Examination of Psychological Processes Underlying Resistance to Persuasion

Abstract

Three modes of resistance to persuasion (biased assimilation, relative weighting of attributes, and minimization of impact) were examined in the context of a longitudinal field study of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair and a lab experiment in the consumer setting. Only two of these modes (biased assimilation and relative weighting) were found to be sensitive to the refutability of the persuasive communication; the effectiveness of the remaining one (minimization of impact) was not influenced by this factor. Specifically, committed individuals demonstrated biased assimilation in the face of easy to refute negative information, but this mode of resistance decreased in its effectiveness when the information became difficult to refute. The relative-weighting mode of resistance (decreasing the weight given to attributes influenced by the negative information and increasing the weight given to favorably evaluated attributes), in contrast, emerged only in the face of difficult to refute information, apparently when biased assimilation decreased in its effectiveness. The impact mode of resistance was fairly effective in the face of both easy and difficult to refute information. That is, committed respondents attempted to isolate the impact of the negative information to the target attribute, minimizing its spillover to the other attributes in the attitudinal representation in response to both easy and difficult to refute messages.T hat individuals with strong attitudes resist attitude change is a well-accepted finding in the consumer behavior and psychology literature (e.g., Eagly and Chaiken 1995;Haugtvedt and Petty 1992;Petty and Cacioppo 1986). However, relatively little attention has been given to the psychological processes that mediate resistance to persuasion (Ditto and Lopez 1992;Ditto et al. 1998;Eagly and Chaiken 1995;Edwards and Smith 1996;Kunda 1990). Observing this lack of attention to processes, Eagly and Chaiken (1995) recently issued a call to investigators to "understand the specific psychological mechanisms that enable people to thwart persuasive efforts" (p. 422). They suggest that, at this point, discussion of such processes "must necessarily be speculative, given the limited amount of research that has addressed mediating processes." Our research attempts to replace this speculation with theory and data.An understanding of resistance processes is important not only from the theoretical standpoint of understanding the dynamics of persuasion, but it also has substantial practical implications for marketers. For instance, Kunda (1990) *Rohini Ahluwalia is assistant professor of marketing and Charles W. Oswald Faculty Fellow at the School of Business, University of Kansas, Summerfield Hall, Lawrence, KS 66045 (e-mail: rahluwalia@ukans.edu). The author thanks the editor, associate editor, and reviewers for their constructive feedback and guidance, and Jack Brehm, Mike Etteridge, Steve Hillmer, Sam Green, Zeynep Gurhan-Canli, Jill Klein, Durairaj Maheswaran, and Vern Richardson for their input on this project....

Corporate Social Responsibility and Competitive Advantage: Overcoming the Trust Barrier

“…This finding underscores the critical influence of the competitive dynamics in the marketplace, a factor largely neglected in the extant CSR research. At the same time, our research contributes to the persuasion literature (e.g., Ahluwalia 2000) by demonstrating that direct participation in a CSR initiative, if a positive experience, can overcome the biasing influence of strong attitudes (i.e., those towards the leader) in consumers' processing of counter-attitudinal information (i.e., favorable CSR information about the challenger).…”

“…This pattern of reactions is not entirely surprising in light of research in the consumer psychology literature that documents resistance to counter-attitudinal information among individuals with strongly held attitudes (Ahluwalia 2000;Ahluwalia, Burnkrant, and Unnava 2000;Eagly and Chaiken 1995). For example, Ahluwalia et al (2000) find that consumers' commitment toward a brand moderates their response to negative publicity in that high-commitment consumers actively counter-argue against negative information and resist attitude change, whereas low-commitment consumers process the negative information objectively.…”

“…That direct participation in the challenger's initiative overrides high ATL to produce universally favorable reactions can be explained by two factors. First, high perceived impact of the initiative provided participants with convincing and difficult-to-refute evidence of the challenger's concern for consumer welfare, making biased processing (e.g., counterarguments) of the information difficult (Ahluwalia 2000). Specifically, beliefs regarding initiative efficacy were pervasive among participants: respondents noted not only greater oral care behavior by their children (e.g., "I don't have to tell them so much to brush their teeth any more;…”

Quantification and Persuasion in Managerial Judgment

“…For the link between critical analysis and plausibility (Link 8), we rely on research indicating that the plausibility of information is influenced by the extent to which individuals resist a persuasion attempt (Ahluwalia 2000). That is, when the likelihood of critical analysis is greater (smaller), the perceived plausibility of a proposal is lessened (heightened).…”

“…For example, Eagly and Chaiken (1993) show that people often judge situations based on characteristics of the communicator, such as their perceived knowledge or trustworthiness, and not necessarily the content of their message. Ahluwalia (2000) argues that a message recipient may have critical thoughts about a communicator that are unrelated to the content of the message at hand but that nevertheless influence the perceived persuasiveness of the message.…”