Analysis
Cognitive Dissonance and the Effectiveness of Persuasive Communications
James O. Whittaker The Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Winter, 1964), 547-555.

  1. Discrepancies of communication. The context of the term discrepancy here appears to mean facts that are divergent from the audience's perspective on an issue.
    1. Measured in terms of small, medium, and large
  2. Issue value: The involvement of the audience in an issue.
    1. Measured in terms of Low, medium, or high involvement of an issue.
  3. Divergence of opinion between the presenter and the audience. The term divergent appears to mean the salience of the proposal.
  4. Attitude discrepancies
    1. Ranging from small to large
  5. Latitude of Acceptance
    1. Communication occuring within the lattitude of acceptance will reinforce the position of the person and result in little or no action or change in attitude of the person. Because the person will have accepted the argument, there will be no cognitive dissonance, and hence, no action.
  6. Latitiude of Rejection
    1. Communication occuring within the lattitude ot rejection will reinforce the position of the subject and result in a boomerang effect. Leading the subject to conclude that the communication is biased and propagandists.
  7. Intermediate Latitude between Acceptance and Rejection
    1. Extreme positions
      1. Extreme positions are taken on specific issues based on social norms.
      2. People holding extreme positions will have a much narrower range of intermediate lattitude between acceptance and rejection. Hence the term "narrow minded."
    2. Moderate positions
      1. Moderate positions are taken on specific issues based on social norms.
      2. People holding moderate positions will have a much wider range of intermediate lattitude than their ranges of absolute acceptance and rejection at the ends of the spectrum. Hence the term "wider range of possibilities."
  8. Ego involvement
    1. Some people have a stake in maintaining a position on an issue, regardless of the evidence.
      1. Loss of political constituency. (i.e. Ariel Sharon and Yassir Arafat)
      2. Fear of others losing respect for one's "steadfastness" and being called a "flip-flopper"
Fact inevidability hypothesus Position adoption hypothesus. Ideological fixation hypothesus
Favorable evaluation of the communication would decrease as the distance between the position of the communication and the attitude of the subject increased. [supported by The Devil Shift] The subject's perception of the position of the communication would be a function of the subjects own position on the issue. Small discrepancies would result in the subject's perceiving the communication's position as being more in line with his own than it actually was. Larger discrepancies would result in a lesser tendency for the subject to shift the position of the communication toward his own position. Subjects holding extreme positions on an issue would tend to reject more alternative positions than they would accept. Tolerance for stands other than one's own would be reduced as the position of the subject moves from intermediate, or moderate, to extreme.
The result of the experiment show that there is an optimal discrepancy that results in maximum shifts, and that smaller discrepancies and larger discrepancies both yield negligable positive or negative shifts. Extremely large discrepancies have been shown to cause a significant negative or boomerang shift. 85 percent of the subjects whose own stands were close to the position of the speaker tended to view his presentation as fair and impartial, whule 75 per cent of the subjects holding apposed stands viewed the speech as biased and propagandistic. Subjects holding extreme positions rejected almost twice as many items as they accepted. Tus, their tolerance for positions other than their own (latutude of acceptance) was much smaller that that for subjects with intermediate positions, who tended to reject only slightly more items than they accepted.