1975 Volume 15 Issue 2 Pages 108-115
The pourpose of the present study was to investigate the role of commitment and feedback regarding the outcomes of influence attempts on the magnitude of attitude change following attitude-discrepant advocacy. Fifty female undergraduates served as Ss in this experiment. Commitment to attitude-discrepant advocacy was varied by manipulating the amount of improvisation and assurance of anonymity. And feedback regarding the outcome of persuasion attempt was given only thirty Ss in high commitment condition. Ss in high commitment condition were induced to present counter-attitudinal speeches to three female audiences which were also neutral with the position being advocated. When advocators received information indicating that they had successfully persuaded all three audience members, they showed the greater attitude change toward the advocated position than those who received negative feedback or no feedback regarding the outcomes. While the socalled commitment effect wasn't showed in this experiment: there were no statistically significant differences among three experimental conditions, NoFd, TRc and control.
The further investigations of the issue characteristics used by the experiment of attitudediscrepant role playing and modification of conditions inducing the commitment effect are suggested through this experiment.
