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Antecedents and Consequences of Perceiving a Source as Biased

Wallace, Laura Emily

Abstract Details

2015, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, Psychology.
How might the quality of arguments that sources present affect how much receivers view them as biased? Relevant studies have demonstrated that the level of agreement between the source and recipient can affect when people will view others as biased. However, no work has explored how aspects of the message might affect how much receivers view the source as biased. In several experiments manipulating the argument quality of a message, the current work demonstrates that sources who provide strong arguments for their position are less likely to be seen as biased than those who provide weak arguments. When people provide weak arguments to support their opinion, it is unclear why they would take that position. Receivers must make an attribution for the weakly supported endorsement, and they could reasonably conclude that the source is biased. There has been very little work on how perceiving a source as biased might affect persuasion, but the current work demonstrates two consequences. In the first two studies, perceiving a source as biased on one message can prompt them to test whether a source is biased in other domains. Second, Studies 3 and 4 demonstrate that perceiving a source as biased can result in more negative processing of a message when receivers are elaborating on the message and the quality of the message is ambiguous. Ultimately, this process makes the source less persuasive.
Duane Wegener (Advisor)
Kentaro Fujita (Committee Member)
Richard Petty (Committee Member)
89 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Wallace, L. E. (2015). Antecedents and Consequences of Perceiving a Source as Biased [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1430996325

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Wallace, Laura. Antecedents and Consequences of Perceiving a Source as Biased. 2015. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1430996325.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Wallace, Laura. "Antecedents and Consequences of Perceiving a Source as Biased." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1430996325

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)