Paradoxical Effects of Persuasive Messages

The same persuasive message can be intctpt red in a positive or negative way, challenging our ability to predict its effectiveness. Here, we analyze theoretically and experimentally how causal reasoning contributes to this process of interpretation and can produce attitude reversals due to the network stnicture of beliefs. We conduct two vignette experiments, one based on the famous slogan of the car rental agency Avis ("We're No. 2-that means we try harder"), and the other based on online product reviews. When participants contextual beliefs about the economic environment are manipulated, message effectiveness changes as predicted by a Bayesian mechanism in which seemingly negative infounation is "explained away" in a more positive light, or vice versa. Thus, causal reasoning may help account for certain counterintuitive kinds of high-level attitude change.