Persuasion as a dynamic, multidimensional process: An investigation of individual and intraindividual differences

Persuasion is an interactive process through which a given message alters individuals' perspectives by changing the knowledge, beliefs, or interests that underlie those perspectives. Although persuasion is seen as central to effective teaching and learning, there is still much to understand about the characteristics of learners, texts, and tasks that result in such changes. In this study, persuasion was tested as undergraduates read three compelling, popular-press texts on varied topics. Differences across and within readers were examined by means of multivariate and path analytic techniques. Texts written to persuade did, in fact, change readers' knowledge, beliefs, and interest, and preexisting differences in knowledge, beliefs, and interest directly and indirectly influenced the degree of change. Furthermore, different texts elicited varied levels of knowledge, beliefs, and interest in individual readers.