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Social vigilantism and reported use of strategies to resist persuasion

Authors:
Donald A Saucier at Kansas State University
Donald A Saucier
Russell J Webster at Pennsylvania State University
Russell J Webster
Bethany H. Hoffman
Bethany H. Hoffman
Bethany H. Hoffman
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Megan L. Strain at University of Nebraska at Kearney
Megan L. Strain
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Abstract

We assessed the unique contribution of social vigilantism (SV; the tendency to impress and propagate one’s “superior” beliefs onto others to correct others’ more “ignorant” opinions) in predicting participants’ reported use of strategies to resist persuasion. Consistent with hypotheses, SV was uniquely and positively associated with reported use of several resistance strategies (including counterarguing, impressing views, social validation, negative affect, and source derogation) in response to challenges above and beyond the effects of argumentativeness, attitude strength, and topic (in Study 1, the issue was abortion; in Study 2, the war in Iraq or the constitutional rights of pornographers). These studies indicate that social vigilantism is an important individual difference variable in the process of attitude resistance.
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Social vigilantism and reported use of strategies to resist persuasion
Donald A. Saucier
a,
⇑
, Russell J. Webster
a
, Bethany H. Hoffman
b
, Megan L. Strain
a
a
Kansas State University, Department of Psychological Sciences, 492 Bluemont Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506-5302, United States
b
University of Georgia, Department of Psychology, Atlanta, GA 30602, United States
article info
Article history:
Received 3 May 2013
Received in revised form 13 June 2014
Accepted 16 June 2014
Keywords:
Social vigilantism
Attitudes
Attitude resistance
Resistance strategies
Persuasion
abstract
We assessed the unique contribution of social vigilantism (SV; the tendency to impress and propagate
one’s ‘‘superior’’ beliefs onto others to correct others’ more ‘‘ignorant’’ opinions) in predicting
participants’ reported use of strategies to resist persuasion. Consistent with hypotheses, SV was uniquely
and positively associated with reported use of several resistance strategies (including counterarguing,
impressing views, social validation, negative affect, and source derogation) in response to challenges
above and beyond the effects of argumentativeness, attitude strength, and topic (in Study 1, the issue
was abortion; in Study 2, the war in Iraq or the constitutional rights of pornographers). These studies
indicate that social vigilantism is an important individual difference variable in the process of attitude
resistance.
Ó2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Little research has examined when and why some people resist
persuasion attempts (Jacks & Cameron, 2003; see also Crano &
Crislin, 2006; Knowles & Linn, 2004). We, and others (e.g., Jacks
& Cameron, 2003), argue that resistance to persuasion can be
better understood by considering individual differences in
strategies to resist persuasion, on which there has also been little
research (see Crano & Crislin, 2006; Wood, 2000; c.f., Briñol,
Rucker, Tomala, & Petty, 2004; Shakarchi & Haugtvedt, 2004).
Accordingly, we developed the individual difference variable social
vigilantism (SV; Saucier & Webster, 2010).
SV refers to individual differences in the tendency to believe
one’s views are superior to others’. Individuals higher on SV feel
socially obligated to propagate their beliefs onto others. We
hypothesize that when confronted with another’s opinion, individ-
uals higher in SV will identify the shortcomings in others’ argu-
ments, preserve their existing attitudes, maintain superiority in
their attitudes, and impress their attitudes onto others.
We showed that individuals higher in SV demonstrated higher
levels of belief superiority, counterarguing, and attitude stability
after a persuasion appeal (Saucier & Webster, 2010). The effects
of SV held regardless of the orientation of the other’s position
(i.e., left- or right-wing) on an issue, and after controlling for
narcissism, dogmatism, reactance, need for cognition, and
characteristics related to the target attitude (attitude importance
and extremity). We predict individuals higher in SV are more resis-
tant to challenges because they are more likely to use resistance
strategies.
In the current studies, we tested whether individuals higher in
SV would report increased use of resistance strategies when their
attitudes were challenged, even after controlling for attitude
strength, argumentativeness, and the attitude’s importance.
1.1. Resistance strategies
Jacks and Cameron (2003) identified seven behavioral strategies
individuals use to resist challenges to their attitudes. These are
negative affect (arousal of anger and other negative emotions),
counterarguing (direct rebuttal of challenges), attitude bolstering
(generating ideas confirming one’s attitude), assertion of confidence
(stating nothing can change one’s attitudes), source derogation
(insulting/dismissing the challenger), social validation (thinking
about others who share one’s attitudes), and selective exposure
(withdrawing from the challenge). Research has shown these resis-
tance strategies – especially counterarguing – are frequently used
to resist challenges to attitudes (Cameron, Jacks, & O’Brien, 2002;
Jacks & Cameron, 2003; Wellins & McGinnies, 1977).
By examining how SV relates to the use of these strategies, we
will better understand how individuals achieve the goals of social
vigilantism. Specifically, the strategies enable maintenance of
belief superiority, resistance to persuasion, or impression of beliefs
in some way, with the possible exception of selective exposure.
Higher SV may not be associated with more use of this strategy
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.06.031
0191-8869/Ó2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
⇑
Corresponding author. Address: Kansas State University, 468 Bluemont Hall,
Manhattan, KS 66506-5302, United States. Tel.: +1 785 532 6881.
E-mail address: saucier@ksu.edu (D.A. Saucier).
Personality and Individual Differences 70 (2014) 120–125
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Personality and Individual Differences
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
because withdrawing from an argument would preclude the asser-
tion of one’s ‘‘superior’’ beliefs. Overall, we suspect that most of
Jacks and Cameron’s (2003) strategies fulfill the goals associated
with SV, and predict SV will be positively related to their use.
1.2. Attitude strength and argumentativeness
Research on resistance to persuasion has focused on attitude
strength: how an attitude persists, resists change, and impacts
information processing and behavior (Krosnick & Petty, 1995). Atti-
tude strength has been divided into relatively distinct dimensions
(extremity, certainty, importance, knowledge, intensity, interest,
direct experience, accessibility, latitudes of rejection and non-
commitment, and affective-cognitive consistency of the attitude)
(Krosnick, Boninger, Chuang, Berent, & Carnot, 1993; Visser,
Krosnick, & Simmons, 2003). These individual dimensions of
attitude strength predict resistance to persuasive messages (e.g.,
Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Jacks & Devine, 2000; Petty & Krosnick,
1995; Zuwerink & Devine, 1996). In our initial SV studies, we only
controlled for measures of attitude importance and extremity
(Saucier & Webster, 2010). In the current studies, we tested
whether the effects of SV on the use of resistance strategies would
hold after controlling for these multiple attitude strength
dimensions.
It is possible that some individuals just enjoy arguing (i.e., score
higher on argumentativeness;Infante & Rancer, 1982), and may
therefore use resistance strategies more. However, we expect SV
to predict resistance strategies above and beyond argumentative-
ness. People higher in argumentativeness are likely compelled to
‘‘get under people’s skin,’’ whereas individuals higher in SV feel
obligated to change individuals’ minds to benefit society. Thus,
we contend SV goes beyond argumentativeness in explaining
reactions to persuasion attempts and attitude challenges.
1.3. Overview of current studies
We assessed the contribution of SV in predicting a variety of
strategies to resist persuasion, beyond the effects of attitude
strength and argumentativeness. Study 1 assessed attitudes
toward abortion, while Study 2 assessed issues of lower (constitu-
tional rights of pornographers) versus higher (the war in Iraq)
importance. Participants completed measures of argumentative-
ness and SV, and reported how likely they would be to use various
resistance strategies when their attitudes were challenged. We
predicted that levels of SV would uniquely predict use of resistance
strategies, especially for strategies that confront the challenger
(e.g., counterarguing), but not for strategies by which they
disengage (i.e., selective exposure).
2. Study 1 method
2.1. Participants
Undergraduates (N= 128, 27% male) in a social psychology
course participated voluntarily during class for extra credit. Twelve
participants were sophomores, 60 were juniors, 51 were seniors,
and 2 were post-graduate (3 did not report). The mean age of the
sample was 21.43 (SD = 2.20) with the ages ranging from 19 to 34.
2.2. Procedure
Participants completed questionnaires containing the Social
Vigilantism Scale, the Argumentativeness Scale, measures of
attitude strength regarding abortion, and measures of resistance
strategy use when their abortion attitudes were challenged. The
questionnaires were randomly distributed in counterbalanced
orders.
2.2.1. Social vigilantism
The Social Vigilantism Scale (SVS; Saucier & Webster, 2010)
consists of 14 items (e.g., I feel as if it is my duty to enlighten other
people) to which participants report their agreement from 1
(disagree very strongly)to9(agree very strongly). Participants’
responses were summed to produce their overall SVS score. Higher
scores indicated greater levels of SV,
a
= .88.
2.2.2. Argumentativeness
The Argumentativeness Scale (ARG; Infante & Rancer, 1982)
assesses individuals’ tendency to argue and consists of 20 items
(e.g., I enjoy a good argument over a controversial issue) to which
individuals’ report their levels of agreement from 1 (disagree very
strongly)to9(agree very strongly). Relevant items were reverse-
scored before responses were summed to produce the overall
ARG scale score. Higher scores indicated higher levels of argumen-
tativeness,
a
= .91.
2.2.3. Attitude strength
Participants responded to items representing the nine distinct
attitude strength dimensions (see Section 1.2;Krosnick et al.,
1993) regarding their attitudes about abortion, a controversial
issue in the U.S. With few exceptions, participants responded from
1(not at all)to9(very much). For eight of the nine dimensions,
relevant items were reverse-scored and responses were summed
to produce scores for the distinct abortion attitude strength dimen-
sions. For the items assessing extremity, scores were calculated
using responses’ distance from the midpoint of the scale. These dis-
tances were summed to provide overall attitude extremity scores.
All
a
’s were >.91 for the attitude strength dimensions, except for
direct experience,
a
= .70.
2.2.4. Resistance strategies
Resistance strategy use was assessed using items created by
Jacks and Cameron (2003). Participants reported how likely they
would be to use various strategies when someone challenged their
attitudes about abortion from 1 (not at all)to9(very much). Two
items assessed the use of each resistance strategy: attitude bolster-
ing (e.g., respond by thinking about the reasons why I believe what I
do about abortion), assertions of confidence (e.g., respond by think-
ing about how there is nothing the other person can say to change my
mind), counterarguing (e.g., respond by thinking about or verbalizing
why the other person’s arguments are faulty), social validation (e.g.,
respond by thinking or talking about the fact that lots of people share
my convictions), selective exposure (e.g., respond by walking away or
just not listening), negative affect (e.g., respond by getting emotion-
ally upset), and source derogation (e.g., respond by thinking or saying
things about the person that are uncomplimentary).
We included two additional items to assess an eighth resistance
strategy in which individuals would attempt to impress their views
on the person who challenged their attitudes (i.e., respond by trying
to convince the other person to agree with me and respond by helping
the other person to understand the value of my opinion). Participants’
responses for each pair of items were summed to produce scores
for each of the eight resistance strategies.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Predicting resistance strategies
Eight separate hierarchical regressions assessed SV’s ability to
predict the use of resistance strategies above and beyond the other
D.A. Saucier et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 70 (2014) 120–125 121
variables (see Table 1 for the inter-correlations between the
variables). In Step 1, we entered participants’ sex to control for
sex differences on the measures. In Step 2, we entered scores on
each of the nine attitude strength dimensions. In Step 3, we
entered argumentativeness scores. In Step 4, we entered SV scores.
Given our focus, we conducted separate analyses for the eight
resistance strategies, and confined our reports of the results to
the second, third, and fourth steps of the analyses.
3.1.1. Attitude strength
The addition of attitude strength dimensions in Step 2 signifi-
cantly improved the prediction of use for all of the resistance strat-
egies, except selective exposure (see Table 2). Because the purpose
of this study was not to competitively assess the attitude strength
dimensions in their unique abilities to predict resistance strategies,
we will not discuss the regression coefficients for each attitude
strength dimension. We can conclude, however, that significant
portions of the variance in resistance strategy use are predicted
by the strength of participants’ attitudes about abortion.
3.1.2. Argumentativeness
The addition of ARG scores in Step 3 significantly improved the
prediction of counterarguing and impressing views, and marginally
improved the prediction of attitude bolstering (see Table 2). These
results indicate, after controlling for their sex and attitude
strength, the extent to which individuals like to argue predicts
how much they argue against and try to impress their views onto
those who challenge their abortion attitudes.
3.1.3. SV
The addition of SVS scores in Step 4 significantly improved the
prediction of all but two (i.e., selective exposure and attitude
bolstering) resistance strategies (see Table 2). Thus, these results
indicate that, after controlling for sex, attitude strength, and argu-
mentativeness, SV is uniquely and positively associated with the
use of several resistance strategies. Further, the ability of SV to
provide unique incremental prediction of the impressing views
resistance strategy indicates that individuals higher in SV seek
not only to defend their attitudes about abortion, but also to
disseminate those attitudes onto challengers.
Overall, our hypotheses were supported: SV was uniquely and
positively associated with the reported use of several resistance
strategies beyond the effects of argumentativeness and multiple
dimensions of attitude strength for the controversial topic of
abortion.
4. Study 2 method
We assessed whether SV would improve the prediction of resis-
tance strategy use beyond attitude strength dimensions and argu-
mentativeness for attitudes of both higher and lower importance.
4.1. Participants
Undergraduates (N= 114, 32% male) from a cognition course
participated during class for extra credit. Thirty-three participants
were sophomores, 53 were juniors, and 28 were seniors. The mean
age of the sample was 21.32 (SD = 3.60) with the ages ranging from
19 to 51.
4.2. Procedure
The procedure in Study 1 was used in Study 2 with one excep-
tion. The issue in this study was varied so that half of the partici-
pants completed the attitude strength and resistance strategy
measures in reference to an issue of higher importance (the war
in Iraq) and half completed these measures in reference to an issue
of lower importance (the rights of pornographers). These issues
were identified by a pilot study in which 170 undergraduate stu-
dents (53 males, 117 females, M
age
= 21.29, SD
age
= 2.06, 95%
between the ages 19 and 24) rated the importance of 22 social
issues to them from 1 (not at all important)to9(very important).
The issue rated to be most important was the war in Iraq,
M= 6.64, SD = 2.10, and the issue rated to be least important was
the Constitutional rights of hardcore pornographers, M= 4.04,
SD = 2.43. Participants in Study 2 were randomly assigned to report
their attitudes about either issue, and completed the same
measures described in Study 1 in counterbalanced orders.
Table 1
Intercorrelations for studies 1 and 2.
12345678910111213141516171819
Predictors
1. SV – .11 .10 .15 .03 .04 .12 .02 .01 .03 .01 .01 .27 .29 .09 .38 .19 .08 .25
2. Argumentativeness .37 – .17 .17 .16 .30 .22 .21 .39 .36 .32 .20 .02 .29 .07 .01 .09 .03 .17
3. Extremity .03 .06 – .52 .37 .32 .55 .29 .32 .33 .32 .39 .30 .38 .23 .06 .06 .28 .22
4. Certainty .03 .15 .72 – .42 .50 .61 .37 .35 .48 .45 .52 .13 .41 .27 .02 .10 .34 .33
5. Importance .05 .03 .56 .56 – .59 .73 .56 .39 .63 .64 .45 .34 .36 .28 .07 .07 .22 .28
6. Knowledge .07 .16 .34 .54 .56 – .74 .62 .58 .79 .76 .55 .20 .45 .29 .05 .13 .24 .31
7.Intensity .02 .03 .61 .73 .78 .65 – .67 .51 .75 .75 .59 .39 .50 .33 .12 .14 .34 .37
8. Interest .03 .09 .41 .52 .67 .65 .72 – .47 .71 .74 .50 .24 .32 .29 .01 .06 .03 .34
9. Direct experience .17 .12 .36 .30 .45 .50 .48 .45 – .64 .57 .34 .12 .34 .16 .12 .05 .03 .25
10. Accessibility (talking) .22 .23 .29 .33 .54 .61 .58 .64 .53 – .91 .54 .20 .35 .25 .03 .02 .14 .25
11. Accessibility (thinking) .21 .12 .39 .38 .56 .59 .64 .61 .58 .80 – .51 .21 .33 .22 .02 .04 .10 .27
Resistance strategies
12. Attitude bolstering .00 .18 .33 .47 .43 .47 .51 .53 .30 .24 .30 – .16 .60 .29 .04 .04 .32 .52
13. Negative affect .27 .06 .26 .30 .40 .36 .43 .34 .35 .35 .42 .06 – .41 .51 .59 .58 .53 .37
14. Counterarguing .38 .38 .40 .57 .39 .50 .48 .40 .37 .42 .41 .48 .37 – .30 .36 .29 .48 .73
15. Social validation .21 .13 .36 .32 .50 .28 .45 .37 .26 .29 .32 .20 .34 .24 – .42 .46 .52 .46
16. Source derogation .36 .04 .11 .12 .09 .11 .13 .04 .04 .22 .22 .23 .50 .21 .32 – .51 .40 .35
17. Selective exposure .23 .03 .12 .17 .10 .08 .15 .04 .01 .08 .09 .06 .36 .17 .29 .60 – .62 .19
18. Assertions of confidence .14 .02 .45 .61 .36 .35 .59 .42 .28 .30 .36 .32 .39 .45 .47 .29 .34 – .41
19. Impression of views .27 .25 .33 .38 .37 .26 .44 .45 .30 .35 .36 .53 .22 .52 .37 .08 .03 .38 –
Note: Values below the diagonal pertain to Study 1; above to Study 2. All rs > .20 are significant at p< .05.
122 D.A. Saucier et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 70 (2014) 120–125
5. Results and discussion
5.1. Differences in attitude strength for the issues
As expected, the strength of participants’ attitudes was higher
for the war in Iraq than for the rights of pornographers.
Participants reported significantly higher levels of certainty,
importance, knowledge, intensity, interest, accessibility (talking),
accessibility (thinking), and direct experience, ts (112) > 2.45,
ps < .02, when responding to the war in Iraq than to the rights of
pornographers. The only dimension on which participants
responding to the war in Iraq did not show significantly higher
levels than did participants responding to the rights of
pornographers was extremity, t(112) = 1.41, p= .162, suggesting
attitudes toward one issue were not more extreme than toward
the other issue.
5.2. Predicting resistance strategies
Eight separate hierarchical regressions were used to predict the
use of the various resistance strategies (see Table 1 for the inter-
correlations between the variables of interest). Participants’ sex
was entered in Step 1 to control for sex differences. The issue
was dummy-coded (war in Iraq = 0, pornographers’ rights = 1)
and entered in Step 2. The attitude strength dimensions were
entered in Step 3. Argumentativeness scores were entered in Step
4. The product term carrying the interaction between the issue and
argumentativeness was entered in Step 5. SV scores were entered
in Step 6. Finally, the product term carrying the interaction
between the issue and SV was entered in Step 7.
5.3. Issue
The addition of the issue only marginally predicted the use of
attitude bolstering, R
2
change = .038, F(1, 94) = 3.70, p= .057, with
higher levels of attitude bolstering tending to be associated with
the war in Iraq relative to rights of pornographers, b=.195,
p= .057. Overall, the issue itself did not meaningfully predict
resistance strategy use in response to challenge.
5.4. Attitude strength
The addition of the attitude strength measures significantly
improved the prediction of assertions of confidence, attitude bol-
stering, counterarguing, impressing views, and negative affect,
but not of selective exposure, social validation, or source
derogation (see Table 3). Overall, these results suggest that, as in
Study 1, attitude strength predicts resistance strategy use when
individuals’ attitudes about either the war in Iraq or the rights of
pornographers are challenged.
5.5. Argumentativeness
Argumentativeness scores did not significantly improve the
prediction of any resistance strategies, all R
2
changes < .025,
ps > .067 (see Table 3).
5.6. Argumentativeness x Issue
The addition of the product term that carried the interaction
between argumentativeness scores and the issue provided no
Table 2
Results for the addition of attitude strength dimensions, argumentativeness, and SV in the eight hierarchical regressions predicting each of the individual resistance strategies
(Study 1).
Step: predictors entered DV: resistance strategy R
2
Adjusted R
2
D
R
2
b
2. Attitude strength dimensions Assertions of confidence .482
***
.425 .472
***
–
Attitude bolstering .458
***
.399 .408
***
–
Counterarguing .451
***
.391 .445
***
–
Impression of views .301
***
.224 .296
***
–
Negative affect .288
***
.210 .224
***
–
Selective exposure .070 .032 .069 –
Social validation .299
***
.221 .266
***
–
Source derogation .174 .084 .166
*
–
3. Argumentativeness Assertions of confidence .482
***
.419 .000 .010
Attitude bolstering .481
***
.418 .023 .159
Counterarguing .505
***
.445 .054
**
.247
**
Impression of views .343
***
.263 .042
*
.217
*
Negative affect .302
***
.216 .014 .124
Selective exposure .070 .044 .000 .124
Social validation .314
***
.229 .015 .01
Source derogation .176 .075 .002 .043
4. SV Assertions of confidence .504
***
.437 .022
*
.177
*
Attitude bolstering .488
***
.419 .007 .098
Counterarguing .608
***
.555 .102
***
.380
***
Impression Of views .428
***
.351 .085
***
.347
***
Negative affect .425
***
.348 .124
***
.418
***
Selective exposure .107 .013 .038 .230
Social validation .364
***
.277 .050
*
.265
**
Source derogation .236
*
.133 .060
**
.291
**
Note: R
2
values (and adjusted R
2
values) indicate the amount of variance in the respective resistance strategy use accounted for by predictors in the model up to and including
that step of the hierarchical regression.
D
R
2
values indicate the amount of unique variance in the respective resistance strategy use accounted for by the predictors entered in that step of the hierarchical regression
above and beyond that accounted for by the predictors in the earlier steps of the hierarchical regression.
Nine dimensions of attitude strength were entered in Step 2, therefore standardized regression coefficients (b) are not reported for this step.
Full regression results are available from the authors.
*
p< .05.
**
p< .01.
***
p< .001.
D.A. Saucier et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 70 (2014) 120–125 123
significant improvement of any of the models predicting resistance
strategy use, all R
2
changes < .039, ps > .060.
5.7. SV
Beyond the prediction offered by participants’ sex, the issue, the
attitude strength dimensions, argumentativeness, and the interac-
tion between argumentativeness and the issue, participants’ SV
scores significantly improved the prediction of five resistance
strategies: counterarguing, impressing views, negative affect,
selective exposure, and source derogation (see Table 3). Higher
levels of SV were uniquely and positively associated with greater
use of each of these resistance strategies, but did not improve
the prediction of assertions of confidence, attitude bolstering, or
social validation.
5.8. SV x Issue
The addition of the product term carrying the interaction of SV
scores and the issue did not significantly improve the prediction of
any of the resistance strategies above and beyond the previous
steps of the analyses, all R
2
changes < .033, ps > .063. This suggests
SV is positively associated with more resistance strategy use in
response to challenge for issues of both higher and lower
importance.
Overall, consistent with the findings of Study 1 and with
hypotheses, SV predicted the use of resistance strategies when
individuals’ attitudes are challenged, beyond attitude strength
and argumentativeness, and for issues of varying levels of
importance.
6. General discussion
Two studies confirmed our hypothesis that higher levels of SV
are associated with greater use of several resistance strategies,
even after controlling for participants’ sex, attitude strength, levels
of argumentativeness, and target attitude. Further, SV predicted
resistance strategy use in response to challenges for attitudes of
both higher and lower importance. These results are not a function
of attitude strength or argumentativeness, meaning that individu-
als higher in SV do not want to argue more; they want their view(s)
to be perpetuated. They are predisposed to defend and impress
their attitudes onto others, regardless of the issue. Thus, SV is an
important individual difference in predicting responses to attitude
challenges.
SV predicted all of the resistance strategies in Study 1 except for
selective exposure and attitude bolstering, and all but the use of
assertion of confidence, attitude bolstering, and social validation
in Study 2. We reason that individuals higher in SV will use the
strategies that help them meet their goals in the situation. With
regards to attitude bolstering (the one resistance strategy SV did
not predict in either Study 1 or 2), it may that individuals higher
in SV perceive their beliefs to be not only superior, but moral – a
perception that may be accompanied by a black-and-white view
of the issue that may not require attitude bolstering from their
perspective.
Nonetheless, the current studies indicate that individuals
higher in SV are more likely to use a variety of resistance strategies,
regardless of how strongly they feel about a particular issue, how
important they perceive it to be, and their tendency to argue with
others. Future research should investigate whether different
strategies differentially fulfill the goals of people higher in SV.
Table 3
Results for the addition of attitude strength dimensions, argumentativeness, and SV in the eight hierarchical regressions predicting each of the individual resistance strategies
(Study 2).
Step: predictors entered DV: resistance strategy R
2
Adjusted R
2
D
R
2
b
3. Attitude strength dimensions Assertions of confidence .279
**
.185 .262
***
–
Attitude bolstering .404
***
.327 .361
***
–
Counterarguing .363
***
.280 .361
***
–
Impression of views .265
**
.170 .262
**
–
Negative affect .270
**
.175 .235
**
–
Selective exposure .125 .012 .109 –
Social validation .180 .074 .144 –
Source derogation .068 .053 .065 –
4. Argumentativeness Assertions of confidence .279
**
.176 <.010 .003
Attitude bolstering .404
***
.319 <.010 .021
Counterarguing .388
***
.300 .025 .182
Impression of views .277
**
.173 .011 .123
Negative affect .271
**
.167 <.010 .040
Selective exposure .127 .002 <.010 .044
Social validation .181 .065 <.010 .046
Source derogation .068 .065 <.010 .006
6. SV Assertions of confidence .300
**
.180 .021 .159
Attitude bolstering .410
***
.309 <.010 .083
Counterarguing .499
***
.293 .111
***
.363
***
Impression of views .347
***
.235 .070
**
.287
**
Negative affect .362
***
.253 .081
**
.309
**
Selective exposure .196 .058 .067
*
.282
**
Social validation .202 .066 .020 .155
Source derogation .277
*
.153 .170
***
.448
***
Note: R
2
values (and adjusted R
2
values) indicate the amount of variance in the respective resistance strategy use accounted for by predictors in the model up to and including
that step of the hierarchical regression.
D
R
2
values indicate the amount of unique variance in the respective resistance strategy use accounted for by the predictors entered in that step of the hierarchical regression
above and beyond that accounted for by the predictors in the earlier steps of the hierarchical regression.
Nine dimensions of attitude strength were entered in Step 3, therefore standardized regression coefficients (b) are not reported for this step.
Because the issue to which the participants were exposed was included as a variable in Step 2 of these regressions, the data refer to all participants in Study 2.
Full regression results are available from the authors.
*
p< .05.
**
p< .01.
***
p< .001.
124 D.A. Saucier et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 70 (2014) 120–125
For example, counterarguing may help individuals higher in SV
both identify the shortcomings in others’ arguments and impress
their superior views on others, while experiencing negative affect
may stimulate engagement and persistence in debate. Ultimately,
fulfilling these goals should result in greater resistance to
persuasion overall (see Saucier & Webster, 2010).
That said, it would be interesting to compare how effective such
strategies are in fulfilling these goals, versus individuals’ percep-
tions of their effectiveness. Additionally, resisting persuasion may
deplete cognitive resources and self-control, hampering further
resistance (Burkley, 2008), so it would be interesting to explore
whether people higher in SV persevere in their attempts to resist
persuasion and impress their views onto others.
Regardless, we assessed individuals’ self-reported use of resis-
tance strategies, not actual resistance. Although these self-report
measures have been linked to actual resistance (Jacks & Cameron,
2003), future research should demonstrate how SV impacts resis-
tance strategy use in behavior. Also, while relatively higher levels
of SV generally related to more self-reported resistance strategy
use, our participants were not necessarily absolutely high on SV.
Future research should examine how extreme levels of SV
influence resistance to persuasion.
Lastly, it may be somewhat counterintuitive that attitude
strength or importance has not moderated SV effects on the use
of resistance strategies in the current studies or past research
(Saucier & Webster, 2010). It may be that issue importance relates
to, but does not overlap with perceptions of issues as relevant to
the well-being of society. Thus, it may be the extent to which
issues are relevant to society, not overall importance, which
moderates the effects of SV on resistance strategy use.
7. Conclusion
Our findings indicate the understanding of attitude resistance
should incorporate the investigation of SV in individuals’ use of
strategies to resist persuasion. Research has focused on the resil-
ience of specific attitudes being challenged, such as those that
are more extreme or unwavering, but little research has examined
the characteristics of the individual possessing the attitudes being
challenged. Social vigilantism is an individual difference that
should be further examined as an important factor in resisting
persuasion.
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... Social psychologists have examined individual difference factors that influence how receptive vs. resistant people are to attitude change attempts for decades (for reviews, see Petty and Wegener, 1998;Crano and Crislin, 2006). Stronger attitudes are harder to change (Krosnick et al., 1993;Eagly and Chaiken, 1995;Krosnick and Petty, 1995;Pomerantz et al., 1995;Zuwerink and Devine, 1996;Jacks and Devine, 2000;Jacks and Cameron, 2003;Visser et al., 2003;Skitka et al., 2005;Visser et al., 2006;Saucier et al., 2014), and challenges to strongly held attitudes provoke people to resist these attempts either by engaging with the persuasion attempt or by disengaging from it. Additionally, the strategies people use to resist such attempts vary with their individual differences in need for cognition (Cacioppo and Petty, 1982;Cacioppo et al., 1986) and social vigilantism (Saucier and Webster, 2010). ...
... When people are motivated to resist persuasion, and preserve their pre-existing attitudes, they may use various strategies to actively or passively counter the specific persuasion attempt or attitude challenge. While people may use several strategies to resist persuasion (see Jacks and Cameron, 2003;Saucier et al., 2014), we focus on two: the active strategy of counterarguing by which people attack the opposing information, and the passive strategy of selective exposure by which people withdraw from and avoid the opposing information. Importantly, these two strategies involve fundamentally different choices to either engage with or avoid opposing information, which have important implications for later memory for the persuasive material. ...
... Higher levels of social vigilantism are related to greater resistance to persuasion. Specifically, people higher in social vigilantism have more extreme attitudes and show greater use of various resistance strategiesparticularly counterarguing-in response to attitude challenges about a range of socially controversial topics (Saucier and Webster, 2010;Raimi and Leary, 2014;Saucier et al., 2014;Maki and Raimi, 2017;O'Dea et al., 2018). Counterarguing involves directly engaging and trying to defeat an opposing argument, and is a commonly used and effective technique for resisting persuasion (Cameron et al., 2002;Jacks and Cameron, 2003). ...
The role of individual differences in resistance to persuasion on memory for political advertisements
Article
Full-text available
  • Aug 2023
When people see political advertisements on a polarized issue they take a stance on, what factors influence how they respond to and remember the adverts contents? Across three studies, we tested competing hypotheses about how individual differences in social vigilantism (i.e., attitude superiority) and need for cognition relate to intentions to resist attitude change and memory for political advertisements concerning abortion. In Experiments 1 and 2, we examined participants’ intentions to use resistance strategies to preserve their pre-existing attitudes about abortion, by either engaging against opposing opinions or disengaging from them. In Experiment 3, we examined participants’ memory for information about both sides of the controversy presented in political advertisements. Our results suggest higher levels of social vigilantism are related to greater intentions to counterargue and better memory for attitude-incongruent information. These findings extend our understanding of individual differences in how people process and respond to controversial social and political discourse.
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... Social Vigilantism (SV) refers to one's perceived importance and correctness of their beliefs and tendency to impress these beliefs onto others (Saucier & Webster, 2010). SV is positively associated with resisting persuasion when challenged about their attitudes on controversial and/or political topics (e.g., abortion, climate change; O'Dea et al., 2018;Saucier et al., 2014), but not with being more informed about a given topic . Given that the pandemic was a morally-charged collective experience (Yang & Ren, 2020), SV likely relates to perceptions of confrontations about pandemic behaviors. ...
... We also examined how participants' SV and MHB related to these perceptions. Because SV is associated with first-person confrontations and resistance to persuasion (Saucier et al., 2014), we expected SV to interact with one or both of our conditional manipulations but did not offer specific hypotheses. Consistent with and extending Schiffer et al. (2021), we expected MHB to be associated with less favorable attitudes toward the target when engaging in virus-mitigation. ...
... Neither SV nor MHB significantly correlated with either outcome variable (i.e., positive perceptions of the target's response or personality). However, with respect to the general perception composites, SV correlated positively with support for pandemic confrontations, consistent with SV's relationships with impressing one's beliefs onto others (Saucier et al., 2014). MHB correlated negatively with COVID awareness, support for mask-wearing, and support for pandemic confrontations, consistent with Schiffer et al. (2021). ...
The effects of social vigilantism and masculine honor beliefs on perceptions of confrontation during the COVID‐19 pandemic
Article
  • Jun 2023
Varying opinions about the COVID‐19 pandemic inspire different behaviors (e.g., mask‐wearing), and confrontation may result between people with differing viewpoints. Individual differences associated with belief superiority (e.g., Social Vigilantism; SV) and/or pride (e.g., Masculine Honor Beliefs; MHB) likely related to third‐person perceptions of pandemic confrontations. In this study ( N = 237; US sample), we used vignettes in a 2 (Mask: Yes/No) × 2(Confrontation Response: Vocal Defense/Walked Away) between‐groups design to examine how SV and MHB predict perceptions of (1) responses to public confrontation about (not) wearing a mask and (2) the person being confronted. In general, mask‐wearing and walking away from confrontation were perceived more positively. Higher SV was associated with more positive perceptions of seemingly morally‐justified responses to confrontation (e.g., walking away when confronted for not wearing a mask, vocally defending oneself when confronted for wearing a mask). Contrarily, higher MHB were associated with more positive perceptions of non‐mask‐wearing. This research provides insight about how individual differences in SV and MHB relate to nuances in pandemic confrontations, and responses to confrontations, about (non)mask‐wearing.
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... Rather, SV people prioritize fulfilling their need to disseminate and assert information to correct, educate, and enlighten others (Saucier & Webster, 2010). SV literature found that one's socially vigilant disposition and its effects on active communication persist across context and time even after controlling for personality traits such as narcissism, reactance, and need for cognition (Saucier & Webster, 2010) as well as gender, attitude strength, issue importance, and argumentativeness (Saucier et al., 2014). ...
... As previously noted, of particular concern in this study is the strong, persistent, and unique influence of SV "above and beyond" (Saucier & Webster, 2010, p. 20) other individual characteristics and contexts. SV strongly predicts communication regardless of issue context, such as issue importance (Saucier et al., 2014), level of controversy (Miller et al., 2020), or one's information-seeking tendency (i.e., need for cognition) (Saucier & Webster, 2010). ...
... Interestingly, social vigilantism (SV) literature postulates that SV goes hand-in-hand with resistance to persuasive attempts; greater levels of SV denote one holding strong (not necessarily extreme) beliefs, and due to this strong belief superiority, those higher in SV are more likely to counterargue in order to defend and disseminate their own views, which often results in little to no change in their opinions (Saucier et al., 2014;Saucier & Webster, 2010). Saucier and Webster (2010) argued that those high in SV would take any chances to impose their own views on others while refusing to change their pre-existing stances by directly attacking the opposing arguments (i.e., counterarguing) or selectively ignore the dissonant views (e.g., selective exposure) on diverse issues, including abortion, the Iraq war (Saucier et al., 2014), climate change (O'Dea et al., 2018), and sex education in schools (Saucier & Webster, 2010). ...
Toward a Holistic Approach for Nuanced Public Segmentation: Social Vigilantism and the Situational Theory of Problem Solving (STOPS)
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 2021
This study investigated a dynamic interplay between social vigilantism (SV) – the extent to which one believes in his/her opinion superiority and the tendency to preach to others – and situational variables from the STOPS model. We explored how the two, separately and together, impacted publics’ active communicative action for problem-solving (active CAPS), as well as participation intent for an environmental corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaign. Structural equation modeling results demonstrated that problem and involvement recognitions motivated people to communicate about the given issue, while constraint recognition decreased the motivation. SV was a strong driving force for people to actively communicate about a given issue; additionally, as a moderator, SV amplified the positive effect of involvement recognition on situational motivation and that of referent criterion on active communicative engagement. SV, however, was a negative predictor of participation intent in the environmental CSR campaign. This study extends our understanding of segmentation of publics by taking a synthetic approach and furthers our knowledge in delineating more-nuanced subgroups in active publics.
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... Such a finding suggests that polarization may be attributable to multiple factors, rather than solely to social media or digital online environments themselves. However, there is little disagreement with the notion that public discourse on social media platforms is particularly prone to conflict and outrage [27,28]. That is, moral outrage in the digital age is common and often especially intense [1]. ...
... Returning to psychological literature, conceptually, MG is somewhat similar to previously documented constructs such as social vigilantism [27,28], which is concerned with a desire to correct the incorrect social views of others. This particular construct deserves special consideration, given that social vigilantism is specifically focused on public discourse, and that it seems to be associated with a willingness to share or promote one's moral views. ...
... Indeed, past work has demonstrated that social vigilantism predicts engagement in social forums and at least partially accounts for the link between outrage and social media engagement displaying that outrage [46]. Importantly, however, in its original conception [27,28], social vigilantism was not explicitly linked to status-seeking drives and behaviors (though it was positively linked with narcissism). As such, in premise, MG motivation should be distinct from social vigilantism, in that its conceptual focus on status seeking, rather than on being correct or correcting others. ...
Moral grandstanding in public discourse: Status-seeking motives as a potential explanatory mechanism in predicting conflict
Article
Full-text available
Public discourse is often caustic and conflict-filled. This trend seems to be particularly evident when the content of such discourse is around moral issues (broadly defined) and when the discourse occurs on social media. Several explanatory mechanisms for such conflict have been explored in recent psychological and social-science literatures. The present work sought to examine a potentially novel explanatory mechanism defined in philosophical literature: Moral Grandstanding. According to philosophical accounts, Moral Grandstanding is the use of moral talk to seek social status. For the present work, we conducted six studies, using two undergraduate samples (Study 1, N = 361; Study 2, N = 356); a sample matched to U.S. norms for age, gender, race, income, Census region (Study 3, N = 1,063); a YouGov sample matched to U.S. demographic norms (Study 4, N = 2,000); and a brief, one-month longitudinal study of Mechanical Turk workers in the U.S. (Study 5, Baseline N = 499, follow-up n = 296), and a large, one-week YouGov sample matched to U.S. demographic norms (Baseline N = 2,519, follow-up n = 1,776). Across studies, we found initial support for the validity of Moral Grandstanding as a construct. Specifically, moral grandstanding motivation was associated with status-seeking personality traits, as well as greater political and moral conflict in daily life.
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... Further, individual differences in SV are associated with responses to the presentation of extreme political opinions, with higher levels of SV being associated with more expressions of belief superiority and counterarguing in response to extreme political opinions (Saucier & Webster, 2010). Higher levels of SV are also associated with resistance to persuasion when individuals' attitudes about sex education in schools (Saucier & Webster, 2010), abortion, the war in Iraq, and the first amendment rights of pornographers (Saucier, Webster, Hoffman, & Strain, 2014) are challenged. SV predicts these responses and resistance to persuasion above and beyond other individual differences such as dogmatism, narcissism, moral stability, need for cognition, and reactance (Saucier & Webster, 2010) as well as individuals' levels of argumentativeness, individuals' levels of attitude strength regarding the issue being challenged, and the importance of the issue being challenged (Saucier et al., 2014). ...
... Higher levels of SV are also associated with resistance to persuasion when individuals' attitudes about sex education in schools (Saucier & Webster, 2010), abortion, the war in Iraq, and the first amendment rights of pornographers (Saucier, Webster, Hoffman, & Strain, 2014) are challenged. SV predicts these responses and resistance to persuasion above and beyond other individual differences such as dogmatism, narcissism, moral stability, need for cognition, and reactance (Saucier & Webster, 2010) as well as individuals' levels of argumentativeness, individuals' levels of attitude strength regarding the issue being challenged, and the importance of the issue being challenged (Saucier et al., 2014). ...
... These resistance strategies include attitude bolstering (finding information that supports one's beliefs), assertions of confidence (stating one's beliefs cannot be changed), counterarguing (directly refuting the opposition's arguments), social validation (seeking approval from others), selective exposure (leaving the conversation either literally by walking away or just ignoring the opposition), negative affect (getting upset or angry), and source derogation (directly insulting the opposing individual). Saucier et al. (2014) expanded this list to include one additional resistance strategy, impressions of beliefs (the need to push one's own beliefs onto others). ...
Social vigilantism and the extremity, superiority, and defense of attitudes toward climate change
Article
Full-text available
  • Mar 2018
  • PERS INDIV DIFFER
Public polarization toward the issue of climate change has increased in recent years. SV is the extent to which individuals believe their opinions are superior to others’ and should be impressed onto others. We assert social vigilantism (SV) may provide important explanation of attitudes toward, as well as the resistance to and perceptions of those who challenge individuals’ attitudes toward, climate change. SV has been previously shown to predict more extreme attitudes toward climate change and other political issues. We found SV predicted the extremity, strength, and superiority of attitudes toward climate change, and resistance to attitude challenges (Study 1). We then manipulated whether an individual agreed or disagreed with the participant in a vignette and measured participants’ perceptions of the other individual. We found higher levels of SV were associated with more positive perceptions of the other individual (Study 2). Interestingly, this finding was independent of whether the other individual agreed with or disagreed with the participant. This may be because the other individual was still discussing political issues, providing participants the opportunity to impress their own beliefs. These findings may indicate future discussions about climate change, while contentious and sometimes hostile, may inspire respect, even for opposing viewpoints.
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... It is important to note, however, that these findings do not uniquely support the mateguarding account of manhood. These findings could in principle all be accounted for by Nisbett and Cohen's status or reputation defense accounts of manhood and have indeed been interpreted by researchers as such rather than as a functionally distinct threat of cuckoldry (see Henry, 2009;Saucier et al., 2014;. But, the prominence of themes related to cuckoldry (jealousy and infidelity) as manhood threats which drive much of men's honor-related violence (e.g., Daly & Wilson, 1988a) suggests that mate guarding may be of particular importance to the function of manhood, as well as its behavioral manifestations and extreme precariousness in honor cultures. ...
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... More closely related to belief superiority is social vigilantism, which involves an overvaluation of one's views as well as a perceived authority and obligation to correct others' "ignorant" beliefs (Raimi & Leary, 2014;Saucier & Webster, 2010). Whereas social vigilantism explicitly includes a duty to educate others so as to better society (O'Dea et al., 2018;Saucier, Webster, Hoffman, & Strain, 2014), belief superiority does not. Indeed, previous research has found that domainspecific belief superiority is more closely tied to judgmental thoughts than with a willingness to truly engage with people with whom they disagree (Maki & Raimi, 2017). ...
General Belief Superiority (GBS): Personality, Motivation, and Interpersonal Relations
Article
  • Jul 2019
This paper introduces general belief superiority (GBS)—the tendency for people to think their beliefs are superior to alternatives—and investigates its personological, motivational, and interpersonal features. Across four studies, a new GBS Scale found that GBS was related to how people process information, think about their attitudes, compare themselves to others, and interact during conflicts. GBS correlated with various existing constructs (e.g. social vigilantism, narcissism), but was unrelated to others (e.g., selfishness). Study 2 established test-retest reliability and found that the belief superior have negative thoughts about controversial topics and are more likely to share opinions online. Study 3 found GBS predicted maladaptive reactions to conflicts with romantic partners. Gender differences and self-enhancement motivations in belief superiority are discussed.
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Article
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  • Apr 2022
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Ardent, but informed? Social vigilantism and the dissemination and defense of political decisions
Article
  • Sep 2021
  • PERS INDIV DIFFER
Social vigilantism (SV) is the tendency to believe one's beliefs are superior to others' and to attempt to impress one's beliefs onto others. With an undergraduate psychology student sample (N = 209), we used correlational methods with both self-report and behavioral measures to investigate SV's prediction of the amount of information used when making voting decisions as well as methods used to defend those decisions against challenge. SV did not correlate with the amount of information used to make voting decisions, indicating higher levels of SV are not associated with necessarily better informed opinions. SV did uniquely predict the use of six resistance strategies to defend voting decisions against challenges. These results suggest higher levels of SV are associated with greater tendencies to disseminate and defend one's beliefs, regardless of how well-informed those beliefs are.
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Trait argumentativeness as a correlate of bolster and counterargue tendencies in resistance to persuasion research
Article
  • Feb 2021
Research on resistance to persuasion has examined a number of relevant variables such as one’s bolstering of one’s own argument and, for example, generating counterarguments in order to resist a persuasive message. Is resistance to persuasion a function of a widespread practice of bolstering and/or counterarguing? Or, is resistance to persuasion more meaningfully examined from an individual differences approach based on relative levels of trait argumentativeness within samples? Three hypotheses were offered and tested. Results suggested that empirical investigations of the relationship of bolstering arguments and generating counterarguments to resistance to persuasion should report argumentativeness levels of research participants. Trait argumentativeness may have a very substantial role in the effect sizes reported in resistance to persuasion research. High argumentatives significantly preferred counterarguing over bolstering in resistance to persuasion whereas low argumentatives significantly preferred bolstering over counterarguing, suggesting a root difference between high and low argumentatives requiring further investigation for verification.
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Attitude Importance and Resistance to Persuasion: It's Not Just the Thought That Counts
Article
Full-text available
  • May 1996
This research examined individual differences in attitude importance (J. A. Krosnick, 1988a) as a moderator of resistance to persuasion. In 2 studies, individuals who favored allowing gay people to serve openly in the military were aurally presented with a counterattitudinal message. Participants who considered their attitude high (vs low) in personal importance were more resistant to the message. Process analyses revealed that both thought listings and self-reported affect mediated this attitude importance effect. A 2nd study, which also examined message quality, showed that both high- and low-importance individuals were more resistant to a weak (vs strong) message. This effect was explained by the fact that the weak (vs strong) message engendered more irritation and negative affective elaborations. Results highlight the role of attitude importance in motivating resistance to persuasive communications and reveal that the resistance process is both cognitive and affective. Implications for contemporary models of persuasion are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Attitude strength: An overview.
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 1995
[offer] a working definition of attitude strength and [outline] a series of attributes of attitudes related to strength / review evidence linking these attributes to the defining features of strength, and . . . consider the relations among these attributes strength-related dimensions of attitudes [aspects of attitudes, aspects of attitude structure, subjective beliefs about attitudes and attitude objects, processes] (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Attitude Strength: One Construct or Many Related Constructs?
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 1993
A variety of attributes differentiate attitudes that are stable and consequential from those that are not, including extremity, certainty, importance, knowledge, intensity, interest, direct experience, accessibility, latitudes of rejection and noncommitment, and affective–cognitive consistency. Although these dimensions are clearly conceptually and operationally distinct from one another, researchers have often assumed that some are interchangeable, or that 2 or more reflect common higher-order constructs. Three studies using multitrait-multimethod confirmatory factor analysis assessed the relations among these dimensions. Although some of these dimensions are strongly related, most are not, and a multifactor model seems necessary to account for their intercorrelations. Thus, it seems most sensible to think of all these dimensions as distinct rather than as multiple manifestations of a smaller set of underlying attributes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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An experimental examination of strategies for resisting persuasion
Article
  • May 2002
The present research took an experimental approach to examining five strategies that may be effective in conferring resistance to persuasion (i.e., counterarguing, attitude bolstering, source derogation, negative affect, and assertions of confidence). Participants listened to a persuasive message then copied statements consistent with one of the resistance strategies under the ruse of providing handwriting samples for a lie-detection experiment. Compared to those who copied neutral statements, those who copied attitude bolstering statements, assertions of confidence, and negative affect statements were more resistant to change. Surprisingly, copying counterarguments and source derogations did not confer resistance. The results from a speech-only control group that was allowed to respond (i.e., resist) naturally suggested that the counterarguments condition prevented individuals from effectively counterarguing on their own. The implications of these results for each strategy were discussed.
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Strategies for Resisting Persuasion
Article
  • Jun 2003
This research examines the variety of strategies individuals may use to resist persuasion. In Study 1, participants wrote an essay describing how they respond when faced with a persuasive challenge. Six expected strategies were reliably identified in the essays: attitude bolstering, counterarguing, negative affect, selective exposure, social validation, and source derogation. A novel strategy, asserting confidence that nothing could change one's mind, was also revealed. Studies 2 and 3 had individuals rate the likelihood of having each of these 7 responses in defense of their attitudes toward abortion or the death penalty, respectively. As predicted, message-oriented strategies (i.e., attitude bolstering and counterarguing) were reported as most likely to be used, and less socially acceptable strategies (e.g., source derogation) were reported as least likely. Attitude importance, perceived knowledge, perceived effectiveness of the strategy, and social desirability concerns all significantly predicted the perceived likelihood of using various strategies. A final study examined actual strategy use and found counterarguing, attitude bolstering, source derogation, and negative affect to be prevalent responses. Counterarguing was the most effective strategy for resisting persuasion. Attitude bolstering, although commonly used by respondents, did not predict resistance.
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Attitude Importance, Forewarning of Message Content, and Resistance to Persuasion
Article
  • Mar 2000
  • BASIC APPL SOC PSYCH
Warning participants of the topic and position of an upcoming message often results in increased resistance to persuasion. The cognitive mediation explanation of this effect is that the warning motivates people to engage in anticipatory counterarguing prior to receiving the message. This research suggests that this explanation provides only a partial understanding of forewarning effects. We extended the literature by examining attitude importance and both cognitive and affective resistance processes (cf. Zuwerink & Devine, 1996). Results showed that high-importance individuals were very resistant to the message, regardless of the warning (warned vs. unwarned) and delay (0 min vs. 2 min) manipulations. Their resistance was evident in heightened levels of negative thoughts and negative affect (i.e., irritation) compared to low-importance individuals. Low-importance individuals were most resistant when warned and given time before hearing the message. Path analysis suggests that this effect was mediated primarily by heightened irritation in this condition, although negative thoughts also contributed to resistance.
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Counterarguing and Selective Exposure to Persuasion
Article
  • Oct 1977
Three separate studies were designed to investigate several factors relating to counterarguing and selective exposure to information. One hundred fifty-six male and female college students served as Ss in the three experiments, 36 in the first, 20 in the second, and 100 in the third. In all three, those Ss who were encouraged to counterargue in response to a counterattitudinal message listened to that message for a longer period of time than Ss who did not have an opportunity to counterargue. Opportunity to counterargue also increased resistance to persuasion, the counterarguing groups showing less attitude change than the control group. In the third experiment, feedback and prompted versus spontaneous counterarguing were explored as additional factors affecting counterarguing. Those Ss who were told to counterargue on prompt, counterargued longer but did not listen longer than Ss who could interrupt the message spontaneously to counterargue. Freedom to counterargue, rather than counterargument production, appears to mediate increased exposure to a belief-discrepant message.
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Distinguishing the Cognitive and Behavioral Consequences of Attitude Importance and Certainty: A New Approach to Testing the Common-Factor Hypothesis
Article
  • Mar 2003
Some published factor analyses have suggested that attitude importance and certainty are distinct psychological constructs, but other factor analytic investigations have suggested they are largely redundant reflections of a more general underlying construct. This latter sort of finding has led investigators to average measures of importance and certainty together into a composite index and then explore its cognitive and behavioral consequences. In this paper, we report three studies gauging the underlying structure of these strength-related attitude attributes by assessing whether they in fact relate in the same ways to information processing and action tendencies. We found that importance and certainty both independently predicted the likelihood that a person attempted to persuade others to adopt his or her attitude. Importance (but not certainty) was associated with the tendency to seek out information that would enable people to use their attitudes in a subsequent judgment and only importance predicted whether or not they turned out to vote in an election to express their attitudes. Certainty (but not importance) was related to the tendency to find more than one political candidate acceptable. And importance and certainty interacted to predict the frequency with which people performed attitude-expressive behaviors. All this suggests that importance and certainty have distinct effects on thinking and behavior and supports the maintenance of conceptual and empirical distinctions between them in social psychological theory building.
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