THE INFLUENCE ON COMMUNICATION EFFECTIVENESS OF EXPLICITLY URGING ACTION AND POLICY CONSEQUENCES.

Abstract

Will the explicit recommendation of action and policy consequences that people might find undesirable produce a less favorable change in their evaluation of an attitude object to which these consequences are attached and less willingness to accept the consequences than if no mention is made of them. 144 subjects were exposed to a communication on the usefulness of a course in the history of science, or to a communication which had an additional final paragraph containing explicitly stated consequences, or to no communication at all. The results indicated that, among the initially unfavorable subjects, those exposed to the explicit version exhibited greater favorableness toward the idea of such a course than did the other subjects. Acceptance of the explicitly stated consequences was not differentially affected by the communications. But subjects given the non-explicit communication were less likely than the others to reject the possibility of registering for such a course, an action not explicitly mentioned in either version. (Author)

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 1965
Accession Number
AD0621143

Entities

People

  • Sandra Steenbock
  • Walter Weiss

Organizations

  • Hunter College

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Organizational Psychology.
  • Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.
  • Theoretical Analysis.