Adaptive or maladaptive : exploring adolescents' responses to on-line persuasion attempts

Abstract

Technology is changing the structure and dynamics of how humans communicate. Channels of communication are also used for attempts at persuasion, but until now persuasion that (if accepted) would promote the adoption of misinformation could not spread as readily through historical information channels. With the advent of the Internet and World Wide Web this has changed dramatically. In this dissertation it is argued that modern digital communication media such as YouTube, in confluence with what theories of persuasion have to say about how humans deal with persuasion, may create a situation in which misinformation may spread and be accepted on a large scale. The research in this dissertation explores this notion by presenting a group of 120 adolescents who are familiar with the Web with such a misinforming persuasive message. The purpose of which is to determine whether they accept the misinformation presented in the Web-context or are sceptical of it. Different manipulations were done to the persuasive message, known to increase the likelihood of persuasion. The research found that, for this group of participants, no attempt to increase uncritical acceptance of a persuasive message made a statistical difference between different groupings of participants. When intended behaviour was measured in addition to attitude towards the misinformation, participants were even less persuaded. The results are interesting as a starting point for further study, but its generalizability and certain design features must be called into question