Effectiveness of Forewarning in Developing Resistance to Persuasion

A Meta-Analysis of Research on Inoculation Theory

“…Background on Inoculation McGuire's (1961aMcGuire's ( , 1961bMcGuire's ( , 1962McGuire & Papageorgis, 1962; original conceptualization of inoculation theory suggests that individuals can be inoculated against persuasive attacks on their attitudes in a similar manner to the way individuals can be immunized against a virus. Medical inoculation works by injecting a weakened form of a virus into an individual in order to enable that person to build up resistance to future attacks from that virus.…”

“…Two issues in the evolution of inoculation theory from McGuire's (1961a;McGuire & Papageorgis, 1962) original work to contemporary applications warrant consideration. First, McGuire (1964, p. 201) limited the application of inoculation theory to ''cultural truisms,'' or ''beliefs that are so widely shared within the person's social milieu that he would not have heard them attacked, and indeed, would doubt that an attack were possible.''…”

“…This approach, which he deemed active refutation, placed the onus of defending their attitude solely on the participants. In other research, McGuire (McGuire & Papageorgis, 1962) included refutations along with the attack message. In this passive refutational approach, participants were no longer solely responsible for developing arguments to defend their attitude.…”

The Influence of Corporate Front-Group Stealth Campaigns

“…Inoculation works through two mechanisms: Threat seeks to get receivers to acknowledge the potential vulnerability of an attitude to influence and functions as the motivational catalyst for resistance; refutational preemption raises and systematically refutes specific challenges to attitudes and provides the ammunition that can be used in counterarguing (McGuire, 1961b(McGuire, , 1964Pfau, 1997). Early studies by McGuire (1961aMcGuire ( , 1961bMcGuire ( , 1962McGuire ( , 1964McGuire ( , 1966McGuire & Papageorgis, 1962;Papageorgis & McGuire, 1961) and later studies by Pfau and colleagues (Pfau, 1997;Pfau et al, 2004;Pfau et al, 2003;Pfau, Szabo, et al, 2001), which operationalized threat and counterarguing, indicated that inoculation works, with the latter studies confirming that both of the theorized mechanisms play instrumental roles in resistance.…”

“…Refutational same treatments raise and refute the same arguments featured in a subsequent attack; refutational different treatments feature generic arguments that are not contained in a later attack. Research findings consistently indicate that inoculation is equally effective whether refutational same and different treatments are used (McGuire, 1961a(McGuire, , 1962(McGuire, , 1964McGuire & Papageorgis, 1962;Papageorgis & McGuire, 1961;Pfau, 1992Pfau, , 1997Pfau & Burgoon, 1988;Pfau et al, 2004;Pfau et al, 1990;Pfau et al, 2003;Pfau, Szabo, et al, 2001;Pfau et al, 1997).…”