In four studies, Boninger, Brock, Cook, Cruder, and Romer (1990) found that attitude change following exposure to a persuasive message persisted longer if recipients were expecting to have to transmit the message to someone else. The present experiment demonstrated that this effect obtains only if the people preparing to transmit, as was the case in the studies of Boninger et al., are denied the opportunity to do so. It is argued, then, that the findings of Boninger et al., may be attributable to a tendency toward thought perseveration triggered by the failure to complete the transmission task, rather than being a consequence of the preparation to transmit per se.
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