Think” versus “feel” framing effects in persuasion.

This research tests the hypothesis that attitudes and people with cognitive or affective orientations are differentially susceptible to persuasive messages framed as reflecting the message source's thoughts or feelings, even when there are no substantive differences in the messages themselves. In three studies, the exact same arguments were more persuasive when their framing (e.g., "I think…" vs. "I feel…") matched rather than mismatched the cognitive/affective orientation of the target attitude or message recipient. Moreover, this effect was mediated by processing fluency. Message recipients found it easier to process matched compared to mismatched messages, and this fluency increased persuasion