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The Effects of Passive Verb-ConstructedArguments on PersuasionChristopher J. Carpenter a & David Dryden Henningsen ba Department of Communication , Western Illinois Universityb Department of Communication Studies , Northern IllinoisUniversityPublished online: 02 Feb 2011.

To cite this article: Christopher J. Carpenter & David Dryden Henningsen (2011) The Effects ofPassive Verb-Constructed Arguments on Persuasion, Communication Research Reports, 28:1, 52-61,DOI: 10.1080/08824096.2011.541358

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The Effects of PassiveVerb-Constructed Argumentson PersuasionChristopher J. Carpenter & David Dryden Henningsen

Different types of verb voice in a sentence were examined as a possible simple cue within

the unimodel of persuasion (Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999). An experiment was con-

structed by inducing two levels of argument strength (strong vs. weak) fully crossed with

three verb voice types in an independent groups design with 242 participants. Evidence

was found consistent with the prediction that verb voice acts as a simple persuasion cue;

the audience’s enjoyment of reading the arguments was found to be a mediator of the

relationship between verb type and message acceptance.

Keywords: Cognition; Language; Persuasion

The Chronicle of Higher Education once published an admonition to researchers that

they should avoid the passive voice in their writing (Pruitt, 1968). Pruitt called the

passive sentence construction ‘‘a form of naı̈ve hypocrisy at best, or intellectual

dishonesty at worst’’ (p. 461).1 Despite admonitions like Pruitt’s, few studies have

been conducted to study systematically the effects of verb voice on the persuasiveness

of messages. However, it is important to explore the variety of ways that structural

choices like verb voice can alter the persuasiveness of messages because structural

elements may be easily confounded with other inductions like argument strength.

Furthermore, the effects of verb voice could provide practical advice to social influ-

ence professionals such as advertisers and those creating public health campaigns.

Christopher J. Carpenter (PhD, Michigan State University, 2010) is an assistant professor in the Department of

Communication at Western Illinois University. David Dryden Henningsen (PhD, University of Wisconsin,

1999) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northern Illinois University.

Correspondence: Christopher J. Carpenter, Department of Communication, Western Illinois University, 221

Sallee Hall, #1 University Circle, Macomb, IL 61455-1390; E-mail: cj-carpenter2@wiu.edu

Communication Research Reports

Vol. 28, No. 1, January–March 2011, pp. 52–61

ISSN 0882-4096 (print)/ISSN 1746-4099 (online) # 2011 Eastern Communication Association

DOI: 10.1080/08824096.2011.541358

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Finding a clear effect for verb voice would provide an easy way to increase the

persuasiveness of any message. Thus, this study explores the possibility that verb

voice affects persuasiveness by increasing how enjoyable reading the message is when

the audience is involved in shallow processing.

Verb Voice as a Simple Cue

Verb voice may alter how enjoyable arguments are to read and operate as a simple

cue to the persuasiveness of the message. The unimodel (Kruglanski & Thompson,

1999) argues that simple cues are only likely to be persuasive when the audience is

not devoting many cognitive resources to processing the message (i.e., shallow

processing). Work in this area has identified the mechanism for this effect—called

the relevance override hypothesis (Pierro, Mannetti, Erb, Spiegel, & Kruglanski,

2005). This hypothesis suggests that simple cues about the persuasiveness of a mess-

age may affect audience members who do not devote a great deal of cognitive

resources to evaluating that message. In other cases, the audience may devote more

cognitive resources to evaluating a message (deeper processing). In those cases, if

there is information in the message that is relevant to the issue and is complex in

nature (e.g., arguments), the audience will not be affected by the simple cues because

the more relevant and complex information is given full consideration and the simple

cues are given substantially less weight.

Research conducted in an advertising context lends support to these contentions.

For instance, Motes, Hilton, and Fielden (1992, Study 2) found that when an ad was

written using the passive voice, individuals rated it as more believable than when the

ad was written in the active voice. On the other hand, these researchers also observed

that sentences written in the active voice had a more positive effect than those written

in the passive voice on the audience’s intention to actually use the proposed service.

These findings produce conflicting recommendations regarding verb voice.

Verb voice does not directly alter the plausibility or relevance of the arguments in

a message. In other words, it does not make the arguments more or less logical, nor

does it alter the amount or quality of the evidence used to support those arguments.

When audience members devote a great deal of cognitive resources to processing a

message, the unimodel predicts that they would be less likely to be influenced by

irrelevant information such as the verb voice used in those arguments. Therefore,

if verb voice does affect the persuasiveness of the message, it should only act as a

simple cue when the audience does not devote a great deal of cognitive resources

to processing the message. The relevance override hypothesis suggests that when

the audience is processing the message deeply, the strength of the arguments should

override the effect of verb voice such that only argument strength will affect message

acceptance. Thus, the following predictions were made:

H1: Verb voice will combine non-additively with the depth of processing of themessage such that the fewer cognitive resources the audience devotes toprocessing the message (the more shallow the processing), the greater the impactverb voice will have on the persuasiveness of the message.

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H2: Argument strength will combine non-additively with the depth of processing ofthe message such that the more cognitive resources the audience devotes to proces-sing the message (the deeper the processing), the greater the impact argumentstrength will have on the persuasiveness of the message. The nature of that impactwill be that strong arguments will be more persuasive than weak arguments.

In light of Motes et al. (1992) contradictory findings regarding the believability of

a message versus its ability to motivate intended action, we posed a research question

concerning which type of verb voice will be more persuasive when the audience is

processing shallowly:

RQ1: Will active voice, passive voice with the agent present, or passive voice with theagent missing be the most persuasive?

The Motes et al. (1992) study was also examined to determine why different types

of verb voice might be more believable than others. They found that ads using passive

voice messages were sometimes rated as more attractive and as more likely to be read

than ads using other voices. In other cases, however, active voice produced more

positive effects on ad appeal. The attractiveness and appeal of the ad are both factors

that might affect how enjoyable an ad is to read. Rather than seeking to test the

variety of variables that Motes et al. examined, this study focuses on enjoyment of

reading the message in an effort to tie the other variables together. Regardless of

the type of verb voice that is more persuasive, overall enjoyment of reading will be

explored as a possible mediator of the effect of verb voice on the persuasiveness of

the message. Because no previous research has explored this possibility directly, a

research question is asked concerning the possibility that enjoyment mediates the

impact of verb voice on persuasiveness:

RQ2: Will the effect of verb voice on message acceptance under shallow processingconditions be mediated by how enjoyable the message is to read?

Motes et al. (1992) did not examine whether or not a message using an agentless

passive voice argument (e.g., the cheese was spread) would affect their outcome

variables differently than an argument that employs the passive voice with the agent

present (e.g., the cheese was spread by Jane). It is possible that the audience may

dislike the ambiguity concerning the actor in the sentence when arguments are

written in the passive voice with the agent missing. On the other hand, audience

members may appreciate how it shortens the sentences. Given that previous research

has not examined this possibility, this study poses the following research question:

RQ3: Will agent presence affect message persuasiveness or how enjoyable the messageis to read?

An experiment was designed to test these hypotheses and explore these research

questions by varying verb voice and argument strength and then measuring the

amount of cognitive resources each participant put into message processing (depth

of processing), how enjoyable the message was to read, and their acceptance of the

proposal.

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Method

Participants

Participants were 242 students (129 men and 113 women) from a large Midwestern

University taking introductory and advanced communication studies courses. Their

mean age was 20.25 (SD¼ 2.88).

Procedures

The participants were given a packet with information and questionnaires. The

packet included the message induction that they were assigned. They were each

assigned to one condition of a 2 (Argument Strength: high or low)� 3 (Verb Voice

Type: active, passive with the agent present, or passive with the agent missing) fully

crossed factorial design. After they read their assigned message, participants

responded to the questions measuring the dependent variables.

Materials

All participants received a scenario that explained that the military was requesting

funds for the development a new nuclear weapon called the Robust Nuclear Earth

Penetrator (RNEP). The weapon was proposed by the Pentagon (Feinstein, 2005).

The scenario explained what the weapon was and how it worked. Argument strength

was induced by presenting two arguments in favor of developing the new weapon

that were either both strong or both weak.

Argument strength was established by pretesting a pool of 20 arguments concern-

ing the development of the weapon. Sixty-four undergraduates in a basic public

speaking class were each presented with one half of the arguments and asked to list

all of the thoughts they had after reading each argument. They then rated each

thought as positive if their thought indicated the argument was strong, negative if

their thought indicated the argument was weak, or neutral if their thought indicated

neither. If their thoughts were 65% or more positive, the argument was considered

to be strong; and if their thoughts were 35% positive or less, it was considered weak

(Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). This process uncovered two strong and two weak

arguments. Verb voice was induced by presenting the two arguments using all active

voice, all passive voice with agent present, or all passive voice with the agent missing

(see the Appendix for the arguments used in each condition, the n for each condition,

and the proportion of positive thoughts for each).

Measures

Thought listing. Thought listing was used to measure the amount of cognitive

resources the participants were putting into processing the message. Based on proce-

dures developed by Cacioppo and Petty (1981), participants were asked to list all of

the thoughts they had while reading the arguments; consistent with prior work, this

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served as an index of how deeply the audience was processing a message. Participants

were asked to write only one thought per line; however, some did not follow this

procedure and simply wrote a paragraph. Under these circumstances, a thought

was counted as one sentence or one idea in cases where sentence structure was

unclear. Unitizing reliability was assessed for 20% of the participants (48 parti-

cipants). Ninety-nine percent agreement emerged between coders on the number

of thoughts generated per participant (M¼ 4.17, SD¼ 2.12). A correlation matrix

depicting relationships among all of the dependent variables is presented in Table 1.

Persuasion. The degree to which the participants held argument consistent views

was measured using a scale constructed of five, 7-point semantic differential items.

The participants were asked to use the scales to rate their feelings about the develop-

ment of the RNEP. The items included good–bad, positive–negative, helpful–harmful,

safe–risky, and advantageous–disadvantageous. Higher scores indicated respondents

held more argument-consistent views than lower scores. The scale was reliable

(a¼ .87; M¼ 3.00, SD¼ 1.34).

Enjoyment of reading. The degree to which the participants enjoyed reading

the arguments was measured using five, 7-point semantic differential scales. The

participants were asked to rate their feelings about reading the arguments in the

persuasive message. The enjoyment of reading scale was comprised of the following

items: fun–boring, interesting–uninteresting, exciting–dull, pleasant–unpleasant, and

fascinating–tedious. Higher (vs. lower) scores indicated that participants found the

arguments to be more enjoyable to read. Pleasant–unpleasant had to be dropped

from the scale to establish acceptable reliability. The measure was reliable (a¼ .87;

M¼ 4.35, SD¼ 1.26).

Results

Preliminary Analysis

Examination of the persuasion scores indicated that the sample was against the devel-

opment of this weapon because the mean score (M¼ 3.00, SD¼ 1.34) was signifi-

cantly below the midpoint of the scale (4), t(239)¼ 11.61, p< .05 (d¼ .75). RQ3

asked if one of the two types of passive verbs would be more persuasive than the

other. Initial examination of the means revealed that the agent presence induction

did not affect any of the dependent variables. RQ3 was answered negatively. Because

Table 1 Correlation Matrix of Dependent Variables

Variable 1 2 3

1. Number of thoughts 0.04 �0.04

2. Enjoyment of reading 0.24

3. Attitude

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of this finding, the two types of passive verbs are collapsed together in the analyses

that follow.

Passive Voice as Simple Cue

To examine H1, H2, and the RQ1, the persuasiveness of the message was regressed on

argument strength (strong arguments were dummy coded as 0, and weak arguments

were coded as 1), verb type (active voice was coded as 0, and the two passive conditions

were combined and coded as 1), the number of thoughts the participants listed, all of

the two-way interactions (product terms calculated by multiplying two of the inde-

pendent variables together), and the three-way interaction (the product of all three

independent variables). According to the relevance override hypotheses, the two-way

interaction between verb voice and number of thoughts should be substantial, and the

two-way interaction between argument strength and number of thoughts should be

substantial. There was a significant main effect for verb voice (b¼ .55), t¼ 2.71,

p< .01. The positive slope indicates that arguments constructed with either kind of

passive verb were more persuasive than arguments constructed with active verbs.

There was also a significant main effect for thoughts (b¼ .44), t¼ 2.38, p< .05, such

that listing more thoughts was positively related to scores on the persuasion measure;

this suggests a positive relationship between elaboration and message acceptance.

The main effects were moderated by significant two-way interactions. The two-way

interaction between verb voice and thought listing was substantial and statistically sig-

nificant (b¼�.58), t¼�2.17, p< .05. To interpret the interaction, deep and shallow

processing groups were created by placing the participants who listed more thoughts

than the median (4) into the deep processing group (n¼ 95) and the participants who

listed fewer thoughts than the median in the shallow processing group (n¼ 94). In the

shallow processing group, there was a substantial and statistically significant difference

between the participants based on verb voice, t(92)¼�2.34, p< .05 (r¼ .24). Argu-

ments written in the combined passive voice forms (M¼ 3.35, SD¼ 1.31; n¼ 67) were

more persuasive than the active voice arguments (M¼ 2.67, SD¼ 1.61; n¼ 27). In the

deep processing group, there was no substantial or statistically significant difference

between the verb voice conditions on the persuasion scores, t(93)¼�0.50, p> .05

(r¼ .05). Arguments written in either of the passive voice forms (M¼ 3.00, SD¼1.33; n¼ 60) were only slightly more persuasive than the active voice arguments

(M¼ 2.86, SD¼ 1.30; n¼ 35). This finding is consistent with H1, which predicted that

verb voice would act as a simple cue under conditions of shallow processing and be

overridden by argument strength under conditions of deep processing. This finding

also speaks to RQ1 by showing that passive verb voice arguments were more persuas-

ive than active voice arguments.

The two-way interaction between argument strength and thought listing was

substantial and statistically significant (b¼�.68), t¼�1.95, p¼ .05. In the shallow

processing group, there was no substantial or statistically significant difference on

the persuasion measure between those who were exposed to strong versus weak

arguments, t(92)¼�0.48, p> .05 (r¼ .05)—strong: M¼ 3.10, SD¼ 1.15, n¼ 44;

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weak: M¼ 3.23, SD¼ 1.48, n¼ 51). In the deep processing group, however, there was

a substantial and statistically significant difference on the persuasion measure

between the strong and weak argument groups, t(93)¼ 2.93, p< .01 (r¼ .29). The

strong arguments produced higher scores on the persuasion measure (M¼ 3.35,

SD¼ 1.32; n¼ 44) than the weak arguments (M¼ 2.59, SD¼ 1.22; n¼ 51) for the

deep processing group. This finding is consistent with H2, which predicted that

argument strength would only affect the persuasiveness of the message when the

audience was devoting the substantial cognitive resources necessary to evaluate

argument strength. No other main effects or interactions were statistically significant

or substantial for the persuasiveness of the message.

Enjoyment as a Mediator

RQ3 explored the possibility that if verb voice acts as a simple cue, its effect on the

persuasiveness of the message might be mediated by how enjoyable the participants

thought the message was to read when processing was low. This possibility was tested

using path analysis (Hunter & Gerbing, 1982). For the participants in the shallow

processing condition (thoughts <4), there was a substantial and statistically signifi-

cant effect of verb voice on how enjoyable the arguments were to read, t(91)¼ 3.47,

p¼ .001 (r¼ .34), such that those who read active voice arguments perceived them

to be less enjoyable (M¼ 3.54, SD¼ 1.57; n¼ 27) than both types of the passive voice

arguments combined (M¼ 4.58, SD¼ 1.20; n¼ 66).

To test for mediation using path modeling, the product rule was used (Hunter &

Gerbing, 1982). It states that if the correlation between the first and the third variables

in the causal chain (r13) is within sampling error of the product of the correlation

between the first and the second variable and the correlation between the second

and the third (r12 � r23), then the second variable mediates the relationship between

the first and the third. The product of the relationship between verb type and

enjoyment and the relationship between enjoyment and persuasiveness is r¼ .16.

The corrected obtained correlation was within the 95% confidence interval of P

(.05< q< .5)¼ 95% of the corrected obtained correlation (r¼ .28) between verb type

and persuasiveness (see Table 2 for the corrected and uncorrected correlation

matrix under conditions of shallow processing). Correlations corrected for error of

measurement were used to test the model in order to increase the accuracy of the

model estimates. This path analysis found that enjoyment of reading mediated the

Table 2 Correlation Matrix Under Conditions of Low Processing

Variable 1 2 3

1. Verb type 0.34 0.24

2. Enjoyment 0.40 0.34

3. Persuasiveness 0.28 0.39

Note. The upper triangle reports the uncorrected correlations, and the lower triangle

reports the corrected correlations.

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relationship between verb type and persuasiveness under conditions of shallow proces-

sing such that passive verbs were rated as more enjoyable to read and enjoyableness of

reading was positively related to persuasiveness. This outcome answered RQ2 affirm-

atively.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of verb voice inductions on the

persuasiveness of a policy proposal. The unimodel (Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999)

was used to derive the prediction that verb voice would only affect the persuasiveness

of the message when the audience was processing shallowly. Past research on adver-

tising (Motes et al., 1992) suggested that the enjoyableness of reading the message

might mediate the relationship between verb voice and message acceptance.

The evidence was consistent with the prediction that passive verb voice could act

as a simple cue by making the arguments more enjoyable to read, which, in turn, also

made them more persuasive when the audience was processing shallowly. The simple

cue hypothesis was derived from the unimodel (Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999) and

predicted that verb voice would affect the persuasiveness of the message by acting as a

simple persuasion cue. Specifically, the work of Motes et al. (1992) pointed toward

the possibility that passive voice constructed arguments are more enjoyable to read.

Increases in enjoyment ratings of the arguments were associated with greater per-

suasion among the participants who were processing shallowly. In contrast, those

who devoted more cognitive resources to processing the message discounted the

enjoyableness that passive voice arguments produced and were only persuaded by

strong arguments as per the relevance override hypothesis suggested by Pierro et al.

(2005). Future work should examine other linguistic alterations that might affect the

audience’s enjoyment of reading or hearing a message.

Limitations

One limitation of this study is that, despite pretests showing arguments to be strong,

the average scores on the attitude scale were still below the midpoint in the main

study. This was the case even when the audience was processing deeply and reading

strong arguments. Future research should examine situations where the audience is

less recalcitrant. It is also possible that the Petty and Cacioppo (1986) method of

establishing argument strength is faulty (O’Keefe & Jackson, 1995).

Conclusion

Despite these limitations, this study nevertheless establishes the possibility that linguis-

tic inductions can have an effect on the persuasiveness of a message by altering how

enjoyable the message is to read. Future persuasion research using message inductions

should take care to hold verb voice consistent in order to avoid potential confounds.

Before a preference for the passive voice is recommended to applied fields, more

research is required to both demonstrate this effect and understand its mediators.

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Note

[1] The article went on to explain different ways to use a verb in a sentence. When using the

active voice, the writer of a sentence puts the agent before the verb and the object is placed

after the verb. An active voice sentence is, ‘‘The elephant trampled the trees’’ (Pruitt, 1968,

p. 462). The elephant is the agent and the trees are the object in this sentence. The passive

voice with the agent present puts the object of the action first and the agent after the verb,

producing a sentence like, ‘‘The trees were trampled by the elephant’’ (p. 462). The agent is

still present, but it is moved further into the sentence. The third type of verb voice is

the passive voice with the agent missing, where the target of the action is put first and

the agent is removed from the sentence entirely as in, ‘‘The trees were trampled’’ (p. 462).

A sentence can be written in the active or passive voice, and the passive voice can include the

agent or not.

References

Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1981). Social psychological procedures for cognitive response

assessment: The thought-listing technique. In T. V. Merluzzi, C. R. Glass & M. Genest

(Eds.), Cognitive assessment (pp. 309–342). New York, NY: Guilford.

Feinstein, D. (2005, April 14). U.S. Senator Pete V. Domenici (R–NM) holds hearing on fiscal year

2006 appropriations for the national nuclear security administration. FDCH Political

Transcripts.

Hunter, J. E., & Gerbing, D. W. (1982). Unidimensional measurement, second order factor analysis,

and causal models. Research in Organizational Behavior, 4, 267–320.

Kruglanski, A. W., & Thompson, E. P. (1999). Persuasion by a single route: A view from the

unimodel. Psychological Inquiry, 10, 83–109.

Motes, W. H., Hilton, C. B., & Fielden, J. S. (1992). Language, sentence, and structural variations in

print advertising. Journal of Advertising Research, 32, 63–77.

O’Keefe, D. J., & Jackson, S. (1995). Argument quality and persuasive effects: A review of current

approaches. In S. Jackson (Ed.), Argumentation and values: Proceedings of the ninth SCA=AFAconference on Argumentation (pp. 88–92). Annandale VA: Speech Communication Association.

Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). Communication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes

to attitude change. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag.

Pierro, A., Mannetti, L., Erb, H. P., Spiegel, S., & Kruglanski, A. W. (2005). Informational length

and order of presentation as determinants of persuasion. Journal of Experimental Social

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460–464.

Appendix

Pretest Ratings

Strong

1. If the United States developed the RNEP [Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator], we

could create flexible nuclear weapons to replace the old overkill weapons of the

Cold War. (66% positive)

2. If the United States developed the RNEP, it would save so much money, there

would be more money for other programs. (71% positive)

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Weak

1. If the United States developed the RNEP, it would not violate any treaties. (24%

positive)

2. If the United States developed the RNEP, we might actually get a return on our

investment unlike the Cold War nuclear weapons we never actually used. (29%

positive)

Test Materials

Strong arguments� active voice

If the United States developed the RNEP, we could create flexible nuclear weaponsto replace the old overkill weapons of the Cold War. Also, if the United Statesdeveloped the RNEP, it would save so much money, there would be more moneyfor other programs. (n¼ 41)

Strong arguments� passive voice with the agent present

If the RNEP was developed by the United States, flexible nuclear weapons could becreated by us to replace the old overkill weapons of the Cold War. Also, if theRNEP was developed by the United States, so much money would be saved byit, there would be more money for other programs. (n¼ 40)

Strong arguments� passive voice with the agent missing

If the RNEP was developed, flexible nuclear weapons could be created to replacethe old overkill nuclear weapons of the Cold War. Also, if the RNEP was developed,so much money would be saved, there would be more money for other programs.(n¼ 40)

Weak arguments� active voice

If the United States developed the RNEP, it would not violate any treaties. Also, ifthe United States developed the RNEP, we might actually get a return on ourinvestment unlike the Cold War nuclear weapons we never actually used. (n¼ 41)

Weak arguments� passive voice with the agent present

If the RNEP were developed by the United States, no treaties would be violated byit. Also, if the RNEP were developed by the United States, a return on our invest-ment might actually come back to us, unlike the Cold War nuclear weapons thatwere never actually used by us. (n¼ 40)

Weak arguments� passive voice with the agent missing

If the RNEP were developed, no treaties would be violated. Also, if the RNEP weredeveloped, a return on our investment might actually come back, unlike the ColdWar nuclear weapons that were never actually used. (n¼ 40)

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