Abstract
Three experiments examined the extent to which attitudes following majority and minority influence are resistant to counter-persuasion. In Experiment 1, participants’ attitudes were measured after being exposed to two messages which argued opposite positions (initial pro-attitudinal message and subsequent, counter-attitudinal counter-message). Attitudes following minority endorsement of the initial message were more resistant to a (second) counter-message than attitudes following majority endorsement of the initial message. Experiment 2 replicated this finding when the message direction was reversed (counter-attitudinal initial message and pro-attitudinal counter-message) and showed that the level of message elaboration mediated the amount of attitude resistance. Experiment 3 included conditions where participants received only the counter-message and showed that minority-source participants had resisted the second message (counter-message) rather than being influenced by it. These results show that minority influence induces systematic processing of its arguments which leads to attitudes which are resistant to counter-persuasion.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 585-593 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Journal of Experimental Social Psychology |
Volume | 39 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Nov 2003 |
Keywords
- majority influence
- minority influence
- counter-persuasion
- opposite positions
- initial pro-attitudinal
- message
- counter-attitudinal
- counter-message
- attitudes
- pro-attitudinal
- message elaboration
- attitude resistance
- systematic
- resistant to counter-persuasion