The same persuasive message can be interpreted in a positive or negative way, challenging our ability to predict its effectiveness. Here, we analyze theoretically and experimentally how causal reasoning contributes to this process of interpretation and can produce attitude reversals due to the network structure of beliefs. We conduct two vignette experiments, one based on the famous slogan of the car rental agency Avis (“We’re No. 2—that means we try harder”), and the other based on online product reviews. When participants’ contextual beliefs about the economic environment are manipulated, message effectiveness changes as predicted by a Bayesian mechanism in which seemingly negative information is “explained away” in a more positive light, or vice versa. Thus, causal reasoning may help account for certain counterintuitive kinds of high-level attitude change.

中文翻译：

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说服性信息的矛盾效应。

同样的有说服力的信息可以以积极或消极的方式解释，挑战我们预测其有效性的能力。在这里，我们从理论上和实验上分析因果推理如何促成这一解释过程，并由于信念的网络结构而导致态度逆转。我们进行了两项小插图实验，一项基于汽车租赁公司 Avis 的著名口号（“我们排名第二，这意味着我们更加努力”），另一项基于在线产品评论。当参与者对经济环境的背景信念被操纵时，信息有效性会发生变化，正如贝叶斯机制所预测的那样，在这种机制中，看似消极的信息会以更积极的方式“解释掉”，反之亦然。因此，