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The Roles of Power and Ease of Retrieval Effects in Persuasion:

An Examination on the Self-Validation Hypothesis

Final Paper: Research Methods in Social Psychology

Psychology 310R
Professor Robin M. Akert
December 21, 2010

Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will)

 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 2

The Roles of Power and Ease of Retrieval Effects in Persuasion:

An Examination on the Self-Validation Hypothesis

Pariya Sripakdeevong, Kayla Kim, Betsy T. Gratner, and Laila Alawa

Wellesley College

The present research explores the effects of the interaction between power and ease of retrieval
on persuasion. In line with the Self-Validation Hypothesis of the Elaboration Likelihood Model
of Persuasion, higher levels of power and perceived ease of a retrieval task are independently
associated with higher confidence in thoughts. The authors hypothesized that simultaneously
influencing power and ease of retrieval in the same or opposite directions would strength the
effect of thought confidence on persuasion or create an interaction effect. In the experiment,
participants were induced to feel powerful or powerless and generated either high (difficult) or
low (easy) number of counterarguments against the topic of a persuasive message they read. No
result of attitude change due to levels power or ease of retrieval was found, but there was a
marginal main effect of ease of retrieval on attitude such that participants who perceived greater
ease in a retrieval task reported more unfavorable attitude towards the message in line with the
direction of their self-generated counterarguments. Furthermore, thought confidence was found
to have a direct effect on attitude such that participants who were more confident in their
thoughts were less persuaded by the message. Possible interpretations of the result contrary to
the self-validation hypothesis, including possible absence of thought confidence mediation and
the inapplicability of the self-validation hypothesis on multiple simultaneous manipulations of
thought confidence variables, were discussed.
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 3

Understanding when and why a persuasive communication is effective has always been

an inquiry for people across all disciplines. Over the past three decades, a large number of

researchers have examined various factors that constitute a successful persuasion effect, where a

person’s attitude is modified in the desired direction as a result of receiving a persuasive

message (see Petty & Wegener, 1998). The Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion (ELM;

Petty & Cacippo, 1981) integrates many conflicting persuasion theories by proposing that the

process and consequence of persuasion depend upon the likelihood of elaboration being high or

low. Under high elaboration (when need for cognition is high), persuasion occurs via the central

route where factors such as argument quality determine the extent of attitude change.

Meanwhile, under low elaboration condition, the effectiveness of a persuasive communication

depends on peripheral cues, such as the attractiveness and expertise of the message source.

Recent research on the ELM has been heavily focused on the Self-Validation Hypothesis,

an expansion to the model, which proposes that the impact of persuasion depends not only on

whether thoughts are elaborated as the tradition ELM suggests but also on whether one have

confidence in those thoughts (Petty, Briñol, & Tormala, 2002). The key component of the self-

validation hypothesis is that thought confidence is an essential factor determining how much

effort one should devote to processing a message, that is, whether a message is processed under

low or high elaboration. Therefore, thought confidence is essential to understanding persuasion,

since an important implication of the ELM is that a variable can produce multiple effects on

persuasion depending on the level of elaboration. (For example, positive emotion can lead to

more persuasion when elaboration is low but less persuasion when elaboration is high (Schwarz,

Bless & Bohhber, 1991). Thought confidence influences different variables of the ELM (eg.

source credibility, incidental emotions, personal relevance, power, and ease of retrieval) in
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 4

different ways depending whether the cognitive responses to the message are negative or

positive (Briñol and Petty, 2009).

The role of power is recognized as an important motivating force in human relationship

formation. Much of the research on power and persuasion has been heavily focused on the

power of the message sources such that powerful sources produce persuasion effect than

powerless sources (eg. Festinger & Thibaut, 1951; French & Raven, 1959). Recently, the effect

of persuasion on the power of the message recipient has been examined through the level of

confidence that power induce.

Self-validation suggests that powerful individuals feel more confident in their thoughts;

when asked to generate positive or negative thoughts about a campus vaccination policy and

recalled an incident where felt powerful or powerless, participants who were induced to feel

powerful reported higher confidence and greater attitude change in the direction of their self-

generated thoughts (Briñol, Petty, Valle, Rucker and Becerra, 2007). Like many variables of the

ELM, power can affect persuasion in many ways depending on the elaboration process. For

example, in another experiment of the same study, the role of power being induced before and

after presentation of a persuasive message was examined (Briñol et al., 2007). In contrast to

eliciting greater persuasion effect when induced to feel powerful after processing a persuasive

message, being induced to feel powerful (through role-playing as the boss compared to

relatively powerless roles like employees) led participants to be less persuaded by a subsequent

persuasive message. This occurs because, when feeling powerful, people become more

confident in their own current views and therefore have little need to process additional

information from the persuasive message. Thus the dynamic role of power, driving persuasion
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 5

effect in whatever direction that validates mental content in individual’s thought, is vital to

understanding persuasion process.

Moreover, much research attention has been paid to the effect of perceived ease of

information processing (ease of retrieval effect) on persuasion. One study found that when

participants were instructed to generate one reason for choosing a BMW over a Mercedes Benz

car, their attitudes towards BMW became more positive, but the opposite direction of attitude

change occurred when they were instructed to generate ten reasons, due to the perceive easiness

of generating one reason and perceived difficulty of generating ten reason (Wänke, Bohner &

Jurkowisch, 1997). This suggested that attitudes supporting the self-generated argument become

more positive when the task is perceived as easy. This result has recently been shown to be

consistent with the self-validation hypothesis, such that such that perceived relative ease of a

retrieval task leads to higher thought confidence. For example, in one study participants read a

strong or weak message purposing a comprehensive exam upon graduation from college, and

generated either 2 or 10 counterarguments against it (Tormala, Petty & Briñol, 2002). The

researchers found that, under high elaboration condition (strong message), participants’ attitude

were more influenced by their thoughts against the exam when generating few rather than any

counterarguments (ease of retrieval effects), and that this process was mediated by thought

confidence the participants had. Thus, ease of retrieval can influence persuasion in the direction

either for or against a persuasive message, depending on the direction of the individual’s own

thought and the confidence individuals have on those thoughts.

The present study is an examination of the self-validation hypothesis through the

interplay between the roles of two thought confidence variables, power and ease of retrieval, on
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 6

persuasion. Much of the research on self-validation has been focused on the effectiveness of one

variable on persuasion mediated by thought confidence. Thus, this study aims to answer the

following questions: Will the effect of thought confidence on persuasion be present when two

variables co-occur? Will the effect of one variable be stronger than the other? Will persuasion

effect be strengthened when two variables influence thought confidence in the same direction?

Finally, What will happen to the persuasion effect when the thought confidence variables are

manipulated in opposite directions? This study is a conceptual replication of parts of the power

in role-playing scenario study (Briñol et al., 2007) and the ease of retrieval in comprehensive

exam study (Tormala et al., 2002). We focused on high elaboration processing since it has been

found that the impact of power and ease of retrieval on thought confidence was greatest when

motivation and ability to process is relatively high (Briñol et al., 2007; Tormala et al., 2002). .

We aim to demonstrate that level of power (high power, producing high thought

confidence and low power, producing low thought confidence) and level of ease (easy task,

producing high thought confidence and difficult task, producing low thought confidence) will

increase or decrease persuasion, depending on the resulting level of thought confidence from the

interaction of the two variables. We hypothesize that people who feel powerful before a

persuasive message and perceive a retrieval task as easy will have higher thought confidence

than those who feel powerless and perceive difficulty in the task; as a result, those in the

“powerful/easy” condition will show less attitude change in the direction of a persuasive

communication than those in the “powerless/difficult” condition if the message is inconsistent to

their prior attitude. This hypothesis is consistent with existing research findings on self-

validation: thought confidence should decrease the effects of persuasion that are unfavorable to

one’s attitude prior to receiving a persuasive message. Thus we expect that doubling the thought
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 7

confidence manipulation in the same direction will increase the effect even more. Furthermore,

people who feel powerful but engage in a difficult task, or feel powerless but engage in an easy

task, will experience one confidence boosting and one confidence reducing manipulation. This

contradiction leads us to hypothesize a main effect on either the power or ease of retrieval

variable, and possibly an interaction effect on persuasion.

METHOD

Participants and Design

Sixty undergraduates from Wellesley College participated in this study for fulfillment of

their 100 and 200 levels psychology courses credit. Participants were all female, with age range

approximately from 17-22. Participants signed up for an experimental session in pairs and were

run in pairs. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions in the 2 (Power:

powerful or powerless) x 2 (Ease of retrieval: easy or difficult) between-subjects design. The

two independent variables concern level of thought confidence, where high confidence is

induced in the ‘powerful’ and ‘easy’ conditions and low confidence induced in the ‘powerless’

and ‘difficult’ conditions.

Overview

Two participants participated per experimental session. When both participants arrived,

they were informed that they would be completing two experimental studies: the first one about

non-verbal behavior in social roles and the second one about attitudes towards current issues at

Wellesley College. They were told that together, these two short studies counted as one research

participation credit. (The two studies were actually parts of the same experiment). The
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 8

participants were then told that the task for the first study involved role-playing in a business

situation and were asked to sign a consent form for the first study. After role-playing in either a

powerful or powerless role, participants completed a questionnaire that included a manipulation

check for power. Participants were then told that the first study was completed and that in the

second study they will be asked opinions on possible college budget cuts. After signing the

second consent form, participants read a personally relevant message and then listed either a

high or low number of counterarguments against the topic of the message. After the listing task,

participants completed a manipulation check for ease of retrieval, rated their thought confidence,

and rated their attitudes towards the topic of the message Upon ending the session, participants

were debriefed and thanked for their participation.

Procedure

Power Independent Variable. Following a random role assignment (i.e. each participant

picked a chopstick from a bowl with an indicated role written on it), one participant from each

pair acted as the Vice President (powerful role inducing high thought confidence) and the other

as the Secretary (powerless role inducing low thought confidence). The participants role-played

following a provided script about a situation where the Secretary was unable to complete her

task and was therefore fired by the Vice President. Participants were instructed to read the script

word for word and that their non-verbal behaviors would be crucial to our results. The Vice

President participant was additionally instructed to act as she had complete control over the

work setting, the evaluation of the Secretary, and the ability to fire the Secretary. Meanwhile,

the Secretary participant was instructed to act as if she had no control over the work setting, how

the work was done, or the evaluation process. In order to involve participants in their roles, the
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 9

Vice President participant wore a nametag as Mrs. Smith and stood during the role-play, while

the Secretary participant wore a nametag as Mary and remain seated before the Vice President

participant. After the role-playing activity, participants responded to a questionnaire, which

included two manipulation check questions asking how powerful they felt in a 9-point semantic

differential scale (not at all-very) and how much control they felt they had over what happened

in 9-point semantic differential scale (none-a great deal) (adapted from Overbeck & Park, 2001).

The questionnaire also included a series of filler questions to support the cover story (eg.

estimate the number of eye contacts made, describe participants’ tone of voice, rate how realistic

the role-play was, and etc). Participants were then told that the first study was completed, and

moved to the second study.

Ease of Retrieval Independent Variable. After manipulating the level of power in the

role-playing task, we then manipulated the level of ease in the second task. Participants read a

personally relevant message explaining that the college’s Board of Trustees are currently

reviewing the possibility of eliminating Senate bus that commutes Wellesley students into

Boston on weekends, as the college’s endowment is affected by the recent economic crisis and it

is necessary for the college reduce operating budgets in non-academic areas. The message was

intended to provide a strong argument (as a cue for high elaboration processing) for eliminating

the Senate bus, which we expect participants would be against. Immediately after reading the

persuasive message, participants were informed that their opinions on the issue would be

important for the college’s decision-making process. Participants were instructed to list either 2

reasons or 10 reasons against bus elimination, which aims to create easy or difficult tasks to

heighten or lower thought confidence respectively. Then, participants completed manipulation

check questionnaire for level of ease perceived in doing the task in a 9-point semantic
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 10

differential scale (“How difficult did you find it to generate the requested number of reasons?”;

not at all-extremely difficult; from Tormala et al., 2002).

Thought Confidence Mediation. After completing the power and ease of retrieval

manipulation tasks and the manipulation check questionnaires pertaining each of the

independent variables, participants completed another questionnaire for thought confidence

mediation from Briñol et al. (2007):“How valid do you believe the thoughts you listed are?” on

a 9-point semantic differential scale (not at all-extremely difficult). The primary purpose of

manipulating both independent variables was to manipulate the level of thought confidence in

our participants. Thus, the mediation questionnaire checked whether increased level of power

and ease increase thought confidence as previous researches suggest, and aimed to explore the

thought confidence levels of participants who experienced contradicting direction of

manipulations (i.e. participants in the “powerful/difficult” and “powerless/easy” conditions).

Attitude Dependent Measure. Finally, participants rated their attitudes towards

“eliminating the Senate bus in order to balance the college’s budget and avoid cutting funding

from academic areas” using four 9-point semantic differential sales: positive-negative, good-bad,

favorable-unfavorable and in favor-against (adapted from Briñol et al., 2007)

RESULT

All analyses were conducted using a 2(Power: powerful or powerless) x 2 (Ease of

retrieval: easy or difficult) ANOVA, unless indicated otherwise.

 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 11

Manipulation Checks

Power. Ratings from the two 9-point semantic differential scales on power manipulation

check were highly intercorrelated (Cronbach’s α=0.87) and therefore averaged to create a power

manipulation check index. Power was scored such that 1 was least powerful and 9 was most

powerful. Participants assigned to the ‘powerful’ condition reported significantly greater feeling

of power (M=7.25, SD=1.62) than did the participants in the ‘powerless’ condition (M=2.50,

SD=1.46), F(1,56)=140.63, p<.001.

Ease of Retrieval. Participants’ ratings of perceived difficulty of the counterargument

generation task was scored such that 1=not at all difficult and 9=extremely difficult. Participants

in the ‘easy’ condition reported less perceived difficulty (M=3.10, SD=2.14) than participants in

the ‘difficult’ condition (M=5.50, SD=1.72) F(1,56)=22.24, p<.001. Thus the manipulation

check items indicate that the operationalization of power and ease of retrieval was very

successful.

Thought Confidence Mediation

The effect of power and ease of retrieval manipulation on level of thought confidence

tested on a 9-point scale was scored such that higher score corresponds to higher thought

confidence. This analysis indicated that there is no significant main effect of power

manipulation on level of thought confidence: thought confidence of participants in the ‘powerful’

condition (M=7.20, SD=1.79) did not significantly differ from that of participants in the

‘powerless’ condition (M=7.00, SD=1.53), F(1,56)=.22, p=.17. Likewise, there was no

significant main effect for ease of retrieval on thought confidence. Level of thought confidence

reported by participants in the ‘easy’ condition (M=7.40, SD=1.83) did not significantly differ
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 12

from that reported by participants in the ‘difficult’ condition (M=6.80, SD=1.42), F(1,56)=.219,

p=0.64. There is also no statistically significant interaction effect between power and ease of

retrieval on thought confidence, F(1,56)=0.607, p=.44.

Attitudes

Two-way ANOVA analyses were conducted independently for each of the four 9-point

attitude measures. These dependent measures were scored such that the more unfavorable

attitude was the assigned higher score. The main effects of power on attitudes were non-

significant across four scales: positive-negative (F(1,56)=0.07, p=.93), good-bad (F(1,56)=0.02,

p=.90), favorable-unfavorable (F(1,56)=0.06, p=.80), and in favor-against (F(1,56)=0.41,

p=.53) (See Table 1).

Table 1: Mean (and Standard Deviation) of Effect of Power Attitudes towards Bus Service

Elimination

Positive-Negative Good-Bad Favorable- In Favor-Against

Unfavorable
Powerful (n=30) 7.63 7.27 7.27 7.17
(1.45) (1.74) (2.18) (1.90)
Powerless (n=30) 7.60 7.20 7.40 7.47
(1.52) (2.19) (2.01) (1.76)

Analyses also indicated no significant main effects of ease of retrieval on attitude

towards the bus elimination across three scales: positive-negative (F(1,56)=0.66, p=.80), good-

bad (F(1,56)=0.82, p=.37), and in favor-against (F(1,56)=1.80, p=.20.) However, note that there

is a marginally significant main effect of ease of retrieval on attitudes in the favorable-

unfavorable measure, such that participants in the ‘easy’ condition reported that elimination of
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 13

the Senate bus would be less did participants in the ‘difficult’ condition, F(1,56)=3.55, p=.07

(See Table 2).

Table 2: Table 3: Mean (and Standard Deviation) of Effect of Ease of Retrieval Attitudes towards

Bus Service Elimination

Positive-Negative Good-Bad Favorable- In Favor-Against

Unfavorable
Easy (n=30) 7.57 7.47 7.83 7.63
(1.70) (1.70) (1.67) (1.67)
Difficult (n=30) 7.67 7.00 6.83 7.00
(1.24) (2.20) (2.35) (1.93)

The interaction effects of power and ease of retrieval on attitude towards eliminating the

bus were not signification across four measures: positive-negative (F(1,56)=0.01, p=.44), good-

bad (F(1,56)=0.02, p=.90), favorable-unfavorable (F(1,56)=0.77, p=.40), and in favor-against

(F(1,56)=.25, p=.62).

Because power and ease of retrieval did not have a significant effect on attitude, we were

interested in assessing whether thought confidence has direct effect on attitudes. Thought

confidence levels of participants were divided into two groups, high and low, with the mean

thought confidence score as a divider (regardless of experimental conditions). The attitude

ratings from four 9-point attitude measures (positive-negative, good-bad, favorable-unfavorable

and in favor-against) were highly intercorrelated (Cronbach’s α=0.90) and were therefore

averaged as the attitude index. The one-way ANOVA analysis indicated that participants with

higher thought confidence had more unfavorable attitudes towards bus elimination

(F(53,6)=2.66, p<.05).
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 14

DISCUSSION

The data indicated that power and ease of retrieval did not affect persuasion, contrary to

what the self-validation hypothesis would expect. Persuasion effect on eliminating bus

transportation, a subject unfavorable to the participants’ position, did not increase when

participants were less powerful and/or engaged in a difficult task (thus our first hypothesis was

not supported).

We suspect that the lack of difference in persuasion effect was caused by the absence of

thought confidence manipulation across experimental conditions. According to the self-

validation hypothesis, the consequential roles of power and ease of retrieval on persuasion relies

on an assumption that the process is mediated by increased or decreased level of thought

confidence (Petty et al., 2002). However, this mediation process is lacking in our study.

Although prior researchers established that increasing power (eg. Tormala, Briñol & Petty 2007;

Briñol et al., 2007) and ease of retrieval (eg. Wänke & Bless, 2000; Tormala et al., 2002)

increase thought confidence level, our data indicated no difference in thought confidence across

all four conditions. Participants who role-played in a powerful position, although felt

significantly more powerful, did not have higher level of thought confidence than did

participants who were in a powerless condition. Likewise, participants who generated low

number of counterarguments, although perceived the task as easier than participants who

generated high number of counterarguments, did not have higher level of thought confidence.

Note, however, that participants with higher level of thought confidence reported more

unfavorable attitude towards bus elimination as we expected. Yet, although thought confidence

affected attitude, neither power nor ease of retrieval manipulations affected attitude as the
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 15

manipulations were not mediated by thought confidence. Furthermore, our second hypothesis

relied on the interaction of thought confidence level in participants who receive one thought

confidence boosting and one thought confidence reducing variable. Since thought confidence

did not differ across experimental conditions, our second hypothesis was also not supported.

(See figure 1 for model of results).

Figure 1: Full Model of Result (p<.10(m), p<.05*, p<.001**)

Since the lack of thought confidence mediation was a reasonable reason for the null

persuasion effect, we seek to explain why this absence may have occurred. One reason may be

that the need for cognition of our subject pool is not representative of the population. Wellesley

College students are considered in the higher achieving end among average college students and

often receive empowering messages in college environment that they can be powerful leaders of

the world. Thus, although they were induced to feel powerless and engage in a difficult task,

they may have background inconsistent to these conditions and may have been able to rely on

past achievements to maintain confidence in their thoughts.

 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 16

Furthermore, unlike in prior researches on ease of retrieval where many participants in

the difficult condition failed to generate the requested number of arguments (eg. Wänke et al.,

1997), all of our participants in the difficult condition were able to generate the requested

number of counterarguments, as participants in the easy condition were able to. By successfully

completing the task, our participant pool may have experienced a unique achievement that

heightens their thought confidence no matter whether they were in the easy or difficult condition.

Ability to complete the task further suggests that our participant pool may have a relatively

higher thinking ability, a characteristic that can be crucial to persuasion effect.

One future research direction could involve examining whether different factors that lead

to high elaboration processing (i.e. motivation and personal relevance as this research aimed to

manipulate vs. ability to thoughtfully process) lead to different effects of thought confidence on

persuasion. Researchers such as Tormala, Petty and Briñol suggested that “high-ability

thinkers…might be less likely to perceive certain tasks as subjectively difficult and could there

evince a different pattern of result….perhaps extensive thoughts stemming from ability factors

would actually reduce reliance on ease of retrieval” (Tormala et al., 2002; p. 1710) Future

research might measure participants’ need of cognition (see NC scale in Cacioppo, Petty & Kao,

1984) and see the effects of high or low need of cognition levels on thought confidence level.

Nevertheless, it is also possible that thought confidence mediation occurred. Thought

confidence level may have been manipulated across experimental conditions but because we

relied on a single scale as a check for thought confidence manipulation, that single measure

could have been an invalid measure of thought confidence, especially since it may be hard for

participants to admit that they have low confidence in their own self-generated thoughts. If that
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 17

was the case, our null result may have been a result of other confounds. This is because we

believe that type II error occurred, since there should have been at least a main effect on either

power or ease on persuasion consistent to prior research findings on this topic if not for some

confounding variable. Hence, we will evaluate the instruments used in our study and discuss

possible source of error.

A possible source of error could have been the subject of the persuasive message. The

message was intent to act as a strong and personally relevant central cue to induce high

elaboration persuasion against participants’ prior attitude. However, compared to a similar

research that presented a message proposing a comprehensive exam that students have to take to

graduate that will be implemented in two years (Tormala et al., 2002), this study’s message

topic on eliminating the college’s bus transportation may have involved participants more with

their daily lives, hence suggesting a more direct and more immediate threat to the participants’

wellbeing. Compared to the non-existing and less immediate comprehensive exam upon

graduation from college, the college’s bus transportation should be something participants were

more familiar with. Thus, arguments for why they should have the right to use the bus might be

something they could generate relatively more easily, or perhaps something they have

previously generated through their experiences of using the bus. Therefore, despite being

presented with the strong persuasive message, participants might have not been motivated to

elaborate the message and might be already equipped with counterarguments against bus

elimination before they even process the message. Moreover, one research suggested that

thought confidence can affect elaboration of a persuasive message differently when the social

consensus of the topic is viewed as negative (Petty et al., 2002). It may be possible that bus

elimination is a topic sensitive to social approval of the college’s community, and thus eliciting
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 18

a different pattern of result. Therefore, choosing a topic that is personally relevant but not

sensitive to social consensus and not too familiar on participants’ daily lives basis is a

recommended approach.

Furthermore, the operationalization of the dependent measure could also be a source of

error. This study involved only one aspect of dependent measure, which was the attitude

towards bus service elimination. This attitude measure relied more on the ease of retrieval

manipulation task (generating low or high number of counterarguments against bus elimination)

than the power manipulation task (role-playing in powerful or powerless roles). The effects of

power on attitude may have been erased when participants were presented with a more

proximate and relevant ease of retrieval manipulation. Meanwhile, as we discussed earlier, the

effect of ease of retrieval may have been inhibited given the highly familiar and personally

relevant message and the high thinking ability of our participant pool. Hence, the effects of both

the power and ease of retrieval may have been inhibited due to the dependent measure

operationalization.

Finally, it may be possible that the finding contrary to the self-validation hypothesis was

not a result of a type II error but that hypothesis was inapplicable to the two-thought confidence

variables scenario. A prominent difference between this study’s approach and that of prior

studies on this topic was the examination of two variables of the ELM instead of one. We

expected that two variables manipulating thought confidence in the same direction would

increase the persuasion effect even more than in the one variable case.

For example, we expected that feeling powerful would increase people’s thought

confidence and inhibit their elaboration of a persuasive message against their prior views. Then,
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 19

being given a relatively easy task would boost confidence in their thoughts against the

persuasive message even more, thus causing less persuasion effect. However, the fact that two

variables were presented may possibly cancel out each other’s effect on level of thought

confidence instead of doubling it. Perhaps those who felt powerful may have become confident

in the subsequent task no matter if it was an easy or difficult task, meaning that the effect of

power on thought confidence may have been used during the ease of retrieval manipulation task

and thus have no effect on the subsequent attitude measure.

Furthermore, the lack of difference in persuasion effect for participants who were

induced to feel low thought confidence through both variable manipulations may also be

explained in a similar manner. We expected that those who felt powerless would have low

thought confidence and become more susceptible to the persuasive message against their

attitudes. Then when given a difficult task to generate counterargument against the message, the

perceived difficulty would make them even less confident about their prior attitude and

therefore increased persuasion effect. However, it may have been that those who felt powerless

may needed to compensate for lacking thought confidence by using the subsequent ease of

retrieval task; generating counterarguments consistent to their prior attitudes might have served

to boost thought confidence.

The null effect in the interaction between one high thought confidence and one low

thought confidence manipulation could also be explained in terms of two manipulations

neutralizing each other. Feeling powerful may have lead to higher thought confidence and less

need to process the persuasive message against the participants’ views. Then being presented

with a subsequent difficult task may lower their thought confidence but not the thought
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 20

confidence pertaining the persuasive message because the effect of power already inhibit

persuasion prior to the difficult task. On the other hand, those who were induced to feel

powerless may be more motivated to process the message, but then became highly confident in

the counterarguments they later generated against the message in the easy task, and therefore

showed no persuasion effect.

In order to determine whether the effects of thought confidence were neutralized across

two variables, it is crucial to determine level of thought confidence once right after the first

variable manipulation and again after the second variable manipulation. Future research should

examine whether having more than one variables of thought confidence result in a different

pattern in persuasion effect from what the self-validation hypothesis would expect. Such finding

would have important implications to the applicability of the self-validation hypothesis, as it is

likely for various stimuli to influence thought confidence simultaneously in the real world.
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 21

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I: Role-Play Script

Vice President Performance instruction:

Act as if you have complete control over the work setting, the evaluation of the Secretary, and
the ability to fire her.

Secretary Performance instruction:

Act as if you have no control over the work setting, how the work was done, or the evaluation
process.

Script: Role-playing of the Vice President and Secretary

VP and Secretary stand and sit respectively.

Vice President: Mary, I see you were late again today. I have heard complaints from other
employees over the past week concerning your recurring tardiness.

Secretary: I’m really, really sorry! It’s just that I’ve had—

*Vice President- cuts Secretary off.

Vice President: I do not have time for excuses, Mary. Because of your lateness, you haven’t
finished your work. At this point you have fallen behind on a number of tasks.

Secretary: I— I didn’t think I was behind…

Vice President: Mary, I needed the corporate account copies made three days ago.

Secretary: Ms. Smith, I am so sorry. I can make those copies right away.

Vice President: My concern is not only the copies, Mary. The letters that were supposed to be
sent to our international branches never made it out of your office. I have received calls from
two companies expressing their discontent.

Secretary: Ms. Smith, I really am sorry. I’m just—I’m overwhelmed. I wasn’t aware. And my
life and work… it has been so—

*Vice President- cuts Secretary off.

Vice President: I do not care what it has been like, Mary. This is a business. I need employees
who can complete the tasks I assign.
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 22

Secretary: But, Ms. Smith, I can complete the tasks! I can do them right now.

Vice President: Mary, I needed the work last week, at the appointed time. (Silent pause)
I cannot listen to your excuses anymore, Mary. I have hired a replacement for you. They will be
coming in at 10:30 on the dot. Please gather your things and see yourself out.

---End of Role Play Script ---

 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 23

APPENDIX II: Power Manipulation Check & ‘Filler’ Questions

For each question, please circle the dot that best reflects your attitude.

1. How realistic did you find the role-playing situation?

. . . . . . . . .
Not at all realistic Extremely

2. How comfortable did you feel with the role-playing situation?

. . . . . . . . .
Not at all comfortable Extremely

3. How nervous were you during the role-playing situation?

. . . . . . . . .
Not at all nervous Extremely

4. When you were in the role-playing situation, how powerful did you feel?

. . . . . . . . .
Not at all Very

5. In the role-playing situation, how much control did you feel you had over what
happened?

. . . . . . . . .
None A great deal
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 24

6. Please estimate the length of the role-play in minutes.

_______ minute(s)

7. Please estimate the number of times you made eye contact with your role-play partner
a. One to three times
b. Four to ten times
c. Eleven or more times

8. How would you describe your role-playing partner’s tone of voice (i.e. what kind of
emotions did they express) during the role-play?

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

9. How would you describe your tone of voice (i.e. what kind of emotions did you express)
during the role-play?

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

10. How much acting experience do you have?

. . . . . . . . .
None A great deal

11. What role did you play? (Please circle one)

Vice President Secretary

 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 25

APPENDIX III: Persuasive Message & Ease of Retrieval Manipulation Task

Wellesley Issue Informational Paragraph

Please read the following information about budget cuts at Wellesley College and answer the
subsequent questions.

Due to the recent economic crisis and resulting decrease in the College’s endowment, the
Wellesley College Board of Trustees is looking to reduce the College’s annual operating budget.
Many budget cuts (such as closing the Bebee and Cazenove dining halls and eliminating the
morning and afternoon Senate Bus service) have already occurred and more will be needed. All
expenditures at the college are being reviewed, but it is important to the Board that academics at
Wellesley not be affected by budget cuts, so cuts in non-academic areas are the first things that
are being discussed. One large, non-academic cost in the operating budget is the transportation
provided to students from Wellesley into Cambridge and Boston on the weekends (known as the
“Senate Bus”). Eliminating the Senate Bus is a top choice for budget cuts because it would
allow other aspects of campus and academic life to remain intact, and the issue of student
transportation could be dealt with by students choosing to use public transportation systems
such as the Commuter Rail. Student representatives on the Transportation Advisory Committee,
a subcommittee of the Board of Trustees, are currently gathering information about the effects
the elimination of the Senate Bus would have on students.

As students, your opinions on this issue are important to the College’s decision-making process.

[For ‘Easy’ Condition]: Please think about this issue and list 2 reasons you think the Senate Bus
should not be eliminated.

[For ‘Difficult’ Condition]: Please think about this issue and list 10 reasons you think the
Senate Bus should not be eliminated.
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 26

Appendix IV: Ease of Retrieval Manipulation Check

How difficult did you find it to generate the requested number of reasons?

. . . . . . . . .
Not at all difficult Extremely difficult
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 27

Appendix V: Thought confidence mediation check

1. How valid do you believe the reasons you listed are?

. . . . . . . . .
Not at all valid Extremely valid
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 28

APPENDIX VI: Dependent Measure

Attitude towards Wellesley Issue

Please rate your attitude toward the issue of eliminating the Senate Bus using the 4 scales below.
Please circle the dot that best reflects your attitude.

1. I think eliminating the Senate Bus in order to balance the College’s budget and avoid
cutting funding from academic areas would be

. . . . . . . . .
Positive Negative

2. I think eliminating the Senate Bus in order to balance the College’s budget and avoid
cutting funding from academic areas would be

. . . . . . . . .
Bad Good

3. I think eliminating the Senate Bus in order to balance the College’s budget and avoid
cutting funding from academic areas would be

. . . . . . . . .
Unfavorable Favorable

4. To what extent are you in favor of or against the elimination of the Senate Bus in order
to balance the College’s budget and avoid cutting funding from academic areas?

. . . . . . . . .
In favor of Against
 Pariya Sripakdeevong (Will) 29

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