Effects of issue‐related attitude on readers’ comprehension and judgments of unbiased text

Abstract

To learn maximally from texts centering on controversial topics, readers must suspend attitudinal biases in the interest of objectivity. The present study examines the extent to which issue-related attitudes influence readers' comprehension and retention of information presented in an impartial text. It expands upon previous research that has yielded equivocal findings by considering readers' (a) ego-involvement with the issue, (b) prior knowledge, and (c) purpose for reading. In an immediate and delayed recall phase, readers opposing nuclear power were compared with those not opposed to it on a series of dependent measures that involved either low-level outcomes or judgmental tasks. No effect of issue-related attitude was found for the selective encoding or recall of low-level data; however, when open-ended questions required readers to make summative text-based decisions about the issues, their protocols exhibited attitude-consistent response tendencies in the immediate learning phase. The findings are explained in terms of differences in the nature of post-reading tasks and reader's perceptions of intrinsic and extrinsic goals.

When a Topic Matters to You, Does It Matter if You Read About It in a Second Language?

“…Thus, the negative effect of emotional involvement in previous research may originate in background knowledge intrusions. Like Fortner and Henk (1990) and Gaskins (1996), our results showed that students relied on their background knowledge when they read the emotional version, but in our case, the elicited emotional involvement seemed to lead to greater engagement and better comprehension, even though it also was accompanied by more background knowledge intrusions. In fact, emotional involvement seemed to rely on prior knowledge as indicated by the fact that for some of the topics, low background knowledge led to a negative effect of emotions on comprehension, not a positive one.…”

“That's Just How It Was”: The Effect of Issue‐Related Emotional Involvement on Reading Comprehension

“…One consideration that helps explain the conflicting results of attitude-memory research is the confounding effect of prior knowledge (Fortner & Henk, 1991;Reutzel & Hollingsworth, 1991). When subjects' prior knowledge regarding a target issue has been controlled (Fitzgerald & Ausubel, 1963;Henk & Holmes, 1988;Reutzel & Hollingsworth, 1991;Waly & Cook, 1966), the selective recall hypothesis has only been partially confirmed on one occasion (Reutzel & Hollingsworth, 1991).…”

“…However, until Smith and Jamieson's (1972) study had been completed, ego involvement had never been measured and controlled in a research study on attitudes and memory. It is also noteworthy that since 1972, there are only two published studies of the selective recall hypothesis that have attempted to measure and control ego involvement (Fortner & Henk, 1991;Spiro & Sherif, 1975). Thus, Roberts's (1985) comment that the effect of ego involvement on memory has "yet to be adequately explored" (p. 236) still seems warranted.…”

“…Given that emotional involvement and ego involvement are so closely related and that there are no studies specifically addressing the relationship between emotional involvement and memory, it makes sense to analyze the three studies that have measured the effect of issue-related ego involvement on memory in order to set the stage for a study of emotional involvement. All three of the studies controlled for prior knowledge, but only two distinguished attitude intensity from ego involvement (Fortner & Henk, 1991;Smith & Jamieson, 1972). Of these two studies, only Smith and Jamieson (1972) were able to draw any conclusions about the effects of ego involvement on memory that were supported by their research.…”

“…While it is widely accepted that attitude-emotionally laden knowledge-can affect memory for and understanding of communications (e.g., Bartlett, 1932;Fortner & Henk, 1991;Pratkanis, 1989;Sherif & Cantril, 1947), there have been relatively few literacy studies that have attempted to assess the effects of emotional involvement on subjects' recall and understanding of texts (Fortner & Henk, 1991;Henk & Holmes, 1988;Reutzel & Hollingsworth, 1991). Reading researchers have documented that people do become emotionally involved while reading (Brewer & Lichtenstein, 1981Hansen, 1986;Sadoski, Goetz, & Kangiser, 1988), but no published studies have statistically analyzed the effects of subjects' emotional involvement with a particular issue on their reading comprehension when reading connected texts pertaining to that issue.…”