Opinion change as a function of the communicator's desire to influence and liking for the audience

Abstract

This experiment investigated the effect of how much the audience thinks a communicator likes them on how the perception of a desire to persuade affects opinion change. As predicted, if a communicator was described as liking students, college students agreed with him more when he said he hoped to influence people in colleges than when he did not care about influencing them, and, if he disliked students, they agreed less when he hoped to influence them than when he did not care. The interaction between liking for the audience and desire to persuade was significant even when the communicator's attractiveness was controlled. Unexpectedly, when the communicator's attractiveness was controlled, agreement with him was significantly greater if he disliked students than if he liked them when he did not care whether be influenced them.