Threat and/in Inoculation Theory

Authors

  • Josh Compton Dartmouth College

Keywords:

inoculation theory, persuasion, resistance to influence, threat, social influence

Abstract

For years, scholars of the inoculation theory of resistance to influence have considered threat to be a major part of the resistance process—the motivational force that triggers such responses as counterarguing against future challenges to a position. More recently, scholars have begun to question the conventional explanation for the importance and/or role of threat in inoculation, (re)considering its importance, its conceptualization, and in some cases, its very existence in the process of attitudinal/belief inoculation. This theoretical article synthesizes some of the key arguments advanced about threat in inoculation theory and traces its development from the earliest iterations of the theory to its contemporary development and application. It proposes five avenues for future investigations of threat and/in inoculation theory in the continuing study of persuasion.

Author Biography

Josh Compton, Dartmouth College

Josh Compton (Ph.D., University of Oklahoma, 2004) is Associate Professor in the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric at Dartmouth College. His research explores image at two distinct points: before an image attack (inoculation theory) and after an image attack (image repair theory), with special attention to the contexts of health, sport, and political humor. His scholarship appears in journals such as Communication Monographs, Communication Theory, Annals of the International Communication Association, Human Communication Research, Frontiers in Psychology, and PLoS ONE, and he authored the inoculation theory chapter in The Sage Handbook of Persuasion (Sage) and co-authored the inoculation theory chapter in Persuasion and Communication in Sport, Physical Activity, and Exercise (Taylor Francis). Josh has been an invited expert for the Department of Defense’s Strategic Multilayer Assessment program (USA) and NATO’s and USSOCOM’s JointSenior Psychological Operations Conference, and is a member of the Global Experts on Debunking of Misinformation group. He has been named Distinguished Lecturer by Dartmouth College and has won the Outstanding Professor Award from the National Speakers Association and the L. E. Norton Award for Outstanding Scholarship. He currently serves as the Book Review Editor for Journal of Communication.

Downloads

Published

2021-09-28

Issue

Section

Features