at all, was also rejected.

The Effects of Pretest Commitment and Information Upon Opinion Change

“…This information may sensitize the S to later presentations of materials and result in responses different from those of Ss not subjected to a pretest. In the past (Lana, 1961, Lana and Rosnow, 1963, Rosnow and Lana, 1965, amount of information (familiarity) available to a subject was shown to influence amount of opinion change. Comparing the three experimental groups indicates that a combination of the pretreatment commitment with familiarity would, in an ex-post-facto manner, explain the results.…”

“…According to this proposition, the taking of a typical pretest would represent a form of public commitment since the Ss' responses are identified with his signature and recorded by the experimenter. Hence, one would expect less public commitment under conditions where the S responds to opinion questions which are &dquo;hidden&dquo; in another task (such as a classroom exam, Lana and Rosnow, 1963) since the S would be uncertain as to the relevance of his responses. Finally, when no pretest is given, there can be no initial commitment by the subject.…”

“…This inhibition has been found to operate with equal facility on change toward or away from either of two opposed arguments. In previous studies (Lana and Rosnow, 1963;Lana, 1964;and Lana, 1966), the awareness of the S's taking the pretest was manipulated prior to the exposure of all Ss to the two-sided persuasive communications: One group completed a pretest opinion questionnaire relevant to the subject matter of the communications; a second group took the same pretest but under conditions which made it appear to be part of another test situation, presumably unrelated to the experimental situation; a third group, the control group, was not given a pretest in any form. On the basis of the consistent finding that differential opinion change is directly related to the level of pretest-taking awareness, Lana (1966) has suggested that the basic dimension involved may be the degree of external commitment to an opinion prior to exposure to the communication.…”

The Inhibitory and Enhancing Influence of Pretest Commitment

“…A bidirectional communication offers subjects opposed arguments on both sides (pro and con) of an issue (for example, a television debate between two political candidates with opposing ideological views) or offers a brief qualification of the main assertion of an unqualified persuasive statement (e.g., Hovland, Lumsdaine, and Sheffield, 1949). To date, the pretest depressive effect has generally been limited to those studies employing a bidirectional communication (Lana, 1966(Lana, , 1969Lana and Rosnow, 1963). Typically, there is an enhancement effect or no effect at all when a pretest is associated with a unidirectional communication (Lana, 1959;Lana and Menapace, 1971;Solomon, 1949).…”

“…To date, the pretest depressive effect has generally been limited to those studies employing a bidirectional communication (Lana, 1966(Lana, , 1969Lana and Rosnow, 1963). Typically, there is an enhancement effect or no effect at all when a pretest is associated with a unidirectional communication (Lana, 1959;Lana and Menapace, 1971;Solomon, 1949).…”