Efficacy of inoculation strategies in promoting resistance to political attack messages: Application to direct mail

The potential of inoculation in promoting resistance to the effectiveness of comparative advertising messages

“…It is the latter that makes inoculation such a promising strategy. Indeed, the most useful and interesting finding of inoculation research is that inoculation promotes resistance to both same and different counterarguments (McGuire, 1961(McGuire, , 1962(McGuire, , 1970Pfau & Burgoon, 1988;Pfau, et al, 1990). This finding suggests that the advertiser who is able to inoculate receivers against a single vulnerability simultaneously lays down a blanket of protection against competitors' attacks that target other vulnerabilities.…”

“…Although much of the early research on inoculation focused on what McGuire termed "cultural truisms," germ-free beliefs uncontaminated by counterarguments, a number of more recent studies have expanded the boundaries of the theory to encompass more controversial content domain (Burgoon, Burgoon, Riess, Butler, Montgomery, Stinnett, Miller, Long, Vaughn, & Caine, 1976;Burgoon & Chase, 1973;Burgoon, Cohen, Miller, & Montgomery, 1978;Burgoon & King, 1974;Freedman & Steinbruner, 1964;Infante, 1975;McCroskey, 1970;McCroskey, Young, & Scott, 1972;Ullman & Bodaken, 1975), including political communication (Pfau & Burgoon, 1988;Pfau, Kenski, Nitz, & Sorenson, 1990). Miller and Burgoon support this broader application of the theory, positing that: "[These investigations provide] evidence to suggest that.…”

A Meta-Analysis of Research on Inoculation Theory

“…However, several researchers have concluded that inoculation works better at promoting resistance when individuals face the same arguments in attack messages as opposed to novel attack arguments (e.g., Anderson & McGuire, 1965;McGuire, 1961aMcGuire, , 1961bMcGuire & Papageorgis 1962;Pfau & Burgoon, 1988;Pryor & Steinfatt, 1978), others have reached the opposite conclusion (e.g., Pfau, 1992;Pfau & Burgoon, 1988), and others have found no significant difference between novel and expected attacks (e.g., Pfau, Kenski, Nitz, & Sorenson, 1990;Wan & Pfau, 2004). Understanding whether inoculation confers more resistance to novel or expected attack arguments has important implications.…”

The Influence of Corporate Front-Group Stealth Campaigns

“…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).…”

“…However, it is a myriad of applications of inoculation that make the theory so interesting. Inoculation has been applied to a number of applied contexts, in essence, protecting people's attitudes from persuasive campaign messages: in marketing Pfau, 1992), public relations (Burgoon, Pfau, & Birk, 1995;Wan & Pfau, 2004), politics Pfau & Burgoon, 1988;Pfau, Kenski, Nitz, & Sorenson, 1990), and other domains.…”