The Conundrum of the Timing of Counterarguing Effects in Resistance: Strategies to Boost the Persistence of Counterarguing Output

Abstract

This study examined the timing of counterarguing effects in resistance. Specifically, it investigated the persistence of counterarguing output in resistance across time and explored inoculation message strategies designed to boost the persistence of counterarguing. Results indicated that contrary to what one might expect, the counterarguing output elicited by inoculation treatments was stable across time. The counterarguing output did not increase in the days following treatment, suggesting that inoculation messages require a minimal delay following recipient exposure to elicit counterarguing output, and it proved to be surprisingly robust across time, sustaining itself for much longer periods than early inoculation research had intimated. Also, the results revealed that inoculation-different treatments and reinforcement (booster) messages boost the persistence of the counterarguing output over time. Inoculation-same treatments were initially best in generating counterarguing output, but their effects deteriorated over time. By contrast, inoculation-different messages emerged as being superior in sustaining counterarguing output. Finally, reinforcement messages, administered from five to twenty-one days following inoculation, sustained counterarguing output for as long 44 days.

Keywords:

• Inoculation
• Counterarguing
• Resistance

The authors thank Kari Smith and Kristi Wright for their assistance with data collection, Daniel Amos and John Hernandez for their help with data entry, and the instructors in the Department of Communication for their cooperation in providing subjects for the investigation.

Notes

Note: Counterarguing output was operationalized by multiplying the number of counterarguments identified by the average rating of those counterarguments. Higher scores indicate greater counterarguing output. There were no significant differences in counterarguing output across Phases 2, 3, and 4, and no significant differences in Phase 4 counterarguing output across shorter, moderate, and longer intervals between the administration of inoculation treatment and subsequent exposure to a persuasive attack.

Note: Net counterarguing was operationalized by multiplying the number of counterarguments identified by the average rating of those counterarguments. Higher scores indicate greater net counterarguing.

∗Significantly greater than control condition at p < .05.

^†Significantly greater than control condition at p < .05, one-tailed.

^‡Significant deterioration compared to Phase 2 counterarguing at p < .05.

1. Same treatments contain explicit refutation of content contained in a subsequent attack message, whereas different treatments consist of generic content, with no rebuttal of the specific content contained in the subsequent attack.

2. The issues of restricting TV violence and legalizing marijuana scored 6.69 and 6.28, respectively, on a three-item, ten-interval involvement measure, which was based on a tool originally developed by Traylor (1981). Scores on involvement across the sixteen issues ranged from 5.33 to 7.63. Seven issues scored lower in involvement than the two issues selected for the study and seven scored higher. The distribution of opinion—for, against, and neutral/no opinion—was as follows: for restricting TV violence: 45%, 53%, and 12%; for legalizing marijuana: 31%, 49%, and 19%.

3. The intervals between inoculation treatment and subsequent persuasive attack were dictated primarily by the number of phases in the study and the days required to administer each phase. Inoculation messages were administered during Phase 2; Phase 3, in which reinforcement occurred, commenced eight days after Phase 2 and took eleven days; Phase 4, when attack messages were administered, commenced three days after Phase 3. Thus, the shortest interval between inoculation and attack, for those participants who received an inoculation treatment on the last day of Phase 2 and an attack message on the first day of Phase 4, was nineteen days.

4. Researchers were interested in participants' thoughts as they processed an experimental message. However, the phrase, “attitude measure” was used instead of “message” in order to insure uniformity in instructions across participants. This was important because about one-fourth of respondents at Phase 2 and three-quarters of respondents at Phase 4 did not receive a message.

5. The use of identification in conjunction with relative weighting is based on the premise that the sheer number of counterarguments is incomplete because it ignores the fact that a person's thoughts may vary in intensity, both in cognitive and affective terms. This combined approach is consistent with an expanded thought-listing protocol now employed in many persuasion studies, which initially asks participants to list their thoughts and, afterwards, to “think back to the thoughts they listed…and to rate their overall confidence in the thoughts they had listed” (Petty, Brinol, & Tormala, 2002, p. 731).

6. One-way ANCOVAs (receiver initial attitude toward the issue in question functioned as a covariate) identified significant differences in experimental condition means on the dependent variables of Phase 2 elicited threat, F(3,444) = 10.04, p < .01, eta ² = .06, and Phase 4 attitude toward the persuasive attack, F(3,443) = 27.46, p < .01, eta ² = .16. Subsequent Scheffe post-hoc tests indicated that, compared to the control condition, all treatment conditions elicited a significant Phase 2 threat: unreinforced inoculation same, t (185) = 3.02, p < .01; unreinforced inoculation different, t (186) = 5.44, p < .01; and combined same and different reinforced, t (269) = 5.24, p < .01. Also, compared to the control condition, all treatment conditions were effective in fostering resistance to the influence of Phase 4 attacks: unreinforced inoculation same, t (184) = −6.33, p < .01; unreinforced inoculation different, t (186) = −6.75, p < .01; and combined same and different reinforced, t (269) = −9.32, p < .01.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Pfau

Michael Pfau (PhD, University of Arizona, 1987) is professor and chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Oklahoma, where Joshua Compton, Kimberly Parker, Chasu An, Elaine Wittenberg, Monica Ferguson, Heather Horton, and Yuri Malyshev were graduate students.