This research studies the effects of censoring a communication, overriding the censor, and the attractiveness of the censor on the potential audience's attitude and desire to hear the communication. The subjects, 144 undergraduate psychology students, were told that a speech which they were to have heard had been censored by a positively, negatively or neutrally evaluated group. Results indicated that regardless of the attractiveness of the censor, censorship caused the audience to change their attitudes toward the position to be advocated by the communication and to increase their desire to hear that communication. The effects are discussed as resulting from the arousal of psychological reactance, which decreased when the censor was overriden and behavioral freedom was restored. Positively evaluated group censors changed subjects' attitudes away from the position advocated by the communication; negative group censors changed their attitudes toward the position of the communication. These results were interpreted as evidence of cognitive balancing. (Author/SES)