1University of Iowa, USA.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2013 Dec;39(12):1571-84. doi: 10.1177/0146167213499238. Epub 2013 Aug 22.
Characteristics of persuasive message sources have been extensively studied. However, little attention has been paid to situations when people are motivated to form an evaluation of the communicator rather than the communicated issue. We postulated that these different foci can affect how a source validates message-related cognitions. Participants focused on the source (Studies 1 and 2) or the issue (Study 2) while reading weak or strong message arguments. Later, the communicator was described as low or high in credibility. When focused on the source, highly motivated participants were more confident and their attitudes were more reflective of thoughts when argument quality matched (e.g., weak arguments-low credibility) rather than mismatched (e.g., weak arguments-high credibility) source credibility. Conversely, when participants were focused on the issue, self-validation was greater when credibility was high rather than low-regardless of argument quality. Implications of these findings for the study and practice of persuasion are discussed.
说服性信息源的特征已经得到了广泛的研究。然而，人们很少关注这样一种情况，即人们受到激励去形成对传播者的评价，而不是对所传达的问题的评价。我们假设，这些不同的焦点会影响信息源如何验证与信息相关的认知。参与者在阅读弱或强的信息论点时，将注意力集中在信息源上（研究 1 和 2）或问题上（研究 2）。之后，将信息传播者描述为可信度低或高。当参与者将注意力集中在信息源上时，动机强烈的参与者更加自信，他们的态度更能反映出与论点质量匹配（例如，弱论点-低可信度）的想法，而不是不匹配（例如，弱论点-高可信度）的信息源可信度的想法。相反，当参与者将注意力集中在问题上时，无论论点质量如何，高可信度都能带来更大的自我验证。讨论了这些发现对说服研究和实践的意义。
