Antecedents of Message Processing in Persuasion: Traditional and Emergent Perspectives

From more than a half century of formal inquiry, social psychological research on persuasion has revealed a number of distinct processes through which peoples' attitudes can be formed or changed. In particular, a considerable amount of work has been aimed at identifying and understanding factors that determine how much people carefully process persuasive communications. This article provides a review of past approaches, contemporary directions, and key findings corresponding to this mechanism of influence. Furthermore, it focuses on the scientific progression across three primary research generations as a means to describe the current literature and potential avenues for future endeavors.