Let Me Think about It: Cognitive Elaboration and Strategies of Resistance to Political Persuasion

Although individuals have a whole arsenal of resistance strategies they can use to defend their attitude against a persuasion attack, resistance has often been simplified to counterarguing. This article advances previous studies by considering eight distinct resistance strategies and analyzing their isolated and intertwined effect on attitude change. We further ask under what circumstances they work most effectively to curb persuasion by looking at their interaction with cognitive elaboration - that is, thoughtful and systematic processing. We present new evidence from a study conducted on a sample of American citizens (N = 528) and use a quasi-experimental design in which respondents are exposed to a tailored counterargument on a political issue. The results suggest that it is not the use of the isolated resistance strategies but that it is overall effort individuals put into resisting that help them to defend their attitude, and that this effect is reinforced by cognitive elaboration.

Automated summary

This article examines various resistance strategies individuals use to defend their attitude against persuasion attack and finds that overall effort to resist and cognitive elaboration play important roles in defending individuals' attitude.