Page 184 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

7. MASS MEDIA ATTITUDE CHANGE 173

ance of accuracy that can influence elaboration. When a source is perceived
to be expert and trustworthy (and hence likely to provide accurate informa-
tion), individuals can be reasonably confident of the accuracy of their atti-
tudes by merely accepting the position advocated. When a source is per-
ceived to be an expert but of low trustworthiness, however, a message
recipient cannot be assured of accuracy, and instead must scrutinize the
information in order to be assured of an accurate attitude. As such, assum-
ing the source has expertise (and is able to be accurate), perceived trustwor-
thiness can influence the extent to which individuals engage in thinking.
Another source characteristic that has been found to affect message
elaboration is the degree to which a source is stigmatized or not. Specifi-
cally, research has provided evidence that when the source of a message is
a member of a stigmatized group (e.g., gay or African American), message
recipients are more likely to elaborate than when the source is a member
of a nonstigmatized group (White & Harkins, 1995). Interestingly, this
influence of source stigma is apparent only for people who reject prejudi-
cial beliefs (e.g., are low in modern racism or homophobia; Petty, Fleming,
& White, 1999). Individuals low in prejudice might be chronically con-
cerned that stigmatized individuals are treated unfairly by themselves or
others. As such, they pay particular attention to (i.e., elaborate) informa-
tion presented by stigmatized sources in order to assure that the sources
are treated fairly.
Other variables that have been found to increase elaboration include
whether the key arguments are presented as questions or assertions, the
number of message sources, and the expectedness of a position. For exam-
ple, several studies have shown that when a person is not normally moti-
vated to think about the message arguments, more thinking can be pro-
voked by summarizing the major arguments as questions rather than as
assertions (Howard 1990; Petty, Cacioppo, & Heesacker, 1981; Swasy &
Munch 1985). Thus, if an argument in a radio commercial was followed
by a question (Isn’t this candidate the best one?) rather than by an asser-
tion (This candidate is the best one), greater processing of the argument
presented would result. Greater thinking about a message can also be
induced by having the individual arguments presented by multiple
sources rather than just one (Harkins & Petty, 1981; Moore & Reardon,
1987). The multiple source effect is attenuated if people suspect that the
multiple sources are not providing independent analyses of the issue
(Harkins & Petty, 1987; Wilder, 1990).
When some feature of the message is unexpected, processing can be
increased (e.g., Maheswaran & Chaiken, 1991). For example, if a newspaper
headline implied that many people favored something that the message
recipient disliked or that few people favored something the recipient liked,
message scrutiny can be increased over cases in which the headline implied
that few favored what the recipient disliked or many favored what the