Accuracy Motivation, Consensus Information, and the Law of Large Numbers: Effects on Attitude Judgment in the Absence of Argumentation

Abstract

This study examined the influence of majority opinion on attitudes in the absence of persuasive argumentation. Participants who were either high or low in accuracy motivation were presented with an opinion poll that conveyed consensus information and the sample size of the poll. According to the law of large numbers (LLN), large polls provide more reliable estimates of consensus than smaller polls. Results generally supported predictions. Less-motivated participants tended to be influenced by consensus regardless of poll size, whereas highly motivated participants based attitudes on this information only if the poll was reliably large. Thus, participants who were highly motivated seemed to appreciate the LLN when making their attitude judgments. Consistent with the heuristic-systematic model, process measures indicated that consensus influenced attitudes through both heuristic and biased systematic processing under high motivation, but it influenced attitudes only via heuristic processing when motivation was low.

Biassed processing of persuasive information: on the functional equivalence of cues and message arguments

“…In particular, on the basis of prior research one may have expected that under the condition of high processing motivation recipients would engage in effortful processing of issue-related information (Chaiken, Duckworth, & Darke, 1999;Darke et al, 1998;Petty, Wheeler, & Bizer, 1999). With this regard, some dual-process theorists have explicitly denied the possibility that source-related information can form the basis for attitude judgements when processing effort is high.…”

“…Both models hold that under certain conditions the processing of information relevant to the issue under consideration (termed central route and systematic processing, respectively) can be biassed by factors exogenous to the message like source characteristics (e.g. Bohner, Ruder, & Erb, 2002;Chaiken & Maheswaran, 1994), recipients' mood states (Bohner, Chaiken, & Hunyadi 1994; Petty, Schuman, Richman, & Strathman, 1993), consensus among proponents (Darke et al, 1998;Erb, Bohner, Schmälzle, & Rank, 1998), and others (e.g. Chen, Shechter, & Chaiken, 1996;Ziegler, von Schwichow, & Diehl, 2005).…”

The law of large numbers and beliefs about luck: An asymmetry in recognition of the risks and benefits of chance

“…The findings of Darke et al (1998) suggest that people may be sensitive to variations in sample size when the potential for large chance fluctuation harbors potential relevance, either real or hypothetical, for them. To test this hypothesis, we asked people to imagine themselves in a situation in which their grade in a college course was contingent on their score on the final exam.…”

“…Somewhat more recent research has suggested that the effects of variations in sample size may be influenced by so-called "hot" cognitions, related to perceived personal relevance and motivation. In Darke et al (1998), for example, participants who were led to believe that a proposed exam policy might affect them, and were presumably motivated to scrutinize information more closely, based their attitudes on poll information only if the poll was reliably large. Those who believed that they would not be affected by the policy, in contrast, were influenced regardless of poll size.…”

Mood and Processing Effort

“…In particular, valence-congruent combinations of two source attributes allow for an especially strong test of happy individuals' assumed heuristic processing tendency (Mackie & Worth, 1989;Schwarz, 1990). In the case of valence-congruent source attribute combinations (honest majority source and dishonest minority source), both a consensus heuristic (e.g., Darke et al, 1998;Martin et al, 2007) and a trustworthiness heuristic (e.g., Eagly et al, 1978;McGinnies & Ward, 1980) would imply the same heuristic inference regarding the validity of the advocacy: a positive inference given an honest majority source and a negative inference given a dishonest minority source. Accordingly, the cognitivetuning approach and the cognitive capacity approach predict that attitudes of happy individuals should be more in line with the advocacy when presented by an honest majority (vs. dishonest minority) source.…”