Influences of the Matching Effects of Cognitive and Emotional Factors on Attitude Change
Published in Cognitive Science Society, 2017
Abstract
This research investigates whether the magnitude of attitude change is influenced by the matching of cognitive and emotional factors when their intensity is held constant. The study is grounded in the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), which posits that high-involvement individuals are more susceptible to persuasion via the central route (cognitive), while low-involvement individuals are more influenced by the peripheral route (emotional). This framework aligns with the concept of a matching effect in attitude change, which predicts that an attitude will change more significantly when the influencing factor (e.g., cognitive or emotional) matches the factor that originally formed the attitude. However, past research on this topic has not adequately controlled for the intensity of these factors, making it difficult to isolate the true effect of matching.