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THE EFFECT OF MASSED VERSUS SPACED
ARGUMENTS ON PERSUASION
by
Brian M. Monroe
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(PSYCHOLOGY)
August 2008
Copyright 2008 Brian M. Monroe
Object Description
| Title | The effect of massed versus spaced arguments on persuasion |
| Author | Monroe, Brian M. |
| Author email | monroe@usc.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Psychology |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2008-06-09 |
| Date submitted | 2008 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2008-07-22 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Read, Stephen J. |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Miller, Norman Lu, Zhong-Lin Priester, Joseph |
| Abstract | A manipulation of persuasive messages was explored to see what would result in more attitude change, such that two formats of presenting a series of arguments were used: massed and spaced. In massed presentation, five arguments were presented at once, and thought about all at the same time; in spaced presentation, the same five arguments were presented one-at-a-time, and thought about one-at-a-time. In the first experiment, control factors were used to account for confounding explanations, and spaced presentation resulted in more attitude change, regardless of the control conditions. The second experiment used two different argument sets, and found that spaced presentation was more effective than massed regardless of the argument set. A mediational analysis partially supported a cognitive response mediation explanation for the original set of arguments, but not for the alternate set. A third experiment showed that a distraction manipulation did not moderate the massed versus spaced effect, counter to the cognitive response explanation. A fourth experiment failed to moderate the effect with a set of counterarguing instructions, also inconsistent with the cognitive response explanation, but the effectiveness of the manipulation was questionable. A fifth experiment used a set of instructions to ensure serial order consideration of massed arguments, and the result failed to replicate. Overall, the results most support the idea that the robust massed versus spaced effect does not depend on elaboration of message content, but instead is a low-effort heuristic where people feel like they have considered more information, and thus their attitudes change more. Future experiments will need to follow up on this possibility to confirm the explanation for the effect. |
| Keyword | attitudes; persuasion; spacing effects |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m1381 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Monroe, Brian M. |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@dots.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Monroe-20080722 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume14/etd-Monroe-20080722.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@dots.usc.edu |
| Full text | THE EFFECT OF MASSED VERSUS SPACED ARGUMENTS ON PERSUASION by Brian M. Monroe A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (PSYCHOLOGY) August 2008 Copyright 2008 Brian M. Monroe |
