Partisan media are often accused of reinforcing partisan views and contributing to political polarization. Drawing on the literature on selective exposure and media effects, we survey a representative sample of 784 Lebanese citizens who consume partisan media in a highly polarized context. In the absence of centrist nonpartisan channels in Lebanon, we differentiate between extreme and moderate partisan channels and test the prevalence of partisan selective exposure among the viewers. Results show that partisan viewers exhibit partisan selective exposure when selecting channels to watch the news but not in case of entertainment. Neutral viewers avoided extreme partisan channels and were indifferent to the political leaning of the moderate partisan channels. In this study, we present profiling models that predict the likelihood of viewers to seek/avoid extreme and moderate partisan channels based on their political affiliation, religion, age, socioeconomic status, and gender.
Exposure to risk messages can motivate health information seeking, which can influence message acceptance or rejection. Theories of risk message design and effects (e.g., fear appeal models), however, have not considered information seeking as an integral part of the risk message processing. To address the gap, this experimental study (N = 927) offered participants an opportunity to seek threat- and/or coping-related information online after exposing them to a risk message about meningitis and recorded their information seeking activities unobtrusively. The findings indicated that information seeking increased self- and response-efficacy of meningitis vaccination. Information seeking was positively predicted by uncertainty discrepancy, perceived susceptibility, anxiety, and fear. More importantly, information seeking completely mediated the effects of perceived susceptibility and anxiety on an increase in self- and response-efficacy, and a decrease in message rejection. Information seeking also partially mediated the effects of perceived susceptibility and fear on an increase in message acceptance. Implications for health information seeking and risk communication research are discussed.
Incivility in user comments on news websites has been discussed as a significant problem of online participation. Previous research suggests that news outlets should tackle this problem by interactively moderating uncivil postings and asking their authors to discuss more civilized. We argue that this kind of interactive comment moderation as well as different response styles to uncivil comments (i.e., factual vs. sarcastic) differently affect observers’ evaluations of the discussion atmosphere, the credibility of the news outlet, the quality of its stories, and ultimately observers’ willingness to participate in the discussions. Results from an online experiment show that factual responses to uncivil comments indirectly increase participation rates by suggesting a deliberative discussion atmosphere. In contrast, sarcastic responses indirectly deteriorate participation rates due to a decrease in the credibility of the news outlet and the quality of its stories. Sarcastic responses however increase the entertainment value of the discussions.
Using a sample of 14 television systems and 29 television stations, we investigate the effect of two media systems dimensions on sensational news coverage: the television system dependency on commercial revenues and audience fragmentation. At the aggregate level, both audience fragmentation and the dependence on commercial revenue yield significant effects on three forms of sensationalism. In more fragmented/competitive markets, sensationalism (1) in topics—for commercial channels—and (2) in formal features—for both channel types—is higher. However, the analysis reveals that (3) not fragmentation but rather dependency on commercial revenues stimulates the use of vivid storytelling. While the use of sensational formal features does not (significantly) depend on channel type, both topics and storytelling are clearly more sensational on commercial channels. The results shed light on the behavior of public broadcasters in various media systems contexts, pointing out their increased role and importance as counterbalance in highly fragmented systems.
There is intense discussion among experts about the potential negative impact of sexually objectifying media content on young women. This article presents an experimental study in which young women were either exposed to pop music videos high in sexual objectification or to pop music videos low in sexual objectification. Women’s self-objectification and their subsequent media selection behavior were measured. The results indicate that exposure to sexually objectifying media increased self-objectification, which in turn increased the preference for objectifying media content. Self-esteem, the internalization of appearance ideals, and body mass index (BMI) did not influence these relationships. Implications of these findings are discussed.
This study examines how college students’ family communication environments influence their adjustment during the first year of college in two distinct cultures: Belgium (n = 513) and the United States (n = 431). Three structural equation models were tested to determine the mediating effects of (a) perceived family support, (b) quality of academic advice from parents, and (c) quality of social advice from parents on associations between family communication patterns (FCPs) and student adjustment. Although most relationships are more complicated than predicted based on FCP theory and research, several patterns occur across models and populations. Conversation orientation tends to foster positive adjustment for both cultures while conformity orientation promotes negative adjustment for Belgian students. In addition, perceived family support and advice quality mediate several relationships between FCP and academic self-efficacy, college stress, and loneliness. Differences between the two cultures, theoretical implications for FCP, and practical implications for academic counselors are discussed along with avenues for future research.
Assessing the impact of an individual’s social network on an individual is difficult without administering a large number of surveys. Online social networks with built-in data collection circumvent this problem. The data collected by an exercise-focused social media website and mobile app allowed the estimation of the effect of both the behavior of the social network and the size of that network on the behavior of individual service users (31,200 users reporting 67,699 exercise events with a potential range of 87 weeks). The results are consistent with the theory of normative social behavior in that the amount of exercise reported by the user’s social network as well as the size of the user’s on-site social network affected the user’s exercise behavior over time.
How can we explain the persuasiveness of populist messages, and who are most susceptible to their effects? These questions remain largely unanswered in extant research. This study argues that populist messages are characterized by assigning blame to elites in an emotionalized way. As previous research pointed at the guiding influence of blame attributions and emotions on political attitudes, these message characteristics may explain populism’s persuasiveness. An experiment using a national sample (N = 721) was conducted to provide insights into the effects of and mechanisms underlying populist blame attribution with regard to the European and national levels of governance. The results show that emotionalized blame attributions influence both blame perceptions and populist attitudes. Identity attachment moderates these effects: Emotionalized blame attributions have the strongest effects for citizens with weaker identity attachments. These insights allow us to understand how populist messages affect which citizens.
Isolating causal relationships is very difficult in natural discussion because discussion is, by nature, a causally complex interactive process. This study provides a novel approach to this problem by using simulated online discussion to experimentally manipulate message characteristics in a timed script that participants believed to be a discussion with other participants. In particular, we manipulated whether simulated online discussion partners expressed disagreement civilly or uncivilly. With this unique design, we examined how individuals differently react to opposing views in an online discussion setting depending on tone of disagreement expression. Our results showed that exposure to uncivil discussion results in increased negative emotions toward the other side, which in turn led to more closed-mindedness and more expression of disagreement with the discussion partner on the other side of the issue, although uncivil discussion and negative emotions are positively related to recall of the other side’s reasons.
This study seeks to contribute to the growing body of scholarship about the Internet’s role in authoritarian and transitioning countries. Based on two original surveys of Russian and Ukrainian Internet users, online behaviors were classified as either primarily capital enhancing or recreational in terms of their democratic potential. Indirect and differential models of how these types of Internet use are associated with citizen demand for democracy were tested using serial mediation. Capital-enhancing use exhibited an indirect positive effect on demand for democratic governance by increasing critical appraisals of the incumbent regime, whereas recreational Internet was associated with satisfactory evaluations of non-democratic regimes and more entrenched authoritarian worldviews.
We investigated the influence of framed norm messages about food consumption on motivation to consume, and actual consumption of, healthy and unhealthy foods. We proposed that the effects of positive and negative message frames would vary by the type of underlying norms (i.e., injunctive, descriptive). More specifically, based on information processing theories, it was expected that injunctive norms would be more effective when framed negatively compared with positively, while the opposite was expected for descriptive norms. In both experiments, participants were randomly assigned to one of four framed social norm conditions or a no-norm control condition. In Experiment 1, motivation to consume healthy and unhealthy foods was assessed by means of both indirect and self-report measures. In Experiment 2, actual food consumption was assessed. In both experiments, the predicted interaction was found. Results show that injunctive norms benefit from a negative (vs. positive) frame, while preliminary evidence suggests the opposite for descriptive norms.
Research on online communities has emphasized the individual benefits of social support for members, but less is known about how such communities are regulated through organizing processes of support and control. Drawing on a survey of 214 members of a particular online message board community, we develop and test a model of social support, strength of ties, normative influence, and concertive control and their influence on members’ sense of virtual community (SOVC). We find that all four factors predict SOVC, but that normative influence and concertive control have the strongest effects. Furthermore, social support and concertive control mediate the effects of number of strong ties and normative influence (respectively) on SOVC. Finally, we find no association between SOVC and time-lagged posting frequency. Our findings have important implications for understanding the factors that lead to attachment in online communities, and they suggest that sense of belonging works through tandem communicative processes of support and control.
This study tested theoretical relationships between key concepts in psychological reactance theory and construal level theory. Through a 3 x 2 x 2 experiment (n = 155), we manipulate (1) how abstractly or concretely participants are processing a message, (2) the psychological distance to the message, and (3) whether or not the message restricts choice. Dependent measures include perceptions of threat to freedom and message effectiveness. Results show that increasing abstraction and/or distance can mitigate the perception of threat to freedom that is experienced when a message restricts choice. Furthermore, this process has a subsequent influence on message effectiveness. As the first study to consider the perception of threat to freedom in the context of construal level theory, this experiment furthers understanding of key theoretical relationships. Strategies for the design of successful persuasive messages are discussed.
This study examined whether a need for closure explains why people verbally brood and whether the support received when they verbally brood during a conversation reduces anxiety and cognitive brooding afterward. In two studies, friends came into the laboratory and were randomly assigned to be a subject or confederate. The confederate was trained to provide "good support" or "poor support" to the subject who talked about a stressor he or she could not stop thinking and talking about recently with that friend. The overall models suggested that individuals were more likely to verbally brood when they had a higher need for closure and were more likely to feel better and positively reframe the stressor when the friend was supportive rather than unsupportive, which reduced anxiety. However, if individuals did feel better and/or positively reframed their stressor, even if they received "poor support," it reduced their anxiety. Finally, positive reframing of the stressor, rather than simply feeling better, helped subjects reduce their cognitive brooding 20 minutes after the conversation.
Although scholars consider it important for citizens to seek diverse information to optimize citizenship, a growing body of research suggests that many people predominantly expose themselves to information that confirms their previous beliefs. Using four waves of survey data from an online panel of 2,450 Americans, this study explores a disconnect between information values and practices to identify (1) whether citizens exemplify the diversity-seeking values endorsed in communication scholarship, (2) whether individuals who hold diversity-seeking values enact these values, and (3) whether diversity-seeking values and traits are emblematic of good democratic citizenship. Results suggest that nearly half of respondents either did not hold diversity-seeking values or failed to actualize the values they expressed. Individuals who held diversity-seeking values were more politically knowledgeable and more likely to have voted in 2014, regardless of their diversity-seeking traits.
Advertorials—advertisements camouflaged as editorial material—are a pervasive advertising strategy. Presentational features of advertorials, such as a small or omitted advertisement label and useful information presented in an editorial format prior to promoting a product, are likely to give impressions to readers that the reading material is a useful resource rather than advertising material. We examined the cognitive and persuasive effects of health product–related advertorials based on a schema-laden information processing model framework. Study 1 (n = 337) found that advertorials were less likely to trigger advertising schema, especially consumer awareness of persuasive intent. Study 2 (n = 336) found that the structure presenting useful information before advertising a related product decreased consumer skepticism. Overall, readers exhibited more positive attitudes toward advertorials than they did toward traditional advertisements due to decreased awareness of persuasive intent (Study 1) and advertorials’ structure (Study 2), which, in turn, increased willingness to purchase advertised products.
Warranting theory has been used extensively to explain how people evaluate information across a variety of online settings. However, no validated measurement instrument exists to assess the construct of warranting value that is at the core of the theory. Two studies were conducted to develop and validate a General Warranting Value Scale and three scales that assess specific forms of information control: Modification Control, Dissemination Control, and Source Obfuscation. In addition, we tested predictions of warranting theory using multiple stimuli and samples—including a nationally representative sample of adults. Overall, evidence for scale validity was obtained: Confirmatory factor analyses were consistent with measurement model fit. All scales were sensitive to theoretically predicted manipulations and were correlated with theoretically predicted outcomes.
This study examined young viewers’ evaluations of the social and physical aggression that is endemic in tween sitcoms. Preadolescents (N = 176) were randomly assigned to watch a tween sitcom that featured a protagonist or antagonist committing social or physical aggression (two exemplars at each level). As suggested by recent work on disposition theory and moral development, participants’ moral evaluations of the depicted aggression were related to their liking of the perpetrator, not their perceptions of the severity of the aggression. Furthermore, there was support for the causal chain proposed by Raney’s formulation of disposition theory, whereby protagonist liking predicted moral indifference, which further predicted self-reported likelihood of imitating the aggression. This path was stronger at higher ratings of funniness. When aggressors were perceived as likable and their actions as funny, viewers reported more indifference and greater likelihood of imitation.
Much research demonstrates an inverse correlation between topic avoidance (or aspects of avoidance) and relational perceptions, such as satisfaction. These data are almost always correlational, which does not afford causal conclusions despite statistical techniques that simulate causality. We present experimental data (using a scenario method) that examine two constructs involved in topic avoidance—avoided topics and inferred goals that precipitate topic avoidance—and their effects on the relational perceptions of satisfaction, hurt, and distance in the context of friendship. Both topics and inferred goals led to changes in perceptions of the friendship. Specifically, participants who inferred that their friend avoided a topic for self-protection goals reported lower levels of satisfaction and higher levels of hurt and distance than those who inferred relationship-protection goals. This difference was especially true for the relationship-issue topic.
The current work provides evidence for a psychological obstacle to the resolution of divisive social issues (e.g., affirmative action, drug legalization); specifically, people approach discussions of these issues with a threatened mind-set. Across three studies, it is shown that the prospect of discussing topics which divide social opinion is associated with threatened responding (the dissensus effect). Divisive discussion topics are associated with both a greater level of self-reported threat (Studies 1 and 3) and a greater tendency to perceive neutral faces as threatening (Study 2). Furthermore, the effect is shown to be robust across manipulations of social opinion (ratings of multiple social issues in Studies 1 and 2; fictional polling data in Study 3), and was not reducible to individual attitude extremity (Studies 1 and 3) or a valence effect (Study 2).
New media have markedly enhanced the public’s capacity to influence the framing of an issue, especially within crisis situations. By relying on research triangulation, this study aims to map the comprehensive frame-building process of the public as an understudied domain within framing and crisis research. Study 1 uses advanced automated content analyses of crisis-related tweets (N = 252,711) to examine how the public built frames online with the use of information sources. Study 2 applies an innovative vignette study (N = 772) to investigate the conditions that influence the public’s source selection during crises. The findings illustrate how the public uses sources to address certain frame functions and show that source usage is subject to external factors (i.e., crisis origin and magnitude) as well as internal factors (i.e., crisis involvement and habitual source use).
This study theoretically develops a three-stage model in which certain types of health behavior functions (i.e., health-affirming vs. health-detection/treatment) prime individuals to process information with either a defensive or accuracy motivation. Such information-processing motivations, in turn, are expected to influence the contribution and consumption of user-generated health content. The three-stage model was tested with data from an online sample of American adults (N = 767). A well-fitting structural equation model provided evidence for each of the hypothesized paths except for that from health-detection/treatment behavior to accuracy motivation. Individuals’ information search for health-affirming behaviors instigated a defensive motivation. Moreover, while both information-processing motivations influenced user-generated content consumption, only defensive motivation had a significant effect on user-generated content contribution. Finally, there was also one significant cross-stage path in which health-affirming behavior had a direct effect on content contribution, thus, overstepping defensive and accuracy motivations.
Using Time 1 to Time 2 data from 387 adults, we examine the effectiveness of the theory of motivated information management (TMIM) in accounting for the various processes by which adults in committed romantic relationships manage financial uncertainty via communication with their partners. Our results indicate that the TMIM operates well in this context. We also contribute to the theoretical development of TMIM’s revised theoretical framework in three ways, namely, by (a) examining the joint operation of positive and negative emotions (anxiety and optimism, respectively) on information management, (b) testing two types of outcome expectancies (knowledge and relationship), and (c) testing the model’s prediction of multiple information management strategies (i.e., direct and indirect information seeking, avoidance, and cognitive reappraisal). Findings indicate that both (a) anxiety and optimism, and (b) knowledge outcome expectancies and relationship outcome expectancies differentially contributed to information management decisions.
Over the past decade, various online communication platforms have empowered citizens to express themselves politically. Although the political impact of online citizen expression has drawn considerable attention, research has largely focused on whether and how citizen-generated messages influence the public as an information alternative to traditional news outlets. The present study aims to provide a new perspective on understanding citizen expression by examining its political implications for the expressers themselves rather than those exposed to the expressed ideas. Data from a national survey and an online discussion forum study suggest that expressing oneself about politics provides self-reinforcing feedback. Political expressions on social media and the online forum were found to (a) reinforce the expressers’ partisan thought process and (b) harden their pre-existing political preferences. Implications for the role the Internet plays in democracy will be discussed.
This study theorized the relationship among information exposure, affect, cognition, and behavioral intention by constructing a comprehensive model that combines an integrative model, media effects studies, and the risk-as-feelings hypothesis. Specifically, in the cancer context, we examined how exposure to information is associated with affect and cognition, which influence behavioral intention. A two-wave survey about stomach cancer was conducted among Korean people aged 40 or older (n = 1,130 at Wave 1 and 813 at Wave 2). Exposure to cancer information was positively associated with affective (cancer fear), affective-cognitive (cancer worry), and cognitive (risk perception) conditions at Wave 1, which predicted screening intention at Wave 2. However, cancer fear reduced screening intention, unlike cancer worry and cancer risk perception, which increased screening intention. While cancer risk perception influenced screening intention indirectly through norm, cancer fear and cancer worry had a direct impact on screening intention.
Theories of eudaimonic entertainment and destigmatization concur to suggest that empathic feelings elicited by portrayals of Paralympic athletes can increase audience interest in para-sports and can lead to prosocial attitude change toward persons with disabilities in general. Three experiments were conducted to examine this dual, mutually reinforcing function of empathy in promoting public awareness and destigmatization. Participants watched television spots about the Paralympics that elicited different levels of empathy. As expected, structural equation modeling revealed indirect effects of empathy on audience interest, attitudes, and behavioral intentions that were mediated by elevation and reflective thoughts (Studies 1 and 2), and by feelings of closeness, elevation, and pity (Study 3). Mediation effects were positive for reflective thoughts, elevation, and closeness, but were negative for pity. Results are discussed with regard to problematic effects of pity, and concerns that elevating "supercrip" narratives might lead to negative perceptions of persons with disabilities in general.
Story Appraisal Theory posits that reduced memory representations of stories, or story kernels, are appraised in a three-dimensional story appraisal space. Stories deemed to have a point (pointedness), to be plausible (plausibility), and to be generalizable to society (probative value) are more likely to provoke implications than stories found wanting on one or more of these appraisal parameters. Story kernel–prompted implications, in turn, produce attitudinal and behavioral effects. Stories may have implications for the self, others (family and friends), and society. Four experiments found general support for the proposition that favorable appraisals promote implication generation. Experiments 2 to 4 revealed that implications partially mediate between the story appraisal dimensions and estimates of behavior change in response to the stories.
Given the important implications of social support on managing volunteers and their organizational commitment, we investigated how members of a Korean immigrant church (N = 178) exchanged two distinctive kinds of social support (i.e., informational and tangible). We used theories of centrality and homophily to hypothesize patterns of social connections among organizational members. Employing exponential random graph modeling (ERGM), the current study estimated the likelihood of age and gender homophily/heterophily in forming supportive ties while considering structural parameters. The results of analysis of variance showed that members with higher socioeconomic status and in official staff positions in the church were more central in the informational support exchange. However, ERGM for both types of support networks did not show hypothesized gender and age homophily/heterophily of Korean immigrants’ support exchange, suggesting the importance of other potential organizational and cultural influences. The findings shed light on the internal structuring of organizational support networks and suggest practical implications for managing organizational volunteers.
This study explores whether there is a connection between TV viewing and the intention of young adult women to smoke and their ability to refuse smoking. Young adult women were defined as between 18 and 24 years of age (N = 156). Using Cultivation Theory as a framework, the researchers found that TV viewing positively predicts smoking intentions and negatively predicts the ability to refuse smoking. Accounting for smoking knowledge, current smoking behaviors, and other media use, TV viewing predicts smoking intentions. This suggests that TV viewing may be a powerful predictor of (a) smoking intentions and (b) the inability to refuse a cigarette in a peer pressure/social situation.
This article examines how people’s beliefs about deception in text-based media (i.e., email, instant messenger) and face-to-face communication are distorted by two biases: (a) a self-other asymmetry, whereby people believe themselves to be more honest than their peers across communication contexts; and (b) a media intensification effect, whereby the perceived gap between one’s own and others’ deceptiveness is increased in text-based media, whose affordances (e.g., reduced nonverbal cues) are believed to facilitate deception. We argue that these biases stem from a desire for self-enhancement, or for seeing oneself as good, moral, capable, and impervious to negative media influence. Support for these propositions emerged across a college student sample (Study 1) and a national sample of U.S. adults (Study 2). The results offer a theoretical framework for the distortions in people’s beliefs about mediated deception, and have important practical implications.
This study examines whether and how intercultural negotiation dyads that vary in culture-role combinations experience different negotiation processes and outcomes. Participants completed an employment contract negotiation with a culturally different counterpart. Results indicated that high-status, high-power distance negotiators paired with low-status, low-power distance negotiators experienced more anger, placed less emphasis on cooperative goals, used less priority information exchange, and, consequently, gained less joint profits than high-status, low-power distance negotiators paired with low-status, high-power distance negotiators. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.
The study tested (a) the extent to which an inverted-U pattern of fear response predicted persuasion, (b) the degree to which the fear curve mediated the effects of the four components of threat appeals on persuasion, (c) the correspondence between the static measures of fear used in between-subjects designs and the dynamic indices required by the within-subject approach, and (d) the methodological threats inherent to dynamic designs. Participants (N = 418) read a message that advocated colorectal cancer screening. Results showed that the inverted-U fear curve predicted intention to obtain a colonoscopy, and that susceptibility and response efficacy exerted their influence on persuasion via the fear curve while severity and self-efficacy did not. The static measure of fear showed poor absolute correspondence with the peak and end indices of dynamic fear, but strong pattern correspondence. Hazards to inference posed by dynamic designs of the type used in this study appear negligible.
Listeners exhibit orienting responses to voice changes in audio messages. However, the impact of pitch similarity between voices on the nature of the OR has not been explored. We conducted a 3 (Vocal Pitch) x 2 (Location of Change in Message) x 2 (Repetition) within-subjects experiment to address this question. Four non-professional announcers were selected based on differences in vocal pitch. Twelve radio commercials were produced using these announcers to include a single voice change—with either Low-, Medium-, or High-Pitch Differences. The voice changes occurred either within the first or last 20 seconds of the commercial. Heart rate and recognition memory data were collected from 41 subjects. Results show that vocal-pitch difference between speakers impacts automatic attention allocation via the orienting response, and recognition memory for the message is thereby affected. Furthermore, results suggest that having voice changes occur early in an audio message produces the best attentional result.
Social-psychological research on phishing has implicated ineffective cognitive processing as the key reason for individual victimization. Interventions have consequently focused on training individuals to better detect deceptive emails. Evidence, however, points to individuals sinking into patterns of email usage that within a short period of time results in an attenuation of the training effects. Thus, individual email habits appear to be another predictor of their phishing susceptibility. To comprehensively account for all these influences, the research built a model that accounts for the cognitive, preconscious, and automatic processes that potentially leads to phishing-based deception. The resultant suspicion, cognition, and automaticity model (SCAM) was tested using two experimental studies in which participants were subjected to different types of email-based phishing attacks.
Taking a communication approach to expertise, this study examined emergence of expertise through communication accommodation (CA) in 46 four-person face-to-face (FtF) and text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC) groups. We found that FtF members with a lower pre-discussion task confidence accommodated to the linguistic styles of those with a higher pre-discussion task confidence. Meanwhile, CA influenced post-discussion expertise judgment in CMC groups such that members who accommodated to others were judged as having less expertise. CA also influenced post-discussion expertise judgment in FtF groups after taking into account perceived task-oriented communication and perceived influence. The findings emphasize the important roles of CA and of communication channel in expertise emergence.
This article extends our understanding of risk communication related to communal risk and risk information sharing. Building on research from risk communication, organizational behavior, and social psychology, it examines individual-, relation-, and community-level motivations to share information about a devastating plant disease. This disease can bring about substantial economic risk to everyone in a farming community. We tested our hypotheses using a national sample of U.S. tomato and potato growers (N = 452). Our findings show that growers were motivated to share information about a communal risk based on (a) individual-oriented concerns for economic costs, (b) relation-oriented concerns for reciprocation and the information recipient’s trustworthiness, and (c) community-oriented concerns comprising a sense of shared responsibility and community cohesiveness.
Using sequenced conflict interaction scenarios, this study tested Rusbult and colleagues’ partner accommodation framework. In addition, we examined the unique effects of relationship-specific hope, a variable we argue contributes to constructive conflict communication in adult romantic relationships. Results generally, but not completely, supported the predictive power of the partner accommodation model. Consistent with predictions, relationship-specific hope positively predicted partner accommodation in multiple scenarios. Moreover, relationship-specific hope positively predicted postconflict relational evaluations through its effects on partner accommodation. Supporting the tenets of hope theory, relationship-specific hope was found to be a more robust predictor of accommodation in multiple scenarios when partner responses were nonconciliatory (compared with conciliatory). This suggests that hope is most consequential to relational communication in especially trying relational circumstances. We interpret our findings, and their implications, based on interdependence theory, hope theory, and existing conflict management research.
Mindfulness has emerged as an important factor that assists people in regulating difficult emotions, but it is not yet known whether mindfulness plays a role in supportive communication. The current study examines whether mindfulness facets (describing, observing, nonjudging, aware acting, nonreacting) positively influence self-reported abilities to (a) discern more and less person-centered (PC) supportive messages and (b) facilitate reappraisals via two core cognitive factors, namely, empathy and active listening. College students with little or no meditation experience (N = 183) completed an online survey. Mediation analyses showed that empathy and active listening partially mediated the relationship between two mindfulness facets (describing, observing) and the two perceptual outcome measures (PC message discriminations, facilitating reappraisals) by accounting for 33% and 62% of the variance. Additional structural equation modeling suggested that mindful observing and describing positively predicted empathy and active listening. Both mindful describing and nonjudging also positively predicted facilitating reappraisals. Interestingly, nonjudging negatively predicted empathy and active listening. The results point to mindfulness as an important factor that influences cognitive-affective processes in supportive communication.
When faced with a taboo stressor, people might have desires for support yet feel reticent to seek assistance from others. This study contextualizes desires for support by theorizing that they are directly associated with the support people seek and indirectly associated with what they receive. There may be discrepancies among any of these perspectives, and we expand research on support gaps by considering the existence and outcomes of deficits or surpluses in the support people desire, seek, and receive. A community sample (N = 205) completed a survey regarding a taboo marital stressor. Respondents desired more support than they sought or received (i.e., support deficit) but received more support than they sought (i.e., support surplus). These discrepancies and their outcomes varied by type and source of support. Whereas deficits in support mostly decreased reappraisal of a taboo stressor, support surpluses mainly enhanced reappraisal. Implications for research on supportive communication are discussed.
This study estimates the weights of media tonalities in the measurement of media coverage of corporations by using linear regression analysis. Two new measures—Three Factor Media Favorability (TFMF) index and Four Factor Media Favorability (FFMF) index—are developed based on these estimations. These two measures are compared with other linear function measures of media coverage of corporations. Two types of measures—the measure of media favorability, and the composite measure of media favorability and visibility—are differentiated based on the different roles of media visibility in the formulas. Empirical analyses find that TFMF index and FFMF index have a certain degree of relative advantage over other measures of media favorability in predicting corporate reputation, and a composite measure of media favorability and visibility has a certain degree of relative advantage over the measures of media favorability in predicting corporate reputation. The analyses are based on a content analysis of 2,817 news articles from both the elite newspapers and local newspapers.
The increasing popularity of interorganizational collaboration among human services nonprofits has generated significant interest and research from a variety of disciplines. However, the current literature has not sufficiently addressed the factors that shape trust and communication in human services nonprofit partnerships. As such, this study proposes that partner selection shapes trust and communication and, using data on 202 human services nonprofit partnerships in the state of Illinois, examines the relationship between partner selection factors and communication and trust in human services nonprofit partnerships. The results from the hierarchical regression analyses suggest that two partner selection factors, reputation and homophily, are significantly positively related to trust. Regarding the factors that shape communication, the results suggest that prior experience and trust are significantly positively related to communicative effectiveness.
Expectation states theory, role congruity theory, and the biosocial model, respectively, predict that perceptions of competence, agency and communality, and physical dominance explain the effects of nonverbal communication on social influence. This study contrasts these mechanisms by using voice pitch variation as a nonverbal signal in mixed-sex dyads. Thirty-seven pairs of male and female participants were recorded discussing a controversial topic under conditions where either their gender or a shared identity as college students was salient. Consistent with expectation states theory, men who varied their pitch more during discussion were perceived as more competent and influential by their female interlocutors, but only when gender was salient. In the same condition, male and female participants’ pitch variation negatively predicted their perceptions of their discussion partner’s influence, suggesting that nonverbal communication constitutes and reflects competition over status. Our findings favor expectation states theory over role congruity theory and the biosocial model.
Dynamic management and maintenance of self-concepts shape everyday selective media use. The present work examines related processes per the Selective Exposure Self and Affect Management model with a focus on young women’s magazine use. In a prolonged selective exposure study with seven online sessions, women (N = 181, 18-25 years, all Caucasian) completed a signup and a baseline session, four daily sessions with selective browsing of magazine pages (from beauty, parenting, business, and current affairs magazines), and 3 days later, a follow-up. Participants made 16 selections and viewed 80 pages in total. The online application logged magazine content selections and length of exposure. Participants’ possible future selves as romantic partner, parent, and professional at baseline affected the extent to which beauty, parenting, and business pages were viewed. In turn, possible future selves as romantic partner and professional were reinforced through selective exposure to beauty and business magazines.
This study examined team processes and outcomes among 12 multi-university distributed project teams from 11 universities during its early and late development stages over a 14-month project period. A longitudinal model of team interaction is presented and tested at the individual level to consider the extent to which both formal and informal network connections—measured as degree centrality—relate to changes in team members’ individual perceptions of cohesion and conflict in their teams, and their individual performance as a team member over time. The study showed a negative network centrality-cohesion relationship with significant temporal patterns, indicating that as team members perceive less degree centrality in distributed project teams, they report more team cohesion during the last four months of the project. We also found that changes in team cohesion from the first three months (i.e., early development stage) to the last four months (i.e., late development stage) of the project relate positively to changes in team member performance. Although degree centrality did not relate significantly to changes in team conflict over time, a strong inverse relationship was found between changes in team conflict and cohesion, suggesting that team conflict emphasizes a different but related aspect of how individuals view their experience with the team process. Changes in team conflict, however, did not relate to changes in team member performance. Ultimately, we showed that individuals, who are less central in the network and report higher levels of team cohesion, performed better in distributed teams over time.
This study explored the effects of stylistic elements, framing and imagery, on emotion, cognition, and persuasion. Frame and image were matched on valence (gain frame + positive image; loss frame + negative image) and mismatched (gain + negative image; loss + positive image) to examine whether the (mis)match amplified or attenuated message effects. Using the topic of traveling to an exotic island, an experiment (N = 455) found general support for matching in the gain-framed conditions but not in the loss-framed conditions. To the extent that valence can be useful as a basis for assessing match, it must take into account the message domain and the nature of the outcome variables. One general principle and two corollaries are proposed to serve as patches for the valence rule.
Building upon extant research on temporal framing effect (i.e., relative persuasiveness of present- vs. future-oriented messages), this study investigates whether temporal framing effect differs for narrative versus non-narrative messages in the context of promoting human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination among young adults. Results of a controlled experiment (N = 416) indicated that a present-oriented (vs. future-oriented) message led to more favorable attitudes and stronger intentions and perceived vaccine efficacy when the messages were presented in a narrative format, whereas a future-oriented (vs. present-oriented) message resulted in similar attitudes, intentions, and perceived vaccine efficacy when the messages were presented in a non-narrative format. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.
Adolescence is a key period in the development of individuals’ news habits, but little is known about the processes involved in the process of news media socialization. This study proposes an integrated model in which the influence of family communication on motivations and behaviors of adolescents in relation to news consumption occurs through the development of personality traits related to information processing (namely, need for cognition and need to evaluate). Structural equation modeling of data from a representative survey of 2,273 adolescents, aged 13 to 17, provide support for the theorized model, such that concept-oriented communication within families is associated to news exposure indirectly, via personality traits and motivations. Thus, the study provides an initial assessment of one way children are socialized to become news enthusiasts and news avoiders. It also provides empirical evidence that information-processing traits are influenced by family communication patterns, confirming what hitherto was theoretical speculation.
Research on the impact of eudaimonic narrative has begun to identify a variety of psychologically and socially important outcomes. In the present study, we conceptually and operationally distinguish three distinctive responses to eudaimonic narrative: moral elevation, being emotionally moved, and poignancy. We, following work by Hershfield and colleagues (Ersner-Hershfield, Mikels, Sullivan, & Carstensen, 2008), suggest that poignancy, or a combination of sadness and happiness in response to life or narrative events, represents a recognition and acceptance of life’s transience and mixed joys and sorrows. Evocation of poignancy by eudaimonic narrative, then, should elicit responses associated with age, life experience, and maturity, which we refer to as "mediated wisdom of experience." We find that brief eudaimonic video clips, compared with similar non-eudaimonic clips, increase acceptance of delayed rewards (i.e., reduced delay discounting, which has been found to be associated with maturity and negatively associated with risky and unsafe behavior in prior research), indirectly via the impact of these clips on poignant responses. In contrast, being emotionally moved showed an indirect path leading to decreased acceptance of delayed rewards, whereas moral elevation had no mediating effect.
This work proposes the expectation of sanctions as a promising construct to advance spiral of silence research in face-to-face and computer-mediated contexts. We argue that situational factors influence people’s expectations about how their social environment would punish them should they express their viewpoint in a hostile opinion climate. These expected sanctions are suggested to explain the variance in people’s willingness to express a minority opinion across different social situations. An experiment showed that the expectation of being personally attacked can explain why people are more willing to voice a deviant opinion in offline rather than online environments. Findings also revealed that in contemporary social networking websites, wherein users commonly face a personally relevant audience, people are prone to hold back their opinion as they expect losing control over the reactions of their audience. This research extends previous knowledge by presenting a more differentiated theoretical view of the fear of isolation and specifying its role in different situations of public deliberation.
This study offers a cross-national multilayered analysis of music flows between 1960 and 2010. Advancing on previous empirical studies of cultural globalization, it attends to the global and country level, while adding the individual level of music flows. Concretely, the authors analyze the international composition of pop charts in nine countries by (a) mapping trends, (b) comparing countries, and (c) conducting multivariate analyses. The results show that pop charts increasingly contain foreign music, with the exception of the United States. Explanatory analyses of foreign success confirm that limited cultural distance results in greater flow as found in film and television studies, while revealing additional positive impacts of centrality of production (e.g., artists from more "central" countries in music production are more likely to chart abroad) and the "star power" of artists. Both the innovative methodological approach and findings of this article offer promising research avenues for globalization, media industry, and celebrity studies.
Organizational scholars have traditionally used conceptual definitions to classify situational tensions such as dialectics, dilemmas, contradictions, and paradoxes. We propose instead to use organizational members’ reactions to define and distinguish among different forms of tensions. In the present study, we propose a model in which dilemmas vary in terms of press (the sense of urgency that they invoke) and balance (the degree to which both sides of the dilemma are regarded as equally important and urgent). Depending on the degree of press and balance, organizations are predicted to undertake various response strategies. To evaluate this model, we studied a large sample of members’ descriptions of organizational responses to dilemmas in the Dutch crisis response system (N = 149). Results indicated variation in press and balance, and while some participants enacted dilemmas as choices, others enacted dilemmas in ways that acknowledged and tried to address both alternatives.
This study investigated the impact of formal features on the recognition of televised public service announcements in a real-life setting. Recognition percentages of 193 public service advertisements (PSAs) derived from campaign evaluation studies were related to content analysis data of the ads. Regression analyses showed that formal features of PSAs accounted for 5% to 7% of the variance in PSA recognition. More specifically, the analyses showed that increasing the number of camera changes in PSAs slightly increases PSA recognition if the amount of information introduced by these camera changes is small, but increasing the number of camera changes tends to decrease PSA recognition substantially as the amount of information introduced by these camera changes increases. This finding implies that PSA producers should be reluctant in introducing much new information through fast-paced messages. Moreover, these results indicate that earlier findings observed in controlled, experimental settings do have ecological validity.
One of the major issues facing contemporary democracies is how the rapidly changing media environment influences democratic citizenship. Rather than strengthening or weakening citizenship per se, the present study analyzes whether traditional news and interactive online media encourage different forms of civic and political engagement among adolescents. More specifically, we use three waves of annually gathered panel data to study Swedish adolescents’ development of self-actualizing (AC) and dutiful (DC) citizen qualities. Overall, the analyses lend support for the AC-DC model, and suggest that communicative practices matter. While traditional news media use is related to DC qualities—such as institutional participation, political trust, and external efficacy—interactive online media use promotes AC qualities, including both online and offline cause-oriented activism.
We propose a model of how messages about groups one personally dislikes affect individual attitudes. We build upon theories of message persuasion and out-group acceptance to account for evidence type (numerical vs. narrative), facilitating conditions (encouraging empathy vs. objectivity), and the underlying mechanisms (immersion). We test this model in a pretest-posttest experiment, in which a sample of Americans (N = 601) read counter-attitudinal commentaries below articles presenting either narrative or numerical evidence about illegal immigrants or same-sex couples. Narratives led to greater message acceptance and greater immersion, especially in the empathetic condition. In turn, numerical messages led to self-perceived attitude change in the objective condition. Persuasive effects of narratives in the empathetic, but not the objective, condition were mediated by immersion.
Employing a bona fide network perspective, this study investigates the network processes and outcomes of organizational collaborative networks before and following Typhoon Haiyan, taking into account the influences of network factors, organizational attributes, and environmental exigencies. The analysis from an online survey with relief organizations and those organizations’ Twitter data showed the consistent influence of past relationships on the formation of subsequent relationships after the disaster. In the on-the-ground network, a few highly active organizations stood out and engaging in multiple modes of communication with resource contacts was seen as an adaptive practice that helped organizations to build resource ties after the typhoon. In the online domain, organizations developed post-typhoon networks by means of becoming directly linked to one another and becoming equally resourceful in building their ties. In addition, different forms of resilience were observed as outcomes of collaborative networks. Findings of this study present theoretical and practical implications by unveiling the network dynamics of contemporary humanitarian actions.
This study investigates communication during the post-sex time interval (PSTI) and extends previous work on communication after sexual activity by testing a post-sex disclosures model (PSDM) using structural equation modeling (SEM). Two-hundred six individuals completed surveys after sexual activity regarding their communication behaviors during the PSTI. The results revealed that individuals who orgasmed assessed greater benefits/fewer risks to disclosing after sexual activity, and orgasm was indirectly associated with positive relational disclosures through risk-benefit assessments. However, positive relational disclosures after sexual activity were not predictive of relationship satisfaction. Rather, perceiving greater benefits/fewer risks to disclosing was associated with increased relationship satisfaction, and orgasm was indirectly related to relationship satisfaction through risk-benefit assessments. Together, these findings suggest that fundamental communication and relational processes occur after sexual activity and that assessments of the potential outcomes of post-sex communication have important effects on relationship well-being.
Organizations often delegate decision-making tasks to groups and teams. At issue is the extent to which participation during discussion reflects both individual-level characteristics and emergent (i.e., group-level) processes. Drawing upon Hewes’s socio-egocentric model and team meeting literature, we used a multilevel approach to examine participation in product-design teams across a series of tasks. Findings indicate that participation consists of both intra- and group-level processes. Team members who were talkative initially continued to participate frequently during the later tasks, and, as predicted, project managers also spoke more often than team members in any other role. In addition, group-level trends became stronger over time, as evidenced by behavioral convergence. Discussion addresses implications for a "middle ground" approach to modeling communicative behavior in groups.
Bias in political news coverage may have a profound influence on voter opinions and preferences. However, the concept of media bias actually encompasses different sub-types: Visibility bias is the salience of political actors, tonality bias the evaluation of these actors, and agenda bias the extent to which parties address preferred issues in media coverage. The present study is the first to explore how each type of bias influences party preferences. Using data from the Austrian parliamentary election campaign of 2013, we combine an online panel survey (n = 1,285) with measures of media bias from content analyses of party press releases (n = 1,922) and media coverage in eight newspapers (n = 6,970). We find substantial effects on party preferences for tonality bias and agenda bias, while visibility bias has no clear impact. Voters who are less politically sophisticated and lack a party identification are more susceptible to bias, and media bias can also reinforce existing partisan identities.
Few studies have empirically examined how media stereotypes of Muslims influence Americans’ support for public policies exclusively harming Muslims. Across three studies, we tested the short-term and long-term effects of news portraying Muslims as terrorists on Americans’ support for public policies harming Muslims domestically and internationally. Study 1 revealed that exposure to news portraying Muslims as terrorists is positively associated with support for military action in Muslim countries. Study 2 revealed that exposure to news portraying Muslims as terrorists is positively associated with support for public policies that harm Muslims domestically and internationally; this effect was fully mediated by perceptions of Muslims as aggressive. Experimental results from Study 3 revealed that exposing participants to negative Muslim media footage, relative to neutral or no-video footage, increased perceptions of Muslims as aggressive, increased support for harsh civil restrictions of Muslim Americans, and increased support for military action in Muslim countries. Exposure to positive Muslim footage yielded opposite results. We discuss the importance of media in exacerbating aggressive attitudes and public policies in the context of intergroup relations.
Recent research on persuasion has explored the utility of incorporating alternative emotional appeals within a fear-appeal framework to achieve persuasive outcomes. The current study contributes to this growing body of research by developing and assessing a hybrid guilt-fear message to increase human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination intentions and comparing it to a standard fear appeal. An online experiment among men and women of vaccination age (N = 407) was conducted. Results detail the paths through which people processed the hybrid and fear appeals differently, and clarify the conditions in which utilizing guilt-based messaging strategies within a fear-appeal framework can facilitate or inhibit persuasive effectiveness. Implications for future research on multiemotion intervention messages are discussed.
Research suggests that the experience of interpersonal racism increases target group individuals’ engagement in health-impairing behavior. While becoming relatively less visible in face-to-face communication contexts, overt racism is finding its "niche" in social media. Drawing on the general strain theory, we examined whether and how microblogged racist messages increase target group members’ intention to drink alcohol through negative emotions. In an online experiment conducted with a general adult sample of 211 Asians living in the United States, participants were randomly exposed to one of three stimuli—control (nonracist) tweets versus anti-Asian tweets versus anti-Asian retweets—and reported their affective states. Next, participants performed a drink choice task disguised as a consumer survey. Results showed that microblogged racist messages indirectly influenced drinking intention in two causal pathways: through anger and serially through shame and anger. The impact and implications of racist messages generated and disseminated through social media platforms are discussed.
Although a variety of studies have examined the predictors or outcomes of adolescents’ social networking site use, these studies did not incorporate (1) an integrated, longitudinal approach to examine these relationships longitudinally in a single comprehensive model or (2) a differential approach to distinguish between different types of social networking site use. Therefore, this two-wave panel study (N = 1,612) developed an integrated and differential model to provide a deeper understanding of the relationships among loneliness, specific types of Facebook use, and adolescents’ depressed mood. Using structural equation modeling, the results point to the presence of a poor-get-richer effect regarding active public Facebook use but reveal a poor-get-poorer effect regarding passive Facebook use. The discussion focuses on the explanation and understanding of these findings.
Drawing on the goals-plans-action (GPA) model and confirmation theory, this study explores associations between family members’ primary and secondary goals, planning (i.e., subgoals related to accomplishing the primary goal), and messages encouraging military service members (SMs) to seek behavioral health care. Family members (N = 244) of SMs who had been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan described what they would say in a scenario where their SM was displaying mental health symptoms and provided importance ratings for primary and secondary goals as well as subgoals. Based on confirmation theory, messages were coded for levels of acceptance, challenge, and autonomy support. Primary goals predicted multiple dimensions of confirmation, both directly and indirectly through subgoals, but the direction of these effects often ran contrary to one another. Secondary goals also predicted confirmation after controlling for primary goal importance. Implications for the GPA model, confirmation theory, and programs that support military families are discussed.
Although research has tested the spiral of silence theory using a variety of issues, little attention is paid to how the nature of the issues affects the spiral of silence processes. This study adopts issue typologies provided by Yeric and Todd and recommended by Salmon and Glynn to test the theory using three issues: immigration (transitory), gay marriage (emerging), and abortion (enduring). Using a nationwide survey of Facebook users (N = 1,046), this study investigates how the nature of issues influences the dynamics of the spiral of silence processes. Results identify issue-specific differences, especially regarding the opinion congruency. Theoretical implications for future tests of the spiral of silence theory and public opinion research are discussed.
Journalists perceive 25% to 80% of their coverage to be influenced by public relations (PR). However, there is hardly any research on what factors determine where on this wide spectrum an individual journalist will fall. This study analyzed the extent and source of the perceived influence of PR on news coverage via a quantitative survey of German journalists. On average, participants perceived over one third of their work to be influenced by PR, and a number of variables were found to be associated with the degree of this impact. Role conceptions as populist mobilizers and newsroom conventions discouraging excessive reliance on PR decreased the influence of PR on news coverage. Secondary employments in the field of PR, having close personal relationships with PR professionals, and considering interests of publishers or advertisers increased the impact of PR on journalistic content.
The purpose of this study was to explain workplace bullying as a symptom of high-strain employment. The Job Demand-Control-Support (JDCS) model of work design was used to frame this study and examine workplace bullying antecedents and consequences. Full-time American employees (N = 314) working in various organizations completed a questionnaire about their bullying experiences, working environments, and occupational outcomes. Results revealed that workplace bullying was correlated with expected negative outcomes at work (i.e., job dissatisfaction, job stress, anxiety). In line with JDCS model predictions, employees who worked at organizations characterized by high psychological demands, low control, and low supervisor social support (i.e., an additive model) reported more workplace bullying (supporting an iso-strain hypothesis). Results of a moderated moderation analysis revealed a significant three-way interaction between demands, control, and support (i.e., supporting a buffering hypothesis); under workplace conditions characterized by low supervisor social support, employee control over how work was completed buffered the negative effect of job demands on workplace bullying. Supervisors, then, should consider how promoting employee autonomy and communicating social support to employees might nullify workplace conditions that encourage bullying, especially when work is particularly demanding.
The negative effects of violent content in movies have recently been a hot topic among both researchers and the general public. Despite growing concern, violence in movies has persisted over time. Few studies have examined why this pattern continues. To fill this gap in the literature, we examine how Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) movie rating descriptors predict ticket sales of 2,094 movies from 1992 to 2012. We test the validity of three theoretical models: (1) the reflective model, (2) the reactance model, and (3) the market model. We find that violent content is linked neither to violence in the broader U.S. culture (i.e., the reflective model) nor to a psychological reactance by adolescents (i.e., the reactance model). Rather, we find, especially among PG-13 (parents strongly cautioned) movies, that violent content leads to increased ticket sales, suggesting that market demand (i.e., audience preferences) is responsible for continued violent content. We discuss the implications of our findings.
Selective exposure research indicates that news consumers tend to seek out attitude-consistent information and avoid attitude-challenging information. This study examines online news credibility and cognitive dissonance as theoretical explanations for partisan selective exposure behavior. After viewing an attitudinally consistent, challenging, or politically balanced online news source, cognitive dissonance, credibility perceptions, and likelihood of selective exposure were measured. Results showed that people judge attitude-consistent and neutral news sources as more credible than attitude-challenging news sources, and although people experience slightly more cognitive dissonance when exposed to attitude-challenging news sources, overall dissonance levels were quite low. These results refute the cognitive dissonance explanation for selective exposure and suggest a new explanation that is based on credibility perceptions rather than psychological discomfort with attitude-challenging information.
One of the most understudied aspects of the spiral of silence theory is the influence on opinion expression of different social structures anchored in geopolitical units, such as cities or states. This study evaluates political opinion expression after an election by relying on national survey data collected in Colombia (Latin America) and using multilevel analytic techniques to assess geopolitical and individual contexts of influence. Results provide evidence that a disagreeable national context—an election outcome contrary to one’s preference—matters in explaining citizens’ political expression. In addition, individual-level variables in the form of self-censorship were studied. Rather than an individual’s level of self-censorship contributing to expression inhibition, it appears that aggregate city levels of self-censorship affect the likelihood of an individual expressing his or her opinion after a presidential election.
Scholars have increasingly recognized the importance of studying factors leading to employee engagement. However, few researchers have created and tested theoretical models that propose mechanisms linking employee engagement to social contextual variables. Based on a random sample of employees (n = 391) working across different industrial sectors in the United States, we proposed and tested a model (rooted in the Social Exchange Theory and the Job Demands-Resources Model) that examined how authentic leadership, transparent organizational communication, and work-life enrichment are interrelated. A simplified model containing both significant direct and indirect effects fit the data. Theoretical contributions and managerial ramifications of the study were discussed.
The purpose of this study is to examine psychological reactance in response to graphic cigarette warning labels and to strengthen and expand on the current literature by using validated measures. Young adults (N = 435) were randomly assigned to a cigarette package featuring a graphic image or a package featuring no image. Utilizing both structural equation modeling and multivariate analyses, the results indicate that graphic warning labels are associated with freedom threat perceptions directly and reactance indirectly. In addition, exposure to graphic cigarette warning labels resulted in higher freedom threat perceptions, negative cognitions, and source domineeringness. Our results are considered with an emphasis on the theoretical and practical implications for policy makers.
Past research has illuminated consistent patterns in the type of protests that receive media attention. Still, we know relatively little about the differential prominence editors assign to events deemed worthy of coverage. We argue that while media routines shape whether events are covered, mass media organizations, social institutions, and systemic changes are important factors in determinations of prominence. To examine patterns of prominence, this study analyzes the factors influencing page placement patterns of protests covered in the New York Times, 1960-1995. We find that (1) protests are less likely to appear prominently over time, but this effect is conditioned by the paper’s editorial and publishing regime; (2) regime effects were especially consequential for civil rights and peace protests; (3) effects of event size and violence weakened over time; and (4) events embedded within larger cycles of protest coverage during less constricted news cycles were more likely to be featured prominently.
Although preschoolers learn from educational TV, they may not use information appropriately due to their developing understanding of video and fantasy-reality distinctions. Seventy 3- to 5-year-olds watched a Sesame Street clip, introduced as either "fun" or "for learning," that depicted aspects of Hispanic culture (e.g., fiestas). They answered comprehension questions and rated the reality of the educational and fantasy content. Approximately a week later, a seemingly unrelated interviewer asked for help planning a fiesta (transfer task), then reassessed memory and reality judgments. Regardless of condition, children retained most of what they learned, but all ages became increasingly skeptical about the reality of both the educational and fantasy content. Consistent with theorizing about transfer, children’s use of the educational content depended on both memory and reality judgments. Older children remembered the information better than younger children, but memory only predicted transfer if the information was remembered as real.
The presence of non-humans in media narratives - for example, in the supernatural genre - may make salient that we are all human. According to the common ingroup identity model, the human superordinate category should influence attitudes toward lower level outgroups. The present study examines this in the context of ethnic outgroups, specifically African Americans. Similarity of supernatural villains to humans was manipulated to influence whether "human" was a relevant superordinate group. Additionally, character race was varied to understand the influence of group diversity cues. Consistent with the common ingroup identity model, exposure to a Black human character fighting non-humans reduces prejudice toward African Americans, and this reduced prejudice generalizes to other minority groups. Results suggest a complex relationship between exposure to supernatural villains and diversity cues on attitudinal outcomes, with identity as human as one possible mechanism for reducing prejudicial attitudes.
Although some sound elements such as music or sound effects are commonly used in audiovisual messages, little research has been conducted to determine whether they guarantee better cognitive processing. The purpose of this study is to improve listeners’ cognitive processing by determining the effectiveness of several sound elements in an audio message. We analyzed the capacity and the position in radio commercials of three orienting elements—appeals to the listener, music, and sound effects—to determine if and how they enhanced the listener’s attention and recall. The findings indicated that the use of orienting elements significantly increased the level of attention and recall of the listeners, especially in the case of sound effects. Regarding the position of the orienting elements, the study showed they were used effectively when focused on the whole structure of the message, applying the so-called spark orientation effect.
The purpose of this study was to integrate the central constructs in the face-negotiation theory in the examination of the antecedents and behavioral consequences of forgiveness in relational transgressions in U.S. and Chinese cultures. Results indicated that in both cultures, transgression victims’ independent self-construal and self-face concern were negatively associated, whereas their interdependent self-construals and other-face concerns were positively associated, with forgiveness, and offender apology was positively associated with forgiveness. Forgiveness had a positive relationship with reconciliation but a negative relationship with revenge in both cultures. The hypothesized model in which forgiveness mediated the relationships of antecedents on reconciliation and revenge fit the data well in both cultural samples.
Prior research has given insufficient attention to the effects of interaction behavior on responses to advice. We drew on theories of advice evaluation and supportive communication to propose hypotheses about the influence of problem-focused behavior (advice, planning, offers, and requests) and its interactional placement for advice outcomes. After naturalistic support interactions with friends, advice recipients (N = 165) completed measures of advice quality, intention to implement advice, advisor helpfulness, and conversational satisfaction. The interactions were coded for quantity of advice, offers, plans, and requests. Advice, planning, and requests affected outcomes in theoretically relevant ways. Findings are discussed with respect to improving theory, and practical implications for advisors.
Taking the logic of online connective action from an information-processing viewpoint, an online experiment (N = 208) was done to examine whether individuals’ cognitive elaboration on messages received from different sources (personal: friends, family, vs. impersonal: organization) mediates their willingness to engage in connective-type collective activities on social media (e.g., commenting, "Liking"); and whether this indirect influence is biased by perceived source credibility. Results revealed significant influence from personal sources. Cognitive elaboration positively mediates this influence and was conditionally affected by high source credibility. Direct influence from personal issue involvement and perceived self and technological efficacy was also observed. Theoretical contributions (i.e., cognitive demands at individual level) and practical implications (i.e., enhancing organizational credibility, popularity of easy-to-do acts) are discussed.
Based on the theoretical frameworks of information-sharing in groups and the linear discrepancy model, this study highlights the importance of communicating shared information for a divergent member to influence a group. Participants received information concerning whether "under God" should be in the Pledge of Allegiance. After stating individual opinions, they discussed the issue in small groups and came to a group decision on a continuous, ordered scale. Low divergent members, who had opinions closer to the average of other group members, had more influence than high divergent members. Group members with high divergence were more confident and talked more than others. However, there was no relationship between amount divergent members talked or their confidence level and their amount of influence. Highly divergent group members who mentioned more shared information were more influential and came across as more knowledgeable.
One set of media effect theories argues that people are more likely to model behaviors that lead to a rewarding outcome (goal-achieved) than those that lead to an unrewarding outcome (goal-failed); however, recent studies find that observing another person’s goal achievement deactivates the goal. In Experiment 1, a story in which a character’s diet goal is in progress activated participants’ diet goals more than a story in which the character’s goal is achieved. In Experiment 2, when a story character achieved a diet goal, participants’ perceived similarity with the character was related to a greater intention to model the character’s diet-related behaviors; that relationship was not significant when the character failed. When a story character continued to pursue a diet goal, however, participants’ goals were more activated than when the character discontinued to pursue the goal.
One hundred dyads of low-income, Spanish-speaking mothers and their bilingual children (age = 12-18) who act as language brokers (i.e., culturally/linguistically mediate between their mothers and English-speakers) were surveyed. Multiple goals theory was tested and extended by examining how mother and child perceptions of own and partner interaction goals across language brokering episodes were associated with mother-child relational satisfaction. An actor-partner interdependence model revealed that goals related to face, trust, and ethnic identity were associated with mother and child relational satisfaction. For both mothers and children, perceptions of own and partner goals (i.e., actor effects), and interactions between own reported and partner perceptions of the same goal (i.e., actor-partner effects) linked with mother-child relational satisfaction. Mother and child goal management during language brokering may have broader relational repercussions.
Prior research has suggested that mothers’ life logistics may increase opportunities for children to watch television. However, associations between structural circumstances of mothers’ lives and levels of children’s television use have not been empirically investigated. The contribution of this study is that it investigates maternal structural life circumstances longitudinally associated with children’s television time and potential mechanisms underlying this association. More specifically, the study examined the association between mothers’ working hours and children’s television time, and the mediating role of mothers’ parenting time pressure and well-being in this relationship. Structural equation modeling using data from a two-wave panel survey of mothers of 1- to 4-year-olds (N = 404) demonstrated a longitudinal relationship between mothers’ working hours and children’s television time. This relationship was mediated by mothers’ parenting time pressure and well-being, indicating that high maternal working hours create parenting time pressure and undermine mothers’ well-being, which encourages children to watch more television.
Deception is a pervasive problem often found in human behavior. This study investigates why past deception studies have found groups perform no better than individuals in detection using time-interaction-performance theory which suggests teams are not immediately effective. Only after establishing relational links is potential reached. Established groups spend less time building relational links and instead focus on task-oriented activities more effectively. We sought to determine whether groups with prior history of interaction outperform individuals in deception detection. First, participants were randomly assigned to an individual or ad hoc group role. Later, additional preexisting work groups were recruited. Participants were instructed to identify deception in online video interviews. The experiment tested theoretical explanations regarding cohesion, interaction, and satisfaction as components of relational links and relationships to deception detection. Results indicated that groups which exhibited higher levels of relational links, that is, established groups, were more accurate in deception detection than ad hoc groups.
This study investigates the dynamics of the reciprocal influence of political knowledge and attentive news use. News media are an important source for political information and contribute to political learning. Yet, this process is optimized with increasing levels of pre-existing knowledge about the political world. In extant literature, mutual interdependence is often suggested, but empirical proof is scarce. We propose to conceptualize the relationship of knowledge and news use as an upward spiral. The model is tested on data from a three-wave panel survey among 888 adolescents using growth curve modeling. The results support the model of a spiral of political learning. Interestingly, the influence of political knowledge on news use is estimated to be higher than the other way round.
The potential impact of mass media has been virtually neglected in the study of adolescent fear of crime. This is remarkable, given adolescents’ heavy media consumption and developmental vulnerability. Music videos and soap operas have been completely overlooked in the TV-fear association, even though they have a large adolescent audience and contain a lot of violence. An online survey of 3,372 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years found that the relationship between exposure to soap operas and music videos on the one hand and fear of crime on the other hand was mediated by perceived personal risk of criminal victimization, perceived ability to control crime, and perceived seriousness of crime. Exposure to soap operas and music videos was associated with these cognitive factors of fear. Some relationships differed by age and sex. Our findings suggest that the age of 14 to 15 is pivotal for the development of media-induced fear.
The theory of normative social behavior (TNSB) describes the moderators of the descriptive norm-behavior relationship. Although specified in revisions to the model, the role of involvement as a moderator has not been fully explored. As such, this article predicts that different forms of involvement (i.e., value-, impression-, and outcome-relevant involvement) function in different ways as moderators of the descriptive norm-behavior relationship and determines whether this relationship varies by health and environmental behaviors. This article presents data on three behaviors examined in prior social norms studies: drinking alcohol, fast food consumption, and recycling. Data indicate that the nature of the relationship among the study variables is dependent on the focal behavior. For fast food consumption, the descriptive norm-behavioral intention relationship is moderated by value-relevant involvement and behavioral identity. For recycling, the descriptive norm-behavior relationship is moderated by behavioral identity. Other main effects are evidenced in the data.
Although the supportive communication people receive from others during stressful times can be helpful, it can also result in negative outcomes. One explanation for these different effects might be how closely the support people receive matches their desires. This study extends optimal matching theory and examines how the discrepancy between the support people want and what they receive (called support gaps) corresponds with hurt feelings, perceived negative relational consequences, and esteem improvement. People can either receive less support than the desire (i.e., be under-benefited) or receive more support than they desire (i.e., be over-benefited), and these different types of support gaps produce distinct patterns of results. Specifically, action-facilitating support, which includes informational and tangible support, and nurturant support, which includes emotional, esteem, and network support, were studied. Results showed that being over-benefited in informational support and being under-benefited in emotional and esteem support is hurtful, and hurt corresponded with negative relational consequences and reduced esteem improvement. Implications for research on support gaps and hurt feelings are discussed.
This article explicates the concept of user engagement by synthesizing a disparate body of scholarship, and suggests a measurement and a structural model for empirically capturing the meaning and process of user engagement, specifically in the context of interactive media. A second-order confirmatory factor analysis of data from two experiments (N = 263) shows that four attributes—physical interaction, interface assessment, absorption, and digital outreach—together constitute a valid and reliable operationalization of the concept of user engagement. A structural equation model reveals that greater amount of physical interaction with the interface and a more positive assessment of the interface predict cognitive absorption with the content, which in turn is associated with greater behavioral intention to manage and socially distribute the content. In addition, predictive validity tests show that the four subscales are predictors of attitudinal and learning outcomes.
Previous research has demonstrated the critical role communication plays in a group’s ability to recognize its expert members. This study looks broadly at the different forms of communication that might influence expertise recognition and considers how structural, relational, and communicative factors are related to individuals’ success in having their expertise recognized by other group members. In addition, we advance a view of expertise recognition in terms of expertise sharing, and consider the circumstances under which an individual’s self-perceived expertise is likely to match the perceptions of other group members. Drawing on survey data from 99 employees at a financial services company, we find that it is communication practices, and not structural influences, that primarily relate to group members having their expertise recognized by coworkers. The findings extend theory that views attributions of individuals’ expertise in organizations as a communicative phenomenon that emerges through work practices.
Gender-based political stereotypes pervade the media environment in the United States, and this may cause voters to automatically activate these stereotypes while evaluating politicians. In the research reported here, we investigate whether voters are able to reduce the automatic activation of unwanted stereotypes and how political sophistication influences this capacity. The current experiment uses self-reports to measure controlled stereotyping, and we develop a new eye movement metric to measure automatic stereotyping. We find that political sophisticates are more effective than novices at reducing unwanted gender-based political stereotypes. This study has two main implications for communication research. First, the results suggest that the effects of gender-based automatic stereotyping—induced by the information environment—on political judgments may not be as powerful as some of the current literature portrays them to be. Second, this study adds eye movements to the arsenal of tools available to communication scholars interested in measuring covert forms of stereotyping.
The legitimization of paltry contributions (LPC) has been shown to be an effective compliance-gaining technique across a variety of empirical investigations. However, the theoretical explanations regarding the effectiveness of the tactic and the effects of LPC messages on donation amounts warrant further consideration. A meta-analytic review of LPC research was conducted to examine these issues. Consistent with a prior meta-analysis, LPC messages increased compliance rates (r = .22, k = 34, n = 3,181) relative to control conditions. Three moderators were also tested. The results indicated that impression management concerns and perceptions of requestor need explained the effects of LPC messages on compliance rates. A second analysis (r = –.23, k = 11, n = 1,531) offered evidence that LPC messages led to smaller mean donation amounts. A third analysis showed that LPC messages produced similar donation totals relative to control messages.
This study tracks the increasing supply of Internet access and the diversity of Internet use by analyzing data from the three waves of a survey conducted in the United Kingdom in 2005, 2007, and 2009. Data on Internet access and three dimensions of online use (civic-government, economic-commerce, and generic information and news) reveal that Internet not only offers an emergent promise of diversity but also presents a systematic divide in which the increase in benefits (of Internet capacities and actual consumed) does not uniformly occur, while the impacts of social disparities remain constant over time. Our discussion addresses how characteristics of social backgrounds are salient in harnessing types of Internet use that may be a critical tipping point for information diversity. We argue that policymakers will be better served by understanding the constraint of actual use that is to be in par with the continuous explosion of technological supply.
We build on studies on integration and message effectiveness to test whether narrative versus statistical evidence is more effective in promoting openness to Western European norms among different subgroups of Muslim immigrants. We draw on an experiment in which Muslim immigrants living in the Netherlands (N = 454) saw narrative or statistical messages about gender equality, sexual minority rights, and secularism in public life. We find that the Dutch-born were more receptive to a narrative, while statistical messages generated greater openness to the tested norms among those born in Muslim countries. We interpret these findings in light of different cultural orientations. The study offers a first step toward a framework for understanding evidence effectiveness in multiethnic societies.
Previous research suggests that the antagonists in conflicts are influenced by their perceptions of hostile media coverage and presumptions of media effects. Research so far has concentrated on presumed media influences on the general public. This study concentrates on presumed media influences on the conflicting parties. It tests how hostile media perceptions and presumptions of media effects on the conflicting parties affect the antagonists’ acceptance of an uncivil and uncompromising style of public communication. In the context of the German controversy over aircraft noise, online surveys of 82 (47%) opponents of aircraft noise and 48 (33%) proponents of air traffic were conducted. Hostile media perceptions have no direct but an indirect effect on antagonists’ intentions to communicate. They strengthen both parties’ beliefs that the media make the protesters against aircraft noise more extreme. This, in turn, increases both parties’ acceptance of incivility in the public dispute.
Previous research has shown that mass media stimulate the development of an objectified self-concept. However, we know little about the role social networking sites (SNS) play in these relationships. The current longitudinal study (N = 1,041) aimed to fill this gap by studying adolescents’ frequency of SNS use in general and their use of SNS to monitor attractive peers in particular. The results showed that the use of sexualizing mass media was associated with considering the appearance ideals promoted in mass media as one’s own standards to pursue. This internalization of appearance ideals, in turn, was related to the tendency to monitor attractive peers on SNS. Both the use of SNS to monitor attractive peers and the use of sexualizing mass media stimulated self-objectification and body surveillance over time. The frequency of SNS use played a limited role in the relationship between mass media and an objectified self-concept.
Despite doing their best to keep customers satisfied, organizations can upset their patrons when expectations go unmet. When these organizational failures occur, consumers sometimes complain directly to companies. This type of behavior may be considered adaptive insofar as it helps individuals rectify their problems and allows organizations to fix issues for others as well. However, not all consumers complain to companies when they experience dissatisfaction; instead, many people choose to engage in less adaptive behaviors such as spreading negative word of mouth or withholding their patronage. This study was conducted to examine how variables related to protection motivation theory (i.e., threat, coping, and cost) relate to consumers’ choices regarding complaint behaviors. Four hundred fifty-four participants were solicited online to respond to hypothetical scenarios regarding organizational failures. The data indicated participants’ perceptions of threat and cost interacted to predict complaining behavior. Results are discussed as they pertain to organizational practices.
The bulk of current literature on partisan media explores its various detrimental influences on the democratic sphere. This study highlights a possible positive outcome of partisan media consumption: enhanced political participation. It is hypothesized that consumption of congruent partisan media will tilt perceptions of opinion climate so that it is viewed as more supportive of one’s views, while consumption of incongruent partisan media is viewed as less supportive. Consequently, consumers of congruent partisan media will participate more, and vice versa. The hypotheses are tested using two panel studies: the first conducted during the 2012 U.S. presidential elections (N = 377) whereas the second, during the 2013 Israeli election (N = 340). In the Israeli case, survey data are supplemented with behavioral measures. All hypotheses are supported except the one regarding the effects of incongruent partisan media exposure. The results are discussed in light of the spiral of silence theory and the selective exposure hypothesis.
Several new communication technologies have made it relatively easy for individuals to broadcast a single self-disclosure directly to almost everyone with whom they share a relationship—ranging from close friends to little-known acquaintances. Drawing from research on self-disclosure and the negativity effect, two studies were conducted to test the notion that the interpersonal and relational outcomes of broadcasting positive and negative self-disclosures are not uniform. The results of the cross-sectional survey offer evidence that the outcomes of positive and negative broadcasted disclosures vary depending on the receiver’s relationship with the discloser. The results from the experiment largely support the negativity effect explanation for differences in the outcomes of broadcasted disclosures. Relative to positive disclosures, negative broadcasted self-disclosures have a significantly greater impact on acquaintances than on friends’ perceptions of the discloser and their relationship.
This study tests theoretical assumptions about how the level of narrative engagement during exposure to a television series storyline influences how viewers process scenes within the storyline. An embodied cognition approach to information processing was applied to record and interpret psychophysiological data reflecting how viewers mentally process television program narratives. Specifically, we recorded physiological data indicating the orienting response (OR) to examine viewers’ processing of narrative surprise structures. In a 4 (storyline) x 4 (order) mixed repeated measures experiment, 59 participants watched four stimulus clips including a surprising plot development while psychophysiological measures were being recorded. After about 4 to 5 minutes into the clip but before the surprising event, they were asked to indicate their level of narrative engagement. Results confirm that surprise structures do elicit ORs in viewers, and they occur regardless of the level of narrative engagement. This study highlights the potential of combining an embodied cognition approach with existing approaches to understanding how viewers process narratives and provides inspiration for future research about narrative processing and persuasion.
This study focuses on the transition to extended family that occurs as marriage creates in-law relationships along with the spousal unit. Specifically, it utilizes both the relational turbulence model and the multiple goals perspective to examine variations in communication avoidance and satisfaction with one’s in-law relationship. Our model proposes that key mechanisms of relational turbulence (i.e., relational uncertainty and interference from partners) are associated with in-law’s communicative goals (such as managing uncertainty, fostering a positive in-law identity, and maintaining family relationships), which in turn are associated with topic avoidance. In addition, we hypothesized that relational uncertainty, interference from partners, and the use of topic avoidance would be associated with dissatisfaction in nascent in-law bonds. A cross-sectional analysis of data from 203 children-in-law revealed that in addition to direct associations among relational uncertainty, interference from partners, topic avoidance, and satisfaction, children-in-law’s uncertainty management goals mediated a portion of the association between the mechanisms of turbulence and topic avoidance. These findings are consistent with our proposed model, suggesting important implications for our understanding of the transition to extended family, as well as our understanding of relational turbulence and multiple goals in in-law relationships.
The purposes of the current study were (1) to examine the relationship between social networking service (SNS) dependency and local community engagement among Seoul residents, (2) to test the hypothesis that integrated connectedness to a community storytelling network (ICSN) is positively related to local community engagement, and (3) to investigate the moderating role of ICSN between SNS dependency and local community engagement. The current study is theoretically guided by communication infrastructure theory (CIT). We used online survey data collected during summer 2013 from a sample of 890 SNS users between the ages of 19 and 59 who lived in 25 districts in Seoul. We focused on four variables as local community engagement outcomes: neighborhood belonging, two collective efficacy variables (informal social control and social cohesion), and community activity participation. We found that SNS dependency and ICSN were positively associated with all local community engagement variables. We also identified the moderating role of ICSN between SNS dependency and the two collective efficacy variables. In addition, we found that closed SNSs (e.g., KakaoTalk) are more likely to facilitate community engagement than open SNSs (e.g., Facebook or Twitter).
This study assessed how qualities of supportive interactions, operationalized from the perspectives of the support receiver and third-party observers, predict emotional improvement and cortisol recovery following a stressful experience. Participants (N = 103) conversed with a dating partner after completing a series of stressful tasks; partners engaged in either neutral listening or supportive communication. Participants reported their perceptions of the interaction and their emotional improvement, and provided salivary cortisol samples that indexed changes in stress. Trained third-party observers rated the interactions for supportive qualities. Individually, participants’ perceptions of support explicitness, elaboration, and involvement were positively correlated with emotional improvement, but participants’ perceptions of support explicitness and elaboration were associated with slower, rather than faster, cortisol recovery. When study variables were assessed as a set, participants’ perceptions of explicitness of support were associated with greater emotional improvement and third-party ratings of explicitness of support predicted faster cortisol recovery.
While media research has long ago acknowledged that watching TV is a social activity, only a few studies have examined the effects of co-viewing on adult reactions to a televised text. In the current investigation, we used social-cognitive theory combined with previous research on the intra-audience effect, audience identification, transportation, and attitude change to develop hypotheses connecting co-viewers’ reactions, co-viewers’ gender, and viewer’s post-exposure attitudes. Participants watched a movie segment that ended in a rape scene. We manipulated their confederate co-viewers’ displayed reaction (enthusiastic or bored) and gender, and subsequently measured perceived co-viewers’ attributions of responsibility for the rape, the viewers’ transportation, identification with the male protagonist, and acceptance of the rape myth (the tendency to attribute responsibility for sexual violence to the victim). Results demonstrated that for those participants who correctly perceived the engagement manipulation, the effect of the confederate co-viewer’s engagement manipulation on rape myth acceptance was positive and significant. In addition, both manipulations had an indirect effect on rape myth acceptance, sequentially mediated through transportation and identification.
This article develops and tests a theoretical cognitive-affective process model of the hostile media effect (HME). To explain the HME, scholars have mainly focused on cognitive involvement, that is, the extent to which an issue is of personal importance. In addition, we introduce the notion of affective involvement and hypothesize three distinct routes responsible for a HME: a cognitive, an affective, and a cognitive-affective route. Simultaneously collected representative survey data from the United States, Norway, and France employing country-invariant measures provide clear evidence that the three routes each and independently drive the HME. Theoretical and methodological implications of these findings are discussed.
The social control framework and multiple goals perspective were used to investigate couples’ (N = 192) diet- and exercise-related social control communication. Actor-Partner Interdependence Models (APIMs) were used to examine couples’ use of positive and negative social control in association with (a) their specific motives for using social control and (b) constraints against using social control. In line with a multiple goals framework, partners employ different social control strategies as a function of their distinct motives, and couples appear to consider secondary goals when communicating social control in their relationship. Together, these results suggest that individuals are aware of the need to balance their desire for their partners to be physically healthy with their desire to maintain their relationship.
This research introduces and tests a measure that captures gendered communication style, a multi-dimensional construct with masculine and feminine facets. In Study 1, we follow a well-regarded content adequacy procedure to develop and test items to represent each of these facets and further validate the new measurement instrument across two samples of working adults. Study 2 replicates the instrument’s factor structure and tests the relationships between perceived masculine and feminine communication styles and multiple indicators of career success. Results generally support our hypotheses that masculine communication style is related to hierarchical advancement (e.g., number of promotions, advancement to higher managerial levels), whereas feminine communication style is related to non-hierarchical rewards (e.g., higher compensation, increased span of control). Unexpectedly, feminine communication style also positively predicts two indicators of hierarchical career success. Furthermore, an interaction effect suggests that gendered communication style has more of an impact on women’s compensation than on men’s.
This study experimentally investigated whether exposing children to a television advertisement for a high sugar cereal that depicts physical activities influences their perceptions of the promoted food and activities differently than exposure to an advertisement for the same product without the depiction of physical activities. Children aged 5 to 6 and 10 to 11 years (N = 136) were compared to reveal age differences in responses to this marketing practice. Exposure to the advertisement depicting physical activities had an immediate strengthening effect on all children’s perceptions of the food’s healthfulness as well as younger children’s attitudes toward the product. The ability to recognize juxtaposed beliefs regarding a product’s healthfulness protected children from some of the influence of this marketing strategy.
According to mood management theory, individuals are hedonically motivated to select media content that facilitates a positive mood state, which at its core suggests a desire to escape from—to avoid—affective states that are not positive. In efforts to explain when individuals might make non-hedonic media choices, two studies examined individuals’ coping tendencies and current affect, among other measures, before making a media content choice. Results showed that mood management was most predictive for people who were naturally inclined to cope with stressors using avoidance tactics. Those who were less inclined to engage in avoidance coping strategies did not appear compelled to escape from, that is, improve, their low positive affective state with "happy" media. Findings are discussed in terms of situating mood management behaviors within the larger context of coping strategies. Implications of this research include the furtherance of entertainment theory and technology innovation with regard to tailoring one’s entertainment media diet.
The objective of this article is to improve the understanding of mood and judgment effects evoked by major televised sport events like national football matches. According to disposition theory of sport spectatorship, viewers’ affective experiences, specifically their moods, are assumed to be affected by the outcomes of the matches they watch. This study tests whether these mood effects depend on viewers’ team identification as well as viewers’ sex. Moreover, past research has indicated that mood changes as effects of sport viewing could influence viewers’ subsequent judgments in line with feeling-as-information theory. Based on this line of arguments, a quasi-experimental pre-post-test study with 180 participants was conducted to assess the moods and judgments (self-confidence, evaluation of the economic situation, government satisfaction) of viewers before and after a win and a defeat of the German national football team during the 2011 women’s FIFA World Cup. The results support disposition theory of sport spectatorship as well as feeling-as-information theory and give new insights into the moderating role of team identification and sex.
This study tested a causal relationship between international public relations (PR) expenditure and its economic outcome at the country level by using a time-series analysis. International PR expenditures of four client countries (Japan, Colombia, Belgium, and the Philippines) were collected from the semi-annual reports of the Foreign Agency Registration Act (FARA) from 1996 to 2009. Economic outcome was measured by U.S. imports from the client countries and U.S. foreign direct investment (FDI) toward them. This study found that the past PR expenditure holds power in forecasting future economic outcomes for Japan, Belgium, and the Philippines except Colombia.
Research on the interplay of gender and political party in voters’ candidate evaluations has long focused on all-male elections and more recently on mixed-gender elections. This study takes the next theoretical step and focuses on woman-versus-woman elections. Specifically, we examine political party- and gender-based "ownerships" of political issues and character traits in the context of female-only elections. With an experimental design, adult participants were randomly assigned to read news articles that presented either two Republican or two Democratic women competing for Governor. Candidates were presented as "owning" stereotypically masculine or feminine issues and traits. Findings show that self-identified Democrats and Republicans eschewed the so-called masculine candidate, and preferred instead a partisan woman who created a gender balance of masculinity and femininity.
This study explores the effect of negative exemplars on two-sided message recall and risk perception, as mediated by negative affect. In an experiment, participants were randomly assigned to an article presenting conflicting risk arguments about vaccination that included a photograph exemplifying one argument side (receiving a vaccine is risky), a photograph exemplifying the other argument side (not receiving a vaccine is risky), or no photograph (control condition). Exemplifying the risks associated with vaccination influenced uneven recall and risk perception. Negative affect, rather than perceived argument strength, mediated these effects and was a stronger predictor of risk perception than risk argument recall, lending support to the affect heuristic. However, exemplifying the risk of not vaccinating produced null effects on affect, risk perception, and recall, despite using the same photograph. A follow-up study suggests that motivated reasoning played a role in this null finding, providing direction for future research.
A content analysis of a random sample of Los Angeles television news programs was used to assess racial representations of perpetrators, victims, and officers. A series of comparisons were used to assess whether local news depictions differed from outside indicators of social reality. In a significant departure from prior research, they revealed that perpetration was accurately depicted on local TV news. Blacks, in particular, were accurately depicted as perpetrators, victims, and officers. However, although Latinos were accurately depicted as perpetrators, they continued to be underrepresented as victims and officers. Conversely, Whites remained significantly overrepresented as victims and officers. The implications of these findings are discussed in light of incognizant racism, ethnic blame discourse, structural limitations, and the guard dog perspective of news media.
In consultation with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Center for Global Health (CDC CGH), this study compared narrative and non-narrative message designs for global public health initiative issues management. A multiple-message experimental design prompted participants (N = 669) to read a message about a CDC CGH initiative, and measured perceptions of agency reputation, support for a global public health mission, and intentions to share information. Narrative message design had direct effects on intentions to share the message interpersonally and through social media and indirect effects on the outcomes through perceptions of message features and mediating states (i.e., story structure, understanding, personal relevance, information overload) and transportation. The study contributes to theory and practice by confirming the mediating role of transportation, building on a message features approach to the study of narrative persuasion, and speaking to the challenges of issues management in global public health.
Across Europe, the use of negative portrayals of immigrants in populist political advertising has dramatically increased. An experimental study tested the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions for the effects of such ads on explicit and implicit attitudes toward foreigners. Findings revealed that populist ads strengthened intergroup anxiety and negative stereotypes for voters with lower educational degrees. This, in turn, led to more negative explicit attitudes. However, we observed stronger effects of populist ads on implicit attitudes for individuals with higher educational degrees. The necessity of including explicit as well as implicit measures in political communication research is discussed.
The present research examines the processes involved in the psychological and behavioral effects of avatar use. We offer and explore a new concept, avatar self-relevance, which potentially moderates avatar use effects and thus may help explain why such effects are augmented by using (compared with viewing) an avatar. Results from an experimental study suggest that avatar self-relevance after avatar use, as reflected by physiological responses to observing (without controlling) the avatar get beaten up, is higher for people who maintain a psychological connection to the avatar, while lower for people for whom the disconnection from the avatar is highly salient, with avatar gender consistency and an avatar-emotion connection contributing to the former and an avatar-body connection contributing to the latter. This research offers a middle ground between self-perception and priming-oriented explanations of the theoretical mechanisms involved in avatar use effects.
The current study uses structural equation modeling to examine adoptive parent communication as it relates to adoptee adjustment directly and indirectly through adoptive identity. Using retrospective accounts of 179 adult adoptees, findings indicate that both adoption- (adoption communication openness) and non-adoption-related (parental confirmation and affectionate communication) parental communication are related to adoptive identity work and positive affect about adoption and birth parents. Preoccupation mediates the relationship between parental communication and adoptee adjustment. The current study integrates research and theorizing from identity, adoption, and communication literatures to develop a communication-centered conceptual model of adoptive identity development to inform future adoption research and practice.
Studies have shown that ethnic segregation is conducive to social segregation. With the advent of information and communication technologies, mobile communication can support non-local social interactions and reconfigure the network composition of ethnic groups. This study focused on the similarities and differences between ethno-national groups in the structure of their cell phone communications. Data for this study include a sample of 9,099 business customers’ mobile phone calls from an Israeli mobile operator and tested two theoretical explanations. The social stratification approach predicts that mobile communication will reflect the patterns of spatial and social stratification that exist in society. On the other hand, the social diversification hypothesis expects that residentially and socially segregated minority groups will take advantage of mobile communication to diversify their social contacts and to engage in mobile communications with non-local and out-group ties. The findings suggest that in the information society, both structural conditions (the stratification approach) and social incentives (the diversification approach) are relevant for the understanding of inter-ethnic mobile communication, and structural conditions reduced inter-group mobile communication patterns. The Arab Israeli minority was more likely than the Jewish Israeli majority to engage in mobile communication with non-local ties and out-group members. Yet, structural conditions reduced inter-group mobile communication patterns. The theoretical implications of the findings for inter-group mobile communication are discussed.
The ability viewers have to contribute information to websites (i.e., user-generated content) is a defining feature of the participatory web. Building on warranting theory, this study examined how viewers’ evaluations of a target are more or less likely to be influenced by user-generated content. The results indicate that the more a target is perceived to be able to control the dissemination of user-generated reviews online, the less credence people place in those reviews when forming impressions of the target. In addition, the less people are confident that user-generated reviews are truly produced by third-party reviewers, the less people trust those reviews. The results provide novel support for warranting theory by illustrating how the warranting value of user-generated information can vary and thus differentially affect viewers’ evaluations of a target. The implications of the study’s results for warranting theory, online impression management, e-commerce, and future research are discussed.
This study evaluated whether common self-report measures of television and game violence exposure represent reliable and valid measurement tools. Three self-report measures—direct estimates, user-rated favorites, and agency-rated favorites—were assessed in terms of test-retest reliability, criterion validity (their relationship with coded media diaries), and construct validity (their relationship with aggression and gender). A total of 238 adolescents participated in a two-wave survey and completed two media diaries. For game violence, the three self-report measures were reliable and valid. For television violence, only direct estimates achieved test-retest reliability and construct validity. Criterion validity could not be established for the television violence measures because the media diary was not a valid criterion for television violence. Our findings indicate that both direct estimates and favorites are valid measures for game violence, whereas for television violence, only direct estimates are valid. We conclude with a discussion about ways to further improve upon and reconceptualize media violence exposure measurement.
General journalistic principles guide the ways that gatekeepers evaluate the newsworthiness of events. These principles are adapted in the field of international communication and indicate some unique features, in particular, of international disasters reporting. The current research examined the presence, amount, and length of news coverage from 3 major U.S. newspapers on 292 global natural disasters from 2004 to 2014. Results showed that U.S. newspapers had a reasonable neglect of international disasters compared with domestic ones and a disproportional favor toward huge versus smaller size disasters. A systematic predicting model was evident: Severity was the most significant and the only consistent determinant of disasters reports, followed by the intensity of deviance. Geographic distance and degree of relevance between countries failed to predict any variance of news coverage. This finding might demonstrate a return to the news value that the newsworthiness of an event should be based on the attributes of the event per se.
Numerous empirical investigations demonstrate that exposure to the stereotypic and oftentimes threatening portrayals of race/ethnicity in the media predicts a wide range of unfavorable intergroup outcomes. The current study extends this work by experimentally examining the role of emotions in this process. Specifically, a 2 (Immigration Threat: Present/Absent) x 2 (Ingroup Emotion Endorsement: Present/Absent) + 1 (Control Group) experimental design tests the influence of exposure to immigration news stories on group-level emotions and intergroup behaviors. Findings indicate that exposure to threatening immigration news coverage indirectly influences intergroup outcomes through group-level emotions. Exposure to immigration news indirectly produces active and passive harming behaviors through feelings of contempt. These results provide an important first step in understanding a broader array of media-related intergroup processes and effects.
People generally believe they are less susceptible than others to influences of media, and a growing body of research implicates such biased processing, or third-person perception, in public support for censorship, a type of third-person effect. The current study extends research of the third-person effect by studying two efficacy-related concepts in the context of sexual content in films. Analysis of cross-sectional data from 1,012 Singaporeans suggests that people exhibit self-other asymmetries of efficacy beliefs: They believe others are less capable than they are of self-regulation and that censorship is more effective at restricting others’ access to sexual content in films. Furthermore, the former belief was directly related to the belief that others are more susceptible to negative influence, and thus was indirectly related to support for censorship; whereas the latter belief was directly related to support for censorship. Results may help distinguish the roles of self-regulation and government censorship as bases of local media standards.
This study reports a quasi-experiment (N= 374) that examined an underlying mechanism through which narratives can facilitate personalization of risk. The participants were exposed to one of four entertainment clips depicting an at-risk character who was either tested positive or negative for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). As predicted, reduction of perceived social distance to an at-risk character resulted in a convergence of perceived self- and character-risk. More importantly, the convergence of risk was driven by an increased perception of self-risk, as opposed to a reduction of character-risk. The observed pattern of risk convergence was much more pronounced in the negative rather than the positive STD test narratives. Furthermore, narrative engagement through identification, parasocial interaction, and perceived realism led to greater degree of risk convergence, which was mediated by reduction in perceived social distance. The order in which the subjects estimated self- and character-risk did not influence the perceptual gap.
This study, with two parts, investigated host environment and host communication factors in Hong Kong ethnic minority members’ cross-cultural adaptation. Study I examined host receptivity, host conformity pressure, host communication competence (HCC), and host communication satisfaction as predictors of satisfaction with life self-reported by Hong Kongers of south-/south-east Asian origin (n = 195). Results showed that host receptivity and host communication satisfaction contributed significantly to satisfaction with life. Study II was a partial replication of Study I with a broader sample (n = 140). Hierarchical multiple regressions replicated the earlier findings that host receptivity did and host conformity pressure did not predict satisfaction with life in the same direction. MANOVA of high and low HCC groups yielded significant main effects on host receptivity, host conformity pressure, host communication satisfaction, and life satisfaction. Implications of the findings are discussed.
This study conceptualizes local communication networks as a unique source of neighborhood collective efficacy. Data from the Seattle Neighborhoods and Crime Survey were used to create neighborhood-level measures of structural factors, friendship/kinship networks, organizational participation, local communication networks, collective efficacy, disorder, and crime victimization. Results indicate that socioeconomic status and residential stability have positive effects on local communication networks. The measure of local communication networks is positively related to collective efficacy, which in turn has decreased effects on disorder and crime victimization. Implications are discussed in terms of the role of communication in building a safe community.
This article tests conversion theory through linguistic analysis of group discussions and also tests the effects of linguistic mimicry in homogeneous groups and minority/majority groups. Supporting conversion theory, majorities had a more interpersonal, outward focus as tested through use of more third person plural pronouns ("they"). Supporting conversion theory’s validation process, minority members who used a higher percentage of causation words were more influential. Majority members who used more second person pronouns ("you") had less influence in the group, in support of previous research that found that "you" words were counterproductive with conflict. It was hypothesized that there would be a positive relationship between linguistic mimicry and discussion of information shared by all group members, but this was only found in homogeneous groups.
This experiment examines the effects of media portrayals of persistent pursuit on beliefs about stalking. Exposure to a film that depicted persistent pursuit as scary led participants to endorse fewer stalking-supportive beliefs. Although exposure to a film that depicted persistent pursuit as romantic did not lead to greater endorsement of stalking-supportive beliefs for all participants, it did have this effect among those higher in perceived realism or transportation. Possible mediators of the relation between media exposure and beliefs about stalking are also explored. Results indicate that media portrayals of gendered aggression can have prosocial effects, and that the romanticized pursuit behaviors commonly featured in the media as a part of normative courtship can lead to an increase in stalking-supportive beliefs. This latter finding may have implications for the legal support female stalking victims are able to access.
We examine predictors of outgroup partner "fit" (the extent to which an individual is seen as representative of a group), and whether fit determines generalization from a discrete intergroup communication experience to intentions for future contact with the outgroup. In an experiment, 288 undergraduate students imagined a conversation with an older target who was presented either positively or negatively. The positively valenced older adult was seen as being more representative of older people in general (high fit), and this link was stronger for those with more past positive and fewer past negative communication experiences. Fit moderated the effects of imagined interaction valence on intentions for future intergroup contact. A positive older partner perceived as fitting the category "older people" resulted in greater intention to communicate with older people in the future than a negative partner; individuals who saw their partner as atypical showed the reverse pattern—they were less likely to report intentions for future intergenerational contact after a positive than a negative manipulated interaction. The findings demonstrate that negative intergroup communication can at times have positive effects, and positive contact can have negative effects.
Tests were performed to learn whether exposure to news about crimes committed by dark-skinned criminals increases impulsive facial-threat perceptions of meeting dark-skinned strangers in a subsequent situation (media-priming hypothesis), but only when the facial displays are ambiguous (ambiguity hypothesis). The assumption is that news stereotypes prime the "dark-skinned criminal" stereotype, which, in turn, influences subsequent face processing. An experiment with two groups was used to test this prediction. Participants allocated to the treatment group (n = 53) read about crimes committed by dark-skinned criminals. In contrast, for the control group (n = 52), cues indicating skin color were not mentioned at all. As predicted, the treatment increased the perceived facial threat of dark-skinned strangers, but only when the facial displays were ambiguous. Given the importance of the face in social interaction, I discuss important, real-world implications for recipients as well as for journalists and media organizations.
Several forms of computer-mediated communication (e.g., online support groups, blogs, social network sites) have been shown to be important resources for social support among individuals coping with illness. The reported study attempts to better understand social support processes in these settings by examining the implications of language style matching—a form of interpersonal coordination involving the degree to which speakers match one another’s use of function words (e.g., articles, prepositions, pronouns). Language style matching among a sample of health bloggers and their readers over a 3-month period was tested as a predictor of bloggers’ perceptions of support available from their readers. The results show that language style matching contributed to bloggers’ perceptions that their readers are willing and able to serve as a resource for specific forms of social support.
Recent approaches in entertainment research highlight the distinction between hedonic (pleasure-seeking) and eudaimonic (truth-seeking) entertainment experiences. However, insights into the underlying processes that give rise to these different types of entertainment experiences are still scarce. This study examines the assumption that individuals’ entertainment experience varies by the level of cognitive and affective challenge posed by the media content. We tested this assumption in a 2 x 2 experiment in which we examined the effects of cognitive and affective challenge on individuals’ entertainment experience (fun, suspense, and appreciation). Cognitive and affective challenges resulted in stronger appreciation of the movie, affective challenges resulted in heightened suspense, whereas the absence of both cognitive and affective challenges fostered the experience of fun. These results further the theoretical understanding of hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment in that they support the idea that fun is linked to recreation, whereas appreciation is linked to cognitive challenge and personal growth.
This article draws upon content analytic and survey data from a 12-nation comparative study to examine the question of content-interest correspondence (CIC) regarding foreign news on television, that is, to what extent do the contents of foreign news aired on television match the interests that viewers have regarding foreign news? Treating CIC as a variable, the data show that, among the nations studied, CIC concerning foreign countries covered in the news is generally stronger than CIC regarding news topics. At the same time, the analysis examines whether the level of CIC relates to several national, media system, and viewer characteristics. The analysis shows that larger nations exhibit higher levels of CIC regarding topics and lower levels of CIC regarding countries. Also, CIC regarding news topics is lower in countries where the ownership and revenue structure of the television system leans toward commercialism and where television news focuses more heavily on soft news. Implications of the findings and directions for further research are discussed.
This study provides insights that can inform disaster communication management, policymaking, and theory building through a nationally representative field experiment (N = 2,015 U.S. adults) grounded in media richness theory, information and communication technologies (ICTs) succession theory, and the social-mediated crisis communication (SMCC) model. Key findings include the following: (1) Significant main effects of disaster information source were detected on how likely participants were to seek further disaster information from TV, local government websites, and federal government websites; (2) regardless of information form and source, participants reported strongest intentions to immediately communicate about the disaster predominately via offline interpersonal forms rather than through online organizational and personal forms; and (3) regardless of information source, participants reported strong intentions to evacuate if instructed to do so by the government. These findings call for developing crisis communication theory that is more focused on how publics communicate with each other rather than with organizations about disasters and predict a wider variety of crisis communication outcomes.
An essential argument of the social diversification hypothesis is that disadvantaged groups use the Internet rather than face-to-face communication to broaden social networks, whereas advantaged groups use the Internet to reinforce existing network ties. Previous research in this area has not accounted for both online and off-line communication, has only been examined with cross-sectional data, and has primarily been studied in Israel. To address these gaps with a U.S. data set, 2,669 conversations were analyzed over 6-day periods using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Indeed, unlike participants from racially or educationally advantaged groups, participants who were from a racially marginalized group or lacked college training were more likely to broaden social networks online rather than face-to-face with interracial and weak tie exchanges. This proof of concept of social diversification theory across cultures is the first to use real-time, within-person measures of both race and tie strength.
Theories of fear appeals suggest that fear-inducing messages can be effective, but public service announcements (PSAs) that emphasize fear do not always lead to desired change in behavior. To better understand how fear-inducing PSAs are processed, an experiment testing the effects of exposure to safe-driving messages is reported. College students (N = 108) viewed PSAs of varying message sensation value (MSV). Results indicated that messages with medium MSV resulted in intentions to drive more slowly than messages with low or high MSV. Measures of affective attitudes indicated that medium MSV messages resulted in fast driving being rated as less fun and exciting than those of either high or low MSV. These affective evaluations mediated the effect of message exposure on driving intention. Message derogation was not related to message intensity. Production of message-related thoughts decreased, and emotional thoughts increased with message intensity. This decrease in processing of message content suggested a limited capacity explanation for the effect of highly intense fear appeals.
A fundamental premise of much interpersonal communication scholarship is that communicators’ goals may change during the course of interaction. Yet, the implications of these changes remain underexplored. This study examines the associations between goal variability and perceived resolvability of serial arguments. Seventy-five heterosexual romantic couples discussed a current serial argument and reported their interaction goals at 1-minute intervals, using a video-recall method. Within-interaction variability in self-focused and relational goals had positive curvilinear (i.e., U-shaped) associations with at least one partner’s perceptions of perceived resolvability in each model tested. This study demonstrates the potential for goal variability to shape global interaction outcomes in the context of relational conflict.
Utilizing a focus theory of normative conduct and primary socialization theory, this study hypothesized that parents’ references to the negative consequences of alcohol use, to their own past use, to conditional permissive messages about use, and to drinking responsibly (all from the adolescents’ perspectives) are indirectly related to adolescents’ intention to drink alcohol through their pro-alcohol norms. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that parents’ alcohol consumption, as perceived by the adolescents, would moderate these indirect associations. Using cross-sectional survey data from 259 high school students, parents’ references to the negative consequences of alcohol use were related to weaker pro-alcohol norms, and in turn, weaker alcohol-use intention. By contrast, parents’ conditional permissive messages and references to drinking responsibly were related to stronger pro-alcohol norms, and in turn, stronger alcohol-use intention. Adolescents’ perceptions of their mother’s and father’s alcohol consumption were significant moderators of what they said to their children about alcohol.
Although research has made significant gains in understanding the constitutive nature of conversation in the process of organizing, its predictive effects on organizational outcomes are still uncertain. To contribute in this direction, based on social exchange theory and leader-member exchange (LMX) research, this study examined the predictive effects of leader-member conversational quality (LMCQ) on employee organizational commitment (OC), and the potential interaction effects of LMCQ with LMX quality. Using data from an online survey, this study found that above and beyond communication frequency and other control variables, LMCQ is significantly associated with employee OC. More interestingly, the effects of LMCQ vary based on the level of LMX quality. These findings have significant implications at both theoretical and practical levels.
When seeking information, Internet users often find multiple communicators co-presenting and expressing their opinions. This study examined how people judge message senders’ credibility in a multi-source environment based on system-generated cues, the consensus among multiple sources, and the effect of receiver’s familiarity with the online platform. Moreover, this research examined the mediating role of source credibility in attitude change in an online consumer-review community. Results indicated that users familiar with a platform were more likely to use system-generated cues for their judgment of credibility along with consensus heuristics, and the combination of heuristics influenced attitude through credibility. However, unfamiliar users relied on consensus heuristics but not system-generated cues. These findings and their theoretical implications are discussed.
This study joins a growing body of research that demonstrates the behavioral consequences of hostile media perceptions. Using survey data from a nationally representative U.S. sample, this study tests a moderated-mediation model examining the direct and indirect effects of hostile media perceptions on climate change activism. The model includes external political efficacy as a mediator and political ideology and internal political efficacy as moderators. The results show that hostile media perceptions have a direct association with climate activism that is conditioned by political ideology: Among liberals, hostile media perceptions promote activism, whereas among conservatives, they decrease activism. Hostile media perceptions also have a negative, indirect relationship with activism that is mediated through external political efficacy; however, this relationship is conditioned by both ideology and internal political efficacy. Specifically, the indirect effect manifests exclusively among conservatives and moderates who have low internal efficacy. Theoretical, normative, and practical implications are discussed.
This study compares Gulf Coast journalists and Twitter users’ coverage of the BP oil spill. In addition to examining authors’ attitudes toward and coverage of the BP oil spill, the study examines community-level variables that shaped attitudes and coverage. The community structure literature has suggested that news media in smaller, more homogeneous communities, which are economically dependent on a polluting industry (as are many communities along the Gulf Coast), are more reticent to be critical in their coverage of pollution. Scholars have suggested, though, that the Internet transcends local geography and that the Internet is more open to alternative perspectives. This study suggests, though, that while the distribution of online content may make local geography less relevant, its production is still rooted in local communities. As a result, Tweets about the oil spill were shaped by many of the same social and economic forces that shaped journalists’ coverage.
Recent research suggests that the effect of self-affirmation on readers’ responses to media messages is not uniform across groups. The present experiment examined whether self-affirmation and group/user status interacted in influencing participants’ responses to a news article with identity-threatening information related to Apple sweatshops in China. Results revealed that for non-Apple users, self-affirmation influenced their appraisal of emotional responses, led them to perceive more news slant and more negative influence of the article on neutral Americans, and lowered their future purchase intentions. The effect of self-affirmation was nonsignificant among Apple users, which could have been thwarted by Apple users’ high defensiveness. Both theoretical implications for future self-affirmation research and practical implications are discussed.
Two fundamental dimensions underlie person perception: warmth and competence. We conducted three experiments to investigate how a positive or negative emphasis of only one of these dimensions (i.e., of only warmth or only competence) affects the perception of the other (complementary) dimension, and how voting intentions are influenced by these emphases. The results show that when a politician is described positively in only one of the two dimensions, people assess the complementary dimension more negatively. In addition, the negative emphasis of only one of the two dimensions also leads to a more negative assessment of the complementary dimension. Furthermore, we explore how these one-dimensional person descriptions affect the assessment of the speakers uttering them. Politicians who describe their opponents in negative terms are also evaluated negatively. On the contrary, politicians who judge others in positive terms are not necessarily evaluated positively.
The digital traces of U.S. members of congress on Twitter enable researchers to observe how these public officials interact with one another in a direct and unobtrusive manner. Using data from Twitter and other sources (e.g., roll-call vote data), this study aims to examine how members of congress connect and communicate with one another on Twitter, why they will connect and communicate with one another in such a way, and what effects such connection and communication among members of congress have on their floor vote behavior. The follower-followee and communication networks of members of congress on Twitter demonstrate a high degree of partisan homogeneity. Members of congress prefer to follow or communicate with other members who are similar to them in terms of partisanship, home state, chamber, and public concern. This condition is known as the homophily effect in social network research. However, the magnitude of the homophily effect is mitigated when the effects of endogenous networking mechanisms (i.e., reciprocity and triadic closure) in such networks are controlled. Follower-followee ties can facilitate political discourse among members of congress on Twitter, whereas both follower-followee and communication ties on Twitter increase the likelihood of vote agreement among members of congress. The theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of the findings are addressed.
Health-risk information can elicit negative emotions like anticipated regret that may positively affect health persuasion. The beneficial impact of such emotions is undermined when target audiences respond defensively to the threatening information. We tested whether self-affirming (reflecting on cherished attributes) before message exposure can be used as strategy to enhance the experience of anticipated regret. Women were self-affirmed or not before exposure to a message promoting fruit and vegetable consumption. Self-affirmation increased anticipated regret and intentions reported following message exposure and consumption in the week after the intervention; regret mediated the affirmation effect on intentions. Moreover, results suggest that anticipated regret and intentions are serial mediators linking self-affirmation and behavior. By demonstrating the mediating role of anticipated regret, we provide insights into how self-affirmation may promote healthy intentions and behavior following health message exposure. Self-affirmation techniques could thus potentially be used to increase the effectiveness of health communication efforts.
This study examined the effects of avatar visual stereotypes and cognitive load on interpersonal attraction in virtual interactions. Avatars dressed in black were perceived as less attractive relative to identical avatars in white. The assumption that cognitively busy perceivers develop more stereotypical perceptions was rejected. Instead, cognitively non-busy participants developed more stereotypical impressions. Remarkably, cognitive load reversed avatar perceptions. Cognitively busy participants rated avatars in black as more attractive but avatars in white as less attractive. Perceived trust mediated the link between avatar appearance and task attraction. In addition, cognitive load moderated the strength of the indirect relationship between avatar appearance and task attraction through trust. The findings have important implications for virtual perceptions and misperceptions.
Recently, Kim, Levine, and Allen have successfully demonstrated that the intertwined model of psychological reactance is applicable for message features other than freedom threat (i.e., personal insult, poor argument). The supporting evidence was obtained where resistance prevailed. The current study further extends the utility of the intertwined model by replicating Kim et al.’s experiment in a content domain where persuasive boomerang was observable. Consistent with Kim et al.’s findings, results indicate that both poor argument and personal insult produced negative thoughts and anger in an intertwined manner as freedom threat does. The factor structure of reactance remained similar whether the message produced resistance (i.e., freedom threat, poor argument) or persuasive boomerang (i.e., personal insult). Anger constituted a more powerful sub-construct of reactance than negative cognition across conditions.
In virtual environments (VEs), users experience visceral simulations that feel like the real world. Virtual experiences are proposed as a novel operationalization of gain and loss framed environmental messages. A 2 (gain vs. loss frame) x 2 (high vs. low interactivity) x 3 (pretest, posttest, delayed posttest) experiment was conducted. Immediately following exposure, virtual experiences promoted environmental behavior by reducing paper consumption by 25% compared to a control group. In addition, the gain framed experience of growing a virtual tree promoted behavioral intentions more effectively than the loss framed experience of cutting down a tree. Response efficacy mediated the relationship between framing and environmental behavioral intentions. One week after exposure, response efficacy heightened as a result of the gain frame. Participants in the high interactivity conditions also reported higher levels of environmental behavior than those in the low interactivity conditions one week following exposure.
This study explores the relationship between caregiver confirmation and children’s attachment security during the transition to kindergarten. Caregiver–child dyads (N = 50) read a story about the transition to school, caregivers responded to hypothetical child statements of concern regarding starting school, and caregivers completed the Attachment Q-sort measure (Waters, 1995). Caregivers’ behaviors during portions of the storybook task and their written responses to hypothetical child statements of concern were coded for verbal and nonverbal "confirmation as acceptance" and verbal "confirmation as challenge." Children’s attachment security scores were produced from the Attachment Q-sort. Caregivers’ level of education moderated the association between caregiver confirmation as verbal and nonverbal acceptance and children’s attachment security such that there was a positive association between confirmation and attachment security primarily for caregivers with low levels of formal education. Implications for the literatures on confirmation, attachment, and the transition to school are discussed.
In this study we investigate and expand agenda setting theory in the context of the market for art-house films. First, we test first and second-level agenda setting hypotheses, according to which higher media visibility and favorable media valence of a particular film are expected to have positive effects on public salience. Second, we expand agenda setting theory by adding critical valence as an important influence of public salience within cultural contexts. Our findings suggest that while higher media visibility, favorable media valence, and critical valence have positive effects on public salience, they are also independent of one another in carrying salience over to the public.
The present study examined the psychological mechanisms underlying the indirect effects of antidrug-specific social capital on targeted parent-child communication about drugs. Moreover, it explored why campaign exposure and social capital exert interactive influences on parent-child communication. Using a three-round longitudinal panel data set from the National Survey of Parents and Youth (NSPY), we found that when taking into account behavioral attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control, parents’ attitude toward talking about drugs with their child mediated the effects of antidrug-specific social capital on targeted parent-child communication about drugs. Furthermore, behavioral attitude mediated the interactive effects of campaign exposure and social capital on parent-child communication. The implications of these findings for research on the connection between media exposure and conversation and for public health interventions were discussed.
This article reports two studies on the accuracy of flirting detection. In Study 1, 52 pairs (n = 104) of opposite-sex heterosexual strangers interacted for 10 to 12 minutes, then self-reported flirting and perceived partner flirting. The results indicated that interactions where flirting did not occur were more accurately perceived than interactions where flirting occurred. In Study 2, twenty-six 1-minute video clips drawn from Study 1 were randomly assigned to one of eight experimental conditions that varied flirting base rate and the traditional sexual script. Participant observers (n = 261) attempted to determine if flirting occurred. The results indicated that base rate affected accuracy; flirting was more accurately detected in clips where flirting did not occur than in clips where flirting occurred. Study 2 also indicated that female targets’ flirting was more accurately judged than male targets’ flirting. Findings are discussed in relation to theory and courtship context.
In the 1970s, Hample developed a successful model of intrapersonal argument. Loosely based on the law of total probability, the model used a normatively correct standard to predict people’s adherence to persuasive claims. That original research used single-item measures that could not be assessed for internal consistency. The present study estimates the reliabilities of the appropriate measures so that corrections for attenuation can be made. In addition, the study exploits the base-rate fallacy to encourage formation of bad premises and perhaps bad reasoning. Results show that Hample’s original model is indeed accurate and that his original results understated people’s rationality in persuasive situations. The base-rate effect was confined to improper premises; given people’s premises, they continued to reason rationally. The model was equally accurate for high experientials and high rationals, in Epstein’s terminology.
We examine the role of interpersonal discussion in an attempt to better understand talk’s contribution to perceived media impacts related to the sexual abuse scandal at Penn State University. Through the use of a survey conducted both in the state of Pennsylvania and nationally, we analyze how interpersonal discussion, issue involvement, media exposure, and affinity for the Penn State football team influence third-person perceptions (TPPs) related to the Penn State case. By examining a dynamic and polarizing social issue involving a previously well-regarded athletic program facing intense social and criminal scrutiny, we are able to better understand how TPPs are formed in the midst of an ongoing scandal. Results reveal the influence of interpersonal discussion—and especially interpersonal disagreement—as a key moderating variable in forming these perceptions of media influence.
The new high-choice media environment has allowed entertainment-oriented people to avoid political news, resulting in a wider gap in political knowledge between entertainment- and news-oriented citizens. On the Internet, however, users tend to be concentrated into a handful of portal sites that offer a mixed information environment in which both news and entertainment are readily available. The simultaneous presentation of news and entertainment headlines on portal sites exposes entertainment-oriented people to the news, which may in turn narrow the knowledge gap between them and news-oriented people. To test this hypothesis, we examined the effects of exposure to major portal sites in Japan, where Yahoo! JAPAN attracts a large majority of Internet users. Two studies using self-reported exposure to portal sites (n = 838) and web browsing histories (n = 1,000) demonstrated that even entertainment-oriented people can acquire political knowledge, and thus portal sites can serve as knowledge levelers.
A mathematical function for belief trajectories in response to a series of negative incongruent pieces of information was proposed based on the sequential information integration model (SIIM), and the function was tested in two studies. In Study 1 (N = 167), political candidates’ party affiliation information was given for initial candidate evaluation, and then belief change over time (11 times) in response to a series of negative incongruent information about the candidates was observed. Consistent with the hypothesized mathematical function, in both studies belief trajectories monotonically decreased. In Study 2 (N = 177), negative incongruent information regarding candidates caused a greater over-time decline in candidate evaluation for those who did not receive initial issue-position information than for those who did receive initial issue-position information, and a greater over-time decline in candidate evaluation for those with weak party identification than for those with strong party identification was observed.
Scientific results are always afflicted with some uncertainty, especially where emerging technologies are concerned. While there are normative and practical reasons to call for an open admission of scientific uncertainties, concerns about detrimental effects of such communication on public engagement with science have been raised in the literature. The present study was conducted to investigate how the communication of scientific uncertainty in nanotechnology influences laypeople’s interest in science and new technologies, beliefs about the nature of science, and trust in scientists. In a longitudinal field experiment, 945 participants were exposed to six real-world media reports (TV features and newspaper articles) on nanotechnology. Contrary to our expectations, the communication of scientific uncertainties was unable to change general beliefs about the nature of science. However, it had no detrimental effect on the trust in scientists, and with respect to interest in science and new technologies, slightly positive effects were observed.
This article explored the relationship between media exposure and contemporary motherhood based on social comparison theory (SCT). Based on previous studies indicating the flood of media discourse of celebrity moms and mothers’ heavy reliance on the Internet, this article focused on celebrity mom and the Internet, respectively, as channels through which ideal motherhood is communicated. It was hypothesized that exposure to these channels would reinforce the ideology of contemporary motherhood characterized by intensive mothering, and promote comparison and competition. The questionnaire survey, conducted among 533 Korean mothers, revealed that exposure to celebrity mom discourse and online childrearing information was associated with the endorsement of the intensive mothering ideology, social comparison orientation (SCO), or competitiveness. Moreover, exposure to celebrity mom discourse was associated with the endorsement of intensive mothering ideology and SCO only among mothers who work outside the home, suggesting that celebrity moms serve as role models for them.
This meta-analysis examined whether training improves detection of deception. Overall, 30 studies (22 published and 8 unpublished; control-group design) resulted in a small to medium training effect for detection accuracy (k = 30, gu = 0.331) and for lie accuracy (k = 11, gu = 0.422), but not for truth accuracy (k = 11, gu = 0.060). If participants were guided by cues to detect the truth, rather than to detect deception, only truth accuracy was increased. Moderator analyses revealed larger training effects if the training was based on verbal content cues, whereas feedback, nonverbal and paraverbal, or multichannel cue training had only small effects. Type of training, duration, mode of instruction, and publication status were also important moderators. Recommendations for designing, conducting, and reporting training studies are discussed.
A critical determinant of message interactivity is the presence of contingency, that is, the messages we receive are contingent upon the messages we send, leading to a threaded loop of interdependent messages. While this "conversational ideal" is easily achieved in face-to-face and computer-mediated communications (CMC), imbuing contingency in human-computer interaction (HCI) is a challenge. We propose two interface features—interaction history and synchronous chat—for increasing perceptions of contingency, and therefore user engagement. We test it with a five-condition, between-participants experiment (N = 110) on a movie search site. Data suggest that interaction history can indeed heighten perceptions of contingency and dialogue, but is perceived as less interactive than chatting. However, the chat function does not appreciably increase perceived contingency or user engagement, both of which are shown to mediate the effects of message interactivity on attitudes toward the site. Theoretical implications for interactivity research and practical implications for interaction design are discussed.
In interpersonal communication, stereotypes are predominantly transmitted through language. Linguistic bias theory presupposes that speakers systematically vary their language when communicating stereotype-consistent and stereotype-inconsistent information. We investigate whether these findings can be extended to verbal irony use. The irony bias posits that irony is more appropriate to communicate stereotype-inconsistent than stereotype-consistent information. Three experiments support this hypothesis by showing that irony is found more appropriate (Experiments 1-2) and used more often (Experiment 3) in stereotype-inconsistent than in stereotype-consistent situations. Furthermore, linguistic biases have important communicative consequences, because they implicitly serve to maintain stereotypic expectancies. Experiment 4 shows that irony shares this characteristic with other linguistic biases, in that irony—compared to literal language—leads to more external attribution. Taken together, these results indicate that stereotypic expectancies are subtly revealed and confirmed by verbal irony, and that verbal irony plays an important role in stereotype communication and maintenance.
Organizational scholars have studied the process of organizational transformation for decades, focusing on the impact of inertia and environmental disruptions as drivers of transformation. Building on this body of work, the present study demonstrates the importance of organizational agency in affecting long-term organizational change. The analysis focuses on 487 newspapers in the United States, and looks at the adoption of hyperlinking as part of the process of transforming from print-based organizations to multimedia information providers during an 11-year period from 1997 to 2007. The results show that traditional newspapers that aggressively adopted hyperlinking practices had a decreased likelihood of failure in the long run. The findings provide insights into the important role of individual and organizational action in the transformation process, and emphasize the utility of hyperlinks as a communicative tool for organizations seeking to adapt in a digital environment.
The paper explains antecedents and consequences of news during the BP oil spill crisis by analyzing newspaper and internet coverage as well as financial indicators. The study establishes the roles of routines in financial journalism and of BP’s public relations efforts in building the U.S. media agenda. The U.S. media agenda in turn bears a classic agenda-setting effect on public awareness, an intermedia agenda-setting effect on foreign media, and a stakeholder agenda-setting effect on financial markets. A second-level attribute agenda-setting post-hoc study reveals that these first-order agenda setting effects depend on the resonance of specific problems and solutions with specific interests and a specific frame of mind. Financial stakeholders, for example, reacted negatively to news about judicial accountability, but positively to press releases about BP’s skills in implementing solutions. The findings contradict research which states that the news in classic media merely mirrors share prices.
Exposure to cross-cutting versus like-minded political advertising is highly relevant in terms of deliberative democratic theory. However, few efforts have been made to shed light on the effects of such opinion-incongruent and -congruent political advertisements. By analyzing data from a representative panel survey, and hence identifying effects over time, we found that exposure to opinion-congruent advertising enhanced political participation. Opinion-congruent advertising also accelerated the timing of voting decisions when citizens were low in ideological strength. However, contrary to our expectations, exposure to opinion-incongruent political advertising had no effects on political participation and the timing of voting decisions. These findings suggest that opinion-congruent advertising is a strong mobilizer, whereas opinion-hostile advertising is a weak cross-pressure. Implications of these findings for the study of political advertising effects are discussed.
Emotion is often treated as unconducive to rationality and informed citizenship. For this reason, journalistic styles that personalize issues and elicit emotion are typically not taken seriously as information sources. The experimental study reported here tested these sentiments through the knowledge gap hypothesis. Eight investigative news stories, arguably important to informed citizenship (e.g., child labor, corruption in public housing administration, lethality of legal drugs), were each presented in two versions. One featured emotional testimony of ordinary people who experienced the issue, and the other did not—resembling the traditional view of news as cold hard facts. Emotional versions were associated with smaller knowledge gaps between higher and lower education groups. Moreover, the size of knowledge gaps varied across three memory measures: free recall, cued recall, and recognition. Contrary to the inimical role that is traditionally assigned to emotion, these findings suggest a facilitative role for emotion in informing citizens.
Current approaches explain the effects of news frames on judgments in terms of cognitive mechanisms, such as accessibility and applicability effects. We investigated the emotional effects of two news frames—an "anger" frame and a "sadness" frame—on information processing and opinion formation. We found that the two frames produced different levels of anger and sadness. Furthermore, the anger frame increased the accessibility of information about punishment and the preference for punitive measures in comparison with the sadness frame and the control group. In contrast, the sadness frame increased the accessibility of information about help for victims and the preference for remedial measures. More importantly, these effects were mediated by the anger and sadness that were elicited by the news frames.
A big data analysis of six countries has demonstrated that Western news media focus increasingly on foreign leaders, at the expense of their respective countries—a process termed here as mediated political personalization in the international arena. Important variations found across the countries in the sample are attributed to differences in media systems, media values, and the level of development of communication technologies. However, for the first time, it was shown that the personalization process is not deterministic; rather, it is affected by leaders’ personal qualities, particularly those that are aligned with the values of prevalent media logic. Thus, the election of a leader endowed with strong charisma accelerates the process of personalization in the coverage of his or her country in the foreign media. Data were obtained from a large corpus comprising more than 800,000 news items spanning two to three past decades, subjected to a computerized content analysis.
Although there is an increasing amount of research on support-seeking in cyberspace, very little is known about what features of online support-seeking can enhance the quality of received support. The present experiment examined how support-seekers’ use of cues to personal identity in their user profile can influence the level of person-centeredness and politeness in others’ responses to their support-seeking postings. Results showed that support-seekers whose user profile contained a portrait picture and a first name ID tended to receive higher person-centered and more polite support messages than support-seekers whose user profile did not contain those cues to personal identity.
This study introduces the concept of chronic (i.e., repeated and cumulative) mediated exposure to political violence and investigates its effects on aggressive behavior and post-traumatic stress (PTS) symptoms in young viewers. Embracing the risk-matrix approach, these effects are studied alongside other childhood risk factors that influence maladjustment. A longitudinal study was conducted on a sample of youth who experience the Israeli-Palestinian conflict firsthand (N = 1,207). As hypothesized, higher levels of chronic mediated exposure were longitudinally related to higher levels of PTS symptoms and aggression at peers independently of exposure to violence in other contexts. In the case of aggressive behavior, structural equation analysis (SEM) analyses suggest that, while it is likely there are causal effects in both directions, the bigger effect is probably for exposure to violence stimulating aggression than for aggression stimulating exposure to violence. Both the longitudinal effects on aggression and PTS symptoms were especially strong among youth who demonstrated initially higher levels of the same type of maladjustment. These results support the conceptualization of the relation between media violence and behaviors as "reciprocally determined" or "downward spirals" and highlight the contribution of the risk-matrix approach to the analysis of childhood maladjustment.
The present experiment investigated (a) if exposure to a high profile politician’s Twitter page (vs. newspaper interview) affects the participants’ evaluations of him and his policies and (b) how their proclivity to get deeply immersed in a narrative and identify with the story characters (i.e., transportability) moderates such effects. Even though the messages were identical, exposure to the candidate’s Twitter page heightened the sense of direct conversation with him (i.e., social presence), which in turn induced more favorable impressions of and a stronger intention to vote for him among those high in transportability. Increased social presence also led to stronger agreement with the candidate’s policy statements among those espousing favorable attitudes toward him. However, those presented with the newspaper interview better recognized the issues mentioned and had fewer thoughts about the candidate, suggesting that people adopt medium-specific processing strategies, focusing more or less on the source (vs. issue).
A three-condition (rejection, criticism, control) single-factor experiment (N = 78) reveals that even relatively minor face-threatening acts of rejection or criticism on a social-networking site similar to Facebook lead to increases in self-reported negative affect and retaliatory aggression, compared with a control. A mediation model demonstrates that face-threatening acts lead to direct effects on negative affect and an indirect affect on retaliatory aggression through negative affect. Findings are discussed in relations to face theory and politeness theory.
This study extends and tests advice response theory (ART) by examining message content, message politeness, and advisor characteristics, along with situational and recipient factors as influences on the outcomes of advice. Participants (N = 244) discussed a real, current problem with a friend, completing measures about the advisor, recipient, and situation prior to the interaction, and assessments of advice message qualities and outcomes immediately after. The findings not only support ART but also indicate the need to consider how evaluations of advice evolve over time.
This experimental study tested whether exposure to female centerfold images causes young adult males to believe more strongly in a set of beliefs clinical psychologist Gary Brooks terms "the centerfold syndrome." The centerfold syndrome consists of five beliefs: voyeurism, sexual reductionism, masculinity validation, trophyism, and nonrelational sex. Past exposure to objectifying media was positively correlated with all five centerfold syndrome beliefs. Recent exposure to centerfolds interacted with past exposure to predict three of the five centerfold syndrome beliefs. Recent exposure to centerfolds had immediate strengthening effects on the sexual reductionism, masculinity validation, and nonrelational sex beliefs of males who view objectifying media less frequently. These effects persisted for approximately 48 hours.
The contemporary information-seeking environment is marked by the presence of more information sources than perhaps ever before. Moreover, in the context of health information, evidence suggests that information seekers utilize multiple sources—such as health care providers, print media, and online support groups—in the process of acquiring information. Two studies were conducted to investigate the role of information sources in the health information-seeking process and test Ruppel and Rains’s (2012) extension of channel complementarity theory. Four complementarity characteristics of sources, which are argued to serve as a basis for source use during information seeking, were examined: access to medical expertise, tailorability, anonymity, and convenience. Taken together, the results from both studies offer some evidence that sources are used systematically during health information seeking based on each of the four complementarity characteristics.
The effects of anger and information were experimentally tested in a small group deliberation setting. The participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions varying in the level of induced anger and amount of information they received. After reading about a controversial local issue, they engaged in a group discussion about the topic. Content analysis revealed each individual’s level of participation. More informed participants expressed more opinions during deliberation than less informed participants. Participants made to feel angry were also more active than those in the control condition, but to a lesser degree than the more informed participants. Structural equation modeling suggested that the effect of anger on postdeliberation argument repertoire and knowledge was more direct, whereas the effect of information was mediated by active participation during deliberation.
In some studies based on social identity perspectives, identification with others and conformity to a majority opinion have been indisputable outcomes when individuals involved all look alike. In contrast, another group of studies suggests individuals in a visually deindividuated condition are reluctant to agree with a majority opinion. To investigate such inconsistency, we set up and tested a hypothesized model that compares two processes that provide competing predictions about the effect of uniform visual cue on conformity: the social identification process derived from the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE) and the compensatory nonconformity process derived from optimal distinctiveness theory (ODT). We also investigate how changes in the visual cue conditions affect those two processes. Implications are discussed regarding the comparison of two models and the investigation of conditions under which either process is more or less operant during group interaction.
This study investigates how three-dimensional virtual environments (3DVEs) support shared understanding and group decision making. Based on media synchronicity theory, we pose that the shared environment and avatar-based interaction allowed by 3DVEs aid convergence processes in teams working on a decision-making task, leading to increased shared understanding between team members. This increases team performance. An experiment was conducted in which 70 teams of three participants had to decide on a spatial planning issue. The teams interacted using synchronous text-based chat, a 3D virtual decision room, or were present in the virtual environment (VE) mirroring the spatial planning task. Results revealed that in the virtual decision room and the VE, shared understanding was higher than in the text-based chat condition. This led to higher task performance in terms of consensus, satisfaction, and cohesion. Our results show that 3DVEs offer potential for team collaboration over more traditional text-based collaboration technologies.
This study examined whether the impact of parents’ marital status (divorced/married) on children’s hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis (measured through salivary cortisol) and sympathic nervous system (SNS; measured through salivary alpha-amylase or sAA) response and recovery patterns was moderated by parents’ communication skills and the age of the child. One hundred eighteen parent–child (ages 15-22) dyads talked about something stressful related to the parents’ relationship. Children who thought their parents were more communicatively incompetent had higher pre-interaction sAA levels. In addition, children whose parents were communicatively skilled (i.e., socially supportive, communicatively competent, children felt less caught between them) were able to down regulate quickly after the discussion, regardless of the marital status of the parent and the age of the child. The results for sAA, and somewhat for cortisol, revealed that parents’ marital status and the age of the child were important in determining differences in children’s physiological response and recovery patterns only when parents were less communicatively skilled.
When people feel ambivalent toward an information source, their attitudes toward the endorsed information reflect the influence of contextual priming. In particular, the valence of relevant (i.e., applicable to source evaluations) and irrelevant (i.e., not applicable to source evaluates) media contexts likely exert influences through conceptual and affective priming, respectively, such that they polarize message persuasion in diverging ways. Using celebrity endorsers in ads, Experiments 1 and 3 show that valence of a relevant story about similar people triggers conceptual priming and generates context contrast effects on endorsed information among ambivalent, but not univalent, participants. In contrast, Experiments 2 and 3 show that valence of an irrelevant article triggers affective priming and generates context assimilation effects on endorsed information among ambivalent, but not univalent, participants.
This study investigates the impact of personalized news recommender system design on selective exposure, elaboration, and knowledge. Scholars have worried that proliferation of personalization technologies will degrade public opinion by isolating people from challenging perspectives. Informed by selective exposure research, this study examines personalized news recommender system designs using a communication mediation model. Recommender system design choices examined include computer-generated personalized recommendations, user-customized recommendations, and full or limited news information environments based on recommendations. Results from an online mock election experiment with Ohio adult Internet users indicate increased selective exposure when using personalized news systems. However, portals recommending news based on explicit user customization result in significantly higher counterattitudinal news exposure. Expected positive effects on elaboration and indirect effects on knowledge through elaboration are found only in personalized news recommender systems that display only recommended headlines. Lastly, personalized news recommender system use has a negative direct effect on knowledge.
A 2 (frame: gain vs. loss) x 2 (evaluative input: high vs. low) x 3 (target behavior: sunscreen, self-exam, and indoor tanning) quasi-experimental study (N = 452) was conducted to test moderators of message framing effect. The results showed that effectiveness of a frame is a function of its evaluative input. There was evidence that the gain frame is more effective for prevention behavior and the loss frame for detection behavior. There was no evidence that proscriptive vs. prescriptive behaviors moderated framing effect. Data also suggested that dispositional motivations can be a moderator of message framing effect, but might be contingent upon level of evaluative input and type of behavior.
Computer-mediated communication (CMC) research has long been interested in how interpersonal impressions form online. This research argues that, given the advance of technology and the diversity in online communities, researchers must now consider the context in which social information appears in order to more fully understand the effects of social information on impression formation. This research explored three different paths through which the relationship between the context of a website and the social information presented impacts credibility impressions: the negativity effect, the positivity effect, and the nonnormativity effect. An original 2 (valence of photograph: casual vs. professional) x 2 (normative context: WebMD vs. Facebook) experiment examining the impact of moving identical cues across contexts found normative expectations impact impression formation. Strongest support was found for a nonnormativity effect: cues that defied normative expectations were more influential whether they were positive or negative.
This article studies advertising campaigns of Nongovernmental Development Organizations (NGDOs) by applying the innovative concepts of protest communication scenarios and moral sensitivity. Its main purpose is to advance current understanding on how two conceptually different communication scenarios—donor and protest—impact the social engagement of the public. The interdisciplinary methodology combines a discursive and psychological perspective with an empirical survey study designed with the support of cultural discourse analysis. The findings demonstrate that using communication models based on the need for collective help for poverty in terms of an unjust situation—what we call a protest communication model—increases moral sensitivity and, therefore, social action. These results are of interest for planning and assessing the organizational communication of NGDOs designed from their educational and social action liabilities. This research shows that utilizing these criteria increases the efficacy of their communication in awareness raising and social engagement without being detrimental to funding amounts.
A prolonged-exposure experiment, spanning 10 days, investigated how gender-typed portrayals in magazines affect young women’s visions of their personal future. Competing hypotheses regarding impacts on possible future selves were derived from social cognitive theory and social comparison theory. Women (N = 215) viewed magazine pages with females in either professional or caretaker roles, as beauty ideals, or without individuals (control group). Gender-typed roles remained salient 3 days after last exposure. Portrayals of professionals and caretakers instigated more negative responses related to personal future than beauty ideals. Thus, despite much advocacy for increasing the number of strong female role models in the media, the perpetuation of traditional beauty ideals makes women feel more positively about their future.
This article describes and validates a human-centric measure of audio message complexity. Messages are coded in terms of the level of cognitive resources that would be automatically elicited and required to process the message. Indicators of automatic resources elicited come from counting the orienting eliciting audio content changes in radio messages (Acc). The indicator of resources required comes from counting the dimensions of audio information introduced (Aii) by these content changes. The combination produces an indicator of available resources that serves as the complexity variable. Messages high in available resources are low in complexity; messages low in available resources are high in complexity. Two experiments are presented exploring the empirical validity of the measures as both local (moment to moment) and global (message level) operationalizations of complexity. Results suggest the measures have high construct validity.
Studies have consistently found that arousal is associated with enhanced recognition and recall. In these studies, the influence of participant sex was unexamined. However, motivational theories of emotion predict evolutionarily bound emotional experiences with specific mediated content which vary between men and women. This study draws upon motivational theories of emotion and recent evidence from neuroimaging research to examine comprehensive effects of message arousal and emotional tone on memory for message detail as a function of sex. Female participants showed an advantage in processing peripheral detail when information was positive and when questions about details were in a verbal cued recall format. Male participants were immune to memory narrowing for highly arousing negative content when questions about details were posed in a visual recognition task format.
This study reconceptualizes redundancy, complexity, and emotion in terms of cognitive load (specifically as resources allocated and required), then measures the combined real-time impact of these variables on available resources and encoding over the course of an hour television news program. Operational definitions of redundancy in the literature were ordered by their theoretically predicted level of resources required, then coded overtime. Dynamic measures of audio and video complexity in terms of resources allocated and required were developed and tested. Over the course of the news program, all combinations of independent variables occurred and the theoretically derived combinations of cognitive load successfully predicted changes in resources available as measured by Secondary Task Reaction Times (STRTs) and encoding indexed by recognition. The results suggest that defining message variables in terms of dynamic changes in cognitive load can allow us to predict the simultaneous dynamic impact of multiple message variables which contribute to complexity on processing capacity and message processing.
This study examines if accounting for the causal location of information within a narrative can improve the predictability of narrative persuasion. Using perceived realism as a variable of narrative persuasion and environmental communication as a context, results reveal a significant moderating influence of the location of information relative to the cause-and-effect structure of the narrative. Specifically, external realism increased the acceptance of narrative information, but only after accounting for the additional variance of location and only for the subset of information on the causal line of the narrative. Future studies should continue to explore how the variance associated with this narrative causality can be leveraged toward a more nuanced understanding of narrative persuasion.
Media research demonstrates that audience trust in the news media is a highly consequential factor, shaping audience selection of and response to media, and potentially impacting citizens’ perceptions of the political system at large. Still, our knowledge about the correlates of trust in media is limited. Only a few studies have utilized a correlational design to explore the associations between trust in media and other factors, and almost all of these studies originate in the U.S. context. The current investigation utilizes data from 44 diverse countries (n = 57,847), collected as part of the World Values Survey, to broaden our understanding of trust in media. The aim is two-fold—to learn about individual-level correlates across contexts and to demonstrate that macro-level factors play a part in shaping such trust. Our findings indicate that levels of political interest, interpersonal trust, and exposure to television news and newspapers are positively correlated with trust in media, while education and exposure to news on the Internet are negatively associated. On the macro level, postmaterialism emerged as a consistent predictor of trust in media. State ownership of the media industry did not have a main effect on trust in media after controlling for other factors. However, an interaction was found between state ownership and level of democracy: state ownership of television is positively associated with media trust in democratic societies and negatively associated with trust in media in nondemocratic societies.
This study examined underlying mechanisms of cultural variations in giving advice between American and Chinese college students by assuming a belief framework specified in the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). American (N = 289) and Chinese college students (N = 227) first completed belief-based measures of attitudes and subjective norms of giving advice, and later completed measures of behavioral intentions of giving advice. Results revealed that there were similarities as well as noteworthy cultural differences with respect to ratings of the TRA components and strengths of associations between attitudes, subjective norms, and intentions. The TRA model showed relatively stronger prediction for giving advice intentions for Chinese than it did for Americans. A belief framework specified by the TRA demonstrated stronger power to capture finer cultural variations in giving advice as a form of support provision.
In an ultimatum game, participants were randomly assigned to the role of allocator or recipient and to interact face-to-face (FtF) or over computer text chat (computer-mediated communication [CMC]). The allocator was given money to divide. The recipient was unaware of the amount given, so the allocator could deceive the recipient. Perception of the allocator having a dishonest demeanor increased recipient suspicion of deception, but reduced detection accuracy for truths. Demeanor cues did not help detect deception. Recipients were better at detecting lies CMC than FtF. Overall, truth bias did not differ between CMC and FtF. Rates of deception did not differ between CMC and FtF, but type of deception marginally differed. There was more deceptive omission used in FtF and more deceptive commission (bald-faced lies) used in CMC. Results are discussed in terms of demeanor and truth bias.
This study seeks to shed light on the highly publicized democracy dilemma signaling that encountering disagreement tends to promote deliberative democracy, while the same experience can dampen a citizen’s motivation to participate. By assessing the processes wherein the joint workings of cross-cutting discussion and strong tie homogeneity are simultaneously associated with the outcomes of deliberative and participatory democracy, we provide a number of key insights into the puzzling quandary. First, our results indicate that cross-cutting discussion and strong tie homogeneity interact with each other to predict increased political participation. Second, the relationship between cross-cutting discussion and preference for open dialogue is stronger for those who belong to a congenial primary network. Third, efficacious individuals seem more capable of translating the benefits of an ongoing deliberative orientation into meaningful political behavior. The current research suggests that deliberation and participation can go hand in hand under a particular network context.
We present a dose-response (DR) account of media priming. DR concepts describe the relationship between a dose and the elicited response and, thus, allow us to study dose-dependent media priming effects. We report empirical evidence from an experiment (N = 351) for the DR relationship between exposure to stereotypic newspaper content and readers’ stereotypic social reality estimates. We investigated the change in the media priming effect size by utilizing nine experimentally manipulated dose-conditions (i.e., frequency of the media prime). The empirical data appeared in the form of a Gaussian distribution function: We were able to document (1) a threshold dose, which generally allows us to specify the acceptable daily intake of potentially harmful media content. Furthermore, (2) we found a decline in the effect size at very high dose levels. We argue that a DR account as a supplement to contemporary approaches can be beneficial for media priming research.
An experiment examined how veracity, modality, and experimenter sanctioning of deception influenced credibility assessments made by professionals who conducted interviews face-to-face (FtF) or by video conference (VC). Participants (N = 243) completed a trivia game with a confederate who encouraged cheating. Some lies were sanctioned by the experimenter and others were unsanctioned. The professional interviewers educed a high number of confessions in the sanctioned (58%) and unsanctioned (79%) lie conditions. Overall accuracy of the interviewers ranged from 45% to 67%. Interviewers were more accurate when judging veracity FtF than in VC. Those in the deceptive VC conditions (especially sanctioned liars) were rated by interviewers as more dominant, involved, relaxed, and active than those in the FtF condition, revealing that modality affected deceivers’ demeanor.
We applied structural equation modeling to examine how the Risk Information Seeking and Processing (RISP) model predicts information-seeking intentions in the United States and China. The context for this comparison was climate change. Results indicate that in the Chinese sample, seeking intentions were less influenced by environmental attitudes, risk perceptions, negative affect, information insufficiency, and behavioral beliefs. Across the two samples, subjective norms had similar impacts on seeking intentions. Overall, the model has cross-cultural validity and applicability in accounting for risk communication behaviors in these two nations. Based on prior support for this model outside of the context of climate change, the model is well poised to serve as a framework for a variety of cross-cultural risk information–seeking contexts.
Previous studies have suggested that advertising exposure affects materialism among youth. However, this causal effect has not been investigated among children in middle childhood, who are in the midst of consumer development. Furthermore, the mechanism underlying this relation has not been studied. To fill these lacunae, this study focused on the longitudinal relation between children’s television advertising exposure and materialism. We investigated advertised product desire as a mediating variable. A sample of 466 Dutch children (ages 8-11) was surveyed twice within a 12-month interval. The results show that advertising exposure had a positive longitudinal effect on materialism. This effect was fully mediated by children’s increased desire for advertised products.
The greatest obstacle for health campaigns is most likely a lack of adequate exposure (Hornik, 2002), as public health messages compete with a flood of alternative messages. In light of America’s obesity epidemic, the present work examines message characteristics that may foster exposure to recommendations on healthful weight management. Drawing on social cognitive theory and exemplification theory, the present three-session 2x2 experiment examined impacts of efficacy and exemplification, as characteristics of an online weight-loss message, on selective exposure and change in recommended behavior. Exposure depended on both characteristics, as the exemplar, high-efficacy version resulted in longest and the base-rate, high-efficacy version in shortest exposure, while both low-efficacy versions fell in between. Change in recommended behavior was positive and significantly higher in exemplar message groups than for base-rate version groups, where the change was negative.
This study developed a cross-level model to study the effects of contextual factors, including team-level conflict and team-level emotion management (EM), on how individual team members seek information. Cross-level analysis using data collected from 175 individuals in 30 teams showed that team-level relationship conflict (TRC) had a negative effect on individual information seeking (IS) behavior, whereas team-level task conflict (TTC) did not have a significant effect. EM at both team and individual levels had positive effects on individual IS behavior. The same set of analyses conducted using a subset of 22 of these teams at an earlier time point confirmed the same pattern of relationships. In addition, team-level EM interacted with TRC in influencing individual IS behavior, although the patterns varied for the two time points of data collection. Theoretical implications are discussed.
To test a recently proposed dual-process theory of supportive communication outcomes, participants (N = 328) assumed they had experienced a mildly or moderately problematic situation. They then evaluated supportive messages varying in person centeredness, purportedly provided by either an acquaintance or a friend. Participants’ perceived support availability (PSA) was also assessed. As predicted, the recipient factor (PSA) individually and in conjunction with the contextual factor (problem severity) moderated the effect of the message factor (message person centeredness) on helpfulness evaluations. Modest support was observed for the hypothesis that the source factor (friend vs. acquaintance) influences evaluations when messages are processed less extensively. Implications for the dual-process theory of supportive communication outcomes are discussed.
This study examines the effects of informational, interactional, and creative forms of Internet use on behavioral and cognitive indicators of youth democratic engagement. Data from an extensive two-wave panel survey of Swedish adolescents (N = 1,520) were examined. Results show that the effects of informational and interactional Internet use on political participation are indirect, with online political interactions acting as an intervening variable. In addition, creative production was found to be a direct positive predictor of online and offline political participation but negatively related to political knowledge. The effects were statistically significant even when accounting for self-selection and previous levels of democratic engagement. Taken together, these findings contribute novel theoretical insights into the mechanisms by which Internet use may encourage or hinder youths’ democratic engagement.
This study tests a comprehensive model linking Grey’s Anatomy viewing and perceived realism of this program with organ donation knowledge, barriers—including medical mistrust, disgust, bodily integrity, and superstition—and subsequent organ donation attitudes. In addition to testing the hypothesized structural model, ethnic differences were examined by way of (a) the multigroup method to test for differences in path coefficients, (b) multivariate analysis of variance to examine differences among the study variables, and (c) 2 tests to assess differences in organ donation registrations among African Americans (n = 200), Caucasians (n = 200), and Latinos (n = 200). Support for the overall structural model was found and various differences emerged among the African American, Caucasian, and Latino sample across study variables. The results from this research are discussed with an emphasis on the theoretical and practical implications.
Many consider same-sex marriage the civil rights issue of our time. Although support is on the rise, there are some Americans who oppose same-sex marriage. Heterosexual males are a demographic group particularly likely to oppose same-sex marriage. Mass media and education are often thought of as important agents of socialization in American culture. Pornography in particular is a platform often discussed in terms of its impact on males’ sexual attitudes. This study used nationally representative three-wave longitudinal data gathered from adult U.S. males to examine the over-time interplay between pornography consumption, education, and support for same-sex marriage. Support for same-sex marriage did not prospectively predict pornography consumption, but pornography consumption did prospectively predict support for same-sex marriage. Education was also positively associated with support for same-sex marriage. Scientific and social implications of these findings are discussed.
Research on bad news delivery reveals a reliable temporal delay in the onset of the bad news message from the sender to the receiver. Two experiments utilized a false feedback test design to determine whether the delay is better accounted for by negative verbal message planning, politeness, or both. Both studies (Ns = 135 and 138) featured participant-senders who delivered either scripted or unscripted good, neutral, or bad news to a stranger. News valence, delay before response, and reluctance were measured. Both experiments supported the functional politeness explanation. Study 2 also supported the negative verbal message–planning explanation. Implications and limitations are discussed.
Much of the literature on polarization and selective exposure presumes that the internet exacerbates the fragmentation of the media and the citizenry. Yet this ignores how the widespread use of social media changes news consumption. Social media provide readers a choice of stories from different sources that come recommended from politically heterogeneous individuals, in a context that emphasizes social value over partisan affiliation. Building on existing models of news selectivity to emphasize information utility, we hypothesize that social media’s distinctive feature, social endorsements, trigger several decision heuristics that suggest utility. In two experiments, we demonstrate that stronger social endorsements increase the probability that people select content and that their presence reduces partisan selective exposure to levels indistinguishable from chance.
To be a trustworthy partner, people need self-control. People infer others’ level of self-control from behavioral cues, and this perception influences how much they trust others. Exhibiting compulsive Internet use (CIU) might provide such cues. This research examined whether and how CIU affects perceptions of self-control and trust in a partner. In an experimental study, we manipulated CIU in descriptions of strangers and found that participants in the CIU condition judged the other to have lower self-control and trusted them less than in a control condition. In a prospective dyadic study among newlyweds, we extended these results to close relationships. The results confirmed our hypotheses. Additionally, we found that low trait self-control makes people prone to CIU, illustrating that assessing others’ CIU is a good strategy to gauge others’ level of self-control. These results illuminate how and why CIU may be harmful for relationships.
This article provides a focused analysis of perceived procedural fairness, including both its predictors and effects, within a context of moderated online deliberation. The article starts with a theoretical discussion about the concept, procedural fairness, against the background of deliberative democracy. Furthermore, the potential competitive relationship between procedural fairness and disagreement is reviewed in light of previous empirical evidence. The findings are made up of two parts: First, the predictors of perceived procedural fairness were explored among demographic variables, political involvement, and discussion activities. Second, the effects of perceived procedural fairness and perceived disagreement on outcomes such as enjoyment, satisfaction with group decisions, as well as intention of future participation are shown. A discussion on the roles of procedural fairness and disagreement in deliberation as well as the importance of experience in political participation is provided at the end of this article.
One of the key challenges that organizations face when trying to integrate knowledge across different functions is the need to overcome knowledge boundaries between team members. In cross-functional teams, these boundaries, associated with different knowledge backgrounds of people from various disciplines, create communication problems, necessitating team members to engage in complex cognitive processes when integrating knowledge toward a joint outcome. This research investigates the impact of syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic knowledge boundaries on a team’s ability to develop a transactive memory system (TMS)—a collective memory system for knowledge coordination in groups. Results from our survey show that syntactic and pragmatic knowledge boundaries negatively affect TMS development. These findings extend TMS theory beyond the information-processing view, which treats knowledge as an object that can be stored and retrieved, to the interpretive and practice-based views of knowledge, which recognize that knowledge (in particular specialized knowledge) is localized, situated, and embedded in practice.
This study proposes the third-person perception (TPP) can be viewed as a type of comparative social judgment in the domain of media influence, in that it is a function of assimilation, contrast, and anchoring mechanisms in the process of social comparison. The derived hypotheses were tested with web-based experimental data (N = 511). Results showed some evidence that TPP was a function of assimilation and contrast effects. There was also evidence that there were anchoring effects, and such effects tended to emerge when self was the anchor. Implication and directions for future research on TPP were discussed.
The rise of sophisticated tools for tracking audiences online has begun to change the way media producers think about media audiences. This study examines this phenomenon in journalism, building on a revised theoretical model that accounts for greater audience engagement in the gatekeeping process. Research suggests that news editors, after long resisting or ignoring audience preferences, are becoming increasingly aware of and adaptive to consumer tastes as manifest via metrics. However, research also finds a gap in the news preferences of editors and audiences. This study asks: Who influences whom more in this disparity? Through longitudinal secondary data analysis of three U.S. online newspapers, and using structural equation modeling, this study finds that (a) audience clicks affect subsequent news placement, based on time-lagged analysis; (b) such influence intensifies during the course of the day; (c) there is no overall lagged effect of news placement on audience clicks; and (d) the lagged effect of audience clicks on news placement is stronger than the inverse. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Representative democracy requires that citizens express informed political opinions, and in order to inform their opinions, they must have the opportunity to acquire relevant facts from the media. In view of increasing audience segmentation, such opportunity may vary according to how widely political information diffuses across the various sources available in a media environment. However, it remains uncertain how differences in information saturation correspond with differences in information acquisition. Drawing on data from a rolling cross-sectional survey with nearly 60 waves and media content analyses spanning four European countries, this article examines whether a wider availability of information in collective media environments facilitates acquisition of such information. It also specifies the conditions under which this effect differs for people with different levels of learning motivation. Using a multilevel model, we find the media environment to be a remarkably powerful force in equipping people with political information. We also find that better-motivated citizens initially benefit disproportionately from the availability of information, yet motivation-based discrepancies in learning disappear entirely when media coverage becomes more prevalent.
Is a favorable prior reputation antibiotics or a hemlock cup in times of organizational crisis? To answer this question, the current study casts light on the contextual cues of crises by applying Brown and Dacin’s (1997) concepts of CA (corporate ability) and CSR (corporate social responsibility) and examines how the cues work in different crisis situations and affect the valence of reputation effects. Drawing on the expectancy violations (EV) theory and the cognitive dissonance perspectives, this study opens the door to reconciling contradicting research findings in literature and provides clues to why and when a good reputation yields buffering or boomerang effects in bad times.
This research addresses three important issues regarding interpersonal expectancy effects and communication across various modalities. The phenomena of behavioral confirmation and disconfirmation were tested in an original experiment involving 148 participants using computer-mediated communication (CMC). First, this study tested a boundary condition asserted by previous theorists about whether or not confirmation and disconfirmation could occur in communication channels without nonverbal communication. Secondly, it shed light on an important causal variable of perceived malleability of interpersonal expectancies in a novel, simultaneous test of confirmation and disconfirmation. Lastly, it verified the hyperpersonal model of CMC by demonstrating behavioral confirmation, and extended the model by specifying when disconfirmation occurs online.
This study, which was based on the General Learning Model, examined the effects of prosocial gaming on girls’ thoughts about perceived justified and unjustified aggressive attitudes as operationalized by 4 scenarios. The process was mediated by participants’ general perspective-taking and sympathy abilities, which relate to the cognitive and affective routes to learning. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the process. One hundred and forty-five girls between the ages of 7 and 15 completed the self-report online survey. Findings suggest that prosocial gaming is associated with greater perspective-taking and sympathizing abilities. These abilities positively correlated with thoughts about all types of violence as wrong whether or not "justified" and independent of severity. Error correlations suggest that younger girls’ processing comprises an affective component that bypasses the cognitive or perspective-taking route. Findings also intimate that in the case of justified violence assessments, girls not only evaluated the aggressor’s violent act but also assessed what precipitated the act thus suggesting more complex thought.
There is growing evidence that self-affirmation can reduce defensive processing of threatening health messages among high risk individuals. However, how self-affirmation might influence low risk individuals is less clear. This study examined the effect of self-affirmation on daily versus occasional smokers’ reactions to graphic on-pack warning labels. Results showed a relatively consistent pattern of interaction wherein self-affirmation decreased favorable reactions to the warning labels among occasional smokers, whereas its effect on daily smokers was mostly nonsignificant. Potential explanations of these findings are offered and their practical implications are discussed.
A growing body of research on the role played by affect within interpersonal interaction has shown it to be a critical element in communication choices. Comparatively little attention has been paid to the specific impact of moods in this context, and as of yet no data have been published on the role of mood in shaping responses to a very common interaction event: goal interruption. This investigation relies on several theoretical frameworks to examine the impact that mood has on politeness, both in initial communication attempts and in following goal interruption. An experiment was conducted in which 99 participants attempted to persuade a confederate on a specific topic. Results show that positive-mood individuals begin persuasive attempts with less verbal politeness and less immediacy than their negative-mood counterparts. Furthermore, both positive and negative-mood individuals exhibited reductions in immediacy but increases in verbal politeness following partner interference. The findings are discussed and future directions are suggested.
This study examines involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) that are triggered by video entertainment content so that we can better understand the interplay between our conception of self and our ability to relate to narratives. We used thought-listing techniques to obtain unsolicited autobiographical memories. We examined IAMs engendered when viewing 11 different video presentations over three studies. Results indicated that IAMs are a normal part of the media experience. Generation of IAMs appears to be related to low levels of arousal, mediated by the specific content genre, with dramas producing more IAMs than comedies. Narrative involvement (transportation) triggers more IAMs for those viewing comedy programs.
The relationship between attachment, situational factors (type of esteem threat, target responsibility, and problem severity), and ratings of the helpfulness of esteem support messages was examined in two studies (Study 1, N = 196; Study 2, N = 506). Esteem support is a particular form of emotional support intended to improve how the recipient feels about him or herself. In both studies, participants rated the helpfulness of esteem support messages for three types of esteem threat and completed measures of (a) attachment dimensions, (b) perceived situational severity, and (c) perceived target responsibility. Results indicate that attachment avoidance is related to ratings of message helpfulness and that situational features moderate the relationship between the attachment dimensions and esteem support message ratings.
This study examines the impact of legitimacy on the dynamics of interorganizational networks within the nongovernmental organizations’ children’s rights community. The 27-year period of analysis included a critical community event: the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Building on theories of organizational evolution, hypotheses proposed that (1) ratification of the UNCRC served to codify and more broadly communicate the legitimate norms of the community, and (2) dissemination of normative information made it easier (a) for less experienced organizations to form and maintain partnerships, and (b) for organizations to form partnerships without reference to shared third-party contacts or dominant organizations. Data analysis via a longitudinal network model supported the hypotheses. Further investigation via an event history analysis suggested that these effects were largely confined to links among organizations in the children’s rights community and not to links made by these organizations to more general others.
In an experiment, participants exposed to depictions of an intergroup interaction between a border patrolling U.S. citizen and an illegal immigrant demonstrated changed attitudes toward illegal immigrants depending on the valence of the portrayal. Negative effects were enhanced among people who identified more strongly with the U.S. citizen character, and positive effects were moderately, although nonsignificantly enhanced among those who viewed the illegal immigrant character as more typical of illegal immigrants in general. Liking of the illegal immigrant character was a significant mediator of the effects. The positive effects on attitudes toward illegal immigrants transferred to more positive attitudes toward other social groups as well. The study is framed in terms of a social cognitive theory approach to vicarious intergroup contact.
Perceived realism may be a crucial message characteristic facilitating narrative-based persuasion. This study examined dimensions of perceived realism and their roles in narrative persuasion. Data based on responses to messages on three topics showed that perceived realism was multidimensional. Its dimensions included plausibility, typicality, factuality, narrative consistency, and perceptual quality. Plausibility predicted emotional involvement, but not identification. Typicality predicted identification, but not emotional involvement. Narrative consistency and perceptual quality predicted message evaluation. Emotional involvement, identification, and message evaluation, in turn, predicted attitudes. Implications for theory, research, and message design pertinent to narrative persuasion are discussed.
The reported study explored the implications of making public, written disclosures about illness-related experiences in the context of health blogging. The outcomes associated with specific forms of expression used by bloggers and their readers were investigated. A panel study was conducted among 72 individuals who live with and blog about their experiences with a specific health condition. The results, although modest, show that elements of health blogging are associated with improvements in bloggers’ well-being. Bloggers’ use of insight words was associated with decreased health-related uncertainty and, among bloggers who posted relatively more frequently, increased purpose in life. Additionally, for those bloggers whose readers commented more frequently, readers’ use of negative emotion words was associated with increased perceptions of personal growth among bloggers.
This study sought to examine the association between parental behavior indicative of overinvolvement and control and young adult child self-identity, namely self-efficacy and psychological entitlement. Participants in this study were 339 parent-young adult child dyads who completed survey measures of family environment, parenting, family communication, and family satisfaction. Young adults also completed measures of self-efficacy and entitlement. Results showed that balanced family adaptability and cohesion, open family communication, and authoritative rather than authoritarian parenting, were positively associated with parents’ and young adults’ family satisfaction. Parental behavior that emphasized control over the child was associated with diminished self-efficacy and exaggerated psychological entitlement in young adult children. The relationship between these two classes of variables was amplified by open parent-child communication.
Previous research has demonstrated a positive influence of cooperative video game play on participants’ cooperative strategies (tit-for-tat behaviors) in a modified Prisoner’s Dilemma task (Ewoldsen et al., 2012). The current study tested whether these positive effects are applicable to ingroup and outgroup conflict. Eighty participants were assigned to play a violent video game cooperatively or competitively with a confederate posing as an outgroup or ingroup member. The main findings corroborate previous research on the beneficial effects of cooperative game play and suggest playing cooperatively can increase helping behavior. Furthermore, cooperation with an outgroup member can actually reduce aggression. Implications of findings for future research are discussed.
The current study assessed an integrated model of advice giving (Emotional support—Problem inquiry and analysis—Advice) with 572 participants from United States and 540 participants from mainland China. Participants read and responded to a hypothetical scenario in which they received advice from a friend. Advice that was offered following the moves of emotional support and problem inquiry and analysis was judged by both American and Chinese participants to be higher in quality and was more likely to be implemented than advice that did not follow this sequential pattern. Compared to Chinese participants, American participants evaluated advice offered with emotional support or problem inquiry and analysis as higher in quality. Participants with a higher independent self-construal also rated advice offered in conjunction with emotional support or problem inquiry and analysis as higher in quality than participants with a lower independent self-construal.
Concerns about the problematic nature of internet use have been discussed since the inception of the internet. Internet addiction, problematic internet use (PIU), and the deficient self-regulation of internet use are some issues studied in this domain. Some regard these conditions as genuine disorders that cause disruptions in one’s life. Others criticize their legitimacy, claiming that functional impairment associated with internet use is indicative of primary psychosocial problems and has little to do with the internet. The purpose of this investigation was to understand whether cognitive preoccupation and uncontrolled use, components of PIU, are part of a unique disorder or are symptomatic of underlying psychosocial problems. This research tested the mediating role of PIU in the relationships between psychosocial problems (i.e., social anxiety, loneliness, and depression) and impairment of interpersonal relationships and vocational performance in two studies. Different conclusions were reached based on the methodological design of the study; however, the findings generally supported the mediation of PIU.
This study proposes a structural approach to examining online bridging and bonding social capital in a large virtual world. It tests the effects of individual players’ network brokerage and closure on their task performance and trust of other players. Bridging social capital is operationalized as brokerage, the extent to which one is tied to disconnected others, and bonding social capital as closure, the extent to which one is embedded in a densely connected group. Social networks were constructed from behavioral server logs of EverQuest II, a Massively Multiplayer Online Game. Results provided strong support for the structural model, demonstrating that players’ network brokerage positively predicted their task performance in the game and players embedded in closed networks were more likely to trust each other.
This research assesses possible associations between viewing fake news (i.e., political satire) and attitudes of inefficacy, alienation, and cynicism toward political candidates. Using survey data collected during the 2006 Israeli election campaign, the study provides evidence for an indirect positive effect of fake news viewing in fostering the feelings of inefficacy, alienation, and cynicism, through the mediator variable of perceived realism of fake news. Within this process, hard news viewing serves as a moderator of the association between viewing fake news and their perceived realism. It was also demonstrated that perceived realism of fake news is stronger among individuals with high exposure to fake news and low exposure to hard news than among those with high exposure to both fake and hard news. Overall, this study contributes to the scientific knowledge regarding the influence of the interaction between various types of media use on political effects.
Using a two-round longitudinal panel data set from the National Survey of Parents and Youth (NSPY), the present study examined the roles of antidrug-related community activities at both individual and aggregate levels in the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. This study found a main effect of parent’s antidrug-specific community activities on targeted parent-child communication about drugs. More interestingly, parents who did not actively participate in antidrug-related community activities were more likely to talk about drugs with their offspring after being exposed to the antidrug campaign ads than were their counterparts. In contrast, there was little evidence for a contextual effect of aggregate-level antidrug-specific community activities on targeted parent-child communication or for its cross-level interaction with campaign exposure. The implications of these findings for communication research and public health intervention efforts were discussed.
The political blogosphere is replete with uncivil discussions and is apt to examine the influence of incivility on news frames. The present study brings in literature from incivility and framing effects and uses two experiments to examine the influence of incivility on news frames for democratic outcomes such as willingness to participate, online participation, openmindedness, and attitude certainty. Primary findings indicate the detrimental effects of incivility causing less openmindedness and more attitude certainty. At the same time, incivility causes more willingness to participate and online participation. More importantly, the findings demonstrate how incivility interacts with news frames. Implications for news framing effects in the social media landscape are discussed.
The recently proposed cognitive-emotional theory of esteem support messages (CETESM) posits that sophisticated esteem support messages enhance state self-esteem by promoting cognitive reattribution and reappraisal of esteem-threatening situations and their effects on the self. To test this hypothesis, participants (N = 234) read a hypothetical situation in which they imagined they had experienced one of two esteem-threatening situations. They then read a conversation in which a helper offered high- or low-quality esteem support messages. Finally, participants completed measures of cognitive reattribution and reappraisal and state self-esteem. Results mostly supported the predicted mediational model, though one message feature failed to predict message ratings, and issues arose in assessing cognitive reattribution.
This experiment investigates effects of communication interface proximity, which was conceptualized as three different media platforms (desktop, laptop, and hand-held device), on college students’ anxiety when receiving emergency alerts about on-campus crimes via emails and text messages. It proposes a new dimension of proximity, interface proximity, and suggests a shift in the emphasis of proximity from audience to event to user to interface. Ninety seven students received alerts on one of the three devices for 2 days. User anxiety increased for news-like information such as crime alerts and varied according to the proximity of the media platform. A three-level model of anxiety, including trait anxiety, media exposure to negative compelling news, and a trigger event, all contributed to participants’ anxiety.
This paper examines how power differences and deception jointly influence interactional dominance, credibility, and the outcomes of decision-making. Two theories, interpersonal deception theory and dyadic power theory, were merged to produce hypotheses about the effects of power and deception. A 3 (power: unequal-high, unequal-low, equal) x 3 (deception: truth-truth, truthful with deceptive partner, deceptive with truthful partner) experiment (N = 120) was conducted in which participants were asked to make a series of mock hiring decisions. Actor-partner analyses revealed that participants in the deception condition reported a significant increase in perceptions of their own power whereas their truthful partners reported a significant decrease in perceptions of their own power. Further, interactional dominance fostered credibility and goal attainment (i.e., making the best hiring decision in the truthful condition and hiring a friend in the deceptive condition) for both truth-tellers and deceivers.
To better understand how culture influences the interpersonal forgiveness process, this study examined forgiveness communication in United States and Chinese relationships. Four key forgiveness antecedents—social harmony, empathy, apology, and blame—were examined as predictors of forgiveness communication. Social harmony, counter to predictions, positively predicted direct, rather than indirect, forgiveness in Chinese relationships. Empathy, expected to be a robust predictor of forgiveness communication across cultures, was not a good predictor in either. Instead, the best predictors of forgiveness communication were offender apology and, to a lesser extent, blame. In both cultures, apology positively predicted direct and conditional forgiveness and negatively predicted nonexpression, while blame positively predicted conditional forgiveness. In both cultures, moreover, direct forgiveness negatively, and nonexpression positively, predicted relational damage. These results suggest direct forgiveness is an important component of relational repair in individualistic and collectivistic contexts. Conditional forgiveness, though unrelated to relational damage, positively predicted ongoing negative affect in Chinese and United States relationships.
Drawing from primary socialization theory, we hypothesized that as Mexican-heritage youth engage in targeted parent-child communication against alcohol, they are more likely to disapprove of and consider the negative consequences of drinking alcohol. In turn, such antialcohol perceptions are likely to encourage them to intervene if a friend was to drink alcohol. The analyses were based on self-reported longitudinal data from 1,149 Mexican-heritage youth in sixth to eighth grades (M = 12 years, SD = .61). As males and females engaged in targeted parent-child communication against alcohol, they were more likely to consider the negative consequences of alcohol consumption. Consequently, they reported that they would be more likely to intervene by talking to the friend or an adult. Disapproving of alcohol consumption played a minor role for male and female Mexican-heritage youth.
This article elaborates the role of interpersonal communication in media effects. Based on an extensive literature review, two lines of arguments are illustrated: the antagonistic and the synergetic position. The literature provides theoretical and empirical support for both positions especially in the field of persuasive media input. To complete the view, two experiments with nonpersuasive media input are presented. The first experiment addresses the role of conversations in cognitive news effects. The synergetic position is supported: conversation leads to elaboration and more profound recall of media content. The second experiment deals mainly with emotional media effects in entertainment. No general impact of conversation on media effects was demonstrated. Nonetheless, the authors find evidence that conversations about the media engender a more critical and reserved stance toward the media content and protagonists. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for further research into the field.
Video games are excellent training tools. Some writers have called violent video games "murder simulators." Can violent games "train" a person to shoot a gun? There are theoretical reasons to believe they can. Participants (N = 151) played a violent shooting game with humanoid targets that rewarded headshots, a nonviolent shooting game with bull’s-eye targets, or a nonviolent nonshooting game. Those who played a shooting game used either a pistol-shaped or a standard controller. Next, participants shot a realistic gun at a mannequin. Participants who played a violent shooting game using a pistol-shaped controller had 99% more headshots and 33% more other shots than did other participants. These results remained significant even after controlling for firearm experience, gun attitudes, habitual exposure to violent shooting games, and trait aggressiveness. Habitual exposure to violent shooting games also predicted shooting accuracy. Thus, playing violent shooting video games can improve firing accuracy and can influence players to aim for the head.
The number of Americans who report engaging in interpersonal persuasion during elections has drastically increased over the past decade. While past studies have demonstrated the impact of such proselytizing on vote choice, the author finds substantial evidence that it may also have larger democratic benefits, both for those attempting to persuade and for those whom they choose to target. Data from the 2008 National Annenberg Election Survey suggest that (a) attempting to persuade contributes to people’s ability to give reasons in support of both their own preferred candidate and the opposing candidate, and (b) persuasive conversation is a powerful channel for the spread of political information from the more engaged to the less engaged.
Subgroup formation within larger virtual teams can lead to biased information sharing and conflict. Given this, the present study examined how social categories (i.e., in-group vs. out-group status) and interpersonal behaviors (i.e., a teammate behaving positively vs. negatively) influenced intentions and attitudes toward subgrouping in short-term virtual teams. One hundred sixty-four participants interacted in four-person teams using a synchronous chat program. The analysis showed that, though both social categories and interpersonal behaviors affected subgrouping choices, interpersonal behaviors had a stronger effect. Additionally, there was no evidence for the "black sheep hypothesis" predicting that in-group members behaving negatively discourages subgrouping. Overall, this exemplified how minimal categorical cues trigger in-group favoritism and out-group discrimination in virtual teams as anticipated by social identity models. The findings also illustrated how interpersonal behaviors robustly affect virtual team dynamics as stated by social information processing theory.
Studies of transnational media flow and reception discuss audiences as cultural-linguistic groups that make idiosyncratic content choices, but say little to distinguish or explain their collective tastes. The literature on (inter)cultural consumption suggests that cultural preferences are more similar among societies that share a cultural or linguistic affinity than those that do not. Examining national acceptance of, and taste in, Hollywood films within a global sample of countries, this study quantifies the dissimilarities in genre preferences between the United States and importing countries based on 2002-2007 box-office sales. The analysis shows that genre taste dissimilarities are related positively to cultural distance between countries, and negatively to the English proficiency of the importing country. Furthermore, the economic attributes of the importer have no effect on taste dissimilarity. The analysis also shows that the genre tastes of individual countries have converged toward those of American audiences during these years.
We examine the relationship between TV viewing and economic expectations during economic recession. A content analysis of 84 hours of local network primetime programming (news and nonnews) identifies a moderate bias toward economic pessimism in the broadcasts. A survey of the adult population (N = 356) points at a significant positive relationship between TV viewing (total viewing and viewing of news programming) and economic pessimism at both the national and the personal levels. A similar relationship exists between TV viewing and optimistic bias—the tendency to be more pessimistic on economic matters at the national than at the personal level. These results remain significant when controlled for demographics, trust in national institutions, evaluation of current economic situation and consumption of media other than TV, and corroborate a second-order cultivation effect in the economic context.
This study examines the dynamic, real-time interplay between the emotional content of political television ads and individuals’ political attitudes during ad processing based upon the Dynamic Motivational Activation (DMA) theoretical framework. Time-series cross-sectional models were developed to test the effects of three motivational inputs of emotional ads (arousing content, positivity, and negativity) and viewers’ evaluation of the featured candidates on four psychophysiological responses (heart rate, skin conductance level, corrugator electromyography, and zygomatic electromyography). As predicted by the DMA, physiological responses during ad viewing were affected by their own first- and second-order dynamic system feedback effects. These results not only support the predicted dynamic nature of the physiological system but also help disentangle message effects from the moderating and accumulating effects of the physiological system itself. Also as predicted, message motivational inputs interacted with viewers’ political attitudes to determine psychophysiological responses to the ads. Supporters of opposing political candidates showed cardiac-somatic response patterns indicative of disparate attention to the advertised information. Attentional selectivity can be a critical component in determining how information processing influences campaign message reception and effects.
With the academic risk and resilience perspective, this study examined whether global, authority, and teacher discrimination were indirectly related to academic motivation through self-esteem and depressive symptoms (H1), determined whether supportive maternal and paternal parenting moderated such associations (H2), and considered developmental differences (H3 & RQ1). Using self-reported data from 338 Mexican-origin female adolescents, the results partially supported the hypotheses. Indirect association and moderation were found among middle adolescent females of Mexican descent, but not for early adolescent females. Among middle adolescent females of Mexican descent, global discrimination was indirectly related to academic motivation through self-esteem but not through depressive symptoms. Supportive maternal parenting and supportive paternal parenting were moderators for Mexican-origin middle adolescent females but in unexpected ways.
Heightened interactivity and excitement characterize much of our online browsing, especially when it involves shopping on e-commerce websites. Interactivity is said to affect users’ engagement with the website by expanding their perceptual bandwidth (Sundar, 2007), much like the effect of optimal physiological arousal on cognitive functioning (Kahneman, 1973). We examine the direct and combinatory effects of interactivity and arousal on consumers’ engagement, attitudes, and behavioral intentions in an e-commerce website through a 3 (interactivity: low, medium, high) x 3 (arousal: control, low, high) between-participants experiment (N = 186). Higher levels of interactivity were found to generate more favorable attitudes and behavioral intentions toward both the website and the product. Interactivity and arousal differed in their effects on various aspects of website engagement. The study also identified several mediators explicating the theoretical mechanism underlying the influence of interactivity on purchase likelihood.
By its very nature, relationship commitment is generated in the context of a relationship and becomes relational when it is communicated in some way to the other. This study investigated how expressions of commitment and commitment-related perceptions are interdependently connected among romantic partners. The authors derived and tested a dyadic cyclical model of the everyday expressions of commitment with a sample of 189 romantically involved couples. Results revealed that individual’s level of commitment are associated with her or his own expressions of commitment, those expressions of commitment are noticed by the partners, and the partner’s level of commitment is associated with those perceptions of the other’s expressions of commitment. The research sheds light on the complex ways intimate couples experience and express commitment in their everyday lives.
This study examines the effects of exposure to messages incongruent with one’s motivational orientation. In a factorial design with regulatory orientation and message frame as independent variables, participants (N = 106) conducted an information search on a web program. Participants selected online information that was congruent with their activated motivational orientation. Compatibility effects resulted in promotion orientation/gain frame and prevention orientation/loss frame participants reporting more favorable attitudes than promotion orientation/loss frame and prevention orientation/gain frame participants irrespective of exposure to messages incongruent with the activated motivational orientation. A similar pattern of results occurred with message recall. For behavioral intention, significant differences occurred for only the promotion orientation condition where gain-framed messages elicited greater behavioral intentions than the loss-framed message.
This research considers how mental dialogues (or imagined interactions [IIs]) about personal secrets predict the maintenance of secrecy and associated levels of mental and physical well-being. Participants described secrets they were keeping and completed questionnaires assessing IIs about the secret. After 2 months, participants reported whether they had revealed the secret and reported on moods and physical health. Results indicated that IIs predicted future revelation, negative moods, and physical illness. Five types of secret keepers (untroubled, anticipatory, defensive, repressive, and private) were identified that reflect distinct cognitive responses to secrecy. One view of secrecy suggests that keeping secrets leads to preoccupation and anxiety that ultimately affects mental and physical health. This research confirms that a pattern of rumination and ill health represents one response to secrecy; however, people may process secrecy in different ways with different potential consequences for well-being.
Hypotheses were derived from downward comparison and attachment theory to address the tragedy paradox: more sadness produces greater tragedy enjoyment. Participants (n = 361) watched a tragedy and reported affect, enjoyment, life happiness, and spontaneous thoughts (categorized into self- vs. socio-focused). Greater sadness led to greater enjoyment, mediated by life reflection; specifically, both self- and socio-focused thoughts mediated this sadness impact on tragedy enjoyment. Furthermore, more sadness led to greater life happiness increase during exposure, mediated by socio-focused thoughts only. No parallel effects emerged for positive affect. The present findings suggest that tragedy-induced sadness instigates (a) life reflection that increases tragedy enjoyment as well as (b) specifically thoughts about close relationships that, in turn, raise life happiness, which (c) subsequently increases tragedy enjoyment further.
This study explores the extent to which romantic partners’ accurate or benevolently biased (i.e., positive relational illusions) perceptions of one another’s perceived resolvability and conflict strategy usage in serial arguments are linked to multiple measures of individual negative health perceptions. Eighty-four romantic couples separately completed a questionnaire that assessed self- and partner-reports of the serial argument variables and self-reports of negative health perceptions. Benevolently biased serial argument perceptions were significantly associated with more negative health perception variables than were accurate perceptions. These findings offer tentative support for considering dyadic perceptions in relation to individual well-being in the serial argument context.
An original experiment explored the differing predictions of the Proteus effect (Yee & Bailenson) and behavioral compensation processes (Bond) in dyadic computer-mediated interaction. The experiment randomly assigned male dyad members to see an attractive, unattractive, or no avatar representation of his female partner, while female dyad members were assigned to see either attractive, unattractive, or no avatar representation of themselves. Results supported the hypothesized behavioral compensation effect such that both partner and naïve observer reports of relational communication suggested that females who saw unattractive avatars of themselves behaved more positively toward their partners than those who saw no avatar or saw an attractive avatar. These results, their theoretical implications, and future directions are discussed.
By analyzing data from a national panel survey of adolescents (ages 12-17) and their parents conducted around the 2008 general election, this study explores the varied roles communication plays in socializing youth into democratic citizenship. In particular, we propose and test a communication mediation model of youth socialization, in which interdependent communication processes located in the family, schools, media, and peer networks combine to cultivate communication competence, a set of basic communication skills and motives needed for active and informed participation in public life. Analysis of our panel data indicates that participation in deliberative classroom activities and democratic peer norms contribute to civic activism among youth. These peer and school influences, however, are found to be largely indirect, working through informational use of conventional and online news media, and expression and discussion of political ideas outside of classroom and family boundaries. In particular, our findings highlight strong online pathways to participation, centering on news consumption and political expression via digital media technologies, suggesting the key role of the Internet in this dynamic.
The present study compared and contrasted American and Chinese college students’ responses to advice by examining the impact of perceived advice content features (response efficacy, feasibility, absence of limitations) and source characteristics (expertise, trustworthiness, liking) on recipient’s evaluation of advice quality and intention to implement advice in each cultural group. American (N = 262) and Chinese college students (N = 319) completed questionnaires reporting on a recent instance of receiving advice with regard to a personal problem. Across both cultural groups, each of the perceived content and source features was positively associated with participants’ evaluation of advice quality and intention to follow advice, and perceived content features had stronger and more direct influence on responses to advice than source characteristics did. Perceived content features had a stronger impact on Americans’ intention to implement advice than they did for Chinese, whereas perceived source characteristics had a stronger impact on Chinese’ intention to implement advice than they did for Americans.
Although earlier research on leader-member exchange (LMX) theory supported a negative linear relationship between LMX quality and role stressors, recent studies suggest that a more complex, nonlinear relationship may exist between LMX quality and variables traditionally associated with it. Based on communication research of LMX and social exchange theory, the aim of this article is to revisit the relationship between LMX quality and role stressors by reconceptualizing their associations and testing the hypotheses of an inverted U relationship. A survey study among immigrant employees revealed differential effects of LMX quality on role stressors. In particular, with role conflict and role overload LMX quality was found to have an inverted U relationship, but a negative linear relationship with role ambiguity. These findings challenge the prevailing assumptions and carry significant theoretical and practical implications.
The accessibility of attitudes and norms (i.e., how quickly they are activated from memory) has been shown to predict young adult cigarette smoking, but prior work has not examined this effect in young adolescents or with other health risk behaviors. In this study, the accessibility of attitudes and norms was used to predict young adolescent (N = 325, age M = 14.97, SD = .73) self-reported behavior and behavior intention for cigarette smoking, alcohol use, marijuana smoking, and sexual behavior. The accessibility of attitudes and the accessibility of injunctive norms were significantly related to adolescents’ health risk behavior. When controlling for current behavior, the accessibility of attitudes and of family norms were significantly related to intent to engage in these behaviors in the future. In contrast, the accessibility of peer norms was only related to reports of current behavior, not future behavior intention. This finding replicates across four behaviors when controlling for age, gender, and race, and provides strong evidence that the accessibility of relevant attitudes and social norms are important factors in young adolescent risk behavior. Implications for communication interventions to reduce teen health risk behavior are discussed.
This study applied the relational turbulence model to the communication of U.S. service members and at-home partners following the return from a tour of duty by evaluating three turbulence markers: (a) relational maintenance, (b) partner responsiveness, and(c) turmoil appraisals. Participants were 235 individuals (128 service members, 107at-home partners) who completed an online questionnaire within 6 months following reunion. Relational uncertainty and interference from partners predicted turbulence markers, and they partially mediated the association between relationship satisfaction and turbulence markers. Results suggest that the relational turbulence model is useful for illuminating the experiences of military couples during the post-deployment transition. Findings also point to turbulence markers that may be salient during a variety of relationship transitions.
Democracy and press freedom have a long, intertwined history. This article builds on previous research examining democratic consolidation by developing a theoretical model to explicate the multilevel relationships between the openness of national media systems and citizens’ perceptions about press freedom in emerging democracies. We combine individual-level public opinion data from the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes Survey with institutional data from Freedom House to examine institutional and individual predictors of perceived supply and citizen demand for press freedom. The results of the analyses demonstrate a relationship between characteristics of national media systems and citizen perceptions and preferences about press freedom, although individual factors such as educational attainment, reliance on print media, evaluations of media and state performance, and regime support play a more meaningful role in shaping perceptions about press freedom. Theoretical implications for understanding citizen attitudes about press freedom and their relationship with democratization are discussed.
The experiments presented here examine how managers and executives can improve the effectiveness of their negative written communications (i.e., refusal of employees’ requests) by incorporating the concept of fit into their message framing. By applying regulatory focus theory, the authors suggest that an outcome-based fit between the message and the recipient leads to more favorable work outcomes. The results of Experiment 1 show that employees retain greater feelings of psychological empowerment when they receive a written refusal framed in terms that match (versus mismatch) their current regulatory focus. Moreover, data from Experiment 2 demonstrate that employees perceive a written refusal as more fair when it is framed in terms that match (versus mismatch) their activated regulatory focus. However, this effect was not found when an employee’s request was approved, an observation that stresses the importance of regulatory fit in negative managerial communications specifically. Finally, this article discusses management implications for designing successful negative written managerial communications.
While the majority of previous research suggests there are positive relationships between digital media use and political participation and knowledge, most studies have relied on cross-sectional surveys and have thus not been able to firmly establish the chain of causality. Also, there is little research investigating use of different forms of digital media and their relative effects on political participation and knowledge. This study examines (a) the effects of digital media use on political participation and knowledge and (b) whether different forms of digital media use affect people differently. Drawing on two representative panel surveys, the study demonstrates that there are only weak effects of digital media use on political learning, but that the use of some digital media forms has appreciable effects on political participation.
Publics increasingly use social media during crises and, consequently, crisis communication professionals need to understand how to strategically optimize these tools. Despite this need, there is scarce theory-grounded research to understand key factors that affect how publics consume crisis information via social media compared to other sources. To fill this gap, an emerging model helps crisis managers understand how publics produce, consume, and/or share crisis information via social media and other sources: the social-mediated crisis communication model (SMCC). This study tests essential components of the SMCC model through a 3 (crisis information form) x 2 (crisis information source) x 2 (crisis origin) mixed-design experiment (N = 338). The findings indicate the key role of crisis origin in affecting publics’ preferred information form (social media, traditional media, or word-of-mouth communication) and source (organization in crisis or third party), which influences how publics anticipate an organization should respond to a crisis and what crisis emotions they are likely to feel when exposed to crisis information.
Based on news content analysis and survey data from the 2004 presidential election, this study examines the theoretical link between second-level agenda setting and various types of political participation beyond mere voting. Using the hierarchy-of-effects model, this study tested the sequence of C(cognitive)-A(affective)-B(behavior): News attention to presidential candidates creates second-level agenda-setting effects among the public (C); in turn, agenda-setting effects trigger strong attitudes toward candidates (A); and finally, strong attitudes lead to various types of political participation (B). Every direct effect in the structural model was significant. Indirect and total effects of agenda setting for political participation were all found to be significant. As hypothesized, agenda-setting effects operated as a mediator between media use and political participation.
The present experimental study examined the impact of celebrity gossip magazine coverage on pregnant women through the lens of objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). In total, 301 pregnant women were randomly assigned to view highly sexually objectifying full-body images and accompanying text depicting pregnant celebrities, low objectifying headshot-only images and accompanying text depicting celebrities, or images of baby products with no people depicted (control). Exposure to the headshot-only condition resulted in significantly more self-objectification than exposure to control images. We speculate exposure to the headshot-only images primed self-objectification in participants because they visualized nonpregnant, thin, toned, and sculpted celebrity bodies that are frequently objectified by the media. Further analyses revealed that participants’ stage in pregnancy, history with pregnancy, and age moderated the main effects. Among those in their first trimester, assignment to the headshot-only condition significantly predicted state self-objectification; however, among those in their third trimester, the full-body condition predicted state self-objectification at a level of marginal significance. Further, exposure to the headshot-only stimuli predicted self-objectification for those having no prior live births. Among those participants in the younger age group, exposure to the headshot-only condition significantly predicted self-objectification; however, among those in the middle age group, the full-body condition significantly predicted self-objectification.
In two experiments we compared contrasting findings on bad news transmission likelihood between literature on rumors and the MUM-effect in order to contribute to the development of a more general theory of news transmission. We argued that several contextual differences account for the contrasting findings between these research conditions. We predicted that fate similarity and fate uncertainty (both present in many rumor contexts and absent in most MUM-contexts) enhance the anticipated personal outcomes of bad news transmission for communicators and hence increase bad news transmission. Supporting our argument, we found that fate uncertainty and fate similarity each increased the likelihood of bad news transmission up to the level of good news transmission. Furthermore, these effects were mediated by communicators’ anticipated personal outcomes of transmission. In addition, Experiment 2 demonstrated anticipated personal outcomes to be only an important motive for news transmission decisions in superficial relationships; for close relationships, experienced moral responsibility appeared to be the paramount motive for transmission.
The purpose of this study is to extend the recent operationalization of reactance to a non-Western culture, namely, South Korea. The study uses structural equation modeling, and the findings reveal a significant positive association between controlling language and perceived threat to freedom. Consistent with extant research, a significant positive association emerged between a perceived freedom threat and reactance for South Korean adolescents. Findings from this study support treating reactance as a latent variable comprised of unfavorable cognitions and anger. In addition, in line with psychological reactance theory predictions, reactance arousal is significantly associated with a host of boomerang effects. Results are discussed with an emphasis on the role of psychology reactance theory among adolescents within a collectivist culture.