Authors
Richard E Petty, John T Cacioppo
Publication date
1984/1
Journal
Journal of personality and social psychology
Volume
46
Issue
1
Pages
69
Publisher
American Psychological Association
Description
Tested the view that the number of arguments in a message could affect agreement with a communication by serving as a simple acceptance cue when personal involvement was low but could affect agreement by enhancing issue-relevant thinking when personal involvement was high. In addition to manipulating the personal relevance of the communication topic, both the number and the quality of the arguments in the message were varied. In a pilot study with 46 undergraduates, when the issue was of low relevance, Ss showed more agreement in response to a message containing 6 arguments (3 strong and 3 weak) than to messages containing either 3 strong or 3 weak arguments. Under high involvement, however, the 6-argument message did not increase agreement over the message containing only 3 strong arguments. In the full experiment, 168 undergraduates received either 3 or 9 arguments that were …
Total citations
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