Counter-attitudinal advocacy: Effort vs. self-generation of arguments

This study compared the extent of attitude change related to the expenditure of effort vs. self-generation of arguments in a counter-attitudinal advocacy paradigm. Introductory psychology students (N = 60) wrote a counter-attitudinal essay on subliminal persuasion that either (1) summarized those arguments that they personally believed to be most effective, (2) outlined the arguments presented in a lecture series or (3) discussed a topic unrelated to the experiment. The results indicated that self-generation of arguments was more effective than the expenditure effort in changing the participant's attitudes and subsequent behavior.