After Inoculation

As an understudied but driving exigence of inoculation research, extant work on attack messages is reviewed in this chapter. Despite a consistent focus on attack messages as a replication of refutational preemption content, growing evidence supports the idea that attack messages can be strengthened by the inclusion of affective or tactical persuasive elements. Understanding how to inoculate against these enhanced attack messages, understanding the impact of frequency and timing, and understanding their strength relative to inoculation messages in research studies are explored. Suggestions for future research include the possibility of retroactive metacognition in the attack message, the impact of cross-attack contextual focus on the resistance process, and the understanding of action as an attack.