Competence, counterarguing, and attitude change.

The article presents information on two studies related to competence, counterarguing and attitude change. Difference in competence cause differences in counterarguing and that differences in counterarguing cause differences in attitude or belief change. Reception defined as attention and comprehension is one of the factors in two-factor theory of attitude change. The second factor is yielding, an individual difference in the proneness to yield to an advocated position. It is unlikely that competence causes attitude change because it affects reception. Experiments were conducted to test firstly that whether differences in the competence of a source cause differences in both counterarguing and attitude change, secondly whether differences in the amount of information received cause differences in attitude change, and thirdly whether competence and reception interact to determine attitude. Internal analysis of the first experiment and comparison between both experiments strengthened the claim that decreased counterarguing is the principal mediator of the attitude change attributable to competence. The interaction of reception and competence is not inconsistent with postulate that reception and yielding are multiplicatively related.