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Resistance & Persuasion summary including literature & lectures
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- Tilburg University (UVT)
Summary of the masters course Resistance & Persuasion including all literature & lectures
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Resistance and persuasion - Lectures + ReadingsLecture 1: Introduction
What is resistance to persuasion?
Definition:
- A reaction against change: “I don’t like it, I don’t believe it, I won’t do it”
- The ability to withstand a persuasive attack
- An outcome: not being moved by pressures to change
- A motivational state: motivation to oppose…
Examples resistance
- No-no stickers to commercial papers (dutch)
- skipping commercial breaks
- ad blocker
- banner blindness > don't even notice ad. banners on sites or social media anymore
Reading lecture 1: The importance of resistance to persuasion
Knowles, E. S., & Linn, J. A. (2004). The importance of resistance to persuasion. In E. S. Knowles & J. A. Linn (Eds.), Resistance and Persuasion,
(pp. 3-9). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
- To accomplish persuasion, you have to expect and manage resistance
- Resistance is a reaction against change
- resistance to persuasion as the ability to withstand a persuasive attack. (McGuire)
- Webster’s New World College Dictionary includes these four definitions of resistance: (a) “The act of
resisting, opposing, withstanding, etc.,” (b) “Power or capacity to resist,” (c) “Opposition of some force
. . . to another or others,” and (d) “A force that retards, hinders, or opposes motion. . . .” The first of
these four definitions references resistance as a behavioral outcome, the act of with- standing
influence. The other three reference more motivational aspects of re- sistance, as a power or
oppositional force.
- Dual definition in psychology: defines an outcome of not being moved by pressures to change,
motivational state to oppose and counter pressures to change.
- Boomerang effect: The recipient changes in a direction opposite to the one advocated in the message.
Definition: McGuire defined resistance to persuasion as the ability to withstand a persuasive attack. Resistance
is the tug-of-war partner with persuasion. Just as it takes two opposing teams for a tug-of-war competition,
resistance and persuasion are opposing yet integral parts of a persuasive interaction. McGuire’s inoculation
strategies increased resistance in two ways, first, by increasing motivation to resist, and second, by arming the
person with the weapons needed to accomplish the resistance. McGuire (1964) identified the interplay
between persuasive challenges and resistance to influence as a dynamic process, McGuire’s system identified
motivation and argument as the elements involved in change. If the person had few counterarguments and
little motivation, then he or she was easily persuaded; but if motivation were increased and counterarguments
made available, then influence could be resisted.
Outcome versus Motive
Resistance has acquired a dual definition in psychology:
As an outcome: the outcome of not being moved by pressures to change. (often measured as less persuasion)
Identifies a motivational state: the motivation to oppose and counter pressures to change
To some extent the outcome and motivational definitions are theoretically linked. A motivation to oppose would
promote the outcome of not changing.
Important: Whether and how much the persuasive attempt was effective. The reliance on the behavioral
outcome raises an interesting definitional issue. In some cases a persuasive message, even a very strong one,
has no effect on the recipient. A strong change attempt leaves the recipient unchanged. In other cases a
persuasive message may produce a boomerang effect. The recipient changes in a direction opposite to the one
advocated in the message.
,Resistance as Attitude
One model of attitude structure distinguishes three components: affective, cognitive, and behavioral. This
tripartite model applies to resistance as well. “I don’t like it!”, “I don’t believe it!”, and “I won’t do it!”
Source of Resistance
although resistance is a response to pressures for change, the source of resistance is sometimes attributed
more to the person, and sometimes it is attributed more to the situation. Resistance to be largely a quality of
the person, or the person’s attitude: As a stable quality of the person, resistance lies in wait, a potential
response always ready to be enacted if needed.
✓ Brehm’s “reactance” - emphasizes a different source for resistance, an external source. Reactance is
caused by external threats to one’s freedom of choice. When a person senses that someone else is limiting
his or her freedom to choose or act, an uncomfortable state of reactance results, creating motivation to
reassert that freedom. Two sets of factors determine the amount of reactance
1) The more numerous and important the freedoms, the greater the reactance to losing them
2) The nature of the threat. Arbitrary, blatant, direct, and demanding requests will create more reactance
than legitimate, subtle, indirect, and delicate requests. Without the threat, there would be no resistant
reaction, so reactance is, as the name implies, reactant, and thus stands in contrast to the forms of
resistance that are more intrinsic, permanent parts of the person or attitude.
FOUR FACES OF RESISTANCE: REACTANCE, DISTRUST, SCRUTINY, AND INERTIA
I. Reactance - one face of resistance is the reactance. This face of resistance recognizes the
influence attempt as an integral element of resistance. Reactance is initiated only when the
influence is directly perceived and when it threatens a person’s choice alternatives. This view
of resistance also emphasizes the affective (“I don’t like it!”) and motivational (“I won’t do
it!”) sides of resistance.
II. Distrust - spotlights the target of change, and it reveals a general distrust of proposals. People
become guarded and wary when faced with a proposal, offer, or message to change. They
wonder what the motive behind the proposal might be, what the true facts are. This face of
resistance underlies both affective (“I don’t like it!”) and cognitive (“I don’t believe it!”)
reactions to influence. The persuader’s goals may be divergent from the target’s goals and
may, in fact, be exploitive
III. Scrutiny - is a general scrutiny that influence, offers, or requests create. When people become
aware that they are the target of an influence attempt, a natural reaction is to attend more
carefully and thoughtfully to every aspect of the situation. This is a form of resistance that
puts emphasis on the proposal itself. The careful scrutiny of the proposal means that each
point is examined more carefully and questioned more thoroughly. The strengths of an
argument are appreciated and accepted, and to that extent the proposal is believed. The
weaknesses of an argument are exposed, evaluated, and countered, and to that extent, the
proposal is rejected. This primarily cognitive element (“I don’t believe it!”) works
IV. Inertia - is not reactant to the proposer or the proposal, and it doesn’t necessarily lead to
greater scrutiny, distrust, or reactance. Inertia is a quality that focuses more on staying put
than on resisting change. Great equilibrium motive that attempts to keep the attitude system
in balance. To the extent that a request, an offer, or a persuasive message asks for change in
affect, behavior, or belief, the inertia of personality and attitude frustrates that change.
, Reading lecture 2:
1. Resistance to persuasion as self-regulation: Ego-depletion and its effects on attitude
change processes.
Wheeler, S. C., Briñol, P., & Hermann, A. D. (2007). Resistance to persuasion as self- regulation: Ego-depletion and its effects on attitude
change processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 150-156.
Abstract: Counter arguing persuasive messages requires active control processes (e.g., generation and
application of contradictory information) similar to those involved in other forms of self-regulation. Prior
research has indicated that self-regulation ability is a Wnite resource subject to temporary depletion with use,
and so engaging in self-regulatory tasks could impair individuals’ ability to subsequently counter argue.
Participants completed an initial task designed to deplete or not deplete their regulatory resources. Following
the manipulation, participants read a message supporting a counter attitudinal policy. Results indicated that
prior self-regulation reduced subsequent resistance, primarily when the message arguments were inaccurate.
Counterargument appears to be a self-regulatory process that can be undermined when self-regulatory
resources have previously been diminished.
Intro: Counterargument is the most extensively documented means of resistance, especially under conditions
when processing motivation and ability are high, such as when one has ample resources to evaluate a
personally relevant persuasive message.
Aim: In this research, we sought to test the effects of a self-regulation construct, ego-depletion, on individuals’
ability to resist counter attitudinal messages. We examined resistance to persuasion as the process of
generating more unfavorable cognitive responses to the weak persuasive messages. However, resistance could
also be an outcome which they did not look it like this. Our hypotheses concern resistance as a process, and not
as an outcome.
Definitions:
1) Self-control -> Ego-depletion -> a state in which one’s self-regulatory resources are diminished, and this
diminishment is proposed to occur because acts of self-regulation and volition
2) Resisting persuasion is another type of task that could draw on limited self-regulatory resources, and
therefore, resistance processes could be impaired by preceding self-regulation. Resistance strategy –
counterargument - involves actively processing the message information, retrieving or generating new
contradictory information, and applying it to the message content to refute it. All of these activities require the
individual to engage in active control processes to defend the pre-existing attitude from attack
3) When individuals are ego-depleted, their attitudes could be biased in an upward, acquiescent direction -
Acquiescence is often a default, passive, and low-effort response strategy that could be increased when
individuals lack self-regulatory resources.
Framework: Self-regulatory framework, we predict that the depletion manipulation will prevent the generation
of counterarguments (i.e., unfavorable thoughts), rather than amount of thoughts generally.
Method: a 2 (ego-depletion condition: depleted or not depleted) x 2 (argument quality: strong or weak)
Results
● Attitudes toward the proposal - Depleted (tired) and non-depleted individuals were equally
persuaded by strong arguments, but depleted individuals (also did not distinguish between strong and
weak arguments) were significantly more persuaded and generated significantly more favorable
thoughts in response to weak arguments than non-depleted individuals.
● Cognitive responses- Depleted and non- depleted individuals generated similar thoughts in response
to strong arguments, but depleted individuals generated significantly more favorable thoughts in
response to weak arguments than did non-depleted individuals. Hence, although all participants
generated more unfavorable than favorable thoughts, the predicted interaction was obtained.
● Additional tests - Additional analyses tested whether these effects could be plausibly attributed to
differential amounts of effort devoted to reading the proposal or to irrelevant features of the
ego-depletion task. We also further examined cognitive responses to explore the extent to which the
patterns of attitude change were attributable to differential levels of cognitive effort: individuals in the
high and low depletion groups generated similar numbers of total thoughts
Tests to determine whether participants’ perceptions of the high and low ego-depletion tasks differed
significantly in ways that could account for the obtained attitude results. These analyses on feelings of
being tired and on task enjoyment, effort, and interest also revealed no significant effects. These
, results are inconsistent with the notion that irrelevant features of the task such as its difficulty or
inherent interest to participants were responsible for subsequent differences in information processing
observed for the persuasive message.
Discussion
The present research shows that it can promote positive attitude shifts toward counter-attitudinal policies,
especially when justification for such policies are weak.
These results are consistent with the notion that, in the absence of ego-depletion, participants who read weak
arguments in favor of a policy are able to resist persuasion in the sense that exposure to the persuasive
communication does not change their attitudes.
This research supports the notion that self-regulatory resources are involved in resisting counter-attitudinal
messages and that such resistance can be thwarted by reduced self-regulatory capacity.
- Patterns of cognitive responding were consistent with the notion that depleted individuals generated
more favorable cognitive responses than did individuals who were not deplete
- The effects of prior situational variations may affect subsequent attitude change processes.
* Important: these findings expand our understanding of how situational factors can affect information
processing and attitude change. These findings provide and suggest critical links between the attitude change
and self- regulation literatures, promoting novel ways of thinking about attitude change. The current findings
also have potential implications for why people may engage in undesired behaviors.
2. Acts of Benevolence: A Limited-resource account of compliance with charitable requests
Fennis, B. M., Janssen, L., & Vohs, K. D. (2009). Acts of benevolence: A limited- resource account of compliance with charitable requests.
Journal of Consumer Research, 35, 906-924.
Across six field and lab experiments, we found that impaired self-control fosters compliance with charitable
requests. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that self-regulatory resource depletion was induced when participants
yielded to the initial requests of a foot-in-the- door script aimed at procuring volunteer behavior. Experiment 3
demonstrated that self-regulatory resource depletion mediated the effects of yielding to the initial requests of a
foot-in-the-door technique on compliance with a charitable target request. Experiments 4–6 demonstrated that
weak temporary and chronic self-control ability fostered compliance through reliance on compliance-
promoting heuristics (i.e., reciprocity, liking, and consistency.
Compliance with charitable requests - the type of motivations related to endorsing a charity and to engage
people participate in it.
In short: In six experiments, we hypothesized and found that a key reason that the preliminary stage of a
scripted influence tactic is so effective is that it induces a state of self-regulatory resource depletion. This
weakened volitional state then enhances compliance with a subsequent request, but only when the request
contains heuristics aimed at promoting compliance (e.g., reciprocity)—which nearly all scripted influence
techniques naturally embed in the process.
● The foot-in the-door effect – begins with a small request, followed by a larger request; most effective
when the initial request is highly involving. They entail either (a) active self-presentation or (b)
demanding cognitive operations, or both—processes that are known to elicit self-regulatory resource
depletion.
● Door-in-the-face technique – starts with a relatively large request, followed by a smaller request
● The lowball technique – starts with an offer or request, presented in a particularly attractive light,
which is subsequently modified to the actual (less attractive) target request after initial acceptance
● The disrupt-then-reframe technique – an offer is presented to the target, followed by a subtle oddity
or twist in the sales script (such as stating the price of the offer in pennies before stating it in dollars),
and finally a persuasive phrase that concludes the script.
Research on compliance-gaining procedures increasingly has emphasized processes that are subtle, indirect,
and outside conscious awareness of the target consumer. According to Cialdini and others the effectiveness of
influence techniques hinges on the notion of consumer automaticity or “mindlessness”. In these states,
consumers are prone to employ simple heuristics that increase compliance rates, such as the principles of
consistency (i.e., propensity to behave congruently across situations), reciprocity (i.e., felt obligation to return a
favor), and liking. Mindlessness can be found in a characteristic that almost all successful techniques have in
common - multiple decision moments or sequential requests. That is, the target consumer has to yield to one or
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