The effects of personal involvement, communication discrepancy, and source prestige on reactions to communications on separatism

Abstract

This study examined the combined effects of personal involvement, communication discrepancy, and source prestige on attitude change towards a current social issue (separatism). Students at McGill University (N = 169) and the University of Calgary (N = 105) with the same attitude position towards separatism constituted, respectively, the highly and moderately involved groups receiving a message. For the moderately involved group, attitude change did occur with a moderately discrepant message from a high prestige source, suggesting that influence attempts on a meaningful social issue can be effective even under conditions of moderately high involvement. For the highly involved group, the level of message discrepancy and the prestige of the source affected message and source evaluation but not attitude.