Benefits of Suffering: Communicator Suffering. Benefiting, and Influence.
Abstract
Two studies were conducted to examine the effects of an actor's suffering or benefiting upon observers' perceptions of the actor's honesty, independence and bias, their attributions for the actor's expressed opinions, and the actor's influence. In both studies, subjects read bogus newsmagazine articles about an individual who had taken a public stand on an issue and had either suffered, benefited or received no outcome as a consequence. The results of both studies showed that the suffering actor was rated as more honest, more independent, and less biased by subjects. The subjects also made more dispositional attributions for the suffering actor's expressed opinion and more situational attributions for the benefiting actor's opinion. Additionally, results of the second study showed that the suffering representative was more influential than the benefiting representative. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for influence and leadership in various settings, and their relationships to other research findings on attribution and persuasion. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 1980
- Accession Number
- ADA087292
Entities
People
- Howard M. Weiss
- Patrick A. Knight
Organizations
- Purdue University