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Abstract
In many studies, data has been led to suggest that rational messages may encourage the
generation of content based cognitive responses and lead to attitudes heavily influenced
by these cognitions. Studies have also led to suggest that people in negative moods are
affected by the quality of persuasive messages. Using manipulations techniques, bad mood
may result in a different interpretation of anything from a verbal argument to a literal
message. Even though most studies indicate that good mood manipulations may not have that
much effect on one's perception of a scenario, further investigation may do away with
that theory.
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Persuasion in Response to Emotional and Rational Appeals
Much research has been done to try and indicate that emotional appeals may influence
attitude change. The other side of looking at the spectrum is that rational appeals may
do likewise (e.g., Rosselli; Francine; Skelly, John J.; Mackie, Diane M, 1995). In one
study conducted at the University of California at Santa Barbara, 184 students received
partial course credit in return for their participation. Subjects in the experiment were
assigned to the cells of a 2(positive or neutral mood) x 2(emotional or rational message
type) x 2(strong or weak argument quality). Subjects were in groups of two to six.
After this step was established, eight messages in approximately equal length were
developed. Each message contained six arguments that were either in favor or against
using animals for research purposes. Rational and emotional were used in nature and
strong and weak were used in quality. In the procedure of the experiment, subjects
participated in an experimental session that included several tasks that were not
directly related to the study. The first test included a survey of the subjects'
attitudes toward animal testing. After this was completed, subjects read a persuasive
message, then responded to questions concerning the topic of animal research, and finally
completed items designed to check the effectiveness of the manipulations.
After checking the analysis, indications showed that there was no effects for gender. To
add to this, responses to all manipulation check measures were entered into one of four
separate groups between subjects analyses of variance (ANOVAs). When looking at the
message type, the
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data had revealed the expected main effect for message type, F(1, 65) = 33.44. p <.0001.
Also as expected, the subjects that were exposed to emotional arguments correctly
perceived them to be emotional arguments while subjects that were exposed to rational
arguments perceived them to be rational arguments. A surprising part of the data was
that a lot of the subjects favored animal testing over animal experimentation.
The dependent measure of the study was attitude change. The dependent measure also showed
a great effect on the data and was a major factor. In the overall view, subjects
displayed a significant attitude change after exposure to the messages. In discussion of
this study, the clear goal of it was to investigate attitude change that occurs in
response to emotional appeals. In more specific terms, the experimenters attempted to
examine if emotional or rational appeals produce attitude change. With a small hint of
foreshadowing, we will see how the experimenter that is proposing will use a variation of
this technique by turning the variables around.
In conclusion, the results of this experiment show that presenting subjects with rational
messages may encourage cognitive responses (as was expected). Emotional appeals seem to
indicate that there is potential for encouraging self-centered, or distinct evaluative
techniques. To push this even further, results provide more evidence that responses to a
persuasive message indicate attitude change. As for the benefit of this study, it is
suggested that there should more use of affective responses. This could help improve the
understanding of persuasive methods.
In other recent studies, it was found that subjects' processing of persuasive
communications depends on their affective state at the time. Predictions for this
experiment were that people in neutral or negative moods are affected by the quality of
the persuasive message
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and report more acceptable attitudes after being shown strong arguments rather than weak
arguments. Seventy-six students at the University of Heidelberg in Germany received DM10
(about 5$ at the beginning of the experiment) for their participation in the experiment.
Subjects were run in groups of 3 to 6 and were randomly assigned to the conditions of a
2(positive or negative mood) x 2(strong or weak arguments) x 2(mood induced at encoding
of judgments) factorial design.
Students were informed of the intent of various tasks they would be performing. Tasks
included mood induction, the presentation of the persuasive message, and the neutral
filler task.
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