Probing a relevance-driven account of the functional matching process for utilitarian and value-expressive attitudes

Abstract

Messages that “match” a target’s underlying attitude function(s) tend to produce stronger attitude modification than messages that do not. The biased processing account suggests that functional matching fosters favorable evaluations because people view matched messages as more relevant to their attitudes. Participants (N = 271) were randomly assigned to one of two experimental groups in which they were exposed to a message containing functional content or a control group. The results did not provide strong support for the hypothesized model, and participants’ baseline attitude functions and perceptions of message content directly predicted their attitudes and intentions. The impact that baseline functions and perceptions of message content independently exert on attitudes may be stronger than their combined effect.