Abstract
The persuasive effectiveness of message sidedness (one versus two-sided messages) and message structure was assessed in the context of a personal selling appeal for a new home computer to an unfamiliar target audience. Contrary to some prior research, two-sided appeals were found to be less, not more, effective in promoting seller credibility and message acceptance than one- sided appeals. To some extent, however, this effect was attenuated by placing unfavorable product arguments at the end rather than the beginning of the selling appeal. To account for these findings, a disarming effect is proposed. People who have little or no knowledge regarding a seller's particular offering tend to be disarmed by two-sided appeals. As a result, they discount the seller's product-related knowledge. This effect is thought to be more pronounced when the unfavorable information is presented at the beginning of the message.
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