ATTITUDES AND SOCIAL COGNITION Affect as Information in Persuasion: A Model of Affect Identification and Discounting

Three studies examined the implications of a model of affect as information in persuasion. According to this model, extraneous affect may have an influence when message recipients exert moderate amounts of thought, because they identify their affective reactions as potential criteria but fail to discount them as irrelevant. However, message recipients may not use affect as information when they deem affect irrelevant or when they do not identify their affective reactions at all. Consistent with this curvilinear prediction, recipients of a message that either favored or opposed comprehensive exams used affect as a basis for attitudes in situations that elicited moderate thought. Affect, however, had no influence on attitudes in conditions that elicited either large or small amounts of thought. Persuasive communications can have an impact on the attitudes of a recipient not only when they present compelling arguments in support of the message’s recommendation but also when they trigger nonelaborative mechanisms (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; for other models of information processing, see Fazio, 1990; Fiske & Neuberg, 1990; Wilson, Lindsey, & Schooler, 2000). For example, pleasant music in a commercial may be objectively irrelevant to the merits of a product but can still generate favorable attitudes toward the product provided the positive affect it induces biases recipients ’ judgments (for a comprehensive review of the influ