Elaboration and Attitude Strength: The New Metacognitive Perspective

The effect of elaboration (i.e., information processing) on attitude strength has been a key prediction of some of the most influential theories of persuasion over the past few decades. This article provides a new look at this relationship. After reviewing support for the notion that structural processes (i.e., knowledge acquisition, structural consistency, and attitude accessibility) drive the effect of elaboration on attitude strength, we examine recent work investigating the role of meta-cognitive factors in this domain. Based on recent evidence, we propose that the effect of elaboration on attitude strength depends largely on people’s perceptions of their own elaboration and their beliefs that more elaboration produces better judgments that can be held with greater certainty. We highlight the role of naïve theories in these effects, suggesting that they might be more malleable than previously known, and call for future research into some of the important remaining questions in this area that have yet to be fully explored. People receive countless persuasive communications during their everyday lives, from political campaign messages to product advertisements or even debates with colleagues. In some cases, these persuasive attempts elicit little or no thought, whereas in others, they manage to evoke more thoughtful consideration. Elaboration refers to the extent of thoughtful processing an individual directs toward an attitude object or issue, including their scrutiny of the information contained in a persuasive message or retrieved or generated from memory. A core prediction of contemporary models of persuasion (Chaiken, 1987; Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) is that an individual’s extent of thoughtful processing about an object or issue is a key determinant of whether his or her resulting attitude will be strong or weak (Petty, Haugtvedt, & Smith, 1995). This distinction is important as strong attitudes are more consequential than weak attitudes – that is, they are more durable and impactful. Indeed, compared to their weak counterparts, strong attitudes tend to be more persistent over time and resistant to persuasion, and they tend to exert more influence over behavior and processing (Krosnick & Petty, 1995). Researchers have identified a number of strength dimensions that reliably predict which attitudes tend to exhibit these consequences, including attitude certainty, attitude accessibility, attitude importance, and attitude-relevant knowledge, among others. Understanding the relationship between elaboration and attitude strength provides an answer to a key question for would-be persuaders – specifically, what determines whether attitude change will be consequential? Some aspects of the relationship between elaboration and attitude strength are well understood, whereas others remain to be explored. Over 15 years ago, Petty et al. (1995) proposed a general framework for the relationship between elaboration and attitude strength, so we begin by reviewing the growing evidence supporting this framework. Then, the primary objective of this article is to lay out a new perspective on © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 18 Elaboration and Attitude Strength the relationship between elaboration and attitude strength, to review existing support for it, and to chart out future directions. In particular, we propose that a meta-cognitive path exists from the extent of elaboration (A) to attitude strength consequences (D), which can be explained by the perceptions individuals form of their own processing (B) and the influence of these perceptions on attitude strength dimensions (C) (see Figure 1). The growing evidence surrounding attitude certainty will be our focal point, but we also discuss implications for other dimensions of attitude strength. Elaboration and Attitude Strength Elaboration can come from many sources that shape a person’s motivation and/or ability to process thoughtfully. For instance, contextual variables such as personal relevance and distraction can temporarily influence the motivation and ability to think, respectively, as can individual differences in need for cognition and issue-relevant knowledge (for reviews see Clark, forthcoming; Petty & Wegener, 1998). To gage elaboration, researchers traditionally have used one of two general approaches: (i) measuring the thoughts people have or assessing the consequences of those thoughts and (ii) assessing meta-level perceptions of the amount of thought that has taken place (Wegener, Downing, Krosnick, & Petty, 1995). The first approach includes thought-listing procedures (Petty & Cacioppo, 1977) and argument quality manipulations (Petty, Wells, & Brock, 1976). Greater elaboration is indicated when participants list more thoughts about the message or attitude object, when the favorability of thoughts corresponds more closely to the attitude itself (i.e., the attitude–thought valence correlation is high), or when participants show greater discrimination between strong and weak arguments in their post-message attitudes. In contrast, a second approach to assessing elaboration uses self-report items that tap perceptions of how many thoughts one has had or how much effort one has expended in considering a message or attitude object (Wegener et al., 1995). This type of perception reflects a secondary thought in that it is a thought about a thought – in this case, a thought about how much thought one has engaged in – making it a type of meta-cognition. New developments in the area of meta-cognition suggest that the distinction between primary and secondary thoughts can have important consequences, particularly when contextual factors lead perceived (secondary) thought to diverge from actual (primary) thought (Petty, Briñol, Tormala, & Wegener, 2007). A surprisingly small number of studies have simultaneously included assessments of elaboration and measures of attitude strength consequences (i.e., A➔ D), but findings in this area generally suggest that more elaboration leads to greater attitude strength. For example, Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann (1983) found evidence of greater argument quality effects (indicating greater elaboration) and attitude–behavior consistency (indicating greater attitude strength) under high compared to low personal relevance conditions. Haugtvedt and Wegener (1994) found increased thought–attitude correlations (indicating greater elaboration) and resistance to persuasion (indicating greater attitude strength) under high compared to low Extent of Elaboration Strength Consequence Attitude Strength Dimension (Certainty) A C D B MetaCognitive Perception of Elaboration Figure 1 Causal chain from amount of elaboration, or information processing, to attitude strength consequences. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Social and Personality Psychology Compass 8/1 (2014): 17–29, 10.1111/spc3.12078 Elaboration and Attitude Strength 19 personal relevance conditions. Similarly, Haugtvedt and Petty (1992) presented participants with a positive persuasive message and found more positive thoughts, greater thought–attitude correlations, and greater persistence among high compared to low need for cognition recipients. Thus, these studies supported the role of elaboration in three primary strength outcomes: attitude–behavior correspondence, resistance to persuasion, and persistence over time. However, the most direct evidence, placing measures of elaboration in the mediating role, has only come to light quite recently. Blankenship andWegener (2008) provided such evidence by developing a within-participant argument quality manipulation, whereby a message contains both strong and weak arguments and thoughtful processing is indicated when judgments specific to the strong as opposed to weak arguments differ. In one study, individual participants who were led to see the topic as high as opposed to low in value importance showed greater differentiation between their responses to the strong and weak arguments presented (greater elaboration) and were more resistant of a subsequent persuasion attempt (attitude strength consequence). Furthermore, mediation analysis showed that extent of elaboration explained the impact of value importance on resistance. This investigation, along with two contemporaries reviewed below (Barden & Petty, 2008; Smith, Fabrigar, MacDougall, & Wiesenthal, 2008), solidified elaboration as a causal mechanism responsible for attitude strength.