Factors determining information processing style

2.6.1 Personal relevance and task importance

Situational factors, such as how relevant a message is, and how important the task is, influence the desired level of confidence and subsequent processing style. Petty, Cacioppo and Goldman (1981) demonstrated that when participants were presented with a personally relevant message (considering policy changes that would be implemented during their time at

university) compared to a message low in personal relevance (considering policy changes that would be implemented in ten years when they would no longer be at university), they processed a message more carefully and were not as influenced by heuristic cues. The same findings were obtained when Chaiken and Maheswaran (1994) manipulated task importance. Participants were either told that their opinions would weigh very heavily in the manufacturer’s decision to distribute a product that the participants were asked to evaluate, or that their opinions were not very important as they would be averaged with the opinions of others. Those participants who were told that their viewpoints would be instrumental in the company’s distribution policy demonstrated significantly more systematic processing than participants in the low task importance condition. In this instance, systematic processing was indexed by the number of attribute-related thoughts an individual reported during a thought- listing task, and by the number of persuasive arguments that were recalled.

2.6.2 Negative mood

Cognition and affect are intimately linked; Zajonc (1980) argued that “feeling is not free of thought, nor is thought free of feeling” (p. 154). This section will review the evidence that affective states influence the style of information processing that is deployed. First, the effect of induced and naturally occurring mood states on processing styles will be reviewed, before the exploration of studies examining specific mood states.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that negative mood states are associated with extended cognitive processing (Ambady & Gray, 2002; Batra & Stayman, 1990; Tiedens & Linton, 2001). Bohner, Bless, Schwarz and Strack (1988) informed participants that they had either performed well or poorly on a test. Alongside this, participants were also provided with information about how likely they were to perform well/poorly based on the (fictional) percentages scores experienced by previous participants. Bohner et al. (1988) demonstrated that, after receiving negative information about performance on a test, participants generated more causal reasons for the performance than individuals who received positive feedback. This effect occurred regardless of how probable the outcome was. Bohner et al. (1988) argue that this study provides clarity on previously confounded studies containing negative events that were less probable, and they suggest that increased causal reasoning when in a negative mood is not the result of a need to explain unexpected events. Thus, Bohner et al. (1988) suggested that the findings may be due to a general systematic approach to information processing when in a negative mood state and they hypothesised three possible reasons for

why a negative mood state results in greater causal reasoning. Firstly, enhanced causal reasoning may serve a protective function; searching for causal reasons makes it more likely that the individual will identify external and self-irrelevant causes. Secondly, it may enable individuals to avoid similar states in the future. This bears remarkable similarity to the deployment of worrying as a coping strategy for avoiding negative outcomes (Borkovec, 1994). Lastly, Bohner et al. (1988) suggest that causal thinking reduces the intensity of emotions, and can function as a mood control strategy.

Bohner, Crow and Erb (1992) constructed a set-up in which the participants found a coin (positive mood induction) or an onion (neutral mood induction) in a phone booth. A confederate (unaware of the participant’s mood state) asked to use the phone before the participant. The confederate either provided a strong argument (their boss would only be in the office for a few more minutes) or gave no reason in the weak argument condition. Participants in the neutral group showed differential processing by indicating greater willingness to let the confederate use the phone first when a strong argument was presented compared to when no reason was given. There was no difference based on argument strength in the willingness to let the confederate use the phone first in the positive mood condition (suggesting that argument quality was not processed). In a second experiment, participants were induced into a negative or positive mood (through false feedback on a test) and then interacted with a confederate who asked for donations to a charity. The request included a manipulation of argument strength (weak vs. strong) and consensus cue (weak - few names on the donation list - vs. strong - many names on the donation list). Individuals in a positive mood were more likely to donate money, and this was not affected by the strength of the arguments or the consensus cue. Conversely, in the negative mood condition, donations were greatly reduced when a weak argument was presented in combination with a weak consensus cue, as compared to the conditions with either a strong argument or a strong cue. The authors argue that this supports the HSM principle that individuals will process and integrate “all

useful information in forming their judgements” (Chaiken et al., 1989, p.212, italics added by

Bohner et al., 1992).

Batra and Stayman (1990) also investigated the effects of positive (vs. neutral) mood on cognitive elaboration and subsequent attitudes. Following a mood induction procedure participants were asked to read an advert for a bank that contained either three strong or three weak arguments. Batra and Stayman (1990) found that the positive mood group

reported less cognitive elaboration (consisting of support arguments and counter-arguments) during a thought listing task than the neutral mood group. It seems that positive mood decreases cognitive elaboration. The positive mood group evaluated the message arguments more favourably than the neutral group (as indicated by the lower counter-arguments: total elaboration ratio). This indicates that a positive mood reduces the number of counter- arguments generated as a function of total elaboration.

Bodenhausen, Sheppard and Kramer (1994) investigated the impact of specific negative moods on processing styles. They used recall of personal memories to induce anger and sadness. Participants underwent a task in which they were asked to take the role of a member of a judicial board. Stereotyped information about the defendants was provided for half of the participants. Ratings were taken of the likelihood of the defendant’s guilt. Stereotype activation did not affect the guilt ratings in the sad and neutral mood conditions, but stereotyped individuals were rated as more guilty in the anger mood condition. Bodenhausen et al.’s (1994) study suggests individuals in an angry mood are more likely to use stereotypes, and that individuals in a sad and neutral mood are less likely to rely on stereotyped information. In a second experiment, Bodenhausen et al. (1994) found that participants in an angry mood were more likely to agree with an expert source in a persuasion setting than individuals in a sad or neutral mood. The third experiment indicated a non-significant trend towards individuals in an angry mood agreeing more with trustworthy sources compared to individuals in a sad or neutral mood. Consequently, in all three of Bodenhausen et al.’s experiments, angry negative mood states were found to be more associated with a willingness to use heuristics than sad negative mood states. This fits with the work of Tiedens and Linton (2001) who suggest that it is the amount of certainty associated with an emotion that dictates whether heuristic or systematic processing are deployed, rather than the valence per se. Tiedens and Linton (2001) argue that emotions associated with certainty (happiness, anger) generate heuristic processing, while emotions associated with uncertainty (fear, anxiety, sadness) lead to systematic processing.

The exact mechanisms through which negative moods result in more deliberative processing are unclear. Some argue that it is because negative moods provide information about existing threats that require further consideration (e.g., Scott & Cervone, 2002). If an individual interprets that there is a threat in their environment, it is probable that they will also experience heightened accountability, responsibility, need for cognition, and desire for

control. Consequently one possibility is that negative moods exert their effect on systematic processing by impacting on a whole host of cognitive variables that raise an individual’s sufficiency threshold.

2.6.3 Accountability

Accountability is defined as the pressure to justify one’s opinions to others. It promotes effortful information processing in an attempt to avoid judgements that could cause embarrassment (e.g., Livingston & Sinclair, 2008). Experimental manipulations of accountability involve informing the high accountability group that they will need to justify their ideas to others (e.g. Erb, Pierro, Mannetti, Spiegel, & Kruglanski, 2007). Tetlock (1983) recognised that the impact of accountability on processing is not consistent; it is dependent in part on whether the participant is aware of the views of the person that they are accountable to. This places the motivating factor of accountability closely in the realm of impression motivation, an idea supported by Chen et al. (1996). Tetlock (1983) argued that if the participant is aware, then they can adopt a heuristic-style approach and simply select the socially acceptable viewpoint. However, if the participant is unaware of the views of the person they are accountable to then they may wish to engage in more effortful processing so that they can successfully justify their views. According to this hypothesis, effortful processing should occur in the group of individuals who are justifying their views to an individual whose views are unknown, but not when they are justifying their ideas to an individual described as liberal or conservative. In the latter groups, Tetlock predicted that a tactical attitudinal shift would occur, with the participant moving the attitudes that they have to justify closer to that of the liberal or conservative person. The pattern of results obtained by Tetlock (1983) supported these hypotheses, and suggests that accountability only motivates more effortful information processing when the heuristic of agreeing with the other person’s views is not available.

2.6.4 Responsibility

Responsibility also promotes systematic processing. Bohner et al., (1995) have suggested that responsibility increases systematic processing by increasing task importance and raising sufficiency thresholds. Some authors have linked responsibility to Tetlock’s (1983) conception of accountability. For example, individuals may engage in “responsible” processing when they are consciously concerned about their reputation as a thinker (1989). Uleman suggests that systematic processing can form part of responsible processing, in which

individuals are motivated to scrutinise information with greater intentional control to ensure it meets accountability standards (for others and themselves). Interestingly, perceptions of responsibility are affected by mood states; individuals induced into a negative mood reported feeling more responsible than participants induced into a neutral mood (Tiedens & Linton, 2001). Chaiken et al. (1989) report that participants given sole responsibility versus shared responsibility for evaluating messages were more motivated to engage in systematic processing.

2.6.5 Need for cognition

Need for cognition (NFC) is defined as “a need to structure relevant situations in meaningful, integrated ways” (Cohen, Stotland, & Wolfe, 1955, p. 291), and individuals who possess high levels of NFC are likely to find systematic processing less aversive in terms of its cognitive expenditure. The ways in which an individual wishes to structure information to make it ‘meaningful’ and ‘integrated’ vary as a function of individual and situational factors (Cohen et al., 1955). Batra and Stayman (1990) found that high NFC individuals demonstrated greater elaboration of ideas relating to a message. Cacioppo, Petty, and Morris (1983) provided individuals with messages varying in argument quality. Participants who were high NFC showed a greater impact of argument quality on their post-message attitudes, indicating that they had deployed systematic processing to a greater extent than their low NFC counterparts. Cohen et al. (1955) suggest that situations in which an individual is unable to achieve the amount of cognition that they desire, such as situations that are ambiguous, create frustration. What is more, Cohen et al. (1955) demonstrated that individuals who are high/medium NFC more readily identify situations as being ambiguous than low-NFC individuals. This raised perception of ambiguity is likely to increase an individual’s desire to systematically process information.

2.6.6 Desire for control

Desire for control is the motive to control events in one’s life. Systematic processing may be deployed in an attempt to maximize control (Burger & Cooper, 1979). Maheswaran and Chaiken (1991) report that situational factors, such as control deprivation, and dispositional factors, like desire for control, increase the extensiveness of message processing. They postulate that this is due to raised sufficiency thresholds, with the consequence that more systematic processing is required in order to meet the sufficiency threshold. Kofta and Sedek (1998) suggest that a loss of control motivates an individual to deploy cognitive

resources in an attempt to try to regain control, and that a loss of control may in fact free up cognitive resources for deployment.

Each of the factors described in Section 2.6 (negative mood, accountability, responsibility, NFC, and desire for control) can be considered systematic processing facilitators, in that they can all act to raise an individual’s sufficiency threshold (Cacioppo, et al., 1983; Chaiken, et al., 1989; 1998; Lee, Herr, Kardes, & Kim, 1999; Maheswaran & Chaiken, 1991), as shown in Figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1 Schematic diagram of variables that increase the likelihood systematic processing will be deployed.