How weak arguments can make a more effective call to arms than strong arguments

We often think of persuasion in terms of converting people to our side of an argument. Just as important in many contexts is the need to inspire supporters to do more to help a cause they already believe in. In a new paper, Omair Akhtar and his colleagues provide evidence here for a counter-intuitive principle - they say that presenting people with weak arguments for a cause they already believe makes for a more powerful call to arms than presenting them with strong arguments. In an initial study, 165 US citizens were presented with either weak or strong arguments made by other voters in favour of Barack Obama's re-election as President. Among the participants who were already supportive of Obama, exposure to the weak rather than strong arguments led them to say they had more intention to persuade other people to vote for Obama. This association was mediated by their feeling more confident about their own persuasive powers. It's as if seeing the poor quality of arguments made by other pro-Obama voters had inspired them to feel they had a valuable contribution to make to the cause. The intentions of anti-Obama participants were unaffected by the strength of the pro-Obama arguments. Further studies sought to test the limits of this counter-intuitive principle. In one, pro-Obama participants were given false feedback in an earlier writing challenge, either indicating that they were skilled debaters or only average. Exposure to weak pro-Obama arguments subsequently acted as a p...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Source Type: blogs