STEALING THUNDER: THE INFLUENCE OF SPECIFICITY, ELABORATION, AND ARGUMENT QUALITY
Abstract
Stealing Thunder is a phenomenon where transgressors reveal potentially damaging information
about their transgressions before its details can be revealed by a third party. Much research has
been done on the Stealing Thunder phenomenon, with the majority having been focused on
establishing the existence of the effect and the potential moderating factors that influence the
efficacy of the tactic. A review of the literature reveals it to be somewhat lacking in several
regards. First, the breadth and depth of research on the moderators and features of stealing
thunder have been quite limited. Second, the interpretability of existing research is often difficult
because of methodological ambiguities. The present document describes two programs of
research designed to address some of the breadth and methodological issues present in the
existing literature. The first program of research investigated the potential influence of a
previously unexamined feature of stealing thunder, confession specificity. Across four studies,
results showed that stealing thunder confessions were more effective when they contained
specific details regarding the transgression than when they contained comparatively vague
details. Additionally, the evidence suggests that previously-assumed interchangeable dependent
variables should not be used interchangeably, and stealing thunder exerts a stronger effect on
measures of honesty than on measures of global evaluation because honesty is a more proximal
outcome of stealing thunder than is global evaluation. The second program of research
investigated the influence of elaboration on stealing thunder across two studies. However,
because not all manipulations in this second program of research were effective, it was not
possible to fully evaluate the critical hypotheses. Nonetheless, this second set of studies might
provide building blocks towards improved studies that might provide a more satisfying answer to
the research question. Overall, results across two programs of research not only extended the iii
stealing thunder literature, but also contributed to a broader understanding of stealing thunder
mechanisms as well as the comparative effectiveness of stealing thunder on shaping judgments
of different dimensions of person perception.
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