Incidental experiences of regulatory fit and the processing of persuasive appeals

Abstract

sources of information have greater influence. One pri-mary variable that determines what sources of informa-tion influence persuasion is the amount of cognitive processing people dedicate to persuasive appeals (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999; Petty & Wegener, 1998). Those who superficially proc-ess persuasive appeals form attitudes based on easily processed information, such as the source of the appeal, but such attitudes are more unstable and less resistant to counterappeals. In contrast, those who thoroughly proc-ess persuasive appeals form attitudes based more heav-ily on difficult-to-process pieces of evidence, such as the strength of the arguments, and these attitudes are more stable and resistant to further change. Authors ’ Note: The first three authors contributed equally to this article; the order of these authors is arbitrary. Part of this research wa