Covert evaluations during message exposure powerfully predict attitude change

Evidence

The failure of the recall hypothesis led us to consider a second possibility, that agenda setting might be mediated by covert evaluations triggered by the news stories. This hunch is consistent with a growing body of experimental research in which people are invited to record their thoughts as a persuasive message is presented. These thoughts are later classified as unfavorable, favorable, or as neutral to the persuasive message. It turns out that attitude change is predicted powerfully by the intensity and direction of such covert evaluations: the greater the number of unfavorable reactions, the lower the level of attitude change and vice versa. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1490

Categorization

• XREF: This is the cognitive response model of persuasion (Petty et al.) — a foundational mechanism linking to elaboration likelihood theory.