Open AccessFEAR, MESSAGE RELEVANCE, AND PERSUASIBILITY 1
Author(s) -
Singer Jerome E.,
Ebert Ronald
Publication year - 1965
Publication title -
ets research bulletin series
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2333-8504
pISSN - 0424-6144
DOI - 10.1002/j.2333-8504.1965.tb00527.x
Subject(s) - psychology , persuasion , salience (neuroscience) , fear appeal , relevance (law) , social psychology , salient , cognitive psychology , computer science , artificial intelligence , political science , law
The conflicting literature on the relationship of fear and persuasion suggests that the relevance of a message to the recipient's source of fear may be a factor in the message's persuasiveness. A person who is frightened may try to avoid a fear‐relevant message, one which refers to the source of the fear, as the references and cues contained in the message make his fright more salient. A frightened person may seek out a fear‐irrelevant message, one which does not refer to the source of the fear, in order to obtain diversion and lower the salience of the source of fright. Ninety subjects were tested in an experiment which evaluated two related hypotheses. Frightened subjects will be less persuaded than control subjects by a message which is relevant to their fear. Frightened subjects will be more persuaded than control subjects by a message which is irrelevant to their fear.The results of the study yielded support for the first hypothesis but not for the second one. The implications of the positive finding and possible explanations of the negative one were discussed.