ARGUMENT INTEGRATION AND ATTITUDE-CHANGE - SUPPRESSION EFFECTS IN THEINTEGRATION OF ONE-SIDED ARGUMENTS THAT VARY IN PERSUASIVENESS

Petty and Cacioppo's elaboration likelihood model of persuasion and Ch aiken, Liberman, and Eagly's heuristic-systematic model suggest that f or highly involved message recipients, adding weaker arguments to stro ng arguments could suppress or dilute the overall persuasiveness of a message. The few previous studies addressing this prediction however; have provided conflicting evidence In the present study, involvement l evel, number of weak arguments, and number of strong arguments were va ried factorially in a message advocating the institution of senior com prehensive exams. Results provided clear support for the predicted wea k-argument suppression of attitude change. Analyses of thought-listing data supported the notion that suppression results from the integrati on of favorable and unfavorable cognitive responses to the communicati on Further research questions regarding the processes by which mixed-q uality messages exert their persuasive impact are discussed.