Experimental
Studies of Boomerang Effects Following Persuasive Communication
H. Sasaki |
The
congnitive dissonance theory and the social judgment theory predict
that the boomerang effect occurs when the discrepancy is large. In
the studies of Sakaki (1980a, b), however, the boomerang effect took
place when the discrepancy was small, so that four additional studies
were conducted in order to clarify the relationship of the two variables.
The method was classroom experimentation based on the before after
design. The results always showed that the boomerang effect and little
opinion change occured when the discrepancy was small, whereas more
opinion change took place at the large discrepancy levels, regardless
of various conditions. Furthermore, in contradiction to the prediction
of the dissonance theory, the Ss derogated the communicator when
the discrepancy was small, while they raised the evaluation of the
source credibility when it was large. A dual-factor hypothesis is
proposed for these findings in the present study, and the hypothesis
is herein supported.
|