Invited Talk at University of Padua (Padova) Social Perception, Cognition and Language Lab (SPeCOLab) May 10 2022

In an invited talk for the Department of Psychology at University of Padua, Dr See presented findings on message tailoring for affective and cognitive attitudes. These findings suggest that (1) message tailoring can backfire among individuals who find the message highly counter-attitudinal, (2) even when message tailoring does not change attitudes, it can impact the certainty with which individuals hold onto their unchanged attitudes, and (3) lay people do tailor to their relationship partners as a function of their partners’ self-perceptions of affective attitudes and their understanding of these self-perceptions. Thus, these findings have implications for a more nuanced understanding of message tailoring, for both informed consumers of persuasive attempts and practitioners who seek to deliver tailored interventions.