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Devil’s Advocate or Advocate of Oneself: Effects of Numerical Support on Proand Counterattitudinal Self-Persuasion

University of Amsterdam, sp_gordijn{at}macmail.psy.uva.nl

Tom Postmes

University of Amsterdam

Nanne K. de Vries

University of Amsterdam

The impact of minority and majority support on attitude change is examined in a self-persuasion task. Two studies show that pro-attitudinal advocacy for the majority leads to more self-persuasion than does advocacy for the minority. In contrast, devil’s advocacy for a minority leads to stronger self-persuasion than for a majority. No differences are found with respect to the number and nature of the arguments generated. Results suggest that self-persuasion is mediated by the extent to which one perceives the group of people argued for as similar to oneself. Two follow-up studies manipulating similarity to the group argued for support of this notion. When arguing for an ingroup, arguing for the majority is more self-persuasive than is arguing for the minority. Conversely, arguing for an outgroup leads to stronger self-persuasion for a minority than for a majority, because the minority is perceived as less threatening.

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