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The Jeffersonian democratic tradition, with its foundations stretching back as far as Milton, elevates reason to be "good" in that logic drives decision, while persuasion is "bad" because it is driven by emotion.
It is the resistance that requires Logical Persuasion.
We will cover the complete list of strategies on this page. Selling and marketing is in fact the art of logical persuasion. In this page we also outline the recent theories and research findings in the field of psychology and logical persuasion. The bulk of research does not focus on how to persuade. Rather, the focus is on how to remove resistance with logic and reason.
Logical persuasion is often discussed under a focus on problems of real social import (e.g., tobacco uptake and use, alcohol abuse, use of illegal and often dangerous substances, engaging in high-risk behaviors of various and sundry kinds). Increasingly, the study of logical persuasion is taking an applied turn toward attempting to change attitudes and behaviors in real time and among large segments of the population. Millions of dollars from special taxes and court settlements have been spent to target young people who are most susceptible to tobacco uptake and use.
Internet message producers create "content," which is always intended to be persuasive, to the degree that they embed meaning in symbols. Television and the Internet are especially persuasive to the degree that they can compel the message receiver's psychological apparatus into processing mediated information as if it were the result of direct sensory experience.
Resistance to persuasion is not simply the inverse of persuasion. That is, resistance is not necessarily the same thing as not being persuaded. We define resistance to persuasion as a motivated state in which the goal is to withstand the effect of persuasive communication weather it is logical or emotional. Resistance hounds persuasion the way friction frustrates motion. Hence, some efforts should be focused on removing the resistance with logic and reasons. Here in this page we will discuss recent studies and strategies to remove resistance.
Here is an interesting example why our research matters:
Much of the current interest in mood and persuasion can be traced to a study by Worth and Mackie (1987). That project is valuable not only for its place in the history of this area but also because its design is so typical of subsequent investigations. In Worth and Mackie's study, positive mood participants won $1.00 in an allegedly random lottery, while neutral mood participants were simply asked whether or not they had participated in a lottery. All participants then read a message about acid rain containing either strong or weak arguments that was attributed to either an expert or nonexpert source. The results indicated that, relative to the neutral mood participants, those in the positive mood condition recalled fewer arguments, were less sensitive to the argument strength manipulation, and were more sensitive to the source cue manipulation. Overall, the evidence suggested that positive mood dampened systematic processing. From these and other findings (Mackie & Worth, 1989), the researchers concluded that positive moods consume cognitive capacity, thereby constraining participants' ability to engage in systematic message processing.
The notion that positive mood participants might have suffered motivational deficits provides the cornerstone to an alternative explanation. The mood-as-information hypothesis suggests that affective states may function as heuristics conveying to individuals whether there is a need to process the message carefully (Bless, Bohner, Schwarz, & Strack, 1990; for a revision of this position, see Bless & Schwarz, 1999). A positive mood signals that all is well, and by implication so is the advocacy of the suasory appeal.
Our analysis shows how resistance can be reduced, and therefore logical persuasion achieved. We will show strategies such as training people to be appropriately resistant, postponing consequences to the future, focusing resistance on realistic concerns, forewarning that a message will be coming, simply acknowledging resistance, raising self-esteem and a sense of efficacy, and consuming resistance. New insights, new influence strategies, and new facets of persuasion has emerged from a focus on resistance.
Here are some of the strategies that might apply to web sites and Internet Marketing:
1) First, we examine the pulse of society, the current beliefs and attitude. The current attitude, in the case of Health web sites, is Healthy Living and Healthy Eating. The website www.dinner-movie.com promotes healthy way of life, free of parasites and germs and then the link to HerbaLabs.org is very visible.
2) We usually designe websites with these three powerful components: affective, cognitive and behavioral. This tripartite model applies the concepts of "I like it", "I believe it", and "I will buy it".
3) We confirm the visitor autonomy, freedom by creating motivational pages that reasserts such freedom.
4) We give the visitor other choices and ways of treatments.
5) We make our health message indirect, legitimate, subtle and delicate.
6) We do not give a message to change, influential, and offensive that the visitors become defensive or argumentative.
Theory Detail: Brehm's theory of reactance was among the first to suggest that any message aimed at changing one's current attitudes and behaviors might, in fact, be perceived as a threat to freedom, whether in the best interest of the intended persuadee or not. When people perceive that freedoms are being threatened, psychological reactance is claimed to result. This reactance can result in a variety of responses including simply ignoring the persuasive attempt, derogating the source, and even producing even more of the undesired behaviors as a means of demonstrating choice or restoring attitudinal freedom. People do not appreciate being told how they should behave, especially in areas where they feel it is simply no one else's business. People at different developmental stages value independence and freedom and tend to reject many, if not most, authority-based appeals. Members of specific groups can be resistant to any appeal that they consider to be even remotely controlling. That people value freedom and their right to consider and make choices, and that they react negatively to attitudinal and behavioral constraints with some regularity, seems so obvious as to not require further elaboration.
7) By providing the visitor unbiased information, we allow the visitor to know all the sides and/or even to disagree with us.
8) We have strong arguments that justify and compel actions.
9) We have done our best to increase the site credibility and trust building. We have asked expert and Doctors to answer emails and visitor questions. We provide the source of our herbs and the book that these sources were published.
10) We provide consensus information.
11) We emphasize the scarcity of and the significance of the product or service we might offer.
12) We emphasize consistency, commitments, fighting what is not justice, and sticking with good principles.
13) We engage in a norm of Reciprocity and Consultancy.
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14) We use narratives to make sure the visitor knows how to use the product (see the section called "How I cured myself"). This strategy is very powerful and very effective. Let us examine this further:
Why might narrative persuasion strategies be especially suited to overcoming resistance? We believe that there are two general means by which narratives might overcome resistance, each of which reflects a variety of specific processes. First, narratives may overcome resistance by reducing the amount and effectiveness of counterarguing or logical consideration of the message. Second, narratives may overcome resistance by increasing identification with characters in the story.
Theory Detail: Narratives should reduce counterarguing in a number of ways. First, narratives may overcome biased processing (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) in response to counter-attitudinal messages. When presented with a communication advocating a position with which we do not agree, there is a tendency to ignore the message, counterargue the information, or belittle the source.Also, the structure of narratives may impede forewarning of a counterattitudinal message. A story often unfolds with some degree of suspense-it is not always clear what situation might next befall a protagonist or how that protagonist will react to it. "Predictable" is commonly used as a criticism in popular film reviews. Studies have shown that individuals avoid attending to intonation that is incongruent with their existing attitudes (e.g., Sweeney & Gruber, 1984).
The content of narrative arguments may also be more difficult to discount than that of rhetorical arguments. Narratives are often concerned with relating the life experiences of other people, be they real or fictional. As Slater (2002) suggested, it may be especially difficult to counterargue the lived experiences of another real or fictional person. Although one might be able to argue against hypothetical examples ("That would never happen"), it is much more difficult to argue against another's "real" experiences as conveyed in a narrative. It is true that the experiences of fictional characters are not real. However, experiences of fictional characters that are construed as being plausible may be equally difficult to refute. As Green and Brock (2002) have noted, plausibility seems to be the yardstick by which we measure truth-the implausible must be untrue, regardless of whether it is fact or fiction, whereas the plausible, if not true, at least could be.
Narrative also differs from rhetoric in the way that messages are communicated. Whereas the aim of advocacy is to present clear, logical, specific arguments, the aim of narrative is to tell a story. In a narrative, beliefs are often implied as opposed to stated explicitly. This may inhibit counterarguing because it leaves the reader with no specific arguments to refute.
Implied beliefs, however, are not the only means by which narrative may inhibit counterarguing. We agree with others (e.g., Green & Brock, 2000; Slater, 2002), that the cognitive and emotional demands of absorption into a narrative leave readers with little ability or motivation to generate counterarguments. Absorption into a narrative is believed to be a convergent process, where all mental faculties are engaged in the narrative experience (Green & Brock, 2000). We lose access to real-world facts and suspend disbelief. Such a constriction of cognitive capacity should make it exceedingly difficult to scrutinize messages in the narrative and to generate counterarguments. The ability to counterargue is impaired not only because we have a limited amount of cognitive attention to devote to the endeavor, but also because many of the arguments we would call to mind are inaccessible. Add to this a lack of motivation brought about by a desire to remain engaged with the narrative (which counterarguing would necessarily disrupt), and counterarguing a narrative message should become increasingly difficult as absorption increases.
If narrative messages are less threatening than comparable rhetoric, then we may have a very powerful persuasive tool at our disposal. One of us (Zanna, 1993) has argued that resistance should result when listeners are faced with arguments that support an attitudinal position that falls outside their latitude of acceptance. That is, people have some degree of "wiggle room"-a latitude of acceptance-around their attitudes (see Sherif & Hovland, 1'961). The latitude of acceptance can vary in size, from very narrow (indicating a fairly rigid attitudinal position) to very wide (indicating a more flexible attitudinal position). On either side of the latitude of acceptance lie 1atitudes of rejection-attitudinal positions that are unacceptable or objectionable because they are considered too extreme. Consider the following example: People hold very different opinions on gay rights. On one end of the spectrum one finds those who feel that gay and lesbian relationships should not be recognized as legitimate, or indeed, should be outlawed.
Thus, narratives may indeed be useful in overcoming resistance by reducing negative thoughts associated with the persuasive message. In addition, we argue that narratives may also function by increasing positive thoughts about a behavior or an attitude object. This would be especially true if a liked protagonist behaves in a particular way or endorses a particular attitude, creating a positive association with the action or thc attitude. Identifying with a story character may result in persuasion in a number of ways.
We know from research on rhetorical persuasion that a liked source can be more persuasive under conditions in which it is more difficult to process arguments (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). We have already suggested some reasons why narratives, by their very nature, may limit the desire and ability to scrutinize messages, In addition, many narratives are visual presentations (e.g., film and television) in which the speed of the message is controlled, and this has implications for persuasion. Chaiken and Eagly (1983) found that a likeable source was more persuasive when the speed of exposure to rhetorical messages was forced (i.e., when presented on audio or video tape) than when the participants were allowed to self-pace the speed of exposure (i.e., when the same message was presented in written form). Therefore, it seems highly plausible that liking for a protagonist might be an important mediator of persuasion in the narrative context, especially when exposure is not self-paced.
Thus, the narrative context may be especially suited to overcoming resistance to persuasion. We believe the power of narratives lies in reducing the amount and effectiveness of counterarguing and through identification with narrative characters that leads to positive associations with specific beliefs and behaviors.
15) Let the visitor imagine the future.
16) Positive Thinking
Theory in Detail: Everyone, lay people and social psychologists alike, knows that "strong" arguments are more persuasive than "weak" arguments. If we take the strong versus weak contrast at face value, strong arguments induce persuasion but weak arguments do not. Put another way, presumably, persuaders who present cogent, rational arguments achieve the desired effect, whereas specious arguments fail to persuade. By this interpretation, weak arguments induce resistance in message recipients, who maintain their initial views and are not swayed.
The basic thrust of our view is that the persuasive impact of argument quality, as it has been operationalized, is much less about logic than it is about valence. That is, persuasion is more about suggesting good rather than bad consequences (valence) for the message recipient than it is about creating impeccably logical-a.k.a truthful or likely argumental. Much of this work supports the conclusion that the-valence of actively generated cognitive responses to a message underlies persuasion: When the valence of these thoughts is positive (i.e.; good consequences for the message recipient) then persuasion is likely to occur, but if the thoughts are negative there is evidence of true resistance sticking to one's guns.
In sum, the foregoing literature further informs the nature of resistance, which we define as no attitude change in response to a message. People may resist persuasive attempts for a variety of reasons. Under conditions of low involvement, resistance may result from decreased motivation to cognitively-engage with the issue and the arguments presented. When involvement is high, in contrast, resistance may be due to active counterarguing against the message content, in which case resistance implies the presence of a very persistent attitude that has stood a significant test. Additionally, people may resist persuasive messages because acceptance of a new may require more cognitive restructuring than the person is willing to undergo. Our definition of resistance assumes that the target of the persuasive message actively receives the message, thereby ensuring that some amount of force was applied that could either be resisted or could produce attitudinal change.
The research shows the varied role that argument quality played for the studies that used messages with counter-attitudinal positions, divided for whether involvement was manipulated to below or high, or not varied ("other"). As a generalization across all of these comparisons, strong messages were significantly more persuasive than their weak counterparts and weak tended to be associated with resistance rather than boomerang. Yet this tendency for strong arguments to effect greater change than weak arguments depended on level of involvement.
When resistance as a motivation is operating, individuals will do whatever it takes to prevent change.
17) Sidestep resistance. Most people sense that the most effective strategy to use on resistance is not to raise it in the first place. There are a variety of things one can do to sidestep resistance.
18) Redefine the relationship. Jolson (1997) instructed salespeople to avoid resistance by redefining the relationship with buyers. Thus, an insurance agent calls not to sell you insurance, but to help you assess the ways your assets might be at risk, to see how your need for protection might have changed over the past several years. Straight (1996) advised salespeople to redefine all sales pitches as a cooperative interaction, beginning by exploring the interests and needs of the buyer to see if a mutually acceptable basis for doing business can be established. Redefining the sales pitch as a cooperative interaction or as a consultation is a way of sidestepping the resistance that would be raised by a sales call. The "buyer beware" wariness does not translate into "consultee beware!" (Ales sandra, 1993).
A "consultation" has many implications. First, it implies that both consultant and target are working cooperatively on the target's goals. By implication, the target is in charge and, therefore, has less need to be wary. Second, a consultancy defines the situation more as a communal relationship (Clark, Mills, & Corcoran, 1989; Mills & Clark, 1994), which focuses attention away from negotiating an equitable exchange to developing a common plan. Third, a consultancy implies a longer-term relationship with more opportunities for interaction than a sales call. A long-term relationship implies that there will be future opportunities to reciprocate or repair any inequities that may result from this interaction.
19) Address resistance directly. Resistance that is raised by a request, an offer, or a message can be addressed directly. To do this, identify the source of resistance and remedy it.
20) Guarantees. One good strategy that addresses resistance directly is the guarantee. A money-back guarantee doesn't make the refrigerator any larger, colder, more efficient, or stylish. What a guarantee does is address and remove some of the customer's fears involved with buying a product. What if it doesn't work? What if it doesn't fit? What if it looks terrible?
Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, had his stores institute a no-questions asked, money-back guarantee. Just return the item and you will get a refund. Walton guessed that the increased sales prompted by the return policy would greatly outweigh the added expense of returns and refunds. The customer, looking at some product, asks "Is this the kind I need?", "Will it fit?", "Does it match?", and puts the item in the shopping cart knowing that the item can always be returned. Walton (1992) said, "The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign: 'Satisfaction Guaranteed.' They're still up there, and they have made all the difference" (pp. 316-317). This Omega strategy is one of the things that has made Wal-Mart the largest retail corporation in the world.
Guarantees help reduce any reluctance. If one's partner is worried about feeling trapped at a party, one could say, "Anytime you want to go, just wave at me, and we'll leave immediately."
21) Address the resistance indirectly. Resistance may be dealt with more indirectly by taking away the need for resistance.
22) Pushing the Choice Into the Future. The more distant a choice is, the more it is determined by hope and aspiration and the less by fear and inconvenience. Thus, offers are more likely to be accepted if they require future action than if they require immediate action, e.g., "Buy now, pay later!", "Could I borrow your truck for the third Saturday of next month?", or "Let's start Weight Watchers, not now, but three months and four days from now."
23) Acknowledging Resistance. One of the ways to turn resistance against itself is to acknowledge it. Usually persuaders are reluctant to mention resistance, mistakenly believing that to identify it and label it is to give it power and credence. The approach-avoidance conflict theory of persuasion proposes that a persuasive message raises both an accepting consideration of the message and a counteractive resistance to that message. Although the message is overt, the resistance is to some extent covert, automatic, and hidden. However, if resistance is present, it is already powerful. Acknowledging the resistance, labeling it, and making its role overt may have the paradoxical effect of defusing its power and rendering that resistance less influential. We have conducted two studies to investigate whether acknowledging the resistance in a message would make the message more persuasive (Linn & Knowles, 2002b).
24) Minimize the Request. Breaking a large, unreasonable request down into smaller, more acceptable steps is one of the ways that Stanley Milgram (1965) used to create extraordinary compliance in his obedience studies. He asked people assigned to the role of "teacher" to deliver seemingly fatal shocks as punishment to a "learner" who repeatedly failed at a task. Rather than saying, "Give this guy 450 volts!", Milgram's experimenter said, "The learner made another error. He needs another shock, 15 volts stronger than the last one." The slippery slope of incremental increases makes it hard to resist giving just 15 volts more than the last time.
The even-a-penny-will-help social influence technique (Cialdini & Schroeder, 1976) provides a third example of minimizing a request. Solicitors went door-to-door in Phoenix and Tempe , Arizona , to collect money for the American Cancer Society. When solicitors asked, "Would you contribute? Even a penny will help!", they received donations from 50% of the households as opposed to 29% when they simply asked, "Would you contribute?" Importantly, the average donation was quite similar in both conditions. Thus, the phrase "Even a penny will help" served to reduce people's reluctance to donate without greatly changing how much they decided to donate. The mechanism appears to be that the "even a penny" made the request seem smaller and, thus, less necessary to resist (Brockner, Guzzi, Kane, Levine, & Shaplen, 1984; Reingen, 1978; Weyant & Smith, 1987).
25) Raise the Comparison. A request for $1 may engender resistance because it is compared to the alternative of not giving at all. A request for $10 that has been refused may create less resistance because the request for $1 seems like a bargain in comparison to the $10. Burger (1986) thought that invoking a high judgmental anchor might be one of the processes that explain why a price reduction is effective. Telling a customer that an item used to be $1 but is now only 75 cents makes it more attractive than simply telling a customer that the item sells for 75 cents. The function of the high anchor is to reduce resistance to the price by changing the implicit comparison price from zero (not buying the product) to some higher value (the original price). The shopper returns loaded down with purchases from a store-wide 50%-off sale and says, "Look at all the money I saved!" Thomas Mussweiler's (2000, 2002) research suggests that a variety of high numerical anchors might make a request seem more reasonable, even when the anchors are unrelated to the request, e.g., "There are two hundred uses for this eight-dollar item!" and "Eighty thousand customers have purchased this thirty Dollar service."
26) Counterarguing Resistance. Persuasion research has examined addressing resistance directly in its study of the persuasiveness of one-sided versus two-sided communications (Hovland, Lumsdaine, & Sheffield, 1949; Insko, 1962; Lumsdaine & Janis, 1953). Most of these studies have used political issues, such as abortion or gun control, and messages that attempt to sway opinion rather than instigate behavior. A one-sided message advocates one alternative, giving reasons for believing it. A two-sided message advocates this same alternative and gives the same reasons, but it also refutes the opposing side. As such, the two-sided message includes an Omega element, identifying arguments opposed to the side advocated and directly countering these claims.
Two-sided messages seem to be generally more effective than one-sided messages in situations where listeners would be resistant enough to the message to think of the counterarguments themselves. For instance, higher-educated listeners and listeners who were initially opposed to the direction advocated in the message respond better to two-sided messages (Hovland et aI., 1949; Faison, 1961). Two-sided messages are not always effective, however. Sometimes they lead to less change in the advocated direction, but these situations seem to be ones in which the refutations introduce resistance that was not initially there.
27) Raise Self-Esteem. Jacks and O'Brien (this volume) report that self affirmation reduces people's resistance to persuasion. That is, people who have been praised, reminded of crowning accomplishments, or allowed to succeed at a task are more likely to agree with, that is, less likely to resist, an unrelated persuasive message. The Jacks and O'Brien study suggests that activities that build up people's sense of efficacy, self-esteem, or confidence have the added effect of making people less wary. This makes psychological sense. If a person feels efficacious and accomplished, these feelings imply that the person can overcome any difficulty. These indirect strategies reduce resistance by reducing the need to be resistant.
28) Focusing Resistance. Sagarin and Cialdini report that training people to be critical of advertisements and to identify credible and noncredible sources for messages has two effects. First, training sometimes made people more resistant to illegitimate advertisements, especially if their susceptibility to influence had been demonstrated clearly. Second, the training made people less resistant to legitimate and appropriate sources. People who have been trained to be critical of advertisements end up being more persuaded by legitimate ads than do people who have not been trained. It is as if a general wariness that untrained participants applied to all advertisements was lifted from the legitimate ads after training. People who are provided with a sense of power, efficacy, control, and competence seem to have less need to be wary. They are more confident that they can handle or repair any breach. Pratkanis (2000) suggests another strategy that indirectly disables resistance.
He reminds us that influence is an interaction between two people who cast each other into specific roles (see also, Dolinski et aI., 2001). Assuming the role of "teacher" implicitly demands that the other person take the role of "learner"; the role of "expert" implies that the other person take the role of "novice." Pratkanis observes that an influencer can disable a target's resistance by casting the resister in the role of "expert." Ascribing the "expert" to the customer places the customer in a double-bind. To keep his status as an expert, the customer has to agree with the salesperson. Presumably, recasting the customer in a traditionally persuasive role (e.g., "Well, you're a teacher, you can explain better than I can why this is the best alternative") disables the customer's resistance and/or the customer's willingness to employ whatever resistance he might have.
29) Choices. If a person is going to be resistant to a suggestion, one effective strategy may be to offer that person a choice between alternatives. If there is only one alternative, then acceptance and resistance are focused on that alternative, creating the approach-avoidance conflict. However, offering a person a choice between alternatives allows that person to separate the acceptance and the resistance and to apply them to different alternatives. The motivation to resist is satisfied in the rejected alternative at the same time that the approach motivation is satisfied in the accepted alternative. Thus, for children who are resistant to bedtime, the sensitive parent asks, "Do you want to brush your teeth first or do you want to put on your pajamas first?"
30) Reduce the chance of future regrets. The reinstatement of freedom explanation has remained pretty much intact over the years as the explanation for cognitive reactance. In light of the recent work on anticipated regret, we wondered whether there might be a feasible alternative explanation. We proposed that reactance findings might be reconceptualized in terms of the anticipation of the amounts of future regret for compliance versus reactance, That is, the choice to go against the dictates of another may be due, in part, to the amount of future possible regret that is anticipated for negative consequences after choosing either the "forbidden" or the "promoted" alternative, In that individuals reliably go against the demands of the other, it seemed possible that they anticipate greater regret if negative outcomes follow compliance with the dictates of another than if the same negative outcomes follow defiance against the dictates. To minimize future regret, individuals will exhibit reactive behavior rather than compliance.
31) Tailored Information. Websites act as tools when they tailor information, offering people content that is pertinent to their needs and contexts. Compared to general information, tailored information increases the potential for attitude and behavior change (Beniger, 1987; Dijkstra et al., 1998; Jimison, Street, & Gold, 1997; Nowak et al., 1999; Strecher et al., 1999; Strecher et al., 1994).
One notable example of a tailoring technology is the Chemical Scorecard Web site (www.scorecard.org), which generates information according to an individual's geographical 10 cation in order to achieve a persuasive outcome. After people enter their zip code in this Web site, the Web technology reports on chemical hazards in their neighborhood, identifies companies that create those hazards, and describes the potential health risks. Although no published studies document the persuasive effects of this particular technology, outside research and analysis suggests that making information relevant to individuals increases their attention and arousal, which can ultimately lead to increased attitude and behavior change (Beniger, 1987; MacInnis & Jaworski, 1989; MacInnis, Moorman, & Jaworski, 1991; Strecher et al., 1999).
Although our findings suggest that reactance is spontaneous, one may wonder why reactance wou1d be relativly automatic process. Western culture values autonomy, self-determination, and independence (e.g., Bandura, 1997; Fiske, Kitayama, Markus, & Nisbett, 1998; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Triandis, 1995), and that the importance of these values is reinforced often and from a very early age. Thus, the need for autonomy becomes a chronic construct that automatically guides behavior (Higgins, King,&: Mavin, 1982). Even though compliance may not be a spontaneous response in influence situations, it certainly may triumph in decision making once more controlled processes are invoked. For example, if people explicitly consider how much regret they might feel following an undesirable outcome if they follow or if they do not follow another's demands, their focus may shift from concerns about "me losing my freedom" to "me feeling bad for the actions I choose to take." Consciously choosing a course of action that rejects another's request is likely perceived as increasing the sense of volition, action (vs. inaction), and thus blameworthiness for one's bad decision, making the prospect of choosing an independent course of action that results in now-considered failure especially unattractive (Gilovich & Medvec, 1995; Kahneman & Miller, 1986; Markman et aI., 1995). To the extent that decision makers focus on how their not going along with another's demand is an action they are taking that could result in undesirable consequences, they may find compliance more attractive. Again, this line of reasoning is consistent with our empirical findings (Crawford et aI., 2002).
32) Why do predictions of future behavior increase compliance rates?
The key to increasing compliance rates by predicting the future is that the prediction of a behavior arouses less resistance than actually committing to the behavior. It is simply far easier for one to predict that one will do something than to agree to do it. Agreeing to an action in the "hypothetical future" is benign and one need not resist any direct persuasive attempt. Thus, the technique of increasing compliance through future prediction works by diminishing the negative aspects associated with compliance. In this way, resistance is weakened.
33) Imagining and Explaining Hypothetical Future Events
Similar to the effects of predicting the future on subsequent judgments and behavior, simply imagining or explaining the future can increase one's subjective likelihood that an event will occur. Thus, Carroll (1978) asked participants to imagine one or the other outcome of the 1976 presidential election (prior to its occurrence). Those who imagined a victory by Carter judged that outcome as more likely, and those who imagined a Ford victory judged that Ford was more likely to win. Similarly, asking participants to imagine and explain a hypothetical victory by one or the other team in an upcoming football game very much influenced their judgments of who would win the game, with the team imagined as winning being seen as more likely to actually win (Sherman, Zehner, Johnson, & Rirt, 1983).
34) Self-Affirmation Theory and Resistance to Persuasion
Research has also shown that self-affirmations are most effective in obviating the need for attitude change when they are not related to the dissonance-arousing act. For example, Aronson, Blanton, and Cooper (1995) have shown that following a dissonance induction, individuals chose not to affirm the self in the domain that had been threatened; instead, they preferred to affirm the selfconcept in an unrelated domain. Further, Blanton, Cooper, Skurnik, and Aronson (1997) argued that self-affirmations make the standards that individuals have in that domain very salient. Therefore, affirmations that are relevant to dissonant behavior should not help reduce dissonance, but may, in fact, make people feel worse. In their research, when participants who had written a counter-attitudinal essay that contradicted the value of compassion were later affirmed on that value, the affirmation exacerbated dissonance and led to more attitude change compared to a no-affirmation control. Individuals who were self-affirmed in a domain unrelated to compassion, however, did not change their attitudes compared to no-affirmation controls. These findings suggest that only unrelated affirmations will mitigate the need for self-justifying attitude change in the dissonance paradigm.
35) Implicating the Self: A Self-Consistency View of Dissonance; Persuaion and attitude change using Dissonance
People strive for consistent views of themselves. If people feel reasonably positive about themselves, they see themselves as competent and moral human beings. Anything that challenges that view will result in dissonance. Cognitive inconsistency results in dissonance because good, competent, and moral people do not usually act in ways that run contrary to their beliefs. They do not convince other students that a dull task is interesting, they do not extol the virtues of marijuana to high school youngsters, they do not write essays about raising college tuition fees if they believe that the fees should not be raised. When people find that they have acted in ways that compromise their sense of competence or moral integrity, they are motivated to change their attitudes.
One implication of the self-consistency position is that people who do not chronically think of themselves as competent would not be as likely to change their attitudes following counterattitudinal behavior. That is, people with lower self-esteem should experience little dissonance after behaving in a counterattitudinal fashion. Self-esteem establishes an expectancy about how a person is likely to behave. When people violate that expectancy, dissonance is created. Several pieces of evidence converge to support this viewpoint. Aronson and Mettee (1968) manipulated what people thought about themselves. Those whose self-esteem had been lowered were less bothered by an attitude-discrepant act than were people whose self-esteem had been raised. Similarly, Glass (1964), Maracek and Mettee (1972), and Gibbons, Eggleston, and Benthin (1997) also found that dissonance arousal was lower for people with low self-esteem. In short, Aronson's view is that behavior that calls into question one's competence and morality, such as advocating something you do not believe in, creates cognitive dissonance, provided you expect positive outcomes for yourself-that is, that you have a positive sense of self-esteem.
36) Self-Affirmation
Claude Steele and his colleagues (e.g., Steele, 1988; Steele & Liu, 1983; Steele, Spencer, & Lynch, 1993) have also linked the experience of dissonance to a person's self-esteem. Like the self-consistency position, the selfaffirmation view of dissonance holds that people are primarily motivated to affirm the competence and morality of their self-view. However, selfaffirmation makes a drastically different prediction when it comes to the role of self-esteem. Steele et al. (1993) argued that people with low selfesteem are the ones who feel particularly threatened when they engage in counterattitudinal behavior. Their self-view is already fragile, and acting in a counterattitudinal fashion further compromises their sense of competence. On the other hand, a solid sense of self-esteem can serve as a resource-a buffer against the feeling of incompetence. Steele, Spencer, and Lynch (1993) found that when people with high self-esteem engage in counterattitudinal behavior, they change their attitudes less than do people with low self-esteem. This, of course, is opposite to the prediction made by the self-consistency view.
It should come as no surprise that there are issues left unresolved. The SSM helps us understand why the self is sometimes involved in dissonance and sometimes not. It posits that all dissonance emanates from the same judgment: How shall I interpret the behavior I have chosen, and against what standard of judgment shall I make this interpretation? Dissonance is activated by an assessment of whether I have done something unwanted or aversive. However, the question of what is aversive has been expanded. It can be aversive because it violates my sense of what I expect of myself, or it can be aversive because it violates my normative judgment of what most people consider to be unwanted or immoral.
37) Evidence. We are now able to say with little reservation that an advocate "quotes" information in support of an argument and the recipients of message process the information as legitimate evidence, the advocate will be more persive than if the information was not presented or was not processed by receivers.
CONDITIONS FOR THE EFFECTIVE USE OF EVIDENCE
There are some very obvious conditions underlying the effective use of evidence. First, the must be some awareness that "evidence" indeed been presented. Second, the audien must be reasonably expected to process the mesage and the evidence. Finally, the audien must perceive the evidence to be legitimate. The traffic police officer carefully documents the calibration of the speed radar equipment to be used each day because that question of calibration will be the first one asked by the judge as the traffic cases come up in court. There are many different types and forms of evidence (see Reinard, 1991; Rothstein, Raeder, & Crump, 1997). In the vast majority of the research studies on evidence (for detailed reviews of the early research, see Reinard, 1988; Reynolds & Burgoon, 1983), the researchers operationalized evidence as testimonial quotes attributed (or not attributed) to a particular source (usually a person qualified to make the observation being made).
The strongest items in the scale are presented here:
The evidence presented in the message:
Considering what we know about evidence, the conditions for the effective use of evidence, and what we need to know, there is a strong future for researchers interested in the study of evidence. The quality and quantity of research relevant to the study of the use and effects of evidence have advanced far beyond the early stages of doubt about the worthiness of the enterprise. Now there is an evolving research literature base on which evidence researchers can draw. There might not be a flood of studies over the next few decades, but there should be a continuing steady stream of theses, dissertations, and research articles. Perhaps some entire academic departments may wish to make evidence research a focal point in their collective efforts at development and advancement.
38) Persuasion or attitude change;
SHARON SHAVITT MICHELLE R. NELSON
Attitude. During the 1950s and 1960s, a class of theories was proposed that was the first to focus attention on the motives or functions that attitudes serve for the individual. These functional theories of attitude held that attitudes serve a variety of purposes important to psychological functioning (Katz, 1960; Katz & Stotland, 1959; Kelman, 1958, 1961; Smith, Bruner, & White, 1956). Functional theories were the first to recognize attitudes as instrumental constructs designed to serve individuals' physical, social, and emotional needs.
In addition, attitudes likely serve any of a number of other motives. Many attitudes serve a utilitarian function (Katz, 1960; see also Smith et al., 1956), helping to maximize the rewards and minimize the punishments obtained from objects in the environment. Such utilitarian attitudes serve to summarize the outcomes intrinsically associated with objects and to guide behavioral responses that maximize one's interests. For example, one's attitude toward ice cream may serve a utilitarian function because it is likely to be based on the rewards (e.g., enjoyable taste) and punishments (e.g., weight gain) associated with ice cream and to guide behavior that maximizes benefits while minimizing costs (e.g., eating low-fat ice cream).
Finally, attitudes can serve to build and maintain self-esteem in a variety of ways. The original functional theories focused on psychodynamic mechanisms by which attitudes support self-esteem, suggesting that attitudes can serve as defense mechanisms for coping with intrapsychic conflict (Katz, 1960; Smith et aI., 1956). The assumption was that attitudes distance the self from threatening out-groups or objects by projecting one's unacceptable impulses onto them. This analysis was particularly pertinent to the conceptualization of prejudiced attitudes and resulted in important contributions in this domain (e.g., Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950; Katz, Sarnoff, & McClintock, 1956; McClintock, 1958; for a review and critique, see Shavitt, 1989).
Attitudes serve a self-esteem maintenance function in other ways as well. Indeed, recent research has shown that attitudes toward a variety of targets are motivated by their implications for self-assessment (Dunning, 1999; Klein & Kunda, 1993, 1994). For instance, attitudes toward people with whom we affiliate are based in part on their implications for self-enhancing social comparison (Tesser & Campbell, 1983). Attitudes that associate the self with successful groups (e.g., winning sports teams) may be based on their implications for boosting self-esteem through a process of "basking in reflected glory" (Cialdini etal.,1976).
Functional theories have been influential and widely cited in the domain of attitudes and persuasion. In particular, they have offered critical insights into persuasion processes. Functional theories held that in order to change an attitude, it is necessary to know the motivational basis for that attitude. The central principle of these theories is that attitudes that serve different functions will change in response to different types of appeals.
Personality Differences ; High Self-Monitoring and Low Self-Monitoring; who are your audiences?
The focus of this research is on the contrasting aspects of the social identity function. Snyder and DeBono (1985) suggested that high self-monitoring individuals, who strive to fit into various social situations, should tend to form attitudes that guide behavior appropriate to the relevant reference groups in each situation. This, they argued, implies that high self-monitors' attitudes generally serve to establish their public identity (what Smith et al., 1956, labeled the social adjustment function). By contrast, low self-monitoring individuals, who strive to remain true to their inner values and preferences, should tend to form attitudes that reflect and express their true selves and establish their private identities (what Katz, 1960, labeled the value-expressive function). Research has generally supported these assumptions, suggesting that personality differences tend to predict differences in the functions that one's attitudes tend to serve.
CONSEQUENCES OF ATTITUDE FUNCTIONS
Persuasion Consequences
As mentioned earlier, one of the key predictions of functional theory is that messages will be persuasive to the extent that they match the functional underpinnings of the attitude they target. This matching hypothesis, as it has come to be known, has received extensive empirical support across studies using a variety of functional operations and outcome measures (e.g., DeBono, 1987; Prentice, 1987; Shavitt, 1990; Shavitt et al., 1992; Snyder & DeBono, 1985, 1987; Spivey, Munson, & Locander, 1983).
For instance, DeBono (1997) showed that persuasive appeals are accepted by high self-monitors to the extent that the appeals address the social adjustive function (e.g., messages about the consensus of their peers). By contrast, appeals are accepted by low self-monitors to the extent that the appeals address the value-expressive function (e.g., messages about the values reflected by the advocated attitude). In the context of advertising, Snyder and DeBono (1985,1987) showed that high self-monitors respond more favorably to image-oriented ads (social adjustive appeals), whereas low self-monitors respond more favorably to ads about product quality (what Snyder & DeBono called value-expressive appeals).
Information Processing Consequences
What processes underlie this matching effect? A variety of answers to this question have been offered. Lavine and Snyder (1996) showed that the effect can be mediated by the perception that functionally matched messages are higher in quality. In other words, matched messages may induce favorably biased processing of their content. By contrast, DeBono (1987) suggested that the effect is largely a peripheral process that does not require the processing (or even the presence) of substantive message arguments.
However, several studies (including DeBono, 1987, Study 1) have indicated that functionally matched messages can trigger elaborated processing of message elements. Indeed, this processing can be relatively objective, resulting in counterarguments as well as supportive responses (DeBono & Harnish, 1988; Petty & Wegener, 1998; Shavitt, Swan, Lowrey, & Wanke, 1994). For instance, DeBono and Harnish (1988) demonstrated that an attractive source can stimulate elaborated processing of message arguments among high self-monitoring persons, whereas an expert source can stimulate such processing among low self-monitors. Therefore, high self-monitors agreed with an expert source regardless of the quality of the arguments that he presented (i.e., expertise served as a peripheral cue regarding the merits of the message) but agreed with an attractive source only when he presented strong arguments. By contrast, low self-monitors agreed with an attractive source regardless of argument strength but agreed with an expert source only when he presented strong arguments.
Similarly, Petty and Wegener (1998) showed that matching the substantive content of a message to the attitude function influences the degree of scrutiny that the message receives. Specifically, the attitudes of high and low self-monitors were strongly affected by the strength of message arguments when those arguments matched rather than mismatched the functional basis of their attitudes.
Finally, Shavitt et al. (1994) demonstrated that the attractiveness of endorsers in an ad, a message element that is particularly relevant to social identity goals, is used as a shortcut or cue to product evaluation when utilitarian goals are made salient (and involvement is low), whereas it is scrutinized as relevant information about the image of the product when social identity goals are made salient (and involvement is high). In other words, the attractiveness or unattractiveness of endorsers elicits greater scrutiny and elaboration when their presence is relevant to the functional basis of the attitude. When recipients are involved in evaluating the focal product with social identity goals in mind, the presence of endorsers who are less than attractive may be worse than no endorser at all.
Implications for Predicting Long-Term Message Effectiveness
If function-relevant material in a message can elicit increased scrutiny, then one might expect thoughts that reflect the by-products of such scrutiny to be more important to persuasion than other thoughts. This would be expected both because such thoughts may reflect more systematic processing and because such thoughts are relevant to the goals associated with one's attitude. Thus, to the extent that cognitive responses to a message are functionally relevant, those thoughts should also link more closely to one's attitudes.
Will function-relevant thoughts be more important in predicting attitudes than thoughts that reflect other functional goals? This issue was investigated in the context of a study on long-term advertising effectiveness (Nelson et aI., 1997). Long-term effects of a message are particularly important in consumer contexts, where delayed thoughts and attitudes about brands can be critical to the decisionmaking process. For example, one's first exposure to an advertisement for a new product may trigger cognitive responding but mayor may not trigger formation of an attitude toward the brand. Evaluating the brand might not become relevant until, say, one is at the grocery store a week later. At that point, the cognitive responses that one remembers may help to determine one's judgment.
In a two-session study of advertising effects, Nelson et al. (1997) investigated the role of functionally relevant cognitive responding to an ad in predicting ad persuasiveness, focusing on the functions associated with product categories and personality categories. For instance, it was expected that the relevance of listed thoughts to the function associated with the advertised product would influence the predictiveness of those listed thoughts-perhaps because functionally relevant thoughts reflect more systematic processing than do functionally irrelevant thoughts.
In the first session, participants were shown print advertisements for a number of products varying in the functions they were expected to engage (e.g., utilitarian products such as a toothbrush, social identity products such as flowers, multiple-function products such as mineral water). The product functions were determined by pretesting. The ads employed were for fictitious brands but were designed to appear realistic. Utilitarian and social identity claims were balanced within each ad. Therefore, there was consistency in the type of advertising content used across products and function categories, and participants could focus on any combination of utilitarian claims or social identity claims for any product. After looking at each ad, participants listed their thoughts. A week later, participants returned and reported their attitudes toward the advertised brands and then attempted to recall the thoughts that they had listed during the first session. Finally, participants completed several other measures, including the 25 -item Self-Monitoring Scale (Snyder, 1974).
THEORIES OF PERSUASION
The results indicated that the types of thoughts that tended to be more predictive of attitudes at a I-week delay were those that were more relevant to the functional basis of the attitude. Specifically, there was a consistent trend for the predictive value of each thought type to vary with the type of product (see Table 8.1). For utilitarian products, the utilitarian thoughts that one recalled at a delay were significantly more consistent with attitude than were the social identity thoughts that one recalled. The opposite was the case, although not significantly, for social identity products. These findings are consistent with assumptions about the functions associated with these product categories, as the types of thoughts that were predictive corresponded with the ascribed functions of the products.
In addition, interactive effects were found for product and personality, which might be explained in terms of how well the functions of the product correspond to the goals of the individual. In general, the thoughts that low self-monitors listed initially, as well as the thoughts that they recalled (see Table 8.1), were more consistent with their attitudes than were those of high self-monitors. More important, for low self-monitors, recalled utilitarian thoughts were significantly more consistent with attitudes for utilitarian products than with those for social identity products. The reverse was true for high self-monitors, for whom recalled social identity thoughts were significantly more consistent with attitudes for social identity products than with those for utilitarian products. Thus, the responses that participants recalled to an advertisement correlated with persuasion to the extent that the function associated with the responses and with the target product matched the goals of the individual.
These findings suggest that cognitive responses that "match" the functional basis of one's attitudes may play a more important role in persuasion than do other cogllltive responses. This makes sense from the functional theory perspective of attitudes as goalrelevant constructs; that is, thoughts that reflect one's goals matter more than thoughts that do not. It also fits well with research described earlier that showed enhanced processing of function-relevant material. Apparently, the by-products of such processing con tin1io be important in long-term persuasion.
39) Language; Persuasive messages contain various elements, but one of the most critical is language.
LAWRENCE A. HOSMAN
ASSUMPTIONS AND QUESTIONS UNDERLYING RESEARCH ON LANGUAGE AND PERSUASION
The central question that scholars of language and persuasion address is deceptively simple:
What effects do variations in the phonological, syntactical, lexical, textual, and use elements of a message have on persuasion?
Two aspects of the question are critical. First, what language variations are important? As Bradac, Bowers, and Courtright (1979) pointed out, variations in nearly all of the levels of language can be important. Later sections of this chapter review language variations that scholars have studied.
The second critical element is what aspects of the persuasion process these language variations affect. Most research assumes that language variations affect one of three elements of the persuasion process: judgments of the speaker, message comprehension or recall, or attitude toward the message. Numerous studies have focused on judgments of the speaker. The assumption is that language variation affects the impression formation process, and in a persuasion context an important impression affected is that of the speaker. Language variations may affect listeners' judgments of a speaker's source credibility, attractiveness, likability, and/or similarity. Other research has examined the impact of language variation on listeners' comprehension, recall, and/or understanding of a message. Finally, some research has investigated the effect of language variations on attitude toward the message. Research focusing on judgments of the speaker and message comprehension or recall implicitly assumes that effects in these two areas will ultimately affect attitude toward the message and persuasion. That is, research assumes that if a particular language variation has a positive impact on speaker credibility, it will also have a positive impact on attitude toward the message. These assumed links among various elements are intuitively plausible but do not always exist. As discussed later in this chapter, researchers need to investigate these assumptions more explicitly.
Although the research literature is sparse, it suggests that the complexity with which persuasive materials are written affects their outcomes.
Research has also begun to look at units larger than a sentence. Thorson and Snyder (1984) looked at the structure of television commercial scripts and their impact on the recall of these commercials. They used an "advertising language model" based on Kintsch and van Dijk's (1978) macropropositional model of discourse. This model provides several structural measures of advertising content. They found that several of these measures predicted commercial recall.
Adaval and Wyer (1998) studied the effect of narratives on the perceived attractiveness of vacation promotion literature. Two travel brochures described a vacation. One brochure described the vacation in a narrative form, while the other brochure described it in a list form. The authors also looked at the effect of undesirable information being contained in the two conditions. The results showed that participants evaluated vacations presented in a narrative form more positively than when the vacations were presented in a list form. This effect was enhanced when the brochure included undesirable information about the vacation site. That is, participants attended to negative information more when presented in a list form than when presented in a narrative form. The effects of a narrative information presentation were also enhanced when pictures accompanied the text.
The nature of a sentence's grammatical construction or of a narrative's construction has important persuasive consequences. Grammatically complex materials are more difficult to recall than grammatically simple material. This research has yet to address whether these differences have consequences for other aspects of the persuasion process such as speaker judgments and attitude change.
Lexical Level
Persuaders' choices about the words to use and the meaning of words in a persuasive message are critical. This section reviews research that has looked at the effect of lexical variation and semantic variation on the persuasion process.
Lexical Diversity. Lexical diversity refers to the vocabulary richness or vocabulary range that speakers exhibit and is assessed via a typetoken ratio (TTR)-the number of different words in a message (types) divided by the total number of words (tokens). A low TTR means that a speaker's vocabulary is relatively redundant, while a high TTR means that it is relatively diverse. Lexical diversity affects listeners' judgments of speakers through a principle of "preference for complexity" (Bradac, Desmond, & Murdock, 1977). Simply stated, listeners prefer complexity because it is interesting, and lexical diversity should be preferred because it represents more complex lexical choice.
In a series of studies, Bradac and his associates (e.g., Bradac, Courtright, Schmidt, & Davies, 1976; Bradac, Davies, Courtright, Desmond, & Murdock, 1977; Bradac, Desmond, & Murdock, 1977) supported this principle, finding that lexical diversity is directly related to judgments of a speaker's competence and socioeconomic status and to perceptions of message effectiveness. Another study (Burroughs, 1991) found that these types of evaluations occurred when adults evaluated child speakers.
Subsequent studies (e.g., Bradac et aI., 1976; Bradac &Wisegarver, 1984) found that ascribed speaker status interacted with diversity to affect a number of speaker judgments. A high-status speaker exhibiting high lexical diversity was perceived positively, while a high-status speaker exhibiting low lexical diversity was perceived negatively. In addition, some studies (Carpenter, 1990; Dulaney, 1982) have found that those who lie or are duplicitous exhibit higher lexical diversity than do those who do not lie. The explanation for this latter finding is that the process of lying requires speakers to plan their utterances more carefully, thus increasing the use of new words.
In sum, these studies show that the richness of a speaker's vocabulary is related to listeners' judgments about a speaker's credibility or status. No research has explored the relationship between lexical diversity and attitude change. The preference for complexity principle would suggest that high lexical diversity would have a positive effect on the persuasion process.
Language Imagery and Vividness. Another aspect of the lexicon studied by language and persuasion scholars is verbal imagery or the ability of words to elicit images in listeners. Some researchers call this the vividness effect. Some words or expressions seem to elicit more imagery than others. Typically, concrete words, use of detail, and/or emotional language should elicit more images or be more vivid than should abstract or unemotional language. Similarly, one would expect verbal imagery or vividness to have more of a positive impact on persuasion than would pallid language. Vivid language should be more memorable and accessible and should more favorably influence attitude change than should pallid language (Nisbett & Ross, 1980). These predictions are consistent with theories that focus on attitude accessibility (Fazio, 1989), theories such as information processing (McGuire, 1969) that include attention to the message, and theories such as the HeuristicSystematic Model (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993) that incorporate the availability of heuristics as part of the persuasion process.
Despite these expectations, research on the persuasive impact of language imagery is contradictory. Some early studies found that verbal imagery had a positive impact on persuasion. For example, Rossiter and Percy (1978) found that concrete words produced nearly twice as many favorable attitudes toward a product than did abstract words. An important literature review (Taylor & Thompson, 1982) concluded, however, that no conclusive evidence existed demonstrating that vividly presented information was more persuasive than nonvividly presented information.
Other scholars have argued that the effect of vivid information depends on other receiver characteristics. Block and Keller (1997) found, for example, that vivid information in health communications was more persuasive when the receivers were high in self-efficacy.
Language Intensity. Hamilton and Hunter (1998) noted that two major approaches exist to the definition of language intensity. The first views language intensity as a stylistic feature of messages. Intense language could include emotion-laden words, such as horrible and excellent, or specific graphic language, such as astronomical and completely. The second approach views intensity as reflecting the extremity of a source's position on an issue (e.g., Bowers, 1963). A speaker describing a government policy as horrible is using more intense language than a speaker who describes the policy as disconcerting, and this shows greater deviation from attitudinal neutrality on this issue.
As this second causal path suggests, the positive correlation between language intensity and attitude change may depend on the message's position-whether the persuasive message is attitudinally congruent with or discrepant from receivers' attitudes. The metaanalysis supported this. When a message was attitudinally congruent, language intensity had little persuasive impact. However, when a message was attitudinally discrepant, language intensity's effect was dependent on a receiver's ego involvement. With a receiver high in ego involvement, language intensity had a negative relationship with attitude toward the source. When the receiver was low in ego involvement, language intensity positively affected attitude toward the source. A field study of language intensity's effects in skin cancer prevention messages supported this meta-analysis (Buller, Borland, & Burgoon, 1998). This study found that high-intensity messages produced less attitude change in listeners not intending to increase their skin protection than in those intending to increase their skin protection, particularly when the message drew explicit conclusions for the listeners.
Thus, the diversity of words used by persuaders, the images words create in listeners' minds, the intensity of their language choices, and the vagueness of their language choices affect judgments of speaker credibility and attitude change. As noted in this section, the vividness research suffers from inconsistent operationalizations of the concept. Some operationalizations of vividness are similar to those used in the equivocal language research. Conceptual overlaps between the work in language intensity and equivocal language also exist. Equivocal language also hides the degree to which a speaker's attitude deviates from neutrality. These are issues for future researchers to pursue.
The other line of research has focused on the individual components contained in the styles and their implications for the impression formation process. This chapter earlier discussed one of these components-language intensity. Other studies (e.g., Bradac & Mulac, 1984a; Haleta, 1996; Hosman, 1989; Hosman & Siltanen, 1994) examining individual components have found that participants perceive speakers exhibiting hedges and hesitations as less credible, attractive, and dynamic than speakers not using them. Polite forms, however, constitute something of an anomaly. Bradac and Mulac (1984a) found that listeners perceive polite forms to be as powerful as a powerful style. Other researchers (e.g., Lakoff, 1975) have contended that polite forms are a powerless form of speech.
Two links exist between power of speech style and the persuasion process. The first is an indirect link among power of speech style, impression formation, and attitude change. Most of the research shows that a powerful speech style will enhance a speaker's perceived credibility, attractiveness, dynamism, and sociability, and to the extent these impressions will positively affect attitude change, a powerful style should be more persuasive.
Two studies (Erickson et aI., 1978; Hahn & Clayton, 1996) found that a powerful speech style resulted in a more favorable verdict than did a powerless style. A meta-analysis of studies prior to 1991 found that powerful speech styles produced positive effects on attitude change (Burrell & Koper, 1998). One recent study (Sparks et aI., 1998) suggested that differences in the ability to find direct effects of power of speech style may be due to the modality of message presentation. The authors found that a powerful speech style was more persuasive than a powerless style when the message was presented via audiotape, but no significant differences between styles emerged when the messages were written.
Summary on language: More than 20 years ago, Miller and Burgoon (1978) lamented on the decline of research on language and persuasion. Since then, research has slowly increased as scholars in fields such as advertising, marketing, psychology, and communication investigate a variety of language variables. Some variables have been investigated extensively. We know, for example, the impact of lexical choices or standard and nonstandard language varieties on judgments of speaker credibility and attractiveness. We also have a better understanding of the factors that moderate and mediate the relationship between language intensity and attitude change.
At the same time, we still lack substantial knowledge about some important aspects of the relationship between language and persuasion. How do the various levels of language structure affect persuasion, and how do the various levels of language structure relate to each other in the persuasion process? For example, the syntactic complexity of a message may affect its recall or comprehension, but we are less able to draw conclusions about its impact on attitude toward the message. More generally, we have substantial knowledge about how some language variables affect attitude toward the speaker, but we have little (if any) information about how it affects the attitude toward the message. Alternatively, how do lexical diversity and syntactical complexity affect each other in a persuasive message?
The future of this area of research seems bright both theoretically and practically, but to achieve its potential, scholars must meet certain challenges. They should apply more systematic frameworks to organize their study of language variables. This chapter has suggested a process model of language attitudes as one possibility. A general model such as this not only helps to integrate research but also points to variables relatively unexamined such as the effect of listeners' moods on the processing of language variables.
Even using such frameworks, investigators must integrate more research into comprehensive theories of persuasion such as dualprocess models. These theories will help investigators to focus on how language affects attitude change and how listeners respond cognitively to language variables.
Finally, researchers must increasingly worry about the generalizability of their resultsgeneralizability that extends beyond the particular messages used in a study. Increasing the generalizability of results presents its own challenges, but being concerned with the issue is critical for practitioners to find the research valuable and useful.
39) Figurative Language and Persuasion; Metaphor;
PRADEEP SOPORY JAMES PRICE DILLARD
Public discourse is rife with figurative comparisons designed to change people's minds. Metaphor is the typical trope of comparison in such messages, although use of other nonliteral comparisons such as similes, analogies, and personifications is also common. Despite this widespread use, do we know whether figurative comparisons in persuasive message are really effective? And if so, what is the process by which they achieve their impact? This chapter reviews possible answers to these two questions. After providing some background, we start by summarizing what is known about effect of metaphor on attitude and communicator credibility, sketch out relevant theories of metaphor comprehension, evaluate different views of metaphor and persuasion, and finally make suggestions for future research.
TERMINOLOGY AND SCOPE
A metaphor is customarily defined as a linguistic phrase of the form "A is B," such that a comparison is suggested between the two terms leading to a transfer of attributes associated with B to A. For example, "The global marketplace is a dictatorship" (from a flyer advertising a protest march) consists of two parts, A (global marketplace) and B (dictatorship), such that there is a comparison between A and B and properties associated with dictatorship are transferred to global marketplace. The two terms, A and B, are seen as representing different concepts or conceptual domains, and various theorists have used different terminology to describe the two parts. The more recent use is target and base (e.g., Gentner, 1983) for A and B, respectively.
Simile, analogy, and personification, albeit different in some surface respects, cognitively function similar to metaphor in that all three also involve comparison of concepts or systems of concepts.! Hence, their study is generally subsumed into that of metaphor. Accordingly, in this chapter, we use metaphor as a general term to refer to all tropes of comparison.
Usually the word metaphor is used to denote, as above, a particular language device or a characteristic of language, what Lakoff and Johnson (1980) called linguistic metaphor. In this sense, metaphor is a rhetorical property that is observed in spoken or written language. However, the term metaphor is also used in two other ways: as a cognitive process and as a cognitive structure. In the first instance, metaphor is a conceptual process by which one mental entity is understood via mapping to another mental entity. This is commonly referred to as metaphorical processing or reasoning. In the second instance, metaphor is a structure inherent in mental entities that come about as a consequence of a cognitive mapping process. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) referred to such metaphorically structured concepts as conceptual metaphors. This section employs the term metaphor in all three senses; and distinguishes among them wherever necessary.
METAPHOR EFFECTS ON ATTITUDE AND COMMUNICATOR CREDIBILITY
Do metaphor-using messages exert a greater effect on attitude and communicator credibility than do literal messages? Sopory and Dillard (in press) provided an answer to this question in their meta-analytic review of the empirical literature on metaphor and persuasion. The main results of their meta-analysis are summarized briefly in what follows as nine propositions about the effects of metaphor.
Proposition 1: Relative to their literal counterparts, metaphorical messages are more likely to produce greater attitude change. The results of the meta-analysis clearly revealed that metaphor-using messages do exhibit a small persuasive edge over literal-only messages for attitude change (r = .07). This relationship was positive across all moderator variable conditions except 2. In other words, the meta-analysis uncovered only 2 conditions (out of 14) in which the use of metaphor may be detrimental to the goal of generating agreement with the message advocacy. Thus, the positive effect of metaphor on attitude seems to be a reliable one.
The small effect size found here is not unlike the magnitude of effects obtained meta-analytically for other message variables in persuasion research. For example, a two-sided message containing refutation of counterarguments is superior to a one-sided message by roughly the same effect size of .07 (Allen, 1998). Similarly, Dillard (1998), after perusing effect sizes for nine different persuasion meta-analyses, observed that all were less than .30 and that their mean was only .18, which may be considered to be on the small side by Cohen's (1987) criteria. Hence, the effect of metaphor on attitude is in the same order as other observed effects in persuasion research. Moreover, the effect of metaphor becomes more pronounced when particular moderator variables are taken into account, as the results that follow show.
Proposition 2: Use of 1 metaphor is associated with greater attitude change than is use of larger numbers. A metaphor-using persuasive message may contain any number of metaphors. In the message pool collated from the different studies, three ranges of metaphor use were identified: 1,2 to 8, and 9 or more. The effect sizes from the meta-analysis showed that it was 1 metaphor that was associated with maximum attitude change (r = .08) as compared to the 2 to 8 (r = .06) and 9 or more (r = .02) ranges. Thus, less may be more when it comes to using figurative comparisons in a persuasive message, as there is a decreasing suasory effect with increasing number.
Proposition 3: Extended metaphors are associated with greater attitude change than are nonextended metaphors. Metaphors may be extended or nonextended. An extended metaphor uses one base to construct a number of different sub-metaphors with the same target. As seen on a flyer, for example, the base dictatorship may be used for the following metaphors, all with the target global marketplace:
"The dictatorship of the global marketplace has set up a framework of rules that citizens have not voted for," " ... in the name of the good of the citizenry, unaccountable despotic power given to corporations and elites ... ," and " ... global marketplace ... conspiring to chain dissenters in the dungeons of media non-access." A nonextended metaphor, by contrast, uses a given base only once to suggest a comparison with a target.
The effect sizes from the meta-analysis showed that extended metaphors (r = .09) were associated with greater attitude change than were nonextended metaphors (r = .05). Thus, a message intending to use multiple metaphors to affect attitude may be better off using the same base repeatedly than using many distinct bases.
Proposition 4: Metaphors are associated with greater attitude change when positioned in the introduction of a message" rather than in the conclusion or the body of the message. A metaphor may be placed in the introduction, body (i.e., middle), or conclusion of a message. The effect sizes from the meta-analysis showed that metaphors were more persuasive when placed in the introduction (r = .12) than when placed in the body (r = .07) or the conclusion (r = -.01) of a message. Similarly, in the case of a message with multiple metaphors, a trope may first appear in the message in either the introduction, the body, or the conclusion of the message. Results for "first appearance in introduction" and for "first appearance in body or conclusion" also showed a similar pattern. Thus, using a metaphor to provide a title to a message or to frame a message at the beginning may be more persuasive than using it to summarize the message.
Proposition 5: Metaphors are associated with greater attitude change when there is high familiarity of the target than when there is low familiarity. The target and base of a metaphor may have varying degrees of familiarity for a message recipient. To facilitate transfer of information from base to target (as a metaphor does), the familiarity of the base is generally high. By contrast, the target term of a metaphor (typically the attitude object) may be familiar or unfamiliar to an audience of a particular message. For example, "Aid to Colombia is like ... " is a low-knowledge target for North American undergraduate audiences, while "Seat belt use is like ... " is most likely a high-knowledge target. The effect sizes from the meta-analysis showed that metaphors were more persuasive when there was high familiarity of the target (r = .07) than when there was low familiarity (r = .06). Thus, having more, rather than less, familiarity with the target of a metaphor may foster enhanced persuasion.
Proposition 6: Metaphors are associated with greater attitude change when more novel than when less novel. Novelty of a metaphor for a given message recipient may be defined in terms of knowledge of the similarities between the two terms of a metaphor. 2 That is, novelty of an "A is B" equation depends on whether the similarities between A and B exist in the minds of a message recipient prior to encountering the metaphor. For example, the common saying, "She has a heart of gold," is of low novelty because the correspondences between the base and target already exist in the minds of people prior to the reception. On the other hand, the stanza from a classical Sanskrit poem, "Now the great cloud cat, darting out his lightning tongue, licks the creamy moonlight from the saucepan of the sky" (Ingalls, 1968, p. 104), will be of high novelty because (most likely) the similarities between cloud and cat do not exist for readers prior to comprehending this metaphor. It should be emphasized that the focus is on the familiarity of the similarities between the terms and not the familiarity of the target and base themselves per se. For example, people may be highly familiar with the terms cloud and cat, but the similarities between the two might not exist in their minds prior to encountering the metaphoric expression.
The effect sizes from the meta-analysis showed that novel metaphors (r = .12) were associated with more attitude change than were non-novel ones (r = .01). Thus, metaphors that create new similarities between entities, as their function has been traditionally described, may be more persuasive than ones that do not produce such new linkages.
Proposition 7: Metaphors in the audio modality are associated with greater attitude change than are metaphors in the written modality. People encounter persuasive messages through different media such as print, radio, and television. The effect sizes from the meta-analysis revealed that metaphors presented in the audio modality were more persuasive (r = .09) than those presented in the written modality (r = .06). Thus, metaphorusing messages may be more effective when listening, when one can process a message only once in a limited amount of time, than when reading, which allows for more processing time as well as multiple reviews of the message.
Proposition 8: Metaphor messages used by low-credibility communicators are associated with greater attitude change than those used by high-credibility communicators. Message recipients may perceive communicators as having low or high credibility prior to processing a message. The effect sizes from the metaanalysis showed that messages containing metaphors were associated with greater attitude change when the communicators had low credibility (r = .12) than when the communicators had high credibility (r = .02). Thus, message sources with low credibility may benefit more from using metaphors to affect attitudes than may message sources with high credibility.
Effect of Metaphor on Communicator Competence, Character, and Dynamism Judgments
Perceptions of credibility of a communicator can be determined at two points during message processing: pre-message, or before the audience members process a message (initial credibility), and post-message, or after the receivers process the message (terminal credibility). Metaphor's persuasive effects can also be assessed in terms of its impact on judgments of terminal credibility.
Many writers have asserted that communicators who use metaphorical language are judged more favorably than those who use literallanguage (e.g., Aristotle, 1952; Bowers & Osborn, 1966; McCroskey & Combs, 1969; Osborn & Ehninger, 1962). However, credibility is not a unitary construct (Berlo, Lemert, & Mertz, 1969; McCroskey & Young, 1981), and there are a number of subcomponents of credibility, with the three most common being competence, character, and dynamism. 3 For the credibility meta-analysis, 12 data-based studies with a metaphor versus literal experimental design and at least one of these three credibility aspects as the dependent variable were used. These studies yielded 20 metaphor-literal comparison data points for the effect size (r) with approximately 2,000 participants.
Proposition 9: Metaphors are more likely to be effective for enhancing terminal communicator credibility judgments for the dynamism aspect than for competence and character aspects. Of the three post-message credibility facets, the effect of metaphor was functionally nonexistent for character and competence aspects. For the competence aspect of credibility, the effect size r was -.01. Analysis ofthe moderator variable of initial (low and high) credibility showed the same null results. Similarly, there was no effect of metaphor on the character aspect of credibility (r = -.02). For both low and high initial credibility communicators, use of metaphors again did not affect character judgments. On the other hand, the r for dynamism was .06. Furthermore, the effect for both low- and high-credibility communicators was posItIve. Thus, of the three facets of terminal credibility, metaphor has its strongest effect on judgments of communicator dynamism.
THEORIES OF METAPHOR COMPREHENSION
Several answers have been proposed to the question of how metaphor may achieve its persuasive effects. To help explicate and evaluate these varied explanations, the theories dealing with metaphor comprehension need to be presented first. There are many views of how metaphor is understood. The four that have been used to theorize about metaphor and persuasion are summarized in what follows.
The literal primacy view (Beardsley, 1962, 1976; MacCormac, 1985; Searle, 1979) sees metaphor as literally false or logically contradictory language, that is, a semantic anomaly. According to this view, there are three stages in the process of understanding a metaphorical expression: (a) deriving the literal meaning of the expression, (b) testing whether the literal meaning makes sense and consequently detecting an anomaly, and then (c) seeking an alternative meaning (i.e., the metaphorical meaning) because the literal meaning fails to make sense (for an elaborated discussion, see Gibbs, 1994). According to one variation of this view (e.g., MacCormac, 1985), when an interpreter confronts a semantic anomaly, cognitive tension is generated along with a desire to reduce it. By finding the nonliteral meaning of the literally false statement, the anomaly is resolved and the tension is dissipated.
While the literal primacy view treats metaphorical language as semantically deviant and exceptional, the next three positions reject the notion of metaphor as anomalous language. These theories assume that metaphoricity and literalness of language is a matter of degree and that the same general psychological mechanism underlies processing of both forms of language.
Ortony's (1979, 1993; see also Ortony, Vondruska, Foss, & Jones, 1985) salience imbalance theory uses the notion of salience of attributes to explain how metaphors are comprehended. Salience is defined empirically as the relative importance of an attribute; that is, the first attribute that comes to mind is the most salient, and so on. The theory says that a metaphorical expression of the type "A is B" is understood by constructing the ground (i.e., the set of shared attributes) by selecting only those attributes that have low salience for the target and high salience for the base. For example, the metaphor "Encyclopedias are gold mines" is understood by choosing for the ground attributes such as valuable nuggets and dig, which have a high salience for gold mines and a low salience for encyclopedias. If the two terms are reversed (i.e., "Gold mines are encyclopedias"), then a different set of the shared attributes would be chosen; because the attributes that would be highly salient for encyclopedias would be different.
Gentner's (1982, 1983, 1989; see also Gentner & Clement, 1988) structure mapping theory, using an associative network model of memory, proposes that instead of comparing lists of attributes, the relations among the attributes are compared for similarities to interpret a metaphor. Gentner (1983) linked metaphor explicitly to analogy and defined a metaphor as "an assertion that a relational structure that normally applies in one domain can be applied in another domain" (p. 156). This view posits that metaphors convey a system of connected knowledge, not a mere collection of independent facts. In interpreting a metaphor, people attempt to obtain a match between target and base by seeking a relational mapping. For example, the metaphor "Encyclopedias are gold mines" is interpreted by noting the common relation valuable nuggets found by digging rather than the independent similar attributes valuable nuggets and dig.
The conceptual structure theory (Johnson, 1987; Lakoff, 1987, 1993; Lakoff & Turner, 1989; see also Albritton, McKoon, & Gerrig, 1995; Gibbs, 1994) considers metaphor as a thought process and defines it as "understanding and experiencing one kind of thing or experience in terms of another" (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 5). As a result of this metaphorical processing, long-term memory is organized as a system of metaphorical correspondences or mappings between different domains of experiences. These mappings are called conceptual metaphors. For example, the conceptual metaphor "Relationship is a journey" is a label for the mappings that exist in the long-term memory between the domains of relationship and journey. The conceptual system contains thousands of such correspondences among different domains that are used to produce and understand both conventional and novel metaphorical statements. For example, the expressions "Our relationship is on the right track," "We seem to be stuck and going nowhere," and "When did you end the relationship?" are conventional metaphors in which the domain of relationship is compared to the domain of journey. All of these expressions are understood via the conceptual metaphor "Relationship is a journey." Novel metaphorical expressions are understood by extending these preexisting conceptual metaphors through patterns of inferences authorized by them. For example, the novel metaphor "Hope their space shuttle doesn't blow up on launch" is understood by generalizing the existing mappings of "Relationship is a land journey" as a pattern of inferences to space journeys.
The preceding four theories of metaphor comprehension have been directly employed to derive different explanations of metaphor's persuasive impact. These metaphor and persuasion theories are examined next.
THEORIES OF METAPHOR AND PERSUASION
How does metaphor achieve its suasory outcomes? There are five general views of metaphor and persuasion available in the existing empirical literature that try to explain this process: pleasure/relief, communicator credibility, cognitive resources, stimulated elaboration, and superior organization. These views are evaluated next based on the results of the Sopory and Dillard (in press) metaanalysis and evidence from other relevant research.
Pleasure/Relief
The pleasure/relief view (e.g., Bowers & Osborn, 1966; Reinsch, 1971, 1974; Tudman, 1971) stems from the assumptions of the literal primacy view (e.g., Beardsley, 1962, 1967, 1976). There are two variants of this explanation, both arguing that a metaphorical expression is a semantic anomaly, recognition of which leads to negative tension that gets relieved when the metaphorical meaning is finally understood. In the persuasion literature, these three steps are called perception of defect/error, conflict (or recoil), and resolution. In the first variant, finding the metaphorical meaning, and thus the "unexpected similarities" between the target and base, is pleasurable. According to the second variant, finding the metaphorical meaning dissipates the negative tension, leading to relief. The reward of pleasure and relief leads to a reinforcement of the metaphorical meaning and the evaluation associated with it. By contrast, literal language does not pose any linguistic puzzle to resolve and consequently yields neither pleasure nor relief.
The data from the meta-analysis did not speak directly to the reinforcement principle of the pleasure/relief view. However, the assumptions of literal primacy theory that underlie this view are disputed by the results of the moderator analysis for modality of presentation. The literal primacy view suggests that the literal meaning of an expression is obligatorily understood before the metaphorical meaning is understood. As such, the comprehension of a metaphor should take longer than the comprehension of (equivalent) literal language. This should be an advantage for written modality by ensuring that cognizers have enough time to comprehend a message and, at the same time, depressing the likelihood of pleasure/relief in the audio modality. The results showed that audio modality was more persuasive, contradicting the prediction from the literal primacy view. In addition, Hoffman and Kemper (1987), after a review of reaction time studies, concluded that idioms, indirect requests, metaphors, and proverbs (i.e., different types of figurative language) did not take longer to be understood than did literal language. In fact, their review showed that some metaphors in the proper discourse context were processed faster than their literal counterparts in the same discourse context.
The assumption of the pleasure/relief view that metaphor represents defective language such that a prior step to understanding metaphorical meaning is identification of a defect is also untenable. Research shows that people draw metaphorical meanings out of metaphorical statements long before they judge such expressions anomalous in any way (McCabe, 1983). The perception of error and tension steps may perhaps be fruitfully resurrected in terms of expectancy violations of linguistic conventions (Nelson & Hitchon, 1999; see also Burgoon & Miller, 1985), but the process of persuasion suggested in the pleasure/relief model remains based on an incorrect understanding of the nature of metaphor and the process of metaphor comprehension. Therefore, the pleasure/relief view of metaphor's persuasive advantage does not have any empirical support.
Communicator Credibility
The enhancement of communicator credibility view (e.g., Bowers & Osborn, 1966; McCroskey & Combs, 1969; Osborn & Ehninger, 1962; Reinsch, 1971) proposes that communicators who use metaphors are judged more credible than are those who use literal language. In turn, this enhanced source judgment leads to greater persuasion by making the attitude towardS' the message advocacy more positive. This higher credibility judgment may occur for two related reasons. First, as Aristotle (1952), in his Poetics, argued, "But the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius" (p. 255). The assumption of this view is that metaphors are exceptional language and are like "ornaments" on the literal language that are used only by poets and writers, not by ordinary folks in everyday discourse. Thus, people who use metaphors are perceived as highly creative and are judged quite positively. The second reason (e.g., Bowers & Osborn, 1966; Osborn & Ehninger, 1962) is derived from metaphor's ability to point out previously unknown similarities between entities to a person. This newfound appreciation of commonalties is a source of interest and pleasure to the comprehender, who consequently is grateful to the message source, leading to enhanced judgment of communicator credibility. In contemporary terms, the key idea of the communicator credibility view is that the source judgment may act as a persuasion heuristic (Chaiken, Liberman, & Eagly, 1989).
The communicator credibility explanation was clearly not supported by the results of the meta-analysis, which showed that on the whole, people do not judge metaphor-using communicators more favorably than they do those who use literal language. Another line of research on effects of rebuttal analogy on receiver perceptions of communicators and message arguments corroborates this finding (Whaley, 1997, 1998; Whaley, Nicotera, & Samter, 1998). A rebuttal analogy serves two communicative functions: as a method of counterargumentation and as a method of social attack. Communicators who use such analogies are perceived as less polite, less ethical, and less competent, and their arguments are seen as less ethical and less effective than those of sources who use nonanalogy messages. Thus, the view that use of metaphor prompts a positive source heuristic to be engaged, leading to greater persuasion, is not the right explanation.
The assumption that metaphor is "exceptionallanguage" is also not defensible. Metaphors are not mere ornaments on literal language used only by poets and writers; rather, they are common in everyday language. For example, Pollio, Barlow, Fine, and Pollio (1977), after examining various psychotherapeutic interviews, essays, and the KennedyNixon presidential debates, estimated that 1.80 novel metaphors and 4.08 dead metaphors were used per minute of discourse. Another study looking at use of metaphors in news and public affairs programs found that one novel metaphor was used for every 25 words (Graesser, Mio, & Millis, 1989). Thus, use of metaphor does not seem to require any special genius, and as such, there is little reason to expect its use to enhance credibility, at least as related to expertise and character, of a communicator.
Cognitive Resources
Two views of metaphor and persuasion employ the assumption that understanding metaphors demands more cognitive resources than does understanding literal language. According to the reduced counterarguments view (Guthrie, 1972), the process of metaphor comprehension generates a great number of associations that result in "an overload in the receiver's mental circuitry" (p. 4). As a result, a high proportion of the cognitive resources of a comprehender are used up when encountering a metaphorical persuasive message, and consequently (assuming a counterattitudinal message) fewer resources are left to "derogate or exclude the message content or the source" (p. 4). The outcome is reduced counterargumentation and greater agreement with the message advocacy.
A more sophisticated version is the resource matching view Gaffe, 1988). This perspective proposes that deriving meaning of a metaphorical expression requires elaboration to construct the ground (Ortony, 1979, 1993), which ensures better memory for (highquality) message arguments and hence improved comprehension, leading to greater persuasion relative to a literal message. However, elaboration also requires greater mobilization of cognitive resources. If there is a match between the high cognitive resources required to understand the metaphorical message and the cognitive resources available to an interpreter, then maximum elaboration and thus maximum comprehension occurs; if there is a mismatch, then less comprehension occurs. Thus, if limited resources are available, then the message (whether pro- or counterattitudinal) is not adequately understood and persuasion is inhibited; similarly, the persuasive impact of a message is diluted when excess resources are available (e.g., for cliched expressions) because irrelevant and idiosyncratic thoughts are generated. In this view, then, novel metaphorical messages have a persuasive advantage over literal messages only under resource-enhanced conditions, such as message repetition, where the knowledge generated by repetition ensures a match of resources to the requirements of a metaphorical message but leads to excess resources for a literal message.
Cognitive resource or effort was not indexed in any of the studies included in the meta-analysis, so the question of whether metaphors require more resources than do literal messages cannot be answered directly from its results. However, other findings run counter to the claims of the resource matching explanation. According to this view, metaphors should be persuasive only under resourceenhancing conditions such as message repetition. Contradicting this, all experiments in the meta-analysis presented messages only once, and the results do show that metaphors led to more attitude change than did literal language. Along the same lines, the greater amount of time spent processing a message in the written modality may be seen as enhancing cognitive resources facilitating resource matching. However, it was the audio modality, which allows only a single pass through a message, that was more persuasive. Similarly, evidence based on reaction time studies discussed earlier suggests that understanding metaphors does not demand greater cognitive resources than does understanding literal language. Furthermore, studies that have compared metaphor and literal processing using indexes of cognitive effort, such as eye movement tracking and gaze duration (Inhoff, Lima, & Carroll, 1984) and speech pauses (Pollio, Fabrizi, & Weedle, 1982), have also found that understanding metaphors requires no more effort than does understanding literal language when appropriate contextual information is provided. Therefore, given the outcomes of the meta-analysis and other relevant research, these two cogmtlve resources views are not the ideal candidates for a theoretical explanation of metaphor's persuasive effects.
Stimulated Elaboration
The stimulated elaboration view is linked to two different metaphor processing theories. Hitchon (1991), using concepts of salience imbalance theory (Ortony, 1979, 1993), proposed that when the ground is assembled from the common attributes of target and base to comprehend a metaphor, the evaluation (valence) associated with the attributes is also part of the ground. In her view, formation of the ground requires elaboration of the groundrelevant attributes as well as their associated valence. Thus, elaboration leads to a greater number of valenced thoughts, which (when in the appropriate direction) lead to greater persuasion. By contrast, extracting the meaning of a literal expression does not require constructing a ground and hence elaboration of the message content.
Whaley (1991) used structure mapping theory (Gentner, 1982, 1989) to propose that understanding analogies stimulates thought through a focus on similar target-base relations (rather than attributes) and hence the evoking of a richer set of associations in semantic memory compared to literal language. This greater number of semantic connections produces greater elaboration of message content, which in turn leads to increased persuasion given suitable processing conditions. Whaley proposed that certain types of analogies (explanatory analogies [Gentner, 1982]) function as high-quality arguments, so their processing results in more elaboration than do literal messages. Then, if both motivation and ability are high and the message is compelling, the outcome is a greater number of thoughts agreeing with message advocacy and thus greater persuasion (Chaiken et aI., 1989; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).
The key variable in the stimulated elaboration account is the number of thoughts generated in response to a metaphorical language message as compared to a literal one. Studies investigating metaphor's persuasive effects that have measured this type of elaboration (Hitchon, 1991; Mitchell, Badzinski, & Pawlowski, 1994; Morgan, 1997; Sopory, 1999; Whaley, 1991) have not found that metaphorical language results in a greater number of cognitive responses than does literallanguage.
However, it may be the case that elaboration is influenced by other variables in tandem with type of language. This idea is developed as a more refined version of the stimulated elaboration hypothesis in the motivational resonance view (Ottati, Rhoads, & Graesser, 1999). Using the dual-process approach to persuasion (Chaiken et aI., 1989; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), this view proposes that metaphorical language creates greater interest in a message than does literal language, thereby increasing motivation to more systematically process the message. This motivation to elaborate the message content is moderated by argument strength/quality and prior interest toward the metaphor target. When the quality of message arguments is high and message recipients have a positive interest toward the metaphor target, such that the metaphor "resonates" with their prior preferences, maximum elaboration and hence greatest suasion occurs. Results of two studies (Ottati et aI., 1999) largely confirmed this prediction as a condition for enhanced metaphor impact.
It may also be the case that linguistic metaphor does facilitate more thinking but that this thinking is not propositional (i.e., linguistic). For example, Coulson and Oakley (in press) used the theory of conceptual blending (Fauconnier, 1994; Fauconnier & Turner, 1998) to contend that comprehension of persuasive messages does require elaboration, but they conceived of elaboration in terms of mental simulation of the situation being described by the message content. Similarly, Paivio and Walsh (1993; see also Lakoff, 1993) pointed out that many linguistic metaphors may use more imagistic than linguistic processing. Along the same lines, Zaltman's metaphor elicitation technique (Zaltman & Coulter, 1995; Zaltman & Higie, 1993) also suggests that metaphorical thinking may engage substantial image-based processes. This research technique successfully assesses customers' metaphoric representations of products and consumer services using selection and arrangement of pictures and images, that is, via primarily nonlinguistic measures. Thus, the number of linguistic expressions might not be the only processual variable indexing elaboration as an explanation of metaphor's greater persuasive capacity.
Superior Organization
The superior organization view (Read, Cesa, Jones, & Collins, 1990), also derived from Gentner's (1982, 1989) structure mapping theory, proposes that a metaphor helps to better structure and organize the arguments of a persuasive message relative to literal language. A metaphor evokes a greater number of semantic associations, and the different arguments, when consistent with the metaphor, get connected together more coherently via the many available semantic pathways. In addition, the links to the metaphor "highlight" the arguments making them more salient. Consequently, this more coherent organization, and the resulting highlighting of the arguments, increases the persuasive power of metaphor using messages. Literal-only messages lack this organizing function of metaphor and therefore are not as persuasive.
Results of the meta-analysis point to direct support for the superior organization view only. Metaphors were most persuasive when extended and when placed in the introduction position of a message. This suggests that persuasion occurred due to the organizing potential of metaphor as theme, which facilitated selection and integration of information from the message and prior knowledge. The results also showed that a single metaphor was more persuasive than greater numbers of metaphors. As the superior organization view implies, it is only a single metaphor that should provide the optimal opportunity for enhanced organization of the message information. Similarly, the persuasive superiority of metaphors with high knowledge of target over lowknowledge ones suggests that higher prior knowledge allowed recipients to better organize the target-base linkages. Therefore, the meta-analytic resu
