Psychological Bulletin 1973, Vol. 80, No.

4, 310-323

THE RELATION BETWEEN DISTRACTION AND PERSUASION

ROBERT STEVEN BARON 2 AND PENNY H. BARON University of Iowa NORMAN MILLER University of Southern California Distracting subjects while they are exposed to a persuasive message enhances persuasive impact in certain situations. This article reviews the research concerning this relation between distraction and persuasion. It evaluates the various competing explanations for the distraction effect and highlights some major conceptual issues in need of empirical attention. The conclusions are that (a) the distraction effect does have empirical validity which generalizes across a good many experimental contexts; (6) despite this experimental generality, distraction is not likely to prove useful as a mass persuasion technique although it may prove powerful in specific settings; (c) results indicating that distraction can reduce persuasive impact do not necessarily invalidate theoretical explanations of the distraction effect; (d) whether pleasant distractions will be more or less effective at heightening persuasion than unpleasant distractions appears to be a function of whether subjects can easily ignore the distraction during the message; and (e) both disruption of the counterarguing process and the need to justify effort expenditure are, at present, equally promising comprehensive interpretations of the existing data. Other explanations are not as compelling.

In 1964, Festinger and Maccoby reported that a message produced more persuasion among subjects who were simultaneously distracted than among nondistracted subjects. This finding provoked a good deal of research. While some studies both replicate Festinger and Maccoby's original distraction effect and support their interpretation, others find precisely the oppositedistraction reduces attitude change. This review presents the relevant literature and evaluates various explanations for the effects distraction has on persuasion. Hopefully this process will clarify important issues and indicate fruitful areas for research.

evaluating speakers' personality (Miller & Baron, 1968), slides (Rosenblatt, 1966; Sharmo & Meador, 1969; Zimbardo, Ebbesen, & Fraser, 1969b), sound effects (Rule & Rehill, 1970), radio static (Silverman & Regula, 1968), and adding task (Zimbardo, Snyder, Thomas, Gold, & Gurwitz, 1970). Indeed several of these research papers (Osterhouse & Brock, 1970; Zimbardo et al., 1969b; Zimbardo et al., 1970) reported more than one successful demonstration of -the effect. In addition, Dorris (1967) and Freedman and Sears (1965) reported marginally significant distraction effects. Moreover, this does not exhaust the list. In these studies, distraction was GENERALITY OF THE DISTRACTION EFFECT conceptualized either as the presentation of At present, significant increments in per- absorbing sensory stimulation (irrelevant to suasion have been produced with a variety of the speech) or the requirement that subjects distracting tasks: film (Festinger & Maccoby, perform irrelevant activity during a message. 1964), light monitoring task (Keating & If we accept these conceptualizations as a Brock, 1971; Osterhouse & Brock, 1970), working definition of distraction, it also seems copying task (Kiesler & Mathog, 1968), sensible to include the studies of Zimbardo (1965), Zimbardo and Ebbesen (1970), and 1 This article was written while the first and second Janis, Kaye, and Kirschner (1965) as inauthors held Old Gold summer fellowships from the stances of the distraction effect. The first two University of Iowa. 2 Requests for reprints should be sent to Robert involve the effects of reading under delayed Steven Baron, Department of Psychology, University auditory feedback and the latter concerns the pf Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242. effects of eating while reading. In short, given 310

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19 confirmations of the effect, early concern over its "empirical validity" (McGuire, 1966, 1968) no longer seems appropriate. The distraction effect also has a fair amount of generality. First, it has been produced by a wide variety of distractions (see above listing). Second, it generalizes across at least 20 different message topics. Third, it has been observed in situations where the message is presented by a communicator in person (Freedman & Sears, 1965), on tape (Rosenblatt, 1966), or film (Festinger & Maccoby, 1964); and by printed material to be read silently (Rule & Rehill, 1970) or aloud by the subject (Zimbardo, 1965). Finally, it is not specific to any one procedure, experimental design, or cover story. Distraction has heightened message impact in designs measuring attitudes both before and after the message (e.g., Rule & Rehill, 1970), in "after-only" designs (e.g., Festinger & Maccoby, 1964), and in both single (e.g., Osterhouse & Brock, 1970) and multiple treatments designs (e.g., Kiesler & Mathog, 1968). Likewise, distraction effects occur in studies where subjects participate in groups (e.g., Freedman & Sears, 1965) or alone (e.g., Osterhouse & Brock, 1970). While most distraction studies have employed college students as subjects, distraction effects have been reported by Mann 3 and Freedman and Sears who both used high school students, and by Miller and Baron (1968) who recruited,women in laundromats. Furthermore, distraction effects have occurred in conjunction with at least nine different cover stories. The only major limit on the external validity of the distraction effect is that every study except one (the second study reported by Zimbardo & Ebbesen, 1970) relied on questionnaire data. Thus, in almost every case, data were collected among subjects who were aware that they were under scrutiny. Consequently, it remains possible that demand characteristics and/or subjects' concerns about self-presentation mediate the effect (see section on Reactivity below).
3 L. Mann. The use of distraction as a technique for the modification of attitudes. Paper presented at the meeting of the Australian Psychological Society, 1966.

FAILURES TO REPLICATE At present, at least seven studies have failed to replicate the distraction effect (Miller & Baron, 1968, Study 2; Miller & Levy, 1967; Vohs & Garrett, 1968; and those cited below). However, in four (and possibly five)4 of these (Breitrose, 1966; Gardner, 1966; Haaland & Venkatesan, 1968; Zimbardo, Ebbesen, & Fraser, 1969a), the distraction interfered with recall of message content. Since Festinger and Maccoby (1964, p. 360) recognized that distraction could only enhance persuasion if it did not interfere with comprehension of the persuasive message, these disconfirmations may not be particularly troublesome. A separate question, of course, is why distraction has interfered with recall in some studies and not others. Several factors seem relevant to this issue. A distraction would be more likely to totally divert attention from the content of a dull or noninvolving message than from an inherently interesting one. Accordingly, where distraction increases the persuasive impact of a message, subjects' involvement and interest in the topic has generally been high, and the distraction has been moderate. In contrast, in at least three of the studies that fail to replicate the effect, interest value of the messages was at best questionable, especially in relation to the intensity of the distractions employed (Breitrose, 1966; Gardner, 1966; Vohs & Garrett, 1968). For example, while Breitrose used Festinger and Maccoby's (1964) distraction, his messages concerned New Zealand politics and the negative effect of eyeglasses. A second explanation for the inconsistent effect of distraction on recall concerns whether subjects focus attention on the message or the distraction. Zimbardo et al. (1970) found that distraction increased the impact of a persuasive message only when audience attention was directed at the message. Contrariwise, when the audience was set to attend to the distraction, distraction reduced, both recall and persuasive impact relative to a nondistracted control.
Recall was not measured by Vohs and Garrett (1968), but similar distractions interfered with recall in prior work (Vohs, 1964).
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In sum, a variety of factors explain why These subjects presumably were not motivated distraction will interfere with message com- to counterargue, in that they did not oppose prehension and attitude change in some situa- the position advocated. Consequently, this tions and not in others. Unfortunately, the lack of effect supported Festinger and Macfact that a given distraction can have vari- coby's contention that distraction facilitates able effects on persuasion (e.g., Breitrose, persuasion by interfering with the counter1966; Festinger & Maccoby, 1964) makes argument process.5 The results of subsequent working with such treatments a frustrating ex- distraction research generally support this inperience unless there is opportunity for ade- terpretation. Other explanations are possible, quate pretesting. Consequently, it is likely however, and accordingly the sections below that distraction will have limited utility as a examine the various competing views. practical persuasive tool even though in many PERSONALITY EVALUATION AND THE respects the distraction effect has a high deSALIENCE OF CREDIBILITY gree of generality. However, the theoretical After the initial studies by Festinger and significance of the effect is very important and his colleagues, Freedman and Sears (1965) is discussed at length below. . independently manipulated forewarning and BACKGROUND the presence or absence of instructions to The research on distraction stems from Al- evaluate the speaker's personality (henceforth lyn and Festinger's (1961) finding that fore- referred to as "evaluation instructions"). The warned subjects tended to be less persuaded results, while only marginally significant, than nonforewarned subjects (who simply nevertheless replicated the distraction effect were told to- attend to the speaker's personal- reported by Festinger and Maccoby (1964) ity), While these data support the hypothe- and Allyn and Festinger (1961). Miller and sis that forewarning reduces persuasive im- Levy (1967), however, did not obtain this pact, Festinger and Maccoby (1964) pointed result. Subjects instructed to attend to the out that a difference between the two condi- speaker's personality (distracted condition) tions other than forewarning might produce agreed less with a persuasive message than did these results. They assumed that people sub- those instructed to simply attend to the mesvocally argue against counterattitudinal mes- sage. This led Miller and Levy to speculate sages and suggested that instructing nonfore- that evaluation instructions do not distract warned subjects to evaluate the personality subjects from counterarguing, but instead, of the speaker might distract them from focus attention on the characteristics of the effectively counterarguing, thereby leaving source and thereby enhance the salience of his credibility. Since both Allyn and Festinger them more vulnerable to persuasion. If this hypothesis is valid, then the impact and Freedman and Sears used a highly credof any message that tends to elicit counter- ible communicator, whereas Miller and Levy arguing might be enhanced by any form of used a source with relatively ambiguous creddistraction provided that it does not seriously ibility, this interpretation could reconcile the impair comprehension of the message. To inconsistent outcomes. test this hypothesis, Festinger and Maccoby Miller and Baron (1968) investigated this used an irrelevant, silent, and amusing film to question in two related experiments. In Study distract fraternity members while they list- 1, credibility was manipulated by varying (on ened to a message that advocated the aboli- tape) the speaker's accent and vocabulary. In tion of fraternities. The nondistracted sub- this study, distracted subjects changed their jects (also fraternity men) heard the same attitude more than nondistracted subjects message but the film they saw showed the when the source was highly credible (p < communicator delivering the message. Dis- .05), but when the source was not credible, tracted subjects changed their opinions more 5 A ceiling effect was unlikely for these subjects. than nondistracted subjects. Moreover, non- Their attitude scores were approximately 16 in both fraternity members exposed to the two treat- distracted and nondistracted cells, while the possible ments were not affected by the distraction. range of scores was apparently from S to 31,

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distraction had no effect on attitude change.8 While these latter data were not predicted, subjects' comments in the low-credibility condition indicated that the speaker's (negative) characteristics were particularly salient. If low credibility was quite noticeable to begin with, any effect of instructions that increase the salience of credibility would have been seriously attenuateda basement effect. The outcome of Study 2 supports this conjecture. Credibility was varied by presenting subjects with written descriptions of the speaker prior to the message. The credibility cues provided by this manipulation were presumably less salient than in Study 1, and indeed, distraction did have an effect in both high- and low-credibility conditions. Distracted subjects were less persuaded in both credibility conditions.7 Apparently the credibility manipulations only established two levels of low credibility. The manipulation check and postexperimental interviews indicated that subjects did not think the "highly credible source" was highly credible. Thus, the heightened resistance of distracted subjects in Study 2 is understandable if evaluation instructions (the distraction) do indeed enhance the salience of the source's credibility. At very least, the results of this pair of studies and of Miller and Levy (1967) are not consistent with the contention that evaluation instructions simply distract subjects from counterarguing and thus uniformly increase persuasive impact. Rather, these results indicate that evaluation instructions enhance persuasion for subjects exposed to a highly credible source and reduce it among those exposed to a source who lacks credibility. Nevertheless, it is possible that other forms of distraction do indeed enhance persuasion by disrupting the counterargument process.

THE AFFECT HYPOTHESIS Another alternative to the counterargument disruption hypothesis is that persuasive distractions are effective because they are pleasant and put the audience in a "better humor" (McGuire, 1966, p. 482), or create positive affect (Zimbardo & Ebbesen, 1969, p. 38). This "affect" explanation suggests that, compared to a no-distraction condition, pleasant distractions should increase persuasion; affectively neutral distractions should not increase persuasion; and unpleasant distractions should actually reduce persuasion. In accord with this explanation, a number of investigators found that messages accompanied by pleasant stimuli are more persuasive than those presented in the presence of noxious stimuli. Political slogans presented during a free meal received greater approval than when accompanied by a noxious odor (Razran, 1940). Similarly, subjects who had access to peanuts and Pepsi-Cola while reading a message were more persuaded than those exposed to noxious odors (Janis et al., 1965). Finally, Zimbardo et al. (1969b) found that distracting male subjects with sexually arousing slides generally increased the persuasive impact of a message more than an affectively neutral distraction. While these findings are consistent with the affect hypothesis, other explanations are possible. For example, in the Janis et al. study, the differential effectiveness of the positive and negative irrelevant stimulation might be due to the fact that passively smelling unpleasant odors does not disrupt counterarguing very much. Thus, this effect per se does not uniquely support the affect explanation. Moreover, unpleasant distractions have not consistently inhibited persuasion (in comparison to a nondistracted control cell) as predicted by this position.8 Janis et al. (196S) found that exposing subjects to a foul odor a Kiesler and Mathog (1968) argued that just such during a message did not decrease persuasion an outcome supports Festinger and Maccoby's (1964)
Such an outcome could be reconciled with the counterargument disruption hypothesis if one held that aversive distractions facilitated counterarguing by leading subjects to focus on the message in an attempt to ignore the negative stimulation. Unfortunately, such an argument has a strong post hoc flavor. The affect hypothesis, however, clearly predicts that aversive stimulation will detract from message impact.
8

hypothesis. They maintained that one exposed to a barely credible source may not need to cbunterargue since he can rely upon source derogation to resist influence. If so, and if evaluation instructions inhibit counterarguing, one would expect evaluation instructions to heighten persuasion only when the source is highly credible. 7 There were no recall differences that even approached significance (lowest p > .50).

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relative to a nondistracted control. Indeed, contrary to the affect hypothesis, three of four message topics showed a nonsignificant tendency in the opposite direction. On the other hand, Zimbardo et al. (1969a) reported data that are more consistent with this key prediction of the affect hypothesis. In two subexperiments the experimenter exposed female subjects to either gory medical slides (negative affect condition) or scenery slides (neutral affect condition) while they heard a counterattitudinal message. All subjects also heard another message while they read it from a slide in order to establish a nondistracted control condition. Both studies showed less persuasion in the negative affect conditions than in nondistracted control conditions. Further, neutral distractions generally caused more persuasion than the negative distractions, but this effect was significant only in the second subexperiment.9 Clearly the data from the Zimbardo et al. studies (1969a, 1969b) coincide nicely with the predictions made by the affect hypothesis; not only do pleasant distractions heighten persuasion more than do less pleasant distractions, but more important, an unpleasant distraction actually reduces the persuasive impact of a message. These data would constitute strong support for the affect hypothesis were it not for the fact that Rosenblatt (1966) reported a very comparable study that failed to replicate key results of Zimbardo et al. (1969a). In one condition, Rosenblatt used, as a negative distraction, dental slides that were quite similar to the unpleasant medical slides used by Zimbardo et al. Contrary to Zimbardo et al., the unpleasant dental slide distraction marginally facilitated rather than hindered the impact of the message relative to a nondistracted control group. That is, Rosenblatt's results replicated the nonsignificant trend of Janis et al. Thus, these data and the results of Zimbardo et al.'s Study 2 present a quandry, especially given the numerous differences between the two (within versus between designs, different message topics and content, different subject pools, different distractions). However, three other sets of distraction findings clearly dem9 Neutral distractions had inconsistent effects, enhancing persuasion (relative to nondistraction) in the second subexperiment and reducing it in the first.

onstrate that the affect hypothesis does not provide a comprehensive explanation for the effect that distraction has on persuasion. First, several investigators (e.g., Kiesler & Mathog, 1968; Osterhouse & Brock, 1970; Rosenblatt, 1966; Zimbardo et al., 1970) found that affectively neutral distractions heighten the impact of persuasive appeals. If distraction only affects persuasion as a function of the affect it creates,-such distractions should not enhance persuasion at all. Second, if the affect notion is correct, the relationship between distraction and persuasion should be unaffected by whether the message is a counterattitudinal one or not. However, Festinger and Maccoby (1964) indicated that a pleasant distraction increases persuasion only if the message is counterattitudinal. Third, the effect of distraction has been found to interact with variables such as credibility (Kiesler & Mathog, 1968), self-esteem (Rule & Rehill, 1970), and whether subjects attend to the message or the distraction (Zimbardo et al., 1970). The affect hypothesis is generally unable to explain such outcomes even post hoc. In sum, it is clear that while the affect hypothesis may have some validity it is inadequate as a single explanation for the relationship between distraction and persuasion. On the other hand, it is becoming apparent that in certain settings a pleasant distractor will more effectively heighten persuasion (Janis etal., 1965; Razran, 1940; Rosenblatt, 1966; Zimbardo et al., 1969b). Consequently, any explanation for the distraction effect that merits serious consideration must provide a plausible interpretation of this effect. HYPOTHESIS INVOLVING DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS Both Rosenblatt (1966) and Silverman and Regula (1968) offered hypotheses about how subjects' definitions of the experimental situation might account for the "distraction effect." Rosenblatt suggested that distraction facilitates persuasion by disguising the experiment as one on comprehension and thereby minimizing suspicion of persuasive intent. This, in turn, might enhance persuasion (a) by improving source credibility or (b) by creating a situation in which subjects do

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not concern themselves with counterarguing. Although this view is similar to Festinger and Maccoby's (1964) hypothesis, there is an important difference. Festinger and Maccoby's (p. 360) "disruption" hypothesis suggests that distraction interferes with one's ability to counterargue, whereas Rosenblatt's (p. 85) hypothesis suggests that distracted subjects are not motivated to counterargue due to reactive aspects of the experimental setting. The difference is important, for if Rosenblatt is correct, the "distraction effect" will be limited to reactive situations. That is, only when individuals feel they are being studied and evaluated are they likely to impute significance to the presence of distraction and decide that a test of comprehension is in progress. If limited to such reactive settings, then distraction would have no utility whatsoever as a practical persuasive tool. In accord with his hypothesis, Rosenblatt (1966, p. 86) found that in each of three distraction conditions subjects indicated less persuasive intent than did subjects in a nondistracted condition. As Rosenblatt pointed out, however, since suspicion was assessed after the message ended, causal direction remains ambiguous; the suspicion items may have been the first stimulus to suspicion; alternatively, the ability to muster counterarguments may arouse suspicion of persuasive intent. Another line of reasoning also bears on Rosenblatt's hypothesis. If distraction lowers suspicion of persuasive intent and if this lowered suspicion improves source credibility, more favorable source evaluations should occur in distraction conditions. Several studies (Allyn & Festinger, 1961; Festinger & Maccoby, 1964; Haaland & Venkatesan, 1968) have reported such an effect. A basic problem with Rosenblatt's hypothesis, however, is that it is not at all clear that suspicion of persuasive intent does indeed reduce the impact of a persuasive message (McGuire, 1968, p. 185; Papageorgis, 1968, p. 274). It apparently only does so when the advocated position is acceptable to the audience (Brock & Becker, 1965; Walster & Festinger, 1962). Thus, even if distraction does lower such suspicion, it is not necessarily clear that this provides an adequate explanation for the distraction effect.

The demand explanation offered by Silverman and Regula (1968) does not involve suspicion of persuasive intent. They suggested that distracted subjects' perception of the experiment as a test of comprehension led them to attend more closely to the message and comprehend it better. This, in turn, increased persuasion. They reasoned that if subjects thought the distraction (radio static) was unintentional, they would not ascribe significance to it (i.e., view the situation as a test of comprehension). At most, high unintentional distraction might annoy subjects and, therefore, inhibit attitude change. As expected, when the distraction was intentional, a higher degree of distraction did produce more attitude change. Contrary to expectation, however, the same effect tended to occur when the distraction was unintentional (p < .08). Since support for Silverman and Regula's position depends on finding no attitude differences between the two levels of unintentional distraction (or a difference in the opposite direction), the marginal effect observed seriously weakens their argument. While postexperimental assessments of perceived purpose of the experiment did conform to their predictions, the causal interpretation of data such as these is ambiguous (Rosenblatt, 1966). Moreover, there are several sets of findings that are inconsistent with Silverman and Regula's (1968) hypothesis. First, Zimbardo et al. (1969b) obtained distraction effects in a study which used an extremely plausible cover story (involving physiological reactions). It seems unlikely that these subjects viewed the experiment as a test of comprehension. Second, Silverman and Regula's heightened attention hypothesis implies that, whenever distraction heightens persuasive impact, it should yield superior comprehension of message content relative to nondistraction conditions ; yet existing data show virtually no support for this notion.10 In addition, if attention mediates the distraction effect, why should-it obtain only among those who oppose the advocated position of the message (Festinger &
10 In fact, the only significant recall differences reported have been in the opposite direction (Osterhouse & Brock, 1970; Sharmo & Meador, 1969; Zimbardo et al., 1969b).

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Maccoby, 1964)? Finally, neither of these demand interpretations explain why pleasant distractions are more effective than unpleasant ones (see section on Affect) or why the effect of distraction interacts with credibility or selfesteem.11 In short, there is little support for the contention that distracted subjects are more vulnerable to persuasion because they define the experiment as a test of memory. Thus, if the distraction effect is indeed usually a function of certain reactive arrangements, those arrangements seem to facilitate persuasion through their effect on some additional mediating process. THE COUNTERARGUMENT DISRUPTION HYPOTHESIS The prominence of Festinger and Maccoby's (1964) counterargument disruption hypothesis stems in part from its primacy, but it also reflects the importance of the counterargument concept in explaining numerous attitude change phenomena.12 This hypothesis accommodates not only much existing data manifestly concerned with distraction, but a good number of studies investigating the effects of role playing (e.g., Janis & King, 1954), eating while reading (Janis et al., 1965), and effort expenditure (Zimbardo, 1965) upon persuasion. It explains the previously noted differential effectiveness of pleasant distractions by arguing that pleasant distractions hold one's attention more, and therefore, are more disruptive. Failures to replicate the distraction effect are not compelling evidence against this hypothesis since these instances either were specific to one particular distraction (Miller & Baron, 1968; Miller & Levy, 1967) or generally involved settings where the distraction interfered with message comprehension. Finally, in several studies where distraction has had inconsistent (i.e.,
11 All three of these latter criticisms apply equally well to the notion that the distraction effect obtains because the novelty of the distraction captures subject attention and thereby produces greater learning and comprehension of the message. Thus, this novelty explanation will not be discussed in the text. 12 The process of counterargument has been used as an explanatory concept in research on distraction, forewarning (e.g., Freedman & Sears, 196S), oneversus two-sided messages (Hovland, Lumsdaine, & Sheffield, 1949), persuasive intent (Brock, 1967), and inoculation (McGuire, 1964),

interactive) effects as a function of another variable, learning or attention factors may underlie the inconsistency (Rule & Rehill, 1970; Zimbardo et al., 1970). However, the most compelling support for the disruption hypothesis derives from studies in which distraction has had differential effects only in those conditions where counterarguing was likely. For example, Festinger and Maccoby demonstrated that distraction failed to have differential effects among subjects who agreed with the advocated position of the message. The intuitive assumption about such subjects is that they are not motivated to counterargue, and indeed Brock (1967) reported that subjects engage in more counterargumentation the greater the discrepancy between the advocated position and their own. In accord with this, all studies obtaining distraction effects have used counterattitudinal messages and most of these have been highly involving as well. Unfortunately, we know so little about the antecedents of counterarguing that it is difficult to predict when counterargument is or is not likely to occur.13 Consequently, a more fruitful means of verifying the disruption hypothesis might be to develop a measure of counterargumentation and directly measure the effect of distraction upon it (Osterhouse & Brock, 1970). There are a number of difficulties, however, in devising such a measure (see Miller & Baron, in press). A primary problem is that demonstrating that subjects produce counterarguments, when asked by the experimenter to do so, in no way establishes that they spontaneously engage in such acOne means of circumventing this problem is to use messages which attack sacred beliefs. Presumably subjects rarely have counterarguments for such attacks unless given a specific inoculation treatment (McGuire, 1964). Thus, it would seem that if the disruption hypothesis is valid, distraction should only enhance such attacks if subjects previously have been inoculated. Interestingly, McGuire and Papageorgis (1962) found that distraction instructions had no effect on inoculated subjects although the instructions did improve message impact for subjects who received a supportive treatment. However, ambiguity about whether distraction is supposed to prevent the construction of new counterarguments or block the use of readily available counterarguments makes it difficult to interpret whether this outcome supports or contradicts Festinger and Maccoby's hypothesis.
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tivity when not asked.14 Differential counterarguing observed after such a request may be a consequence rather than a cause of attitude change (seebelow). Osterhouse and Brock's (1970) recent attempt to implement this strategy can be criticized on these grounds. Using an ingenious quantitative manipulation of distraction, their general finding in two subexperiments was that communication acceptance was greater and the number of counterarguments was lower the more rigorous the distraction. As they themselves noted, however, "the causal direction between counterargument production and agreement [with the message] has not been established in this investigation [p. 353]." Given that people generally are concerned with appearing rational and intelligent when they are scrutinized in an experiment, it is quite possible that they view a request to list thoughts about the message as a demand (or an opportunity) to justify their reaction to the message. Therefore, if they resist influence their responses are bound to be coded as counterarguments even if such responses result from rather than cause resistance to persuasion. Consequently, while Osterhouse and Brock's data are consistent with the disruption hypothesis, they do not constitute sufficient evidence to support the conclusion that distraction heightens persuasion by inhibiting counterarguing.15 An additional problem with the disruption explanation stems from the assumption that counterarguing is a common means of resisting influence. While much data support this view (see Footnote 12), in almost every case these data are also consistent with alternative explanations that do not involve the counterarguing process (Chu, 1967; Rosenblatt16;
14 Even with severe time restrictions subjects may respond with obvious counterarguments that they did not think of until that point (and would not unless asked to). 15 Osterhouse and Brock strongly favor the disruption interpretation of their data going so far as to title their paper "Distraction increases yielding to propaganda by inhibiting counterarguing." As indicated above, this conclusion, while plausible, seems premature. 16 P. C. Rosenblatt. Alternative explanations of warning effects. Paper presented at the meeting of the Western Psychological Association, San Diego, California, March 28-30, 1968.

Tannenbaum, 1967). Sears and Abeles (1969) suggested that when exposed to a discrepant message subjects may reject the message without any elaborate rationale more often than they engage in counterargumentation. If indeed counterarguing is shown to be an unusual and rarely used mode of resisting influence, the plausibility of Festinger and Maccoby's (1964) explanation would be seriously weakened. THE EFFORT HYPOTHESIS The most compelling alternative to Festinger and Maccoby's disruption hypothesis ironically stems from Festinger's (1957) theory of cognitive dissonance. The effort required to engage in (attitude) discrepant behavior is a major determinant of dissonance; the greater the effort, the greater the dissonance (Zimbardo, 1965). Since choosing to hear a counterattitudinal message can be viewed as attitude-discrepant behavior, the effort required to comprehend a counterattitudinal message will directly determine the amount of dissonance created by the choice. Attitude change is a likely way to reduce the ensuing dissonance. Subjects can justify their decision to expose themselves to the persuasive materials by either overvaluing the message or distorting their initial attitude so as to minimize any discrepancy with the message. In short, distraction may facilitate persuasion by forcing the subject to exert high effort in order to hear and understand the persuasive message (Dorris, 1967; Kiesler & Mathog, 1968; Miller & Levy, 1967; Zimbardo et al., 1970). This explanation is quite robust in terms of its ability to account for distraction effects. First, it accommodates the fact that heretofore distraction effects have been generally limited to counterattitudinal messages. We would argue, however, that under certain circumstances the effort hypothesis predicts distraction effects even on proattitudinal messages. If one incurs costs to hear a proattitudinal message, one can often reduce dissonance merely by focusing on how the message supports one's beliefs. However, if the effort involved is particularly high, if the supported attitude is not of central importance, and if there are few other justifications

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for expending the effort, enough dissonance could remain to alter attitudinal position, making one more extreme in one's favorable view. This prediction clearly warrants experimental attention. Only Festinger and Maccoby (1964) have varied whether the message was pro- or counterattitudinal, and in that study, subjects who held differing initial positions (pro versus con subjects) were compared. Given the possible contaminating factors involved in relying on an independent variable that is based on preexisting subject differences (i.e., that does not entail random assignment) additional research which varies the advocated position of the message is necessary. A second important distraction finding explained by the effort hypothesis is that pleasant distractions are often more effective than unpleasant distractions. A key assumption here is that the effort created by the (sensory) distractions used in research varying affect does not involve reception of the stimuli but rather ignoring the stimuli. Quite simply, choosing to ignore or forego pleasant, amusing, sexy, or tasty stimuli is undoubtedly more effortful than choosing to ignore nasty, gory, unpleasant stimuli. Implicit in this argument is the notion that effort can be conceptualized in terms of the psychological cost of one's choices. Thus, effort can be conceptualized not only in terms of what one invests, expends, or endures, but also in terms of what one gives up (Adams, 1965). Moreover, one can identify two types of distractions corresponding to those two conceptualizations of effort. The first represents events the subject must attend to or participate in if he is not to alienate the experimenter. The key characteristic of such distractions is that subjects have little alternative but to experience the distracting activity if they participate in the experiment. These distractions include those where the experimenter explicitly requests activity (e.g., Zimbardo et al., 1970), especially those whose rate or difficulty is controlled by the experimenter (e.g., Osterhouse & Brock, 1970; Zimbardo, 1965). For this type of "low-choice" distraction the effort involved seems best conceptualized in terms of what one must do or endure to hear the message, and any dissonance stems from one's choice to participate

in the study. Given that with such distractions subjects are forced to engage in distracting activity, the task of hearing the message is made more difficult or costly the more involving, demanding, and disruptive the distraction is. Consequently, with such distractions, dissonance and consequent distraction effects should generally be greater, the more unpleasant and taxing the distracting activities are. In accord with this thinking, studies employing precisely such distraction techniques (Osterhouse & Brock, 1970; Zimbardo, 1965; Zimbardo & Ebbesen, 1970) find greater persuasion the more taxing the distractor. The second type of distractor, however, creates situations in which the subject has a good deal of perceived choice about what he attends to during the message (e.g., visual presentations). Clearly the experimenter has much less control over subject attention on these "high-choice" distractions as opposed to those involving controlled activity.17 With these distractions, it seems most appropriate to conceptualize effort in terms of what one must give up to hear the message. If one assumes that whenever subjects attend to the message they are giving up input from such distractions (or rewards they would get
The status of auditory and olfactory distraction in this categorization admittedly is somewhat ambiguous. Subjects should find it harder to screen out such stimuli as opposed to visual stimuli, but it still might be possible to ignore the presence of sounds and smells sufficiently so "that subjects still retain a good deal of the freedom of attention they have with visual distractors. Similarly, those activity oriented distractions in which the experimenter does not closely control the rate, intensity, or quality of subject activity (e.g., Zimbardo et al, 1970) present some problems. These . distractions tend to require some activity of subjects. Thus, one might expect that the more unpleasant and taxing the distraction, the greater the dissonance (since subjects must contend with it). Yet, on the other hand, the subject does have a good deal of freedom concerning his rate of activity, etc., so one cannot be certain of this categorization. However, given evaluation apprehension and the demand for constant activity that usually accompanies such distractions, it seems most sensible to class them as "low-choice" distractors. In accord with this, a fairly high rate of activity across all conditions is generally found with such distractors (e.g., [R. S. Baron & D. Mortimer. Distraction, effort, and attitude change. Unpublished manuscript, University of Iowa, 1972]; Zimbardo et al., 1970).
17

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for more fully engaging in distraction activity), the situation corresponds to the classic free-choice dissonance paradigm. The more positive the distraction (or the potential rewards for distracting activity), the more costly (i.e., dissonant) the choice to ignore (reject) it in favor of the message. Of course, one way to reduce the dissonance caused by this choice is to overvalue the message (the chosen alternative). Consequently, with this type of distraction, one would expect more persuasion the more pleasant the distraction (assuming the subject attended to the message). Just such "high-choice" distractions were employed in those studies where pleasant distractions were more effective than less pleasant distractions. Moreover, in accord with this reasoning, Zimbardo et al. (1970, p. 671) suggested that the persuasive effects of a distraction may obtain only when subject attention is focused either by interest or instruction on the message. Clearly, if attention to the message is not a salient choice alternative, subjects would not expend effort to attend to the message.18 Since the effort hypothesis, like the counterargument disruption hypothesis, is fairly robust in its ability to accommodate a broad range of distraction findings, any unique support for this position is of interest. Zimbardo (1965) manipulated effort by varying the interval between speaking and hearing one's own voice (as one read a message) through use of a delayed auditory feedback apparatus. More persuasion occurred in the high-effort conditions, a finding confirmed by Mann (see Footnote 3). While dissonance theory accounts for these results, Zimbardo (1965, p. 116) himself recognized the alternative possibility that they could have been due to the distracting effect of delayed auditory feedback. In a follow-up study, Zimbardo and Ebbesen (1970) had each subject read three messages, one while exposed to white noise, one under delayed auditory feedback, and one under normal conditions. They found that effort ex18 Of course, if a very strong demand were made to attend to the message, this might attenuate the effect of "high-choice" distractions by decreasing perception of choice. However, this is not a problem with "low-choice" distractions since here dissonance stems from the choice to participate as opposed to the choice to attend to the message.

pended to hear the message was generally lowest under normal conditions and highest under delayed auditory feedback, and accordingly, attitude change was lowest in the former and greatest in the latter. Moreover, at least on certain measures of persuasion (e.g., net proportion of changers), the difference between the white noise and delayed auditory feedback conditions was marginally significant. Zimbardo and Ebbesen argued that the counterargument hypothesis does not predict such a difference. They maintained that both white noise and delayed auditory feedback should be equally distracting and, therefore, should produce equal persuasion if distraction (i.e., counterargument disruption) is the critical variable underlying the delayed auditory feedback effect. Unfortunately they offer no substantiation. Indeed it seems much more plausible to assume that distractions will be progressively more effective at disrupting counterarguing (i.e., more distracting) the greater the effort one must expend to overcome or ignore them to hear the message. Consequently, while Zimbardo and Ebbesen's data are certainly consistent with the effort hypothesis, it seems equally consistent with the counterargument disruption hypothesis. This ambiguity illustrates a major difficulty in differentiating the counterargument disruption hypothesis from the effort hypothesis. That is, it seems impossible to manipulate distraction independently of effort. Consider, for instance, Osterhouse and Brock's (1970, p. 354) argument that their manipulation of distraction (light guessing) does not vary effort. This argument is based on the fact that the recall of distracted subjects was not superior to that of nondistracted subjects. Apparently, Osterhouse and Brock assumed that greater effort expended on the message should produce greater recall. However, the high effort created by distraction settings is not directed at memorizing the message, but instead is directed at overcoming or ignoring the distraction in order to obtain or be exposed to the message. Thus, there is little reason to expect that such high effort will be reflected in greater recall of the message. Indeed, data from a recent study conducted by Baron and Mortimer (see Footnote 17) indicate that when subjects are directly questioned about

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the effort involved in Osterhouse and Brock's distraction, the results clearly show that the distraction is perceived as being quite effortful relative to nondistraction. In short, it seems futile to try to distinguish between the effort and disruption hypotheses by attempting to find tasks that are either effortless but disrupting or effortful but nondisrupting since these qualities invariably are confounded. The principal means of circumventing this sort of methodological problem is to devise an experiment for which the contending explanations make competing predictions. Kiesler and Mathog (1968) attempted to follow this strategy. They reasoned that expending effort to hear a barely credible source should create more dissonance (i.e., is harder to justify) than expending effort to hear a highly credible source. Thus, they argued that the effort hypothesis predicts a greater distraction effect among subjects hearing the lowcredibility speaker. Instead, distraction increased persuasion under high credibility and decreased it under low credibility. While Kiesler and Mathog recognized that the reverse distraction effect in the low credibility cells did not seem particularly consistent with Festinger and Maccoby's (1964) disruption hypothesis, they nevertheless concluded that their data generally supported that interpretation. This conclusion, however, is open to question. Kiesler and Mathog (1968), in deriving their "effort predictions," reasoned that, since both the low credibility of the speaker and the counterattitudinal nature of the message are cognitive elements that, separately, are dissonant with the choice to listen, the joint presence of both elements must heighten dissonance in some additive fashion. For example, they argued that dissonance will be particularly high when "The person is ... putting effort into listening, not only to a discrepant communication, but to a speaker of little worth [p. 1124]." While we agree that expending great effort to hear a moron might in many instances produce dissonance, expending effort to hear a moron disagree with you is not nearly so dissonant.18 Several con19 This statement assumes that when one chooses to hear a low-credibility source attack his beliefs, he

sistency theories maintain that it is quite consonant to find that a disreputable source disagrees with one's beliefs (Heider, 1958; Osgood & Tannenbaum, 1955). Further, a number of dissonance analyses (e.g., Aronson, Turner, & Carlsmith, 1963) recognize that one can reduce the dissonance created by counterattitudinal messages by derogating the credibility of the message source. Thus, according to these formulations, it is generally consonant (with your attitude) to have lowcredibility sources disagree with you and dissonant to have high-credibility sources attack your beliefs. If this analysis is correct, the effort hypothesis can accommodate Kiesler and Mathog's (1968) results. The key assumption is that choosing to hear the low-credibility attack is consonant with subjects' preexisting beliefs. Given this assumption, expending effort to hear the low-credibility attack heightens behavioral commitment to one's preexisting beliefs (since one has expended effort to support those beliefs). As Kiesler (1968) suggested, heightened commitment to one's beliefs should intensify the resistance of such beliefs to persuasion. This analysis then accounts for the low persuasion among distracted subjects hearing the low-credibility attack. A similar analysis applies to Miller and Baron's (1968) data. Thus, it appears that the effort hypothesis, rather than being inconsistent with these data, represents the most comprehensive interpretation of the effects observed under both high and low credibility. Another interesting test of the effort hypothesis concerns the effects of self-esteem on the distraction effect. Aronson (1968) argued that dissonance effects are more likely when subjects have high self-esteem. According to Aronson, dissonance is generally created by any cognition that is inconsistent with a positive view of self. Thus, if the distraction effect is mediated by dissonance reduction, one would expect stronger distraction effects
does so expecting an inept or absurd presentation that supports the validity of his preexisting attitude. Kiesler and Mathog did employ somewhat absurd attacks (e.g., all students should wear uniforms; bed checks should be conducted in college) that make it all the more plausible that subjects in the lowcredibility conditions could use the message to support the sensibility of their own positions.

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among subjects having high self-esteem. Consistent with this prediction, Rule and Rehill (1970) reported that distracting sound effects enhance the impact of a counterattitudinal message read just after a success experience (high self-esteem treatment). If instead subjects read the message just after a failure experience (low self-esteem treatment), distraction has no effect. Rule and Rehill, however, also found that low self-esteem subjects had better recall of the communication and poorer recall of the distraction sound effects. Thus, they concluded that the failure experience reduced sensory input thereby rendering the distraction less of a disruption among low selfesteem subjects. A proponent of the effort hypothesis could, of course, accommodate these recall data by arguing that if low selfesteem subjects were less "aware" of the distraction (Rule & Rehill, 1970, p. 360), they would not have to expend much effort to hear the message, thus the null effect in those cells. Nevertheless, given the plausibility of Rule and Rehill's argument, these data do not uniquely support the effort hypothesis. The effort hypothesis, while robust, is still awaiting definitive corroboration. Close scrutiny of cognitive dissonance theory suggests at least one means of generating such corroboration. Specifically, engaging in effortful attitude-discrepant behavior should result in dissonance only if subjects have a good deal of choice in making their decision and little justification for engaging in the chosen behavior. On the other hand, the degree of choice and justification involved in exposing oneself to a discrepant message would seem to be unrelated to the extent to which a person counterargues (providing that the justification did not affect demand characteristics). Thus, if distraction enhances persuasion because it interferes with counterarguing, it should facilitate persuasion regardless of choice or justification. On the other hand, if the above dissonance interpretation is correct, distraction should facilitate persuasion only when freedom of choice is perceived to be great and/or justification for exposure is low. Similarly, if distraction effects are mediated by effort justification, one should be able to produce distraction effects without even exposing subjects to a message if one can get them to

commit themselves to hearing the message under effortful conditions. Wicklund, Cooper, and Linder (1967) presented data that are suggestive of such effects by using running in place as a manipulation of effort. If these effects are replicated using standard distraction manipulations, they would represent strong support for the effort hypothesis. Of course, even if such data were obtained, the plausibility of the effort hypothesis requires the assumption that subjects have felt that they have a good deal of volition whenever distraction effects occur. Since distraction studies rarely comment on this aspect of the procedure, it is difficult to assess whether or not this condition has been met in prior research. However, to the extent that investigators have obtained informed consent in this research, subjects must have been allowed choice concerning their participation. Since a growing number of investigators now obtain informed consent as a matter of course, it seems likely that this assumption has been met fairly regularly, at least in the more recent research. Moreover, as Zimbardo and Ebbesen (1970) argued, "most men perceive they have choice and free will unless such an illusion is explicitly denied them. . . . objective absence of choice is not 'no choice' in the minds of subjects [p. 212]." SUMMARY AND COMMENT It is clear that distraction reliably enhances the persuasive impact of messages in a variety of settings. Moreover, some failures to produce the distraction effect may be due to the particular form of distraction used (Miller & Baron, 1968; Miller & Levy, 1967) while the remainder quite possibly are due to factors that cause distraction to reduce message comprehension (Breitrose, 1966; Gardner, 1966; Haaland & Venkatesan, 1968; Vohs & Garrett, 1968). On the other hand, the empirical exceptions indicate the complexity of the relation between distraction and persuasion. If comprehension is significantly reduced, the effect will be reversed. Some evidence suggests that distraction effects will not obtain when the speaker has low credibility, or when the audience has low self-esteem. The distraction effect may also be restricted to situations in which subjects have a great deal of choice

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R. S. BARON, P. H. BARON, AND N. MILLER anticipated persuasive communications. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1961, 62, 35-40. ARONSON, E. Dissonance theory:. Progress and problems. In R. P. Abelson, E. Aronson, W. J. McGuire, T. H. Newcomb, M. J. Rosenberg, & P. H. Tannenbaum (Eds), Theories of cognitive consistency: A sourcebook. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1968. ARONSON, E., TURNER, J. A., & CARLSMITH, J. M. Communicator credibility and communicator discrepancy as determinants of opinion change. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1963, 67, 31-37. BREITROSE, H'. S. The effect of distraction in attenuating counterarguments. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Stanford University, 1966. Cited by P. G. Zimbardo, M. Snyder, J. Thomas, A. Gold, & S. Gurwitz, Modifying the impact of persuasive communications with external distraction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1970, 16, 669-680. BROCK, T. C. Communication discrepancy and intent to persuade as determinants of counterargument production. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1967, 3, 296-309. BROCK, T. C., & BECKER, L. A. Ineffectiveness of "overheard" counterpropaganda. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1965, 2, 654-660. CHTJ, G. C. Prior familiarity, perceived bias and onesided versus two-sided communications. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1967, 3, 243-254. DORRIS, J. W. Persuasion as a function of distraction and counterarguing. Unpublished manuscript, University of California, Los Angeles, 1967. Cited by P. G. Zimbardo, M. Snyder, J. Thomas, A. Gold, & S. Gurwitz, Modifying the impact of persuasive communications with external distraction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1970, 16, 669-680. FESTESTGER, L. A theory of cognitive dissonance. Evanston, 111.: Row, Peterson, 1957. FESTINGER, L., & MACCOBY, N. On resistance to persuasive communications. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1964, 68, 359-366. FREEDMAN, J. L., & SEARS, D. O. Warning, distraction, and resistance to influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1965, 1, 262-266. GARDNER, D. M. The effect of divided attention on attitude change induced by a marketing communication. In R. M. Haus (Ed.), Science, technology, and marketing. Chicago: American Marketing Association, 1966. HAALAND, G. A., & VENKATESAN, M. Resistance to - persuasive communications: An examination of the distraction hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1968, 9, 167-170. HEIDER, F. The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: Wiley, 1958. HOVLAND, C., LTIMSDAINE, A. A., & SHEFFIELD, F. D. Experiments on mass communication. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949. JANIS, I. L., KAYE, D., & KIRSCHNER, P. Facilitating effects of "eating-while-reading" on responsiveness

and little justification with respect to their decision to expose themselves to the persuasive message. The effect may also be limited to situations in which subjects rely on counterargument to resist persuasion. Finally, it seems likely that distraction effects will occur only when subjects focus their attention on the message as opposed to the distraction. These limiting conditions suggest that distraction may not be very useful as a practical mass persuasion technique. For example, one must do more than just flash a distraction along with one's message in order to enhance message acceptance. One must also accomplish the more difficult task of insuring that the audience tries to focus attention on the message. Furthermore, the distraction effect, while reliable, does not usually cause dramatic changes in attitude. Note, however, that Zimbardo and Ebbesen (1970) presented data suggesting that the effects of distraction might be substantially more powerful on overt behavior than on questionnaire responding. Thus, it is possible that distraction may prove to be a powerful persuasion technique, albeit one that is effective only in certain limited settings. Among current explanations for the distraction effect, those involving affect (Zimbardo & Ebbesen, 1969), novelty (Dorris, 1967, see Footnote 11), persuasive intent (Rosenblatt, 1966), and learning (Silverman & Regula, 1968) are inadequate as single explanations of the existing data. The counterargument disruption hypothesis of Festinger and Maccoby (1964) fares better but lacks compelling direct confirmation. The effort hypothesis, derived from a consideration of Festinger's (1957) dissonance theory, is at least as comprehensive an explanation of the distraction data as is the disruption hypothesis, although this has not been recognized in existing discussions of the distraction literature (e.g., Osterhouse & Brock, 1970; Zimbardo & Ebbesen, 1969). This review suggests further that attempts to discriminate between these two positions will be a fruitful area for research.
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