What doesn't kill me makes me stronger: The effects of resisting persuasion on attitude certainty.

Abstract

The present research proposes a metacognitive framework for understanding resistance to persuasion. It is suggested that when people resist persuasion, they can become more certain of their initial attitudes. Several experiments demonstrated that when participants resisted persuasion, attitude certainty increased, but only when the attack was believed to be strong. For attacks believed to be weak, certainty was unchanged. It was also demonstrated that attitude certainty only increased when people actually perceived that persuasion had been resisted. This increased certainty was shown to have implications for resistance to subsequent attacks and the correspondence between attitudes and behavioral intentions. These findings suggest that when people perceive their own resistance, they form inferences about their attitudes that adjust for situational factors.

Unpacking attitude certainty: Attitude clarity and attitude correctness.

“…People possessing high attitude correctness might believe not only that their attitude is correct, or valid, but also that other people should have the same attitude. This characterization of attitude certainty is perhaps most common in the literature (e.g., Krosnick & Schuman, 1988;Tormala & Petty, 2002;see Gross et al, 1995), and indeed, the notion that certainty might sometimes reflect perceived correctness or validity has intuitive appeal.…”

“…In theory, though, prescriptive and descriptive aspects of attitude correctness could be separated and shown to have distinct antecedents or consequences in some instances. When people perceive their attitudes to be more correct after resisting persuasion (Tormala & Petty, 2002), for instance, there is little reason to suspect that they would also suddenly think many people share their attitude. They might think other people should share their attitude but not necessarily that they do.…”

Does Peace Education Make a Difference in the Context of an Intractable Conflict?

“…More generally, it may well be the case that studying another conflict, one in which students have no stake and no emotional involvement, circumvents defenses such as entrenchment and reactance which would arise if direct persuasion would be attempted (Tormala & Petty, 2002). Do new personal friendships change perceptions of the collective "other"?…”

I know that I know nothing: Can puncturing the illusion of explanatory depth overcome the relationship between attitudinal dissimilarity and prejudice?

“…Thus, people who are overconfident think that they have reasons to be prejudiced toward others with dissimilar views. In general, people who are confident about their attitudes are often less likely to change their attitudes in the face of disconfirming evidence (Bassili, 1996;Tormala & Petty, 2002). However, when it comes to politics, it is not just that people are confident in their attitudes, but they are also overly confident with regard to their understanding of policies and how the policies will work (Fernbach, Rogers, Fox, & Sloman, 2013).…”