On Believing Our Imagination: the Role of Mental Imagery in Belief Generation and Resilience

We propose that imagery-provoking messages (e.g., narrative) induce both deliberate beliefs -- due to the strength of the arguments and/or the credibility of the source -- and implicit beliefs -- due to the experience of mental images generated by the message --, whereas abstract messages (e.g., product ratings) induce only deliberate beliefs. Consistent with this proposition, three studies show that i) imagery-provoking product claims are considered more believable than abstract ones, ii) mental imagery generated by a message weakens the effect of source credibility on product evaluation, and iii) attitudes generated by imagery-provoking messages are stronger than those generated by abstract ones.