Dijkstra Arie, Elbert Sarah P
Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2021 Jan 11;11:578287. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.578287. eCollection 2020.
Persuasive messages regarding fruit and vegetable consumption often meet defensive reactions from recipients, which may lower message effectiveness. Individual differences in emotion regulation and gender are expected to predict these reactions. In the working memory account of persuasion, inducing voluntary eye movements during the processing of the auditory persuasive information might prevent defensiveness and thereby increase message effectiveness. Participants in two independently recruited samples from the general population ( = 118 and = 99) listened to a negatively framed auditory persuasive message advocating fruit and vegetable consumption. Half of them were asked to keep following a regularly moving stimulus on their screen with their eyes. At pretest, the individual differences of cognitive self-affirmation inclination (CSAI) and gender were assessed to predict defensive reactions. In Study 1, induced eye movements significantly increased self-reported consumption after 2 weeks when CSAI was low, but only in males, as indicated by a significant three-way interaction ( < 0.001). With negative self-evaluative emotions as dependent variable, this three-way interaction was also significant ( < 0.05), suggesting that induced eye movements prevented defensiveness in low CSAI males. Study 2 did not assess consumption but replicated the latter three-way interaction ( < 0.05). The studies replicated our earlier findings regarding the moderating effects of individual differences in emotion regulation (i.e., CSAI) on persuasion, but they also revealed gender differences in persuasion that are related to the working memory. The working memory account of persuasion provides new theoretical as well as practical angles on persuasion to target individuals in persuasion to increase fruit and vegetable consumption.
关于水果和蔬菜消费的说服性信息往往会引发接受者的防御反应,这可能会降低信息的有效性。情绪调节和性别的个体差异预计会预测这些反应。在说服的工作记忆理论中,在处理听觉说服性信息时诱导自愿性眼球运动可能会防止防御心理,从而提高信息的有效性。来自普通人群的两个独立招募样本(分别为118人和99人)的参与者听取了一条以负面框架呈现的倡导水果和蔬菜消费的听觉说服性信息。其中一半人被要求用眼睛持续跟踪屏幕上有规律移动的刺激物。在预测试中,评估了认知自我肯定倾向(CSAI)和性别的个体差异,以预测防御反应。在研究1中,诱导眼球运动在2周后显著增加了自我报告的消费量,前提是CSAI较低,且仅在男性中如此,这由一个显著的三因素交互作用表明(<0.001)。以消极的自我评估情绪作为因变量,这个三因素交互作用也显著(<0.05),表明诱导眼球运动防止了低CSAI男性的防御心理。研究2没有评估消费量,但重复了后一个三因素交互作用(<0.05)。这些研究重复了我们早期关于情绪调节(即CSAI)个体差异对说服的调节作用的发现,但它们也揭示了说服中与工作记忆相关的性别差异。说服的工作记忆理论为针对个体进行说服以增加水果和蔬菜消费提供了新的理论和实践视角。