Source characteristics and communication discrepancy as determinants of attitude change and conformity

Abstract

In a design with two levels of source credibility, two degrees of attitude stability, and four levels of communication discrepancy, unstable subjects changed opinions of verticality and were differentially affected by source credibility, whereas stable individuals changed less and showed no prestige effect. For the stable subjects there was no prestige by discrepancy interaction, and trend analyses showed that opinion change was a curvilinear function of discrepancy. In an extension of the design (over seven discrepancy levels) for the unstable subjects, there was no source prestige by discrepancy interaction but significant main effects for source prestige and communication discrepancy. The trend tests showed that the attitude change curves for the highly and mildly credible sources were curvilinear when the discrepancy dimension was adequately sampled. A procedure was introduced to test for genuine, as opposed to situationally dependent, conforming change. Neither the unstable nor the stable subjects showed significant signs of genuine cognitive change. However, both evidenced opinion conformity which persisted in a posttreatment for the unstable but not the stable subjects. The results support social judgment theory, but are not in accord with dissonance predictions.