Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of communicator credibility on persuasion under irrelevant fear-arousing situations from the view point of the distraction hypothesis. Three independent variables were used: intensity of irrelevant fear arousal (high and low), communicator credibility (high and low) and passage of time (immediately and one week after persuasion). Subjects were 90 female college students. They were exposed to a persuasive message from either highly or lowly credible communicator under either irrelevant high or low fear-arousing situation, and they were asked to respond to questionnaires immediately and one week after the exposure. Results indicated the following. (a) When a communicator had low credibility, irrelevant fear facilitated immediate persuasive effect but did not delayed one. (b) When a communicator had high credibility, irrelevant fear inhibited delayed persuasive effect but did not immediate one. (c) Irrelevant fear increased counterargumentation to a persuasive message and enhanced the evaluation of a communicator in the low credibility condition. The results in the present experiment generally suported the distraction hypothesis, but it was suggested that irrelevant fear might increase recipients' acquiescent response to a highly credible communicator.
