Reassessing the Validity of Laboratory-Produced Attitude Change

In their 1974 study, Hendrick and Seyfried found that experimental group subjects given an attitude change treatment (reading a persuasive essay) were more attracted to a stimulus stranger who espoused their posttreatment attitudes than to a stimulus stranger who espoused their pretreatment attitudes. Control subjects, however, remained more attracted to a stimulus stranger espousing their pretreatment attitudes. Hendrick and Seyfried concluded that this attraction transfer demonstrated the validity of laboratory-produced attitude change. The present study added a new experimental group, which did not receive the posttest, in an attempt to eliminate potential demand and/or evaluation apprehension interpretations, which are applicable to Hendrick and Seyfried's results. Hendrick and Seyfried's results were replicated with the original experimental group but not with the new experimental group. It is suggested that Hendrick and Seyfried's results cannot be interpreted as indicative of genuine attitude change.