Defaming and agreeing with the communicator as a function of emotional arousal, communication extremity, and evaluative set.

Irrelevant prior insult, set to evaluate the communicator (versus give own opinion), and extremity of the position advocated in a communication were factorially manipulated by each of 11 experimenters creating a 2 x 2 x 3 x 11 design. Posing as "on the street reporters," experimenters polled 264 overweight middle-aged women in shopping plazas to obtain "after only" measurements of defamation of the communicator and agreement with the communication. Insult did not produce the effects predicted by equating irrelevant emotional arousal with involvement. Though it increased defamation it also increased persuasion. This covariation of persuasion and defamation is noteworthy. The effects of extremity depended on the insult condition; in the absence of insult greater extremity produced less persuasion and more defamation. Evaluative set (which has been labeled "distraction" in other studies) increased defamation and reduced persuasion. This finding directly contradicts previous theoretical and empirical results for "distraction."