Page 52 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

Social Psychological Foundations of Social Marketing 45

and Wegener (1998b) matched or mismatched messages that were strong
or weak to individuals who differed in their self-monitoring. In this re-
search, high and low self-monitors read appeals based on image (e.g., how
good a product makes you look) or quality (e.g., how efficient a product
is) that contained arguments that were either strong (e.g., beauty or effi-
cacy that last) or weak (e.g., momentary beauty or efficacy). The cogency
of the arguments had a greater effect on attitudes when the message was
framed to match rather than mismatch the person’s self-monitoring status,
indicating that matching enhanced processing of message quality.
When elaboration is high, matching might bias processing. Indeed,
some research suggests that high self-monitors are more motivated to bias
processing in the form of fostering favorable thoughts to messages that
make an appeal to image rather than an appeal to values (e.g., Lavine &
Snyder, 1996). Additionally, when elaboration is high, matching message
contents and/or frames to self-monitoring can influence attitude change by
more specific mechanisms under other circumstances. For example, Evans
and Clark (2012) recently showed that thought confidence increased
when a high (versus low) self-monitor received a message from an attrac-
tive (versus credible) source. In line with the self-validation logic, high
(versus low) self-monitors relied on their thoughts more when the source
was attractive (versus credible), which increased persuasion for positive
thoughts but decreased persuasion for negative thoughts.
In sum, self-monitoring demonstrates how the message content can af-
fect persuasion based on a match or mismatch to this individual difference
variable. Furthermore, just as source, message, and recipient variables can
have multiple roles, so too can matching, with matching having different
effects depending on elaboration level.

Self-Schemas and Matching

Wheeler, Petty, and Bizer (2005) examined how individuals’ self-
schema—general cognitive associations to how one perceives the self—in-
teracted with the initial title and first paragraph of message content to
affect subsequent processing. Specifically, in one experiment, participants’
degree of extroversion was measured. Wheeler and colleagues then ex-
posed participants to a message for a VCR that began with a first paragraph
that contained information designed to resonate with extroverts (“With
the Mannux VCR, you’ll be the life of the party, whether the party’s in your
home or out of it.”), or to resonate with introverts (“With the Mannux
VCR, you can have all the luxuries of a movie theater without having to
deal with the crowds”). Subsequently, the remaining paragraphs contained