Sleeper Effect

The Sleeper Effect, first identified by the psychologist Carl I. Hovland in the middle of the 20th century, refers to the short-term and long-term effects of communications depending on the communicator's image.

In the 1940s, Hovland studied attitude changes on the basis of learning theory or reinforcement theory approach. Researchers Hoveland, Lumsdaine, and Sheffield examined the impact of the film The Battle of Britain (the fourth film of the series “Why We Fight” that was showed to recruits of the U.S. army) on U.S. soldiers' attitudes. They found that some changes in attitude in the direction of the communicator's position were more pronounced after several weeks than immediately after the confrontation with the film. This phenomenon they described as the Sleeper Effect.

One hypothesis that Hovland and ...