Self-persuasion Approaches

This chapter focuses on research in which an attempt is made to change attitudes by having people generate their own messages on some issue. It addresses parallels between the self-persuasion approach and the dissonance theory approach. The chapter discusses the importance of a person's own thoughts in inhibiting and facilitating attitude changes that result from exposure to externally originated messages. Self-persuasion is so potent because people appear to have a higher regard for the information they generate themselves than information that originates externally, and people can better remember arguments that originate internally than externally. The chapter shows how the various features of the persuasion situation can affect the nature of the thoughts elicited by a communication and thereby affect persuasion. A more limiting criticism of the self-persuasion approaches is that they have difficulty dealing with situations in which people appear to be persuaded without much thought.