Persistence of the resistance to persuasion induced by various types of prior belief defenses.

Abstract

The following hypotheses were tested: (a) the immunity conferred by refutational defenses decays less rapidly than that conferred by supportive defenses; (b) within the refutational-defense conditions, the conferred resistance to attacks by counterarguments (other than the explicitly refuted ones) decays less rapidly than resistance to attacks by the very counterarguments refuted; (c) there is a delayed action effect in the immunity to attacks by novel counterarguments conferred by the refutation defense. Ss served in 2 experimental sessions, the 1st involved reading defensive articles on medical truisms, the 2nd a defensive treatment on another truism and then attacks on previously defended and undefended truisms. All 3 hypotheses were confirmed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)