Perturbing Blame and Attitude Change

Summary The theory of evaluative response contagion offers an alternative explanation of the forced-compliance implication of the theory of cognitive dissonance. It states that a perturbing stimulus (e.g. exceptionally high reward or punishment) causes a perseveration of the evaluative quality of the persuasive message. The research paradigm is: persuasive message→perturbation→persuasion of audience in the form of perseveration of evaluative quality of the message. In a posttest-only control group design Ss were severely and unjustifiably criticised directly prior to exposure to a self-generated counterattitudinal message. Social desirability bias was experimentally controlled. Orthogonal analyses yielded significant effects on one of the two dependent variables, the semantic differential. The results thus indicated that even in a group situation evaluative response contagion (persuasion) took place as a function of perturbation.