The Interaction Effect of Attitude Base and Multiple Attacks on the Effectiveness of Inoculation

This investigation tested the interaction effects of attitude base and multiple attacks on the effectiveness of inoculation. A 4-phase experiment was conducted involving 290 participants. The results indicate that when rendered to a second attack, cognitive inoculation messages generated greater resistance to counterattitudinal attacks when presented to individuals whose attitude base was primarily cognitive, rather than affective. The reverse was also found to be true as affective inoculation messages generated greater resistance to counterattitudinal attacks when presented to individuals whose attitude base was primarily affective, rather than cognitive. Combined inoculation messages worked equally well as the attitude matching, and better than the attitude mismatching, messages.