Juror decision making: A case of attitude change mediated by authoritarianism

For a jury to reach a unanimous decision, certain individuals must change their attitudes with regard to the defendant's guilt during deliberations. Because these changers are the key to the group decision-making process, they were carefully scrutinized to ascertain demographic or personality characteristics which might be mediating their behavior. In three experiments, two using college students as subjects and one using Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas jury pool members, it was found that authoritarians changed their attitude with regard to the defendant's guilt more than equalitarians. Further, most of these “changers” were aware they had changed their attitude. There was no generalizable evidence for the proposition that authoritarians are more likely to favor a guilty verdict.     

Initial attitude,source credibility,and involvement as factors in persuasion

Source credibility was manipulated in factorial combination with the measured variables of initial attitude, issue involvement, and sex, using Japanese university students as subjects. A significant credibility × initial attitude interaction replicated previous findings and was attributed to disparagement of the less credible of two communicators by subjects whose initial attitudes were extremely discrepant from the position advocated. The significant involvement × initial attitude interaction reflected the greater resistance of highly involved subjects to persuasion under extreme rather than under moderate communicator-recipient discrepancy.     

Field dependence and attitude change: Source credibility can alter persuasion by affecting message-relevant thinking

The present study shows that for a personally relevant counterattitudinal issue, a highly credible source can alter persuasibility by increasing a subject's message-relevant thinking. Previous failures to show this effect were probably due to the highly thoughtful nature of typical research subjects, when confronted with involving issues. In the present study, field-dependent and field-independent subjects heard convincing or refutable counterattitudinal speeches given by sources of high or low credibility. Results indicated that subjects who are typically low in differentiation of stimuli (field-dependent subjects) showed differential persuasion to strong and weak arguments only when they were presented by a highly credible source. For subjects who are typically high in propensity to differentiate stimuli (field-independent subjects), the arguments were differentially persuasive for both high and low credible sources. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that increasing source credibility can enhance message-relevant thought for subjects who typically do not scrutinize message content.     

When credibility attacks: The reverse impact of source credibility on persuasion

Recent research on the self-validation hypothesis suggests that source credibility identified after message processing can influence the confidence people have in their own thoughts generated in response to persuasive messages (Briñol, Petty, & Tormala, 2004). The present research explored the implications of this effect for the possibility that high credibility sources can be associated with more or less persuasion than low credibility sources. In two experiments, it is demonstrated that when people generate primarily positive thoughts in response to a message (e.g., because the message contains strong arguments) and then learn of the source, high source credibility leads to more favorable attitudes than does low source credibility. When people have primarily negative thoughts in response to a message (e.g., because it contains weak arguments), however, this effect is reversed—that is, high source credibility leads to less favorable attitudes than does low source credibility.     

The authoritarian dynamic and Brexit: Understanding the relationship between authoritarianism and wanting to leave the EU

Individual-level authoritarianism is prominent in explanations of preferences for Brexit. We contend that extant accounts have provided an incomplete theoretical and empirical understanding of this relationship. Drawing on the idea of the ‘authoritarian dynamic’, we show that perceptions of the economic/cultural threat of immigration have stronger effects on the pro-Brexit views of individuals with weak authoritarian predispositions (libertarians). At the same time, perceptions of normative threat, which pertain to concerns like loss of faith in or lack of consensus among established authorities, have a greater impact on the pro-Brexit views of individuals with high authoritarian predispositions (authoritarians). These conditional relationships, which have previously gone unacknowledged, are crucial to understanding which individuals are likely to respond to ‘increased threat’ with pro-Brexit attitudes. We demonstrate these relationships with pro-Brexit views using British Election Study longitudinal panel data. The results clarify the conditional impact of threats and authoritarian predispositions on attitudes.     

Readers' reliance on source credibility in the service of comprehension

The current project examined the impact of knowledge about the credibility of sources on readers' processing of texts. Participants read texts in which information about characters was provided by either a credible or a noncredible source; this information suggested that the character potentially possessed a particular trait. A subsequent text episode offered the opportunity for participants to apply any inferred trait to their understanding of unfolding story events. In Experiment 1, participants' moment-by-moment reading times indicated strong expectations for characters to behave in trait-consistent ways, with little effect of credibility on those expectations. Experiments 2 and 3 provided participants with additional encouragement to attend to credibility during reading, but these experiments also revealed little influence of credibility. In Experiment 4, in addition to being given added encouragement, participants were explicitly asked to evaluate the likelihood of future text events; under these conditions, expectations for story outcomes were influenced by the credibility of information sources. This influence was mediated by the degree to which participants self-reported relying on credibility during the task. These findings have implications for contemporary accounts of text comprehension, persuasion, and individual differences in credibility assessment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).     

The relationship between attitude,assertiveness and condom use

The Australian study investigated condom-specific assertiveness and condom use as a means of prevention infection from sexually transmitted diseases. 211 men participated including 83 homosexual men (aged 19-62 years) and 128 heterosexual men (aged 17-49) who completed a questionnaire that comprised demographic details such as age, monogamy, and sexual activity as well as attitudinal and assertiveness measures. General assertiveness was measured by the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (RAS) which had been widely used across a wide range of social situations. Assertiveness relating specifically to situations involving condoms was measured by the Condom Assertiveness Scale (CAS). Intention to use condoms was positively related to favorable attitudes, which were related to condom-specific assertiveness for both groups. For the heterosexual men only, general social assertiveness was negatively related to attitudes toward condoms. For both groups, the condom-specific measure of assertiveness was positively correlated with attitudes toward condoms. Condom-specific assertiveness was positively related to general social assertiveness as measured by the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule for the homosexual, but not for the heterosexual men. The negative relationship between general assertiveness and attitude to condoms among the heterosexual men implies that the risk reducing behavior of condom use did not seem to accord with the perceptions of masculinity and social assertiveness among heterosexual men. Thus, female partners of such heterosexual men exhibiting negative attitudes toward condom use combined with assertiveness would have to overcome resistance to insist on the use of condoms. Recently some advertising campaigns have been directed at women. The promotion of condom use among heterosexual men has to deal with the perceptions of condom use as unmasculine behavior.     

The relationship between attitude,assertiveness and condom use

Abstract

This study investigated the relationships between attitudes, assertiveness and intention to use and actual use of condoms as a means of preventing infection from sexually transmitted disease. Both homosexual (n = 83) and heterosexual men (n = 128) participated in the survey. It was found that the homosexual men held more favourable attitudes, and reported greater intended and actdal condom use than the heterosexual men. Intention to use condoms was positively related to favourable attitudes, which were related to condom-specific assertiveness for both groups. For the heterosexual men only, general social assertiveness was negatively related to attitudes toward condoms. It was concluded that condom use was reassuringly frequent among homosexual men, but not for heterosexual men. Efforts to increase condom use among the latter will need to take into account negative attitudes and, in particular, the possible perception of condom use as an effeminate behaviour.