HOW SELF-REFERENCING INFLUENCES IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT ATTITUDES TOWARDS STIGMATIZED BEHAVIORS?

The two experiments examined how persuasive messages related to self influence not only implicit, but also explicit attitudes towards stigmatized behaviors (e.g. speeding). In the first experiment drivers were presented with a message that was written in second (e.g.'Your speeding…', self-referencing) or third person ('Speeding', control group). Self-referencing decreased an influence of the message on explicit and implicit attitudes towards speeding (measured by Implicit Association Test, Greenwald, McGhee and Schwartz 1998). In the second experiment participants imagined getting run over by a car as a result of having drunk alcohol from the view point of an actor (self-referencing) and an observer. 'Observers' reported more negative explicit and implicit attitudes towards drinking alcohol then 'actors'. The results suggest that self-referencing decreases an influence of message on implicit and explicit attitudes towards stigmatized behaviors such as speeding and alcohol abuse.