European Journal of Social Psychology Eur. J. Soc. Psychol.

38, 1634 (2008)

Published online 16 May 2007 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.426

Majority versus minority inuence: The role of message processing in determining resistance to counter-persuasion
ROBIN MARTIN1*, MILES HEWSTONE2 AND PEARL Y. MARTIN1
1 2

Aston University, UK University of Oxford, UK

Abstract Two experiments examined the extent to which attitudes changed following majority and minority inuence are resistant to counter-persuasion. In both experiments participants attitudes were measured after being exposed to two messages, delayed in time, which argued opposite positions (initial message and counter-message). In the rst experiment, attitudes following minority endorsement of the initial message were more resistant to a second counter-message only when the initial message contained strong versus weak arguments. Attitudes changed following majority inuence did not resist the second counter-message and returned to their pre-test level. Experiment 2 varied whether memory was warned (i.e., message recipients expected to recall the message) or not, to manipulate message processing. When memory was warned, which should increase message processing, attitudes changed following both majority and minority inuence resisted the second counter-message. The results support the view that minority inuence instigates systematic processing of its arguments, leading to attitudes that resist counter-persuasion. Attitudes formed following majority inuence yield to counter-persuasion unless there is a secondary task that encourages message processing. Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion, to be secure of judging properly at rst. (Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813) Research into majority and minority inuence continues to be a major area of social psychological enquiry (see De Dreu & De Vries, 2001; Martin & Hewstone, 2003a). Most of the contemporary research focuses on the types of processes that underlie majority and minority inuence and the
*Correspondence to: Dr Robin Martin, Work and Organisational Psychology Group, Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK. E-mail: r.martin@aston.ac.uk

Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 24 November 2005 Accepted 28 July 2006

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consequences this has for attitude change. In this paper we are concerned with a recent theoretical development, based on the cognitive response approach, that species the types of processes involved in majority and minority inuence, the conditions under which they occur and the consequences of these processes for peoples attitudes. We are specically concerned with the nature of the attitudes that are changed following majority and minority inuence. Using an attitude resistance paradigm (Martin, Hewstone, & Martin, 2003), we explore the idea that attitudes changed by majority and minority inuence are differentially resistant to counter-persuasion due to the extent to which initial attitude change to the majority and minority is due to systematic processing. One of the most dominant theories in this area is Moscovicis (1980,1985) conversion theory. Moscovici (1980) proposes that majorities induce a process of social comparison where attention focuses on the relationship between the majority group and the target of inuence. Because people wish to belong to the majority group (and avoid minority group membership), they comply with the majority position without considering it in detail and therefore attitude change is most evident on public and direct inuence measures. By contrast, minorities are unlikely to induce a process of social comparison (as people do not wish to identify with deviant groups) but, rather, the minoritys distinctiveness motivates a validation process whereby people consider in detail the minoritys arguments. By examining the content of the minoritys arguments, the message recipient may be persuaded by them. As people do not wish to be seen to agree with a minority in public, however, attitude change tends to be more evident on private and indirect inuence measures (see Wood, Lundgren, Ouellette, Busceme, & Blackstone, 1994, for meta-analytic support). rez, Unlike conversion theory, conict elaboration theory, (Mugny, Butera, Sanchez-Mazas, & Pe rez & Mugny, 1996) focuses on conict resolution through conict elaboration, a process that 1995; Pe . . .refers to the way people give meaning to this divergence (Mugny et al., 1995; p. 161). The nature of the conict elaboration, and the types of inuence, depends on the nature of the task and the nature of the source introducing the divergence. The theory outlines a number of situations, one of these is relevant to the present research employing attitudes and concerns subjective tasks that are socially anchoring (i.e., situations where there is no objective answer and where responses denes the individual within a particular group membership). The conict associated with a source in this situation is determined by the meaning attached to it in terms of ingroup or outgroup membership. When the source is a majority (and assumed to be ingroup) then normative inuence is increased and conformity to the majority position occurs with little need to consider the content of the majority message. When the source is a minority (and assumed to be outgroup) and it is associated with negative connotations, then agreement would be threatening to self-image, and an identication conict arises resulting in little direct inuence. However, indirect inuence can occur through a process of dissociation between social comparison and validation, whereby targets of inuence resolve the intergroup conict because Only then can subjects focus their attention on the content of the minority position (Mugny et al., 1995, p. 166). In this particular situation of subjective tasks that are socially anchoring, the conict elaboration theory proposes hypotheses similar to those of Moscovici and suggests that a majority source leads to minimal processing of its message while a minority source can lead to detailed consideration of its message content. A major challenge to the above theories comes from Mackies (1987) objective consensus approach (see also De Vries, De Dreu, Gordijn, & Shuurman, 1996; who have integrated the Moscovici and Mackie perspectives). According to this perspective people assume that they share similar attitudes to the majority and different attitudes to the minority and correspondingly they expect to agree with the majority and disagree with the minority. Since a counter-attitudinal majority breaks consensus expectations, people are motivated to analyze the majority arguments in an attempt to understand this discrepancy. By contrast, a counter-attitudinal minority is consistent with the consensus heuristic and
Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 38, 1634 (2008) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp

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Robin Martin et al.

consequently recipients are less likely to process the minoritys message. In direct contrast to conversion theory and conict elaboration theory, Mackie predicts greater message processing for a majority source.1 There has recently been a noticeable shift in theoretical developments that recognizes that neither majorities nor minorities are associated exclusively with a particular process and that each source can be associated with systematic or non-systematic processing, and can lead to different outcomes, under tter et al., 1991; Martin & Hewstone, 2003b). For example, several different conditions (Brandsta researchers have found that, contrary to conversion theory, a majority can lead to message processing, when the topic is high in outcome relevance (Crano & Chen, 1998; Trost, Maass, & Kenrick, 1992), when the source argues for a negative personal outcome (Baker & Petty, 1994; Martin & Hewstone, 2003b; see also Petty, Fleming, Priester, & Feinstein, 2001), when an experimental manipulation focuses attention on the source (Bohner, Frank &, Erb, 1998; De Dreu & De Vries, 1993) or on the content of the tter message (Martin, Hewstone, & Martin, 2007), when the source position is invalidated (Brandsta et al., 1991), or when attention is increased via ingestion of caffeine (Martin & Martin, 2006). This pattern of ndings has led to a greater emphasis on contingency approaches, which specify that the processes involved in majority and minority inuence are contingent upon some additional factors rez & Mugny, 1996; context/comparison model, (e.g., conict elaboration theory, Mugny et al., 1995; Pe Crano & Alvaro, 1998; and the source-position congruency model, Baker & Petty, 1994). The contingency approach that makes explicit predictions concerning message processing strategy is Baker and Pettys (1994) source-position congruency model which builds upon the objective consensus approach described earlier. According to this perspective, greater message processing occurs when the situation is imbalanced or unexpected (i.e., counter-attitudinal majority or pro-attitudinal minority) than when the situation is balanced or expected (i.e., pro-attitudinal majority or counter-attitudinal minority). When expectancies are violated, people are surprised and this motivates them to examine the sources message in more detail in order to resolve the inconsistency. The different approaches outlined above make different predictions with respect to which source condition is associated with most message processing: the minority (Moscovici, 1980; Mugny et al., 1995), the majority (Mackie, 1987), and when the source-position is incongruent (i.e., counterattitudinal majority/pro-attitudinal minority, Baker & Petty, 1994). COGNITIVE RESPONSE APPROACH TO MAJORITY AND MINORITY INFLUENCE Much recent research in this area has been conducted within the framework of the cognitive response approach developed in the persuasion literature. Both the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM; Petty and Wegener, 1999; Petty & Wegener, 1999) and the Heuristic/Systematic Model (HSM; Chen & Chaiken, 1999) distinguish two strategies of information processing in persuasion settings. Central-route persuasion (ELM) or systematic processing (HSM) entails thinking carefully about persuasive arguments and other issue-related information. Alternatively, attitudes may be changed by peripheral-route persuasion (ELM) or heuristic processing (HSM), whereby systematic processing
1 This paper focuses on which source leads to more (or less) message processing and the consequences of this on counterpersuasion. We recognize that alternative perspectives take a different approach by considering that each source can lead to considerable message processing but that the type of processing varies. For example, Nemeths (1986) convergentdivergent theory proposes that majority and minority inuence result in different types of thinking styles (convergent vs. divergent thinking, respectively), each of which requires cognitive capacity. De Dreu and colleagues have extended this analysis by integrating components of the objective consensus approach to specify the effects of these processes on different levels of inuence (De Dreu & De Vries, 1996; De Vries et al., 1996). Since the focus of the present studies is on the amount of message processing and counter-persuasion, it is difcult to ascertain the predictions these theories would make. However, it is clear that future research needs to untangle this issue of the amount versus type of message processing.

Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 38, 1634 (2008) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp

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is minimal, and persuasion occurs due to some cue(s) in the persuasion environment (e.g., source status) or the use of simple heuristics (e.g., the majority is always right). Maass and Clark (1983, 1984) were the rst to recognize the utility of a cognitive response framework in understanding majority and minority inuence (see also, for example, Alvaro & Crano, 1997; Baker & Petty, 1994; lzle, & Bohner et al., 1998; Crano & Chen, 1998; De Dreu & De Vries, 1993, 1996; Erb, Bohner, Schma Rank, 1998; Gardikiotis, 2005; Gardikiotis, Martin, & Hewstone, 2005; Gordijn, De Vries, & De Dreu, 2002; Kerr, 2002; Mackie, 1987; Martin, Gardikiotis, & Hewstone, 2002; Martin et al., 2003; Moskowitz & Chaiken, 2001; Trost et al., 1992; Wood, Pool, Leck, & Purvis, 1996). Perhaps the most explicit integration of the cognitive response approach with majority and minority inuence has been provided by Martin and Hewstone (Gardikiotis et al., 2005; Martin & Hewstone, 2003a, 2003b; Martin et al., 2002; Martin et al., 2003; Martin et al., 2007). Space precludes a detailed discussion of this approach but two important aspects will be outlined: (1) the interaction between source status and the type of message processing varies along an elaboration continuum; and (2) the consequences of different processing strategies for attitudes. The effects of source status (majority vs. minority) vary along an elaboration continuum, that is, the extent to which the situation allows or encourages elaboration of the sources message (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). When the elaboration situation is low (e.g., the topic is low in personal relevance, a distracter task is present), the motivation and/or ability to process the message is at a low level (non-systematic processing). Attention then focuses on source status information and attitudes can be guided by simple heuristic cues. In this situation, majority status might act as a heuristic cue (several pairs of eyes are better than one, majority more likely to be correct, etc.) leading to compliance to the majority position without processing its arguments. When the elaboration situation is high (e.g., the topic is high in personal relevance, a secondary task focuses attention on the arguments), the motivation and/or ability to process the message is at a high level (systematic processing). Attention then focuses on the content of the message and attitude change is determined by the amount of message-congruent thinking. In this situation, both the majority and minority can lead to attitude change. Thus, when the elaboration situation is low attention focuses on the source, and when elaboration is high attention focuses on the content of the message. An intermediate elaboration condition offers the most critical predictions. This is a situation where there is no obvious attentional focus due either to the topic itself or other aspects of the situation.2 Petty, Fleming and White (1999) state that . . .when thinking is not constrained to be high or low by other variables. . .source variables can determine the extent of thinking (p. 20). In this situation, we predict that there will be an interaction between source status and processing strategy that follows the pattern of Moscovicis (1980) conversion theory. More specically, we predict non-systematic processing for the majority source and systematic processing for the minority source (a result we have found in numerous studies, e.g., Martin & Hewstone, 2003b; Martin et al., 2007; see also Gardikiotis, 2005).3 Further
2 According to Petty, Cacioppo, Strathman and Priester (2005), . . .the location of the target of inuence along the continuum is determined by a persons overall ability and motivation to think about the issue, object, or person under consideration. Research on the ELM typically examines situations at the extremes of the elaboration continuum, from virtually no thinking about the message (low elaboration) to very detailed consideration of message content (high elaboration) (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Relatively little consideration has been given to situations between low and high levels of the continuum (an intermediate level) which is interesting because this is considered to be the most typical persuasion setting (cf. Petty et al., 1999). Clearly the denition of intermediate elaboration is based upon the targets ability/motivation to think about the message and it is a relational oneit is between low and high elaboration. 3 Erb, Bohner, Rank and Einwiller (2002) showed that participants prior attitude to the topic of inuence moderates the impact of source status on the type of message processing. More specically, there was more message processing of a majority source when participants held a moderate prior attitude and for a minority source when participants held an opposing attitude. Since the current studies employed counter-attitudinal messages (and therefore the participants held opposing attitudes), according to Erb et al. (2002) this situation would be more likely to favor processing of the minority position. However, it would be interesting for future research to examine the potential role of participants prior attitude on participants ability to resist a counter-persuasion.

Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 38, 1634 (2008) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp

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support for this proposed interaction comes from research examining the impact of stigmatized sources on social inuence. Stigmatized sources are ones that contain members of social categories for which signicant segments of society hold negative attitudes and beliefs (Petty et al., 1999, p. 19) and as such they share many characteristics with minorities. Research shows that a stigmatized source leads to increased systematic processing of its message compared to a non-stigmatized source (see also White & Harkins, 1994). We focus on an intermediate processing situation in our research for two reasons; rst, because the interaction between source status and processing strategy found here offers the best situation in which to test a range of social inuence theories, and second because it is the situation in which most persuasion attempts occur (cf. Petty et al., 1999). The second aspect of our approach we wish to highlight concerns the consequences for attitudes that have been inuenced by majority and minority inuence. According to the cognitive response approach, attitudes changed through systematic processing are strong (Krosnick, Boninger, Chuang, Berent, & Carnot, 1993) in terms of being able to resist counter-persuasion, persist over time, guide information processing, and predict behavior (Petty, 1995). By contrast, attitudes formed via non-systematic processing tend to be relatively weak in that they are unable to resist counter-persuasion, do not persist over time, do not guide information processing, and are not predictive of behavior. If minorities do lead to systematic processing, then attitudes changed via minority inuence should be better able to resist counter-persuasion than attitudes changed via majority inuence, which is due to non-systematic processing. In this paper we investigate only resistance, but in our research program we have, thus far, also investigated source effects in relation to persistence over time and prediction of behavior (Martin & Hewstone, in preparation; Martin, Martin, Smith, & Hewstone, 2007).

AIMS OF RESEARCH In this paper we focus on one particular aspect of the consequences of attitudes changed following majority or minority inuence, namely the ability of these attitudes to resist counter-persuasion. To examine this issue, we use an attitude resistance paradigm where recipients are exposed to two messages that argue different positions delayed in time, with attitude scores taken after each message (e.g., Haugtvedt & Petty, 1992; Haugtvedt & Wegener, 1994; Wu & Shaffer, 1987). In terms of the cognitive response approach, systematic processing of the rst message provides individuals with arguments to resist the second counter-message. In some respects the rst message inoculates participants against attack from the second message (McGuire, 1964; see Eagly & Chaiken, 1993, for a review). If, however, attitudes to the rst message are changed via non-systematic processing, they should be relatively weak and yield to the inuence of the second counter-message. Martin et al. (2003) used an attitude resistance paradigm to examine attitudes that had changed following majority and minority inuence in an intermediate processing situation. Across three studies they found that attitudes changed via minority inuence were better able to resist a second counter-message than attitudes changed via majority inuence (see also Nemeth & Chiles, 1998, for a related approach). Indeed, attitudes changed via majority inuence yielded to the second counter-message and returned to their pre-test position (indicating that inuence via a majority source had instigated non-systematic processing, resulting in compliance). In terms of hypotheses, the different theoretical perspectives outlined above make different predictions concerning which source would lead to attitudes that would resist counter-persuasion; a minority (Moscovici, 1980; Mugny et al., 1995), a majority (Mackie, 1987), a counter-attitudinal majority, and a pro-attitudinal minority (Baker & Petty, 1994). Finally, our own analysis, based on a
Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 38, 1634 (2008) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp

Resistance to majority and minority inuence

21

cognitive response approach, makes similar predictions to Moscovici (1980) with the caveat that when message processing is encouraged by an external factor, then attitudes formed following both majority and minority inuence should resist counter-persuasion. The aim of this paper is to extend this line of theorizing and research in two new directions which have not hitherto been examined. First, we explored whether it is only when attitudes have been changed via a strong message (vs. weak message) attributed to a minority that these attitudes will be resistant to counter-persuasion (Experiment 1). A distinctive aspect of the rst experiment is that we also measure indirect attitude change, that is, attitude change to a topic that is related to the source message but is not mentioned in it (Alvaro & Crano, 1997). Second, we investigated whether a task that increases message processing can augment resistance to attitudes formed after either majority or minority inuence (Experiment 2).

EXPERIMENT 1 Our rst experiment tested the following hypothesis: the extent to which attitudes changed following minority versus majority inuence can resist a counter-message will depend both on the source of the original message and on the strength of initial arguments received. Our previous research (Martin et al., 2003) was unable to test this hypothesis as the studies contained in that paper did not manipulate message quality of the initial message. The above theorizing, based on the cognitive response approach, assumes that it is only when attitudes have been changed via systematic processing that these attitudes will be resistant to counter-persuasion. Logically if attitudes have not been changed, then they should not be resistant to counter-persuasion. Resistance occurs through engaging in message-congruent elaborations to the minority position that render participants able to resist a counter-message. We tested this assumption by varying the quality of the arguments contained in the message. We employed a counter-attitudinal message that contained either strong (and persuasive) arguments or one that contained weak (and non-persuasive) arguments.4 There is plentiful evidence that strong messages encourage greater message-congruent elaboration compared to weak messages (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Research has also shown, within the majorityminority inuence literature, that strong messages encourage greater message-congruent elaboration compared to weak messages (e.g., Baker & Petty, 1994; Bohner et al., 1998; Crano & Chen, 1998; De Dreu & De Vries, 1993; Gardikiotis, 2005; Gordijn, 1998; Martin & Hewstone, 2003b; Martin et al., 2003; Martin et al., 2007). If attitudes changed following majority inuence lead to compliance (through non-systematic processing), then the extent to which these new attitudes yield to counter-persuasion should not be affected by the quality of the arguments in the initial message. In other words, the level of compliance to the initial message, and the subsequent level of yielding to the second counter-message, should be independent of message quality as people comply to the majority without processing the content of its arguments. In contrast, if attitudes changed following minority inuence are due to systematic message processing, as we argue, then there should be greater attitude change following the initial message for the strong than the weak message, and these new attitudes should be better able to resist the second counter-message. Since systematic processing of the weak message does not result in attitude change, participants are more likely to yield to the counter-message following initial weak arguments. Finally, it should be noted that this experiment is the rst one using the resistance paradigm that also included an indirect measure of attitude change. There is support for the claim that the impact of
4

Copies of these messages are available from the rst author. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 38, 1634 (2008) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp

Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Robin Martin et al.

minorities is often observed on indirect issues that are related to the main message, but not contained within it (Moscovici, 1976; Mugny, 1982; Nemeth, 1986; Wood et al., 1994). Since inuence on indirect measures is taken to be an indication of attitude conversion (Alvaro & Crano, 1997), the indirect measure offers an additional opportunity to examine the effects of systematic processing on attitude change.

Method Participants and Design The participants were 56 undergraduates from a British university. Eight were excluded because their initial attitude was in the same direction as the message and therefore it was not counter-attitudinal, leaving a nal sample of 13 males and 35 females. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions of a 2 (initial source status: majority vs. minority) 2 (message quality: strong vs. weak) factorial design.

Stimulus Materials The topic of the message was the legalization of voluntary euthanasia. Pre-testing had shown that the participants were moderately in favor of voluntary euthanasia. The rst message argued against voluntary euthanasia (initial message) and contained either strong or weak arguments (counterattitudinal). The second counter-message contained strong arguments in favor of voluntary euthanasia (pro-attitudinal) (see Martin et al., 2002; Martin & Hewstone, 2003b; Martin et al., 2003). All the messages contained six arguments and were of similar word length.

Procedure Participants were tested individually in the laboratory and completed four booklets. The rst booklet asked participants to indicate their agreement with 14 attitude issues on 9-point scales from 1, Totally disagree to 9, Totally agree. Embedded in these were the direct (Legalization of voluntary euthanasia, that is, the right to end ones life if suffering from a terminal illness) and indirect (Genetic screening for medical disorders [e.g., cystic brosis, sickle cell anaemia]) attitude issues (pre-test).5 In the second booklet, the participants were informed of a recent survey at their university concerning attitudes toward voluntary euthanasia. They were informed that either 82% (majority) or 18% (minority) of students were against legalizing voluntary euthanasia and that the next page contained several arguments that summarized the majority or minority position. Participants then read either the strong or the weak version of the arguments against voluntary euthanasia (initial message). At the beginning of the third booklet participants were asked to estimate the number of students at their university they believed would support the message (as a source manipulation check) and then complete the dependent measures. The rst dependent measure was a thought-listing task. Participants were given eight idea boxes and
5 There is a logical link between the direct (voluntary euthanasia) and indirect (genetic screening) attitude topics in that they are both concerned with the control of life in terms of ending life if having a terminal illness or preventing life to avoid life-threatening diseases. The correlation between the direct and indirect items was signicant at pre-test, r(48) .27, p < .05, showing a moderate relationship, as one would expect, and this is similar to other studies (Martin, Laing, Martin, & Mitchell, 2005).

Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 38, 1634 (2008) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp

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asked to list the thoughts they had been having whilst reading the message and to put down one thought per box. Following the thought-listing, participants attitudes toward voluntary euthanasia and genetic screening were again measured on the same 9-point scale as in the pre-test (post-test I, initial message). The fourth booklet provided participants with arguments that conveyed the opposite perspective to the message they had read earlier. The participants then read the pro-voluntary euthanasia arguments (counter-message). The fourth booklet also contained another set of measures of attitudes toward voluntary euthanasia and genetic screening on the same 9-point scale as used in the pre-test (post-test II, counter-message). Participants were also asked to indicate their gender and age. Finally, participants were asked to rate each of their thoughts listed in the second booklet (i.e., that followed the initial message) as being in favor (), against (), or neutral (0) toward voluntary euthanasia. Results and Discussion Overview Unless noted otherwise, responses to all measures were analyzed using a 2 (initial source status: majority vs. minority) 2 (message quality: strong vs. weak) 3 (measurement time: pre-test vs. post-test I, initial message vs. post-test II, counter-message) mixed model analysis of variance (ANOVA), with repeated measures on the third factor. Individual cell means were compared using the TukeyB procedure. The means and standard deviations for all the dependent measures are shown in Table 1. There were no signicant effects involving gender or age so these variables were not included in subsequent analyses. Source Manipulation Check The ANOVA yielded a reliable main effect for source status showing that those in the majority condition (M 69.46) believed more people would agree with the message than did those in the
Table 1. Means and standard deviations for all dependent measures as a function of initial source status and message quality (Experiment 1) Initial source status Majority Message quality Strong (n 12) Direct attitude Pre-test (SD) Post-test I: initial message (SD) Post-test II: counter-message (SD) Ratio of message-congruent thoughts (SD) Indirect attitude Pre-test (SD) Post-test I: initial message (SD) Post-test II: counter-message (SD) 2.58 3.50 2.33 0.31 (1.24) (1.47) (1.07) (0.32) Weak (n 12) 2.83 3.58 2.08 0.32 (1.89) (2.06) (1.17) (0.28) Strong (n 13) 2.39 3.08 3.62 0.59 (1.58) (1.44) (1.85) (0.28) Weak (n 11) 2.55 2.00 1.55 0.09 (1.13) (0.89) (0.69) (0.16) Minority

2.55 (1.75) 2.27 (2.05) 2.55 (2.12)

2.00 (0.94) 2.60 (1.27) 2.10 (1.19)

1.85 (1.35) 3.15 (0.80) 3.46 (1.05)

2.78 (1.56) 2.56 (1.59) 2.56 (1.59)

Note: For attitude scores, greater agreement with the source is reected by high scores on initial message and low scores on counter-message. Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 38, 1634 (2008) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp

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minority condition (M 28.13), F(1,44) 117.28, p < .001. None of the other effects was signicant. Thus the source manipulation was successful. Direct Attitude (Voluntary Euthanasia) Attitude scores for voluntary euthanasia were reverse coded so that high scores indicated agreement with the initial message (anti-voluntary euthanasia) while low scores indicated agreement with the counter-message (pro-voluntary euthanasia). The ANOVA revealed signicant two-way interactions between source status and measurement time, F(2,88) 7.41, p < .001, and message quality and measurement time, F(2,88) 7.28, p < .001. There was also a signicant three-way interaction between source status, message quality and measurement time, F(2,88) 3.00, p < .05.6 For the majority source, there was a reliable difference across the measurement times for the strong, F(2,88) 5.91, p < .004, and weak, F(2,88) 8.82, p < .001, messages. In both cases, the participants were inuenced by the initial message as shown by an increase between pre-test and post-test I (strong, 2.58 vs. 3.50, p < .01; weak, 2.83 vs. 3.25, p < .05). As predicted, attitudes changed following majority inuence on the initial message were vulnerable to the second counter-message, as shown by the reliable difference between post-test I and post-test II (strong, 3.50 vs. 2.33, p < .05; weak, 3.58 vs. 2.08, p < .01). In fact, there was no reliable difference between pre-test and post-test II attitude scores (strong, 2.58 vs. 2.33, n.s.; weak, 2.83 vs. 2.08, n.s.). For the minority source, there was also a reliable difference across the three measurement times for both the strong, F(2,88) 6.46, p < .002, and weak, F(2,88) 3.60, p < .03, messages. When the message was strong there was an initial change in attitudes as shown by an increase between pre-test and post-test I (2.39 vs. 3.08, p < .05). As expected, participants resisted the counter-message, as attitudes following the second message (post-test II) did not change back to the pre-test level. In fact, participants attitudes increased more toward the initial message (3.08 vs. 3.62, p < .05). When the message was weak, there was no effect for the initial message, as shown by no difference between the pre-test and post-test I scores (2.55 vs. 2.00, n.s.). As expected, participants who had received weak arguments yielded to the second counter-message (2.00 vs. 1.55, p < .01). Indirect Attitude (Genetic Screening) Like the direct attitude, scores for the genetic screening item were reverse coded so that high scores after the initial message and low scores after the counter-message reect agreement with the source. The only reliable nding from the ANOVA concerned the three-way interaction between source status, message quality and measurement time, F(2,78) 5.39, p < .007.7 The changes over the measurement times were only reliable in the minority/strong message condition, F(2,78) 12.04, p < .001 (majority/ strong, majority/weak, and minority/weak were F(2,78) 0.34, F(2,78) 1.30, and F(2,78) 0.19, respectively). In the minority/strong message condition participants were inuenced by the initial message as shown by the increase from pre-test to post-test I (1.85 vs. 3.15, p < .01). Indirect attitudes
6 Although not a focus of this paper, the present design offers a replication of studies that have crossed source status and message quality to determine which source is associated with systematic message processing. Under similar elaboration conditions, there is consistent evidence that a reliable difference between strong and weak messages only occurs for a minority source (Gardikiotis, 2005; Martin et al., 2002; Martin & Hewstone, 2003b). A similar nding was observed in this study. Examining attitude change as a difference score (post-test Ipre-test) and controlling for pre-test score, shows a two-way interaction approaching signicance, F(1,44) 3.50, p < .06. Analysis of simple main effects shows the difference in the majority condition was not reliable (Mstrong 0.91 vs. Mweak 0.75), F(1,44) < 1, n.s., while in the minority condition there was a reliable difference between the strong and weak message indicating that systematic processing had occurred (Mstrong 0.69 vs. Mweak 0.55), F(1,44) 7.54, p < .01. 7 The pattern of results for the indirect attitude measure did not alter when controlling for the direct attitude measure.

Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 38, 1634 (2008) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp

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following minority inuence were resistant to counter-persuasion as there was no difference between post-test I and post-test II (3.15 vs. 3.46, n.s.). Index of Message-congruent Thoughts We computed a thoughts ratio indicating the proportion of message-congruent thoughts by dividing the number of anti-voluntary euthanasia thoughts by the total number of pro- and anti-voluntary euthanasia thoughts (after Baker & Petty, 1994). The ANOVA revealed a main effect for message quality, F(1,42) 9.29, p < .005, and a two-way interaction between source status and message quality, F(1,42) 10.56, p < .003. Analysis of simple main effects showed that there was no difference between the majority/strong (M 0.31) and majority/weak (M 0.33) conditions, F(1,42) 0.02, but the minority/strong message condition led to more message-congruent thinking (M 0.59) than did the minority/weak message condition (M 0.09), F(1,42) 20.95, p < .001. Mediation Analysis To investigate further the role of message-congruent thoughts in determining the change in direct attitudes between the two messages, we conducted a mediation analysis (Baron & Kenny, 1986). The conditions for testing mediation were met as there was a reliable interaction between initial source status and message quality for (a) the difference in attitude scores between post-test I and post-test II and (b) the ratio of message-congruent thoughts. In all the analyses we included the post-test I attitude score to account for initial differences in attitudes. The interaction between source status and message quality predicted message-congruent thoughts, b .383, p < .008. Message-congruent thoughts also predicted the attitude difference score, when controlling for the source status by message quality interaction, b .367, p < .006. Finally, the signicant source status by message quality effect on the attitude difference score, b .278, p < .04, became non-signicant when controlling for message-congruent thoughts, b .096, n.s., the reduction in beta weights was reliable, Sobels (1982) test, z 2.11, p < .03. To conclude, the results of this experiment supported our hypotheses. Since majorities induce compliance (via non-systematic processing), attitudes changed following majority inuence were vulnerable to the second counter-message. On the other hand, minorities induce message validation (via systematic processing), and attitudes formed following minority inuence resisted a second countermessage. Since conversion involves message elaboration, conversion to the initial message and resistance to the second message only occurred for a strong, but not a weak message. The above explanation is supported by two additional ndings. First, the level of message-congruent elaboration mediated the amount of resistance to the counter-messagethe more participants generated a greater proportion of thoughts in the direction of the initial message, the more able they were to resist the second counter-message. Second, there was a reliable change in the indirect attitude only for those in the minority/ strong condition and these attitudes resisted the counter-message; thus the minority source with a strong message resulted in change on a related issue, but one not mentioned in the original message.

EXPERIMENT 2 The results from Experiment 1 showed that attitudes that are changed by minority inuence can resist a second counter-message because the minority instigates systematic processing of the initial message.
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Because attitudes changed via majority inuence are typically due to compliance, and are not based upon systematic evaluation of the message, they are vulnerable to counter-persuasion. According to the cognitive response approach outlined earlier, if it were possible to instigate systematic processing of the majoritys message, then the resultant attitudes should also be able to resist a second counter-message. The second experiment tests this hypothesis by means of a manipulation that increases systematic processing of the message. We predicted that when participants are induced to increase systematic processing of the message, then attitudes changed by both a majority and minority should resist a second counter-message. Two methodological aspects of the second experiment should be noted. First, in the experiment reported above, the initial message was counter-attitudinal while the second counter-message was pro-attitudinal. In the second experiment we reversed this order so that the initial and counter-messages were pro- and counter-attitudinal, respectively. We did this to ensure that our results were not due to a confound between attitudinal direction (pro- vs. counter-attitudinal) of the initial message and source status (as this has been suggested to affect social inuence, Baker & Petty, 1994, but see also Gardikiotis, 2005; Martin & Hewstone, 2003b). Second, we manipulated whether participants were warned of a later memory test on the arguments, or not. This manipulation served to ensure that half the participants engaged in high message processing which should increase resistance to the counter-message. There is reliable evidence showing that instructions to remember stimulus material rez, Falmir, & Mugny, increases later recall of the material (e.g., Araya, 2003; Paller, 1990; see also Pe 1995, for an application of a memory task to social inuence).

Method Participants and Design The participants were 72 undergraduates from a British university. Eight participants were excluded because they either incorrectly identied the direction of the message or they did not complete all stages of the study. The nal sample consisted of 22 males and 42 females who were randomly allocated to one of four cells of a 2 (initial source status: majority vs. minority) 2 (memory instruction: recall vs. control) factorial design.

Stimulus Materials The strong versions of the pro- and anti-voluntary euthanasia messages used in Experiment 1 were employed. We used only the strong message because, as shown in Experiment 1, resistance to the counter-message occurred only when attitudes had been changed via the initial message.

Procedure The procedure was identical to Experiment 1 except for the following. There was not a pre-test attitude measure.8 The initial message was pro-voluntary euthanasia (pro-attitudinal) and the second
8 Although this experiment did not employ a pre-test, we are condent that the pro-voluntary euthanasia message was pro-attitudinal to the participants because the majority of participants in Experiment 1 (86%) had indicated that they were originally in favor of voluntary euthanasia. This nding is consistent with other research using this topic (Gardikiotis et al., 2005; Martin et al., 2002; Martin & Hewstone, 2003b; Martin et al., 2003; Martin & Marrington, 2005).

Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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counter-message was anti-voluntary euthanasia (counter-attitudinal). Half the participants were informed, before they read the initial message that they would later be asked to recall all the arguments. After reading the initial message, participants were asked to indicate the direction of the arguments contained in the message (pro- or anti-voluntary euthanasia). Participants rated their attitude toward voluntary euthanasia following each message on six 9-point semantic differential scales. The end points of the scale were badgood, unfavorablefavorable, foolishwise, harmfulbenecial, ineffectiveeffective, and unconvincingconvincing. Finally, participants were asked to write down as many arguments as they could recall from the initial message. Results and Discussion Overview Unless noted otherwise, responses to all the measures were analyzed using a 2 (initial source status: majority vs. minority) 2 (memory instruction: recall vs. control) between-subjects ANOVA. The means and standard deviations for the main dependent measures are shown in Table 2. There were no signicant effects involving gender or age so these variables were not included in subsequent analyses. Message Recall After completing the thought-listing and attitude scales, participants were asked to recall the arguments presented in the initial message. The ANOVA yielded a signicant main effect for memory instruction, F(1,60) 9.53, p < .001. Those in the recall (high processing) condition recalled more message arguments (M 2.63) than did those in the control condition (M 1.81) showing that the memory instruction increased attention to the message.

Source Manipulation Check The ANOVA showed a reliable main effect for source status, showing that those in the majority condition (M 81.48) believed more people would agree with the message than did those in the minority condition (M 21.39), F(1,60) 592.59, p < .001.
Table 2. Means and standard deviations for all the dependent measures as a function of initial source status and memory instruction (Experiment 2) Initial source status Majority Memory instruction Recall (n 15) Post-test I: initial message (SD) Post-test II: counter-message (SD) Ratio of message-congruent thoughts (SD) 6.27 (1.99) 5.98 (2.10) 0.75 (0.36) Control (n 16) 5.88 (1.49) 4.69 (1.60) 0.49 (0.44) Recall (n 17) 6.15 (1.29) 5.96 (1.47) 0.75 (0.25) Control (n 16) 6.02 (1.89) 5.67 (1.92) 0.63 (0.37) Minority

Note: For attitude scores, greater agreement with the source is reected by high scores on initial message and low scores on counter-message. Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 38, 1634 (2008) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp

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Attitude We constructed an attitude index by averaging across the six 9-point semantic differential scales (alphas for internal consistency for the initial and counter-message were .926 and .949, respectively). We analyzed attitude scores using a 2 (initial source status: majority vs. minority) 2 (memory instruction: recall vs. control) 2 (measurement time: post-test I, initial message vs. post-test II, counter-message) mixed model ANOVA, with repeated measures on the third factor. The ANOVA yielded a signicant main effect for measurement time, F(1,60) 44.09, p < . 001, two-way interactions for memory instruction by measurement time, F(1,60) 9.38, p < .003, and source status by measurement time, F(1,60) 12.21, p < .001, and a three-way interaction between memory instruction, source status and measurement time, F(1,60) 5.68, p < .02. In the control condition, there was a signicant interaction between source status and measurement time, F(2, 60) 33.16, p < .001. Analysis of simple main effects showed that the reduction in scores between post-test I and post-test II (showing that attitudes were inuenced by the second counter-message) was reliable for both the majority (Ms 5.88 vs. 4.69), F(1,60) 60.81, p < .001, and minority (Ms 6.02 vs. 5.67), F(1,60) 5.51, p < .02, conditions. However, the difference in the majority condition (Mdifference 1.19) was greater than in the minority condition (Mdifference 0.35); thus participants exposed to a rst message by a majority versus minority source were more inuenced by the second counter-message. In the recall condition, the interaction between source status and measurement time was not reliable, F(2,60) 2.53, n.s. This result is consistent with our prediction, that the recall task would induce systematic processing of the initial message. This led to attitudes that resisted the second message, as there was no difference between post-test I and post-test II in either the majority (Ms 6.27 vs. 5.98), F(1,60) 3.43, or minority (Ms 6.15 vs. 5.96), F(1,60) 1.62, source conditions.

Index of Message-congruent Thoughts Using the same procedure as Experiment 1, we computed an index of message-congruent thinking following the initial message by dividing the number of pro-voluntary euthanasia thoughts with the number of pro- and anti-voluntary euthanasia thoughts. The only reliable nding from the ANOVA was a main effect for memory instruction, F(1,60) 4.27, p < .04, showing that those in the recall condition engaged in more message-congruent thinking (M 0.75) than did those in the control condition (M 0.57). This nding conrms that the recall condition did not merely increase attention to the message (as shown by the message recall results), but also triggered thinking in the direction advocated by the message. To conclude, the results of the control condition replicated Experiment 1. Attitudes changed via majority and minority endorsement of the initial message yielded to the second counter-message. The fact that the counter-message was successful in changing attitudes is not surprising given that it was pro-attitudinal. The extent of the change between post-test I and Post-test II was, however, smaller when the initial message was endorsed by a minority than by a majority, showing that attitude change following minority inuence resisted the second counter-message to a greater extent than did attitudes changed via majority inuence. With respect to the recall condition, which increased message processing, it should be emphasized that the recall instructions were successful in increasing systematic processing. Both message recall and the level of message-congruent thinking were greater in the recall condition compared to the control condition. As predicted, in the recall condition, attitudes changed via majority and minority inuence resisted the second counter-message; indeed, there was no difference
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between post-test I and post-test II, showing that the second counter-message had no impact on attitudes.

GENERAL DISCUSSION The aim of this research was to test a number of hypotheses that can be derived from a cognitive response approach to majority and minority inuence. In brief, this approach proposes that the effects of source status (majority vs. minority) vary along an elaboration continuum (i.e., the extent to which recipients of inuence have the ability and/or motivation to process the sources arguments). When the processing continuum is either low or high, attitudes are guided by status cues (compliance to majority) or message processing (irrespective of source status), respectively. It is when the processing situation is between these extremes (intermediate), a situation characterized as typical for most persuasion settings (Petty et al., 1999), that an interaction occurs between source status and type of message processing. It is in this situation, we argue, that Moscovicis (1980) conversion theory applies, namely, non-systematic processing for a majority and systematic processing for a minority. Given this prediction, we deliberately chose an experimental situation for our studies that prior research (Martin & Hewstone, 2003b; Martin et al., 2007) has identied as being intermediate on the elaboration continuum to test the differential processes underlying majority and minority inuence. In this paper we focused on one particular aspect of the cognitive response approach concerning the nature of the attitudes that result from majority and minority inuence and the extent to which these attitudes can resist counter-persuasion. According to contemporary theories of persuasion (e.g., Chen & Chaiken, 1999; Petty & Wegener, 1999), attitudes that have been changed via systematic versus non-systematic processing should be differentially resistant to counter-persuasion (Haugtvedt & Petty, 1992; Petty, 1995; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). When attitudes have been changed via systematic processing they should be strong (Krosnick et al., 1993) and should therefore be able to resist counter-persuasion. Since systematic processing involves a detailed appraisal of the merits of the sources arguments, then these message-congruent elaborations should enable the recipient of inuence to resist a second counter-message. When attitudes have been changed via non-systematic processing, they should be relatively weak and therefore yield to counter-persuasion. Since non-systematic processing does not lead to message-congruent elaborations, people are less able to resist a counter-persuasion and are more likely to yield to it. Applying this reasoning to the context of majority and minority inuence leads to the following hypotheses: (1) If majority inuence leads to attitude change due to compliance (non-systematic processing), then these attitudes should not be able to resist counter-persuasion; (2) If minority inuence leads to attitude change through message validation (systematic processing), then these attitudes should be more likely to resist counter-persuasion. We tested these hypotheses using a social-inuence version of an attitude resistance paradigm (Martin et al., 2003). In these experiments participants attitude toward an issue were measured after receiving two messages that argued opposite positions (initial message and counter-message). The extent to which attitudes change following the second counter-message is an indication of how much message recipients have systematically processed the initial message. Using this paradigm, Martin et al. (2003) showed that attitudes changed via minority inuence were better able to resist the counter-message compared to attitudes changed via majority inuence. The aim of the experiments in this paper was to further examine this issue. Experiment 1 did so by manipulating the quality of the arguments contained in the initial message, in combination with source status. Experiment 2 manipulated message processing to test the crucial hypothesis that if the situation increases message recipients motivation and/or ability to engage in
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systematic message processing (i.e., making the task high on the elaboration continuum), then attitudes that are changed following both majority and minority inuence should resist counter-persuasion. Experiment 1 showed that attitudes changed following majority inuence did not resist the counter-message, and this was not affected by message quality. Since people comply to the majority, without considering in detail its arguments, then attitudes changed following majority inuence are vulnerable to a counter-message. Because people do not process the majoritys message, then attitudes are not affected by the quality of the arguments. By contrast, since minorities induce systematic processing, then attitudes following minority inuence should be affected by the quality of arguments in the message. Indeed, this was what we found. It was only when the initial message contained strong arguments from a minority source that participants were able to resist the second counter-message. When the initial message contained weak arguments, recipients of the minority message were not inuenced by the initial message and yielded to the counter-message (that contained strong arguments). Further support for the role of systematic processing determining resistance comes from the thought-listing task, which revealed that the proportion of message-congruent thinking mediated the attitude change from the initial to the counter-message for recipients of the minority message only. A distinctive feature of this experiment was that it contained an indirect attitude measure that was related to the message but was not contained within it. It was only when the minority employed strong arguments in the initial message that there was a reliable change on the indirect measure and, furthermore, these attitudes were able to resist the counter-message. In the second experiment, we directly manipulated systematic processing of the initial message via a memory instruction. In the control conditions, a situation comparable to the strong message conditions in Experiment 1, attitudes changed by both majority and minority inuence yielded to the counter-message. What is important, however, is that the amount of change to the counter-message was less in the minority compared to the majority condition, showing that the minority source induced greater systematic processing of the message than did the majority source. When memory instructions increased systematic message processing, attitudes changed by both majority and minority inuence resisted the second counter-message. In fact, in these conditions there was no reliable change in the attitudes, showing that participants had completely resisted the counter-message. Finally, unlike Experiment 1, the amount of message-congruent thinking did not mediate the amount of resistance to the counter-message. Martin et al. (2003) reported a similar nding when they employed a pro-attitudinal initial message, and this is probably due to the fact that it is unclear whether the pro-message thoughts were a result of elaborating upon the message or based upon pre-message beliefs retrieved from long-term memory. In these experiments the counter-message was the opposite position to the initial message and therefore participants who were exposed to a majority- vs. minority-endorsed initial message were subsequently exposed to a minority- vs. majority-endorsed counter-message, respectively. A potential problem is that the pattern of results may reect the greater impact of the minority vs. majority-endorsed counter-message and not be related to the initial message. Previous research has tested this hypothesis by examining how persuasive the counter-message is without prior exposure to the initial message (Martin et al., 2003, Experiment 3). The rival hypothesis was not supported as there was no difference between the majority- and minority-endorsed counter-messages when participants did not rst receive the initial message. Moreover, the majority-endorsed counter-message had more impact when participants had not rst been exposed to the minority-endorsed initial message than if they hadshowing that attitudes following minority inuence resisted the majority-endorsed counter-message. The results of these studies are consistent with both conversion theory (Moscovici, 1980) and conict elaboration theory (Mugny et al., 1995) although it should be noted that the latter makes different predictions under different task conditions. The pattern of results do not support the objective
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consensus approach (Mackie, 1987) that would have predicted that only attitudes formed by majority inuence should resist counter-persuasion. Likewise there is no support for the source-position congruency framework (Baker & Petty, 1994) because attitudes formed after a counter-attitudinal and pro-attitudinal majority (Experiments 1 and 2, control condition, respectively) yielded to counterpersuasion while attitudes formed after a counter-attitudinal minority and pro-attitudinal minority (Experiments 1 and 2, control condition, respectively) resisted counter-persuasion. We believe that the attitude resistance paradigm is a useful technique for examining the nature of attitudes that result from majority and minority inuence. It offers an opportunity to examine the types of processes that majorities and minorities instigate and the implications of these for the nature of the resulting attitudes. We believe this research can be developed along a number of important lines. First, future research could employ a range of secondary tasks that vary peoples ability and/or motivation to process the message in order to more fully explore the interaction between source status and the elaboration continuum. In this paper we focused on attitudes located in the intermediate zone of the elaboration continuum, but it is also necessary to examine attitudes at the extremes of the continuum. Second, it would be informative to also gain cognitive responses to the counter-message to obtain a better insight to the types of message processing strategies. Although the studies in this paper (and earlier ones, Martin et al., 2003) did not employ a thought-listing task for the counter-message we know that this omission did not affect attitudes. This is because our previous research, using the same topic and materials as these studies, found no difference in attitudes when thoughts preceded or succeed the attitude measure (Martin & Hewstone, 2001, Experiment 2). Finally, future research should take into consideration the role of individual differences in message processing, such as need for cognition (Haugtvedt & Petty, 1992), uncertainty orientation (Shuper & Sorrentino, 2004), and circadian typology (Martin & Marrington, 2005), as these have reliably been shown to affect attitude change. To summarize, the results of both of these experiments support the cognitive response approach to majority and minority inuence outlined in the introduction, that is, that majorities and minorities can lead to different processes with different outcomes depending upon the situation. Within the context of these experiments, when the situation is intermediate on the elaboration continuum, we have demonstrated that minority inuence instigates systematic processing of its arguments leading to attitudes that resist counter-persuasion. On the other hand, attitudes formed following majority inuence yield to counter-persuasion unless there is a secondary task that encourages message processing. To return to Jane Austens elegant words, which we chose as an epigram for this paper, recipients of a minority message seem more inclined to judge properly rst by elaborating upon the minoritys message, whereas recipients of a majority message are more inclined to change their opinions later, precisely because they failed to do this.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was partly funded by a grant from the Australian Research Council (DP0452746), awarded to Robin Martin.

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Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 38, 1634 (2008) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp