A study on factors inducing boomerang effects in persuasive communication: Concerning opinion discrepancy and forced commitment

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to examine the factors inducing boomerang type attitude change in persuasive communication. Subjects were forced to commit themselves to the position counter to their own by writing supportive arguments for an unacceptable issue. Then, a coun-ter-attitudinal communication was presented to the subjects on the issue about which they had previously negative evaluations. Two experiments were conducted with the same procedure for two groups of subjects who were on the different pre-opinion. For the subjects whose opinions were not so discrepant with those of the communicator, some attitudinal changes to the advocated direction were produced. But for those subjects, who had held opinions far from the communicator's position and were forced to commit to the position counter to their own, boomerang type opinion changes against the presented communication occurred. Disagreements to the communication, however, didn't necessarily mean the counteropinion changes. The results of the impression ratings on the communicator suggest that the evaluation of communicator's ability by receiver correlate with the direction of attitude change. © 1983, The Japanese Psychological Association. All rights reserved.