Persuasive Communication and Feedback of Attitude Change

This study examined how subjects who were persuaded to change their attitudes, actually changed their attitude after being told the degree of their changed attitudes. At first, 133 college students (Men : 27,Women : 106) were recorded for their initial attitudes (first session). After one week, the subjects were told opposite persuasion messages against their initial attitudes and their attitudes were measured again (second session). After another two weeks, the subjects were told how much they had changed their attitudes between the first session and the second session (third session). After reading the persuasion messages of the second session again, they filled out the third attitude measurement form. The results support the hypothesis that the more they were told they had changed their attitudes, the more their attitudes reverted to their initial attitudes. The relation of the degree of subjects' self acceptance or rejection regarding changes of their initial attitudes, causal attributions for self acceptance and rejection, and degree of the subjects' reconsidering the persuasion message were studied. The reactance against self persuasion and attitudinal change were studied in terms of self-awareness and impression management theory