UNAVAILABILITY EFFECTS ON MESSAGE PROCESSING - A THEORETICAL-ANALYSIS AND AN EMPIRICAL-TEST

Perceptions of message unavailability have been found to lead to greater perceived value of the message and attitude change toward the advocated position. We investigated the hypothesis that perception of message unavailability leads to increased processing of message content. Ninety-six under-graduates were exposed to a persuasive communication. Half of the subjects were led to believe that the message was unavailable to others, and half were told that the message was readily available to others. Motivation to scrutinize the persuasive message was improved by perception of unavailability for subjects who were low in need for cognition; this relationship was reversed for subjects who were high in need for cognition.