Is the Medium the Message? A Study of the Effects of Media,Communicator, and Message Characteristics on Attitude Change1

The present study examined the interactive effects of type of media, communicator, and position of message on persuasiveness of the communication. Subjects received a communication over television, radio (audio tape), or written medium, which either agreed with a position they held or strongly disagreed with it. The communicator was either a newscaster or a candidate for political office. The results indicated that subjects felt the newscaster to be more trustworthy than the candidate. In line with previous research, there was no main effect of media on persuasiveness. However, media interacted with the other variables so that when the communication disagreed with the audience, television was the most persuasive medium with the newscaster but the least persuasive with the untrusted candidate. There was no effect for media when the message agreed with the audience. Further, the candidate taking a position congruent with the audience's was rated as more attractive but less trustworthy than a candidate taking the opposite position. It was suggested that television may be the most involving medium and that either a counterargument theory or reactance theory could explain why it was not effective with the candidate.     

A test of the Zucherman heterosexual scales

Summary: Female and male undergraduate students enrolled in the introductory psychology course were administered the Zuckerman heterosexual scale as part of a larger battery of tests. The ordering of items for males was very similar to Zuckerman's with two minor exceptions. Female subjects, on the other hand, reported more sexual experiences of all kinds than did Zuckerman's sample, and two major differences in ordering Were noted. The coefficients of reproducibility for males and females were .928 and .954 respectively which were almost identical to those of Zuckerman. The rank-order correlation between the ranking of the items in the male and female scales was .958.     

Some developments in multivariate generalizability

This article is concerned with estimation of components of maximum generalizability in multifacet experimental designs involving multiple dependent measures. Within a Type II multivariate analysis of variance framework, components of maximum generalizability are defined as those composites of the dependent measures that maximize universe score variance for persons relative to observed score variance. The coefficient of maximum generalizability, expressed as a function of variance component matrices, is shown to equal the squared canonical correlation between true and observed scores. Emphasis is placed on estimation of variance component matrices, on the distinction between generalizability- and decision-studies, and on extension to multifacet designs involving crossed and nested facets. An example of a two-facet partially nested design is provided.Appreciation is expressed to the Office of Research in Medical Education, University of Texas Medical Branch, for permitting use of their data.     

The Effect of Predicate Matching on Perceived Understanding and Factual Recall

Grinder and Bandler (1976) asserted that if therapists communicate with clients using verbal predicates that match the modality of the clients' primary representational system (PRS), it will be easier for the clients to understand the therapist and to believe that they are understood. In this study we investigated the relationship between predicate matching and understanding. Participants (N=99) listened to a recorded narrative under either a “matched” or “mismatched” experimental condition. Participants' objective understanding (factual recall) and subjective understanding (feelings of having understood) were assessed. The results weakly supported a claim of enhanced accuracy of understanding on one measure of objective understanding, and they suggested greater understanding and recall for visual PRS participants.     

THE IMPACT OF AUDITION ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF VISUAL ATTENTION

Interactions between audition and vision were investigated in two experiments In the first experiment, school-age hearing children, deaf children with cochlear implants, and deaf children without implants participated in a task in which they were to respond to some visual signals and not others This task did not involve sound at all Deaf children without implants performed much more poorly than hearing children Deaf children with cochlear implants performed considerably better than deaf children without implants The second experiment employed a longitudinal design and showed that the rate of development in visual selective attention was faster for deaf children with cochlear implants than deaf children without implants Moreover, the gams were rapid–occurring within 2 years post-implant surgery The results suggest that a history of experience with sounds matters in the development of visual attention The results are discussed in terms of multimodal developmental processes