Induced lateral orientation and persuasibility.

It was hypothesized from three different lines of evidence that relative activation of the left cerebral hemisphere of right-handers would increase resistance to a persuasive message as compared to relative activation of the right hemisphere. An experiment was performed using 22 subjects who heard the counterattitudinal message in only one ear and filled in response measures while their body was turned toward that same side. Subjects who listened and turned toward the left agreed more with the views of the message (p less than .05) and produced more thought favorable to the message (p less than .05) than those induced to orient rightward. It was concluded that these results may be due to asymmetries in selective attention, counterarguing, consistency, self-awareness, and perseveration between the cerebral hemispheres of the normal human brain.