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POL3069
URN: 6130923
Explain the Reception and Acceptance axioms of the Converse-McGuire model of attitude
change. What is their relationship with awareness? Why is this model important for
understanding modern political communication patters? Provide examples.
People’s attitudes have been shaping their decisions for long, but the difference between now
and then is that academics pay more attention to the subject of attitudes. There are some
academics that are particularly interested in processes that shape a person’s attitude towards any
subject. Such studies are recognized for their value, because in the age of advertising, the media
and politicians, as well as many others, are constantly seeking ways to persuade particular
groups (McGuire, 1985). The messages appeal to different qualities and urge us to take a
particular action, for instance some advertisements take advantage of a person’s altruism, and
ask them to conserve energy or contribute to a particular fund (Rice and Paisley, 1981).
This essay discusses when and how people’s attitudes can be influenced by media messages
based on Converse-McGuire model of attitude change. This essay has been divided into three
parts. The first part explains the Converse-McGuire model, its two major assumptions, and its
relationship with awareness. The second part focuses on weaknesses of the model. The third part
explains the strengths of the model how this model specifically contributes to understanding of
processes in political communication.
Model
The Converse-McGuire model is a type of information processing model which attempts to
explain the attitude change, which is caused by a particular communication message (Converse,
1962; McGuire, 1969). This model is expressed by a relationship among the three values:
probability of attitude change, probability of reception, and probability of acceptance. These
values are related to each other in such a way that, probability of attitude change equals the
probability of reception multiplied by a value of probability of acceptance (McGuire, 1969).
Moreover, the probability of acceptance is given only if there is a value assigned to reception
(ibid.).
This model rests upon two assumptions which are called “axioms” (McGuire, 1969). The
“reception axiom” explains how the probability of reception is provisionally obtained. The
assumption is that depending on the level of political awareness that a person has, the likelihood

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that this person receives the particular communication message varies (Zaller, 1992). Moreover,
when the abstract value assigned to the concept of political awareness increases, the chance of
receiving the communication message also increases. Additionally, the concept of reception
means that a person is exposed to the message and that the meaning of this message is properly
understood (Zaller, 1993). Another assumption is called the “acceptance axiom” and it explains
the condition under which a person is likely to accept the view, which is reflected in a
communication message, uncritically (McGuire, 1969). Hence, it is argued that when the level of
political awareness of person increases, the chance that this person will submit to the view,
presented in communication message, decreases (Zaller, 1992). By acceptance of the message, it
is implied that a person changes their attitude so that it is in line with the message (Zaller, 1993).
In this model, a general awareness affects both the values of reception and acceptance. As Haack
(2007) notes, these axioms present a two-step process, when a person at first is exposed to
information, and then this person rejects it if they find that the message is inconsistent with their
views. Consequently, according to this model, the moderately sophisticated recipients of the
message are the ones who are most likely to change their attitude (Zaller, 1992). The other
groups of recipients are either not sophisticated enough to receive the message, or too
sophisticated to accept it uncritically (Haack, 2007).
Although studies, such as Chong (1991) and Zaller (1992), find evidence in support of this
model, the majority of the studies find the effect to be relatively weak. For instance, Zaller
(1993) argues that political awareness does not always boost resistance to persuasion, which
contradicts the assumption about the acceptance process. Hence, there are several strong
predictors of resistance to persuasion, compared to which, political awareness is less predictive
of the probability value (ibid.). Some of those predictors are: political ideology, intensity of a
message, and strength of initial opinion. To make an example, Zaller (1993) provides evidence
of their point when analyzing the data from CBS-New York Times survey before and during
Golf war, where respondents were asked whether they approved of Bush’s way of handling the
crisis. Therefore, in their study, Zaller (1993) finds that, depending on ideology
(Conservative/Liberal), a person is more or less likely to change their attitude about Bush’s way
of handling the crisis. Precisely, it appears that general awareness affects the probability of
attitude change, but to a far less extent compared to the ideology variable.
Another study that arrived to the same conclusion is Goren’s study (2004). Goren (2004) tests
the interaction model of public opinion to find whether the politically sophisticated tend to form
their policy preferences in accordance with their values. The five cross-sectional datasets from

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National Election Studies are used in analysis. Thus, Goren (2004) finds that no matter the level
of political sophistication, respondents are found to form their preferences mostly based on their
prior beliefs. It is evident that political sophistication, which is measured by political knowledge,
remains as a significantly predictive factor in their analysis, but it far less predictive of the policy
preferences than it is presumed by a model (ibid.).
However, it is fair to note that the dataset on the President’s performance during the Golf War
has no direct measure of awareness. Therefore, Zaller (1993) uses the 4-point education variable
as a measure of awareness, because Zaller (1990) finds it to be a reliable indicator of general
awareness. Consequently, this decision to use an education variable as an indicator needs to be
justified in terms of its correlation with general awareness (Field, 2005). A similar point can be
made about Goren’s study (2004), where political knowledge was used as an indicator of
political awareness. Hence, it is argued that the evidence of weak effect of political awareness
may be related to that political awareness is measured by political knowledge (Craemer, 2003).
In spite of the noted weaknesses of the model, there are several points to be made that make this
model relevant and indicate its unique strengths. Retrospectively, the focus on attitude change
remains relevant, due to particular circumstances that encouraged this stream of research
initially. McGuire (1985) implies that the attitude change research emerged when USA had
started to realize its ideological powers and desired to use it for winning the hearts and minds. In
relation to the USA and media in general, this point still holds some relevance, which makes this
model genuinely influential. Hence, Rosati and Scott (2011) explain that currently, political
decisions of USA affect not only Americans, but other nations too. Furthermore, Paletz (2002)
argues that nowadays the media are extremely pervasive, and their messages have significant
effects on society and politics.
To make an example about the relevance of this model, Lovelace and Huston (1982) find that the
media can and occasionally changes attitudes of individuals in relation to health campaigns and
cultivating “prosocial” behaviour. Therefore, by building the theory, using this model as a base,
one can create a set of guidelines that will help to make media messages more persuasive.
Moreover, Zaller (1992) implies that this model may be a useful tool for analysis of the impact
of political and other messages, spread by the means of mass communication.
Overall, the studies such as Haack (2007) and Craemer (2003) argue that the model is good at
explaining the conflicting findings in laboratory studies in persuasion and is quite compelling.
Furthermore, Haack (2007) notes that the weaknesses, mentioned previously, demonstrate that
the effect of political awareness is mixed and complicated, which means that the model can be

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improved. This model is an important contribution in that it is a significant departure from the
“monotonic” pattern research conducted earlier (Zaller, 1993). A non-monotonic pattern design
has the potential to explain inconsistency and non-linearity of the laboratory findings, which
cannot be explained within the frame of other theories about political persuasion process (ibid.).
Hence, a unique strength of this model is that it provides the means to create and test various
predictions about the processes by which mass media affects the views of society and how this
process may be enforced or interrupted by different values (Zaller, 1993). For instance, this
model contributes to the media effect research in that it suggests that political awareness makes a
person more critical and sophisticated receiver of political messages. This assumption generated
a demand for a stream of research about the attitudes of sophisticated public. For instance, Franz
and Ridout (2007) analyse the dataset form a panel study conducted by Center for the Study of
Elections in 2004, based on the measures of exposure to Democratic and Republican
advertisements. They find that the more sophisticated public is less affected by political
advertisements, compared to the less sophisticated public (Franz and Ridout, 2007). Similarly,
Hansen (2007) finds that sophisticated individuals are generally less likely to be persuaded by
the media message.
To conclude, this essay has discussed the Converse-McGuire model of attitude change. This
model is an attempt to find what variables play a great role at shaping a person’s opinion when
the communication message is different from the one that a person holds. The question that it
seeks to address is what affects the probability of attitude change and why some previous
findings about the importance of particular factor over another are very inconclusive. Zaller
(1993) and Goren (2004) are few of the many who find that political awareness may certainly
shape the chances of attitude change, but its effect is not permanent and it varies depending on
the range of factors that a recipient of the message can distinguish to be different from their own.
For example, if a recipient is a Liberal, while the message is clearly Republican, they are less
likely to change their view due to the ideology aspect.
Nonetheless, this model remains to be one of the few systematic and has the potential to be
applied to various cases. Consequently, it is likely to be valid to various degrees depending on
the case, but this model is one of the few that accounts for the complexity of the information
flow. Furthermore, this model, compared to others, does not tend to simplify the relationship
between the variables in that it suggests that results are unlikely to follow a monotonic pattern. In
other words, it takes into account that only under very specific conditions the model as it is
stated initially would predict the result. The further elaborations that grow out of the research

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that seeks to test the model’s assumptions will clarify which variables are most predictive of the
probability value and under what conditions.
References:
Chong, D. (1991), “A model of public opinion formulation on civil liberty issues”. Annual
meeting of the American Political Science Association, 1992
Converse, P. (1962), “Information flow and the stability of partisan attitudes”, Public Opinion
Quarterly, 26
Craemer, T. (2003), “A Random Diffusion Model of Public Opinion”, Annual Meeting of the
American Political Association in Philadelphia, August 2003
Goren, P. (2004), “Political sophistication and policy reasoning: A reconsideration”, American
Journal of Political Science, 48
Field, A. (2005), Discovering statistics using SPSS: and sex, drugs and rock’n’roll (2nd ed). UK:
Sage Publishers
Franz, M. and Ridout, T. (2007), “Does Political Advertising Persuade?”, Political Behaviour,
29(4)
Haack, P. (2007), “Talking Intervention”- attitudes towards German Foreign Policy and the
conditional influence of emphasis frames. Germany: GRIN Verlag
Hansen, K. (2007), “The Sophisticated Public: The Effect of Competing Frames on Public
Opinion”, Scandinavian Political Studies, 30(3)
Lovelace, V. and Huston, A. (1982), “Can Television Teach Prosocial Behavior?”, Prevention in
Human Services, 2:1-2
McGuire, W. (1962), “Persistence of the resistance to persuasion induced by various types of
prior belief defenses”, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 64
McGuire, W. (1969), “The nature of attitudes and attitude change”. In G. Lindsey and E.
Aaronson (eds), The Handbook of Social Psychology, Vol. III. USA: Addison-Wesley Publishers
McGuire, W. (1985), “Attitudes and Attitude Change”. In G. Lindsey and E. Aaronson (eds),
The Handbook of Social Psychology (3rd ed.), Vol. II. USA: Newbery Award Records

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Paletz, D. (2002), The Media in American Politics (2nd ed). USA: Addison-Wesley Educational
Publishers
Rice, R. and Paisley, W. (1981), Public Communication Campaigns. USA: Sage Publishers
Rosati, J. and Scott, J. (2011), The Politics of United States Foreign Policy (5th ed). USA:
Wadsworth Publishers
Zaller, J. (1990), “Political awareness, elite opinion leadership, and the mass survey response”,
Social Cognition, 8
Zaller, J. (1992), The nature and origins of mass opinion. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press
Zaller, J. (1993), “The Converse-McGuire Model of Attitude Change and the Gulf War Opinion
Rally”, Journal of Political Communication, 10(1).
(2120 words)