ABSTRACT
The area of attitudes, beliefs, and persuasion is one of the most well-worked areas in social psychology. Not only have many different aspects of this problem been addressed, but many of these aspects are “blessed” with many different theories. We have theories regarding (1) the effect of source credibility on message acceptance (see Hass, 1981, for a review); (2) the relationship of preexisting cognitions to attitude change (these include various theories of cognitive consistency such as those of Heider, 1946, 1958; Osgood & Tannenbaum, 1955; Festinger, 1957), as well as theories dealing with resistance to persuasion, such as anchoring and inoculation (discussed by McGuire, 1964); (3) the relationship of message discrepancy to attitude change (see Sherif, Sherif, & Nebergall, 1965; Aronson, Turner, & Carlsmith, 1963; Laroche, 1977; Fink, Kaplowitz, & Bauer, 1980); (4) the effect of thought on attitude change (see Tesser, 1978, for a review of relevant literature); (5) the decay of attitude change over time (see Cook & Flay, 1978, for a review); and (6) the relationship among message repetition, content of various messages received, and attitude change (Himmelfarb, 1974; Saltiel & Woelfel, 1975; Anderson, 1974; see Sawyer, 1981, for a review of much of this literature).
