A meta-analysis of the available judgment and memory data on the sleeper effect in persuasion is presented. According to this effect, when people receive a communication associated with a discounting cue, such as a noncredible source, they are less persuaded immediately after exposure than they are later in time. Findings from this meta-analysis indicate that recipients of discounting cues were more persuaded over time when the message arguments and the cue had a strong initial impact. In addition, the increase in persuasion was stronger when recipients of discounting cues had higher ability or motivation to think about the message and received the discounting cue after the message. These results are discussed in light of classic and contemporary models of attitudes and persuasion.Persuasive messages are often accompanied by information that induces suspicions of invalidity. For instance, recipients of communications about a political candidate may discount a message coming from a representative of the opponent party because they do not perceive the source of the message as credible (e.g., Lariscy & Tinkham, 1999). Because the source of the political message serves as a discounting cue and temporarily decreases the impact of the message, recipients may not be persuaded by the advocacy immediately after they receive the communication. Over time, however, recipients of an otherwise influential message may recall the message but not the noncredible source and thus become more persuaded by the message at that time than they were immediately following the communication. The term sleeper effect has been used to denote such a delayed increase in persuasion observed when the discounting cue (e.g., noncredible source) becomes unavailable or "dissociated" from the communication in the memory of the message recipients (Hovland, Lumsdaine, & Sheffield, 1949). Because the sleeper effect concerns initial message impact, as well as recall of the information presented in the communication, the phenomenon has implications for broad models of persuasion, including early learning approaches (e.g., Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953) as well as more recent conceptualizations, such as the heuristic-systematic model and the elaborationlikelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986;.The sleeper effect is counterintuitive because, generally, the impact of a persuasive communication is greater when one measures the effect closer to the presentation rather than farther away from the time of reception Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). As such, this phenomenon has stimulated a large amount of research about the possibility of increased persuasion over time, as well as the potential decrease and lack of longitudinal change in persuasion (for reviews, see Cook, Gruder, Hennigan, & Flay, 1979;Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). Moreover, if one can understand the conditions that elicit increases, decreases, and stability in persuasion, one should be able to explain the Copyright 2004 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.Correspondence concerning this art...

A meta-analysis of 58 studies involving 30,270 participants examined how study population and methodological characteristics influence the associations among norms, control perceptions, attitudes, intentions and behaviour in the area of condom use. Findings indicated that control perceptions generally correlated more strongly among members of societal groups that lack power, including female, younger individuals, ethnic-minorities and people with lower educational levels. Furthermore, norms generally had stronger influences among younger individuals and among people who have greater access to informational social support, including males, ethnic majorities and people with higher levels of education. These findings are discussed in the context of HIV prevention efforts.

This meta-analysis examined the validity of various theoretical assumptions about cognitive and behavioral change following a communication recommending condom use. The synthesis comprised 82 treatment and 29 control groups included in 46 longitudinal reports with measures of perceived severity and susceptibility, attitudes and expectancies, norms, perceptions of control, intentions, knowledge, behavioral skills, or condom use. Results indicated that across the sample of studies, communications taught recipients about facts related to HIV and also induced favorable attitudes and expectancies, greater control perceptions, and stronger intentions to use condoms in the future. Moreover, messages that presented attitudinal information and modeled behavioral skills led to increased condom use. Results are discussed in the context of theories of human behavior and change and in reference to HIV-prevention interventions. KeywordsHIV and condom use; behavior; attitude; persuasion; intervention; meta-analysis Client-centered approaches and pragmatic skill-building interventions to reduce infection with HIV appear to be indispensable tools in reducing the epidemic of this disease (Kelly, 1982; Kelly & St. Lawrence, 1988, 1990. However, interventions to prevent HIV infection must also use less effortful yet persuasive approaches to reach large audiences at different Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dolores Albarracín, Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611. dalbarra@ufl.edu. HHS Public Access Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptAuthor ManuscriptAuthor Manuscript levels of risk for HIV. In persuasive communications, a standard recommendation is presented, accompanied by material designed to increase the chance that message recipients will comply with the recommendation. Given the number of communications to prevent HIV that have been delivered over the years, there should be considerable knowledge about the impact of these communications on condom use. To date, however, there has been no precise estimation of the impact of persuasive messages that recommend condom use, nor is there knowledge of the general impact of different types of persuasive arguments designed to increase condom use. For example, the health belief model (Janz & Becker, 1984;Rosenstock, 1974;Rosenstock, Strecher, & Becker, 1994) and the protection-motivation theory (Floyd, Prentice-Dunn, & Rogers, 2000;Rogers, 1975) imply that communications will increase condom use when they induce recipients' (a) fear of the severity of the disease and (b) beliefs that they are personally susceptible to it (but see the null meta-analytic findings of Gerrard, Gibbons, & Bushman, 1996). However, other conceptualizations identify different factors that are relevant to behavioral change. The theory of reasoned action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) and the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen & Madden, 1986; for a meta-analysis, see Albarracín, Johnson, Fishbein, & Muellerleile, 2001) suggest that communicati...

Three studies examined the implications of a model of affect as information in persuasion. According to this model, extraneous affect may have an influence when message recipients exert moderate amounts of thought, because they identify their affective reactions as potential criteria but fail to discount them as irrelevant. However, message recipients may not use affect as information when they deem affect irrelevant or when they do not identify their affective reactions at all. Consistent with this curvilinear prediction, recipients of a message that either favored or opposed comprehensive exams used affect as a basis for attitudes in situations that elicited moderate thought. Affect, however, had no influence on attitudes in conditions that elicited either large or small amounts of thought.Persuasive communications can have an impact on the attitudes of a recipient not only when they present compelling arguments in support of the message's recommendation but also when they trigger nonelaborative mechanisms (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; for other models of information processing, see Fazio, 1990;Fiske & Neuberg, 1990;Wilson, Lindsey, & Schooler, 2000). For example, pleasant music in a commercial may be objectively irrelevant to the merits of a product but can still generate favorable attitudes toward the product provided the positive affect it induces biases recipients' judgments (for a comprehensive review of the influences of affect, see Clore, Schwarz, & Conway, 1994;Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). The mechanisms that underlie the influence of affect in persuasion involve, in part, the use of affect as information (see Albarracín & Wyer, 2001;DeSteno, Petty, Wegener, & Rucker, 2000;Ottati & Isbell, 1996). According to Schwarz and Clore (1983), people use affect as information just as they use any other criterion. In doing so, they attempt to determine the informational value of their affective reactions to the judgment at hand. If they believe that their feelings are a sound basis for judgment, they use them in forming their attitudes. If they believe that these feelings are irrelevant, they exclude them from consideration. Clore et al. (1994) as well as Petty, Schumann, Richman, and Strathman (1993) assumed that people use affect as information (particularly extraneous affect) when they lack the ability and motivation to think about the issues being considered. There are two explanations for this prediction. First, people may consider affect when they are unable or unwilling to process more complex information, such as the arguments contained in the persuasive message (see Petty & Wegener, 1999). In addition, people with low motivation and ability may fail to determine that their extraneous affective reactions are irrelevant to the judgment they are about to make, and, consequently, affect may have an influence. In any event, this prediction assumes that the use of affect as information involves a single stage of relevance assessment. HHS Public AccessIt seems likely, however, that the use of affect as informa...

Most theories of persuasion predict that limited ability and motivation to think about communications should increase the impact of source credibility on persuasion. Furthermore, this effect is assumed to occur, regardless of whether or not the recipients have prior attitudes. In this study, the effects of source credibility, ability, and motivation (knowledge, message repetition, relevance) on persuasion were examined meta-analytically across both attitude formation and change conditions. Findings revealed that the Source Credibility × Ability/Motivation interaction emerged only when participants lacked prior attitudes and were unable to form a new attitude based on the message content. In such settings, the effects of source credibility decayed rapidly. The implications of these findings for applied communication campaigns are discussed.