Page 192 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

7. MASS MEDIA ATTITUDE CHANGE 181

might be challenged by a message that seems complex, but other individ-
uals (e.g., those low in need for cognition) might eschew processing a
message that is perceived as difficult (Evans & Petty, 1998). Finally, under
high-elaboration conditions, other roles for message complexity are possi-
ble. In one study, for instance, it was shown that under high-elaboration
conditions, complex information undermined people’s confidence in their
thoughts (Briñol & Petty, 2001).

Multiple Roles for Recipient Factors. According to the ELM, recipi-
ent factors can serve in the same multiple roles as source and message fac-
tors. Consider the impact that a person’s mood state has on persuasion.
The mass medium of television has special power to present messages
(commercials) in contexts in which people’s moods vary (e.g., due to the
television program they are watching). According to the ELM, when the
likelihood of elaboration is relatively low, a person’s mood should impact
attitudes by a peripheral process. Consistent with this view, a number
of studies have shown that the nonthoughtful “classical conditioning” of
affect to an attitude object occurs more easily when the likelihood of
thinking is low (e.g., Cacioppo, Marshall-Goodell, Tassinary, & Petty,
1992; Gorn, 1982; Priester, Cacioppo, & Petty, 1996). Also under low-
elaboration conditions, affective states have been postulated to influence
attitudes by a simple inference process in which misattribution of the
cause of the mood state to the persuasive message or to the attitude object
occurs (e.g., I must feel good because I like or agree with the message
advocacy; see Petty & Cacioppo, 1983; Schwarz, 1990).
As the likelihood of elaboration increases, mood takes on different
roles (see also Forgas, 1995). Specifically, when the elaboration likelihood
is more moderate, mood has been shown to have an impact on the extent
of argument elaboration. According to the hedonic contingency theory
(Wegener & Petty, 1994, 1996), happy people tend to pay attention to the
hedonic rewards of situations, and thus they are more likely than are sad
people to process a message that is thought to be hedonically rewarding if
processed (see Wegener, Petty, & Smith, 1995). On the other hand, if the
message will not be rewarding to think about (e.g., because it is on a coun-
terattitudinal or a depressing topic), then sad individuals will engage in
greater message processing than will happy people because sadness tends
to put people in a problem-solving mind-set (Schwarz, Bless, & Bohner,
1991).
When the elaboration likelihood is high, the ELM holds that affective
states can influence attitudes by influencing the nature of the thoughts that
come to mind. Memory research has demonstrated that material of a posi-
tive valence is more accessible in memory when people are in positive
rather than in negative moods, whereas negatively valenced material is
more accessible when they are in negative rather than positive moods (e.g.,