The contingency rules theory of persuasion: An empirical test

Abstract

The contingency rules theory of persuasion, as alternative to the traditional laws model, assumes that: (1) persuasive behaviors, including compliance‐gaining and responding activities, are governed antecedently by five varieties of self‐evaluative and adaptive behavioral contingency rules; and (2) the context where persuasive communicators interact determines the particular configuration of rules governing their persuasive choices. This research assessed the power of the proposed five‐part rule structure to predict subjects’ responses to messages as functions of the context variables, ego‐involvement, schematic complexity, and affective orientation toward a persuasive issue. Results supported the contingency rules model, in that a significant proportion of the variance in subjects’ behavioral intentions was explained by self‐evaluative and adaptive rules in each context examined in the research. Moreover, the particular mix of rules accounting for intended actions varied sharply as a function of subjects...