Validación del pensamiento y persuasión

Abstract

Thought-validation and persuasion. Persuasion depends on how people respond (cognitive responses) to the information they receive. Two aspects of these cognitive responses have been emphasized so far on the study of persuasion: the direction of thinking (whether thinking is favorable or unfavorable) and the extent of thinking (whether thinking is extensive or minimal). Recent research has demonstrated that it is necessary to take into account a third dimension of thinking based on people's confidence in their own thoughts. The present research explores a new variable that influences persuasion by affecting thought-confidence: self-affirmation. We predicted and found that when participants were affirmed (by expressing personal values) after message processing, self-affirmation affected attitude change by influencing the confidence with which cognitive responses to the message were held. As a consequence, self-affirmation magnified the impact of thoughts on attitudes enhancing persuasion when thoughts were favorable and undermined it when thoughts were unfavorable.