The message must be sufficiently persuasive, the discounting cue must be strong enough to suppress initial acceptance, the message must be dissociated from the cue over a period of time, and the dissociation must happen quickly enough that the message still has an impact. 

Necessary Conditions for the Sleeper Effect Based on the Dissociation Hypothesis

This explanation for the Sleeper Effect states that when people are presented with an argument and a discounting cue, the Sleeper Effect takes hold because over time they dissociate the content from the discounting cue. They are not merely forgetting the discounting cue, they are just no longer associating it with the message.

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- Source forgetting interpretation
- Dissociation interpretation
- Differential decay hypothesis

Interpretations of the Sleeper Effect

Pratkanis, A. R., Greenwald, A. G., Leippe, M. R., &amp; Baumgardner, M. H. (1988). In search of reliable persuasion effects: III. The Sleeper Effect Is Dead: Long live the sleeper effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(2), 203–218. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.2.203 

In Search of Reliable Persuasion Effects: III. The Sleeper Effect is Dead. Long Live the Sleeper Effect.

Dissociation Interpretation of the Sleeper Effect

The recipient of a message forgets the source of the message quicker than they forget the content of the message. This is thought to be especially apparent when the message is persuasive but the source isn't perceived as reliable.

Source Forgetting Interpretation of the Sleeper Effect

Grounded on principles of primacy and recency, the differential decay hypothesis suggests that the persuasiveness of a message and a discounting cue have different rates of decay. Since the discounting cue appears after the message, it is is expected to decay faster.

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