PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN Evans, Petty / SELF-GUIDE FRAMING AND PERSUASION Self-Guide Framing and Persuasion: Responsibly Increasing Message Processing to Ideal Levels

The current research examines the effect that framing persuasive messages in terms of self-guides (ideal vs. ought) has on the atti-tudes and cognitive responses of individuals with chronic ideal versus ought self-guides. The strength of participants ’ ideal and ought self-guides and the magnitude of participants ’ ideal and ought self-discrepancies were measured using a computerized reaction time program. One week later, participants read a per-suasive message about a fictional breakfast product, framed in terms of either ideals or oughts. Matching framing to stronger self-guide led to enhanced message processing activity, especially among individuals who were low in need for cognition. Individ-uals who read messages framed to match their stronger self-guides paid more attention to argument quality, as reflected in their attitudes and cognitive responses. Messages with self-guide framing that matched individuals ’ stronger self-discrepancies did not have this effect on processing