Three experiments were designed to clarify the mechanisms underlying Eagly, Chen, Chaiken, and Shaw-Barnes’s (1999) meta-analytic demonstration that attitudinally congenial information has typically not been more memorable than uncongenial information. Participants remembered congenial and uncongenial messages equally well, despite their disapproval of the uncongenial information. This null congeniality effect was obtained regardless of whether (a) messages pertained to abortion or gays in the military or presented information on both sides or only one side of the issue; (b) recognition or recall measures were administered soon after the message or 2 weeks later; and (c) participants were or were not activists on the issue, had stronger or weaker attitudes, had more prior knowledge of counterattitudinal (vs. proattitudinal) arguments, or did or did not have their attention constrained to the message. Process findings suggested that participants’ thoughtful counterarguing of the uncongenial messages enhanced their memory for them.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Baron, R. M. , & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173-1182.
2.
Biek, M. , Wood, W., & Chaiken, S. (1996). Working knowledge, cognitive processing, and attitudes: On the determinants of bias. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 547-556.
3.
Bochner, S. , & Insko, C. A. (1966). Communicator discrepancy, source credibility, and opinion change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4, 614-621.
4.
Boninger, D. , Krosnick, J. A., Berent, M., & Fabrigar, L. R. (1995). The causes and consequences of attitude importance. In R. E. Petty & J. A. Krosnick (Eds.), Attitude strength: Antecedents and consequences (pp. 159-190). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
5.
Bothwell, R. K. , & Brigham, J. C. (1983). Selective evaluation and recall during the 1980 Reagan-Carter debate. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 13, 427-442.
6.
Brigham, J. C. , & Cook, S. W. (1969). The influence of attitude on the recall of controversial material: A failure to confirm. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 5, 240-243.
7.
Brock, T. C. , & Balloun, J. L. (1967). Behavioral receptivity to dissonant information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 6, 413-428.
8.
Cacioppo, J. T. , & Petty, R. E. (1982). The need for cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 116-131.
9.
Chaiken, S. , Liberman, A., & Eagly, A. H. (1989). Heuristic and systematic processing within and beyond the persuasion context. In J. S. Uleman & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), Unintended thought (pp. 212-252). New York: Guilford.
10.
Chaiken, S. , & Trope, J. (Eds.). (1999). Dual-process theories in social psychology. New York: Guilford.
11.
Chaiken, S. , Wood, W., & Eagly, A. H. (1996). Principles of persuasion. In E. T. Higgins & A. W. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (pp. 702-742). New York: Guilford.
12.
Ditto, P. H. (1998). Motivated sensitivity to preference-inconsistent information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 53-69.
13.
Ditto, P. H. , & Lopez, D. L. (1992). Motivated skepticism: Use of differential decision criteria for preferred and nonpreferred conclusions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 568-584.
14.
Eagly, A. H. (1992). Uneven progress: Social psychology and the study of attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 693-710.
15.
Eagly, A. H. , Ashmore, R. D., Makhijani, M. G., & Longo, L. C. (1991). What is beautiful is good, but...: A meta-analytic review of research on the physical attractiveness stereotype. Psychological Bulletin, 110, 109-128.
16.
Eagly, A. H. , & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
17.
Eagly, A. H. , & Chaiken, S. (1995). Attitude strength and resistance to attitude change. In R. E. Petty & J. A. Krosnick (Eds.), Attitude strength: Antecedents and consequences (pp. 413-432). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
18.
Eagly, A. H. , & Chaiken, S. (1998). Attitude structure and function. In D. Gilbert, S. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., Vol. 1, pp. 269-322). New York: McGraw-Hill.
19.
Eagly, A. H. , Chen, S., Chaiken, S., & Shaw-Barnes, K. (1999). The impact of attitudes on memory: An affair to remember. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 64-89.
20.
Eagly, A. H. , & Wood, W. (1994). Using research syntheses to plan future research. In H. Cooper & L. V. Hedges (Eds.), The handbook of research synthesis (pp. 485-500). New York: Russell Sage.
21.
Edwards, A. L. (1941). Political frames of reference as a factor influencing recognition. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 36, 34-50.
22.
Edwards, K. , & Smith, E. E. (1996). A disconfirmation bias in the evaluation of arguments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 5-24.
23.
Feather, N. T. (1969). Attitude and selective recall. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 12, 310-319.
24.
Feather, N. T. (1970). Balancing and positivity effects in social recall. Journal of Personality, 38, 602-628.
25.
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson.
26.
Freud, S. (1946). The ego and the mechanisms of defense. New York: International Universities Press.
27.
Frey, K. P. , & Eagly, A. H. (1993). Vividness can undermine the persuasiveness of messages. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 32-44.
28.
Glass, G. V. , McGaw, B., & Smith, M. L. (1981). Meta-analysis in social research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
29.
Glass, G. V. , & Stanley, J. C. (1970). Statistical methods in education and psychology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
30.
Greenwald, A. G. (1975). Consequences of prejudice against the null hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 82, 1-20.
31.
Greenwald, A. G. , & Sakumura, J. S. (1967). Attitude and selective learning: Where are the phenomena of yesteryear?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 7, 387-397.
32.
Hall, V. C. , & Edmondson, B. (1992). Relative importance of aptitude and prior domain knowledge on immediate and delayed posttests. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84, 219-223.
33.
Hovland, C. I. , Janis, I. L., & Kelley, H. H. (1953). Communication and persuasion: Psychological studies of opinion change. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
34.
Hunt, E. (1978). Mechanics of verbal ability. Psychological Review, 85, 109-130.
35.
Johnson, B. T. , & Eagly, A. H. (1989). The effects of involvement on persuasion: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 290-314.
36.
Johnson, B. T. , & Eagly, A. H. (2000). Quantitative synthesis of social psychological research. In H. T. Reis & C. M. Judd (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology (pp. 496-528). New York: Cambridge University Press.
37.
Judd, C. M. , & Kulik, J. A. (1980). Schematic effects of social attitudes on information processing and recall. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 569-578.
38.
Kleinhesselink, R. R. , & Edwards, R. E. (1975). Seeking and avoiding belief-discrepant information as a function of its perceived refutability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 787-790.
39.
Koehler, J. J. (1993). The influence of prior beliefs on scientific judgments of evidence quality. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 56, 28-55.
40.
Krosnick, J. A. (1988). Attitude importance and attitude change. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 24, 240-255.
41.
Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 480-498.
42.
Levine, J. M. , & Murphy, G. (1943). The learning and forgetting of controversial material. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 38, 507-517.
43.
Liberman, A. , & Chaiken, S. (1992). Defensive processing of personally relevant health messages. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 669-679.
44.
Lord, C. G. , Ross, L., & Lepper, M. R. (1979). Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 2098-2109.
45.
Lundgren, S. R. , & Prislin, R. (1998). Motivated cognitive processing and attitude change. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 715-726.
46.
Murdock, B. B., Jr. (1982). Recognition memory. In C. R. Puff (Ed.), Handbook of research methods in human memory and cognition (pp. 1-26). New York: Academic Press.
47.
Olson, J. M. , & Zanna, M. P. (1979). A new look at selective exposure. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 15, 1-15.
48.
Pomerantz, E. M. , Chaiken, S., & Tordesillas, R. S. (1995). Attitude strength and resistance processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 408-419.
49.
Pratkanis, A. R. (1989). The cognitive representation of attitudes. In A. R. Pratkanis, S. J. Breckler, & A. G. Greenwald (Eds.), Attitude structure and function (pp. 71-98). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
50.
Pratkanis, A. R. , & Greenwald, A. G. (1989). A sociocognitive model of attitude structure and function. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 22, pp. 245-283). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
51.
Roberts, J. V. (1985). The attitude-memory relationship after 40 years: A meta-analysis of the literature. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 6, 221-241.
52.
Rojahn, K. , & Pettigrew, T. F. (1992). Memory for schema-relevant information: A meta-analytic review. British Journal of Social Psychology, 31, 81-109.
53.
Roloff, M. E. (1989). Issue schema and mindless processing of persuasive messages: Much ado about nothing? In C. V. Roberts, K. W. Watson, & L. L. Barker (Eds.), Intrapersonal communication processes: Original essays (pp. 380-410). New Orleans, LA: Spectra.
54.
Rosenthal, R. (1994). Parametric measures of effect size. In H. Cooper & L. V. Hedges (Eds.), The handbook of research synthesis (pp. 231-260). New York: Russell Sage.
55.
Shapiro, M. A. (1994). Signal detection measures of recognition memory. In A. Lang (Ed.), Measuring psychological responses to media messages (pp. 133-148). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
56.
Srull, T. K. (1984). Methodological techniques for the study of person memory and social cognition. In R. S. Wyer & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition (pp. 73-150). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
57.
Stangor, C. , & McMillan, D. (1992). Memory for expectancy-congruent and expectancy-incongruent information: A review of the social and social developmental literatures. Psychological Bulletin, 111, 42-61.
58.
Watson, W. S. , & Hartmann, G. W. (1939). The rigidity of a basic attitudinal frame. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 34, 314-335.
59.
Watts, W. A. , & McGuire, W. J. (1964). Persistence of induced opinion change and retention of the inducing message contents. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 68, 233-241.
60.
Yzerbyt, V. Y. , Coull, A., & Rocher, S. J. (1999) Fencing off the deviant: The role of cognitive resources in the maintenance of stereotypes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 449-462.
61.
Zanna, M. P. (1993). Message receptivity: A new look at the old problem of open-versus-closed mindedness. In A. A. Mitchell (Ed.), Advertising exposure, memory, and choice (pp. 141-162). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
62.
Zimmerman, J. , & Chaiken, S. (1998). Attitude structure, processing goals, and selective memory. Unpublished manuscript, New York University.
63.
Zuwerink, J. R. , & Devine, P. G. (1996). Attitude importance and resistance to persuasion: It’s not just the thought that counts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 931-944.
