Metaphor Effects on Attitude and Communicator Credibility (3)

Proposition 7: Metaphors in the audio modality are associated with greater attitude change than are metaphors in the written modality. People encounter persuasive messages through different media such as print, radio, and television. The effect sizes from the meta-analysis revealed that metaphors presented in the audio modality were more persuasive (r = .09) than those presented in the written modality (r = .06). Thus, metaphor-using messages may be more effective when listening when one can process a message only once in a limited amount of time, than when reading, which allows for more processing time as well as multiple reviews of the message.

 

Proposition 8: Metaphor messages used by low-credibility communicators are associated with greater attitude change than those used by high-credibility communicators. Message recipients may perceive communicators as having low or high credibility prior to processing a message. The effect sizes from the meta-analysis showed that messages containing metaphors were associated with greater attitude change when the communicators had low credibility (r = .12) than when the communicators had high credibility (r = .02). Thus, message sources with low credibility may benefit more from using metaphors to affect attitudes than may message sources with high credibility.

 

Proposition 9: Metaphors are more likely to be effective for enhancing terminal communicator credibility judgments for the dynamism aspect than for competence and character aspects.  Of the three post-message credibility facets, the effect of metaphor was functionally nonexistent for character and competence aspects. For the competence aspect of credibility, the effect size r was .01. Analysis of the moderator variable of initial (low and high) credibility showed the same null results. Similarly, there was no effect of metaphor on the character aspect of credibility (r = -.02). For both low and high initial credibility communicators, the use of metaphors again did not affect character judgments. On the other hand, the r for dynamism was .06. Furthermore, the effect for both low- and high-credibility communicators was positive. Thus, of the three facets of terminal credibility, metaphor has its strongest effect on judgments of communicator dynamism.