Our perspective is that the studies described in this chapter open the door for new research examining the consequences of resistance to persuasion. Resistance often has been viewed as an outcome, indicating that a persuasive communi-cation has failed to affect the target attitude. Although this is sensible, resistance also has many other dimensions, as the various chapters in the current volume attest. Indeed, the research described in this chapter suggests that in some cases at least, when a persuasive attack appears to have had no impact on the target
attitude (i.e., the attack was resisted), it may actually have had a subtle yet important impact in terms of attitude certainty, attitude-relevant behavior, and the attitude’s resistance to future change. In short, resistance can be viewed as a launching pad for further theoretical and empirical exploration.
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5
Individual Differences in Resistance to Persuasion:
The Role of Beliefs and Meta-Beliefs
Pablo Brin˜ol
Universidad Auto ´ noma de Madrid
Derek D. Rucker
The Ohio State University
Zakary L. Tormala
Indiana University
Richard E. Petty
The Ohio State University
Within the persuasion literature, the most common treatment of the term “resis-tance” involves the outcome of showing little or no change to a persuasive message, (e.g., McGuire, 1964). However, to understand resistance truly, one must recognize that the study of resistance is more than simply the outcome of a persuasive message. Petty, Tormala, and Rucker (in press; see also Tormala
& Petty, this volume) noted recently that within the persuasion literature, resis-tance has also been examined as a psychological process (e.g., one can resist by counterarguing), a motivation (i.e., having the goal of not being persuaded), and a quality of an attitude or person (i.e., being resistant to persuasion).
Many of the chapters in the present volume discuss variables or situations that affect the outcome of resistance (e.g., Jacks & O’Brien, this volume; Tormala &
Petty, this volume; Quinn & Wood, this volume), the process of resistance (e.g., Wegener, Petty, Smoak, & Fabrigar, this volume), or people’s motivation to resist (e.g., Knowles & Linn, this volume). The present chapter differs in that our inter-est lies in identifying personality attributes or aspects of the individual related to resistance. We focus our discussion on individual differences in resistance ex-pected to be constant across topics, sources, situations, and so on. Thus, we deal primarily with resistance as a quality of a person. In this chapter, we introduce a new meta-cognitive approach to understand individual differences in resistance.
That is, we examine individuals’ meta-cognitions about their own resistance. We begin by providing a brief review of past work on individual differences in resis-tance, and we suggest that future research could benefit from adopting a meta-cognitive perspective. Finally, we present empirical evidence and apply the meta-cognitive framework to understand: how individuals’ beliefs affect their actual resistance to persuasion (resistance as an outcome); the qualities an dividual possesses (resistance as a quality); and the processes by which an in-dividual chooses to resist (resistance as a process) when his or her goal is to resist (resistance as a motivation).