The Persuasive Effectiveness of the Peer Appeal and a Communicator's First-Hand Experience

<jats:p>A tape-recorded interview in which a woman gave a favorable evaluation of the intrauterine device was created in eight versions which effected a factorial variation in (a) the degree of age similarity between the interviewee and the subjects (peer, nonpeer), (b) the type of experience (primary, secondary) that the interviewee had had with the IUD, and (c) the interviewee's level of medical expertise (expert, nonexpert). Aside from these variations, all evaluative and factual aspects of the interview were identical in the eight versions. Male and female college students were exposed to one of the eight versions, purportedly in connection with an experiment on communication styles. In a later, supposedly unrelated questionnaire, subjects who had been exposed to the peer communicator rated themselves as significantly more likely to choose the IUD as a contraceptive method than subjects exposed to the nonpeer. Also, there was a tendency for subjects hearing a source who had used the IUD herself to rate the IUD as more effective than subjects hearing a source with secondary experience only, with the difference between these groups approaching significance. Expertise of the source did not exert a significant effect on any of the ratings.</jats:p>