ABSTRACT
The “Boomerang effect”, by which a very weak positive argument can
actually lead to a negative change in belief, is already well documented
within social psychology (e.g., Petty & Cacioppo, 1996). This effect is assumed to occur through the recipient’s internal generation of stronger
counter-arguments. We, however, are specifically concerned with the effect
of weak arguments that clearly exclude important information relating to
the issue in question. Following the familiar colloquial expression “damned
by faint praise”, we shall refer to negative belief change following the receipt
of positive evidence in these cases as the Faint Praise effect. In the Boomer-
ang effect the argument recipient has access to specific knowledge of counter-arguments. In the Faint Praise effect there is no specific knowledge
of counter-arguments, although there may be a suspicion that the argument
proponent is not providing all the evidence at their disposal. Kervyn,
Bergsieker, and Fiske (2012; see also Madera, Hebl, &Martin, 2009) demon-
strated the “innuendo effect”, whereby a target individual described as warm
(“very nice, sociable, and outgoing person”; p. 79) was rated as less compe-
tent than a target described generally (“a very positive overall impression”;
p. 79), with the converse also being true when the target was described as competent. One way in which positive information about a particular char-
acter trait can have a negative influence is if that trait is perceived as being
negatively correlated with other desirable traits (as with warmth and compe-
tence). In the current paper we demonstrate how a Faint Praise effect can
arise rationally without the need for such a perception.
