Festinger, & Maccoby, N. (1964). On resistance to persuasive communications. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 68(4), 359–366. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0049073
Summary
The authors hypothesize that when we hear a persuasive communication with which we disagree, while listening, we are also simultaneously counterarguing. They theorize that if a person were prevented from counterarguing, they would consequently be more persuaded by an argument. An experiment was devised through which subjects would be distracted, thereby lessening their ability to counterargue.
Fraternity students at various schools were presented with either a film that depicted a speaker advocating for banning fraternities, a film with the same audio but distracting visuals, or no film at all (the control group). Surveys revealed that the distracting stimulus did result in more persuasion and less rejection of the speaker. Valence of results was stable across universities. When the same films were shown to non-fraternity students, there was no significant differences between conditions.
Application
This finding seems especially suited for advertising. It would be interesting to see if this happens as the result of conscious or unconscious processing (similar to the experiments where subjects heard one stream of audio in ear and a different stream of audio in the other ear). If an organization was going to introduce an unpopular change or initiative, it might encounter less resistance if the change was announced while employees were continuing to work, rather than taking a break for a meeting.
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