ABSTRACT

Early scholars already pointed out the necessity of studying resistance in order to come up with a comprehensive understanding of how persuasion works. Another early approach tackling the motivation underlying resistance was McGuire's Inoculation Theory. Similar to reactance theory, Inoculation Theory assumes that being the target of a persuasive attempt causes threat. Compared to the attack-only condition, a good deal of resistance was conveyed by the inoculation treatment, whereas beliefs in the supportive condition did not differ significantly from those in the attack-only condition. A plethora of studies have demonstrated that the various indicators of strong attitudes are correlated with the resistance to counterattacks. Tormala & Petty argued that certainty might also be the outcome of resistance. In an experimental investigation, the authors showed that after resisting a counter-attack, participants did not change their attitude towards a personally relevant issue.