Self-esteem, manipulated by inducing success or failure on an ego-involving task, had the following predicted effects on persuasibility: (a) Lowered self-esteem increased persuasibility when the advocated opinion was not threatening and the communicator's position was clearly stated. (b) Lowered self-esteem decreased persuasibility when acceptance of the advocated opinion would generally result in substantially increased threat to Ss. (c) Lowered self-esteem decreased persuasibility when the communication was complex and contained misleading closure-inducing phrases. In the first 2 cases, self-esteem affected acceptance components; and in the last case, it affected learning components of persuasibility. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)