Understanding the Influence of Others on Perceptions of a Message's Advocacy: Testing a Two-Step Model

Abstract

Asch proposed that contextual information changes how people interpret objects under evaluation. This paper extended his insight by merging rangeÁfrequency theory and the linear discrepancy model into a two-step model of social influence. In the first step, people interpret a message's advocated position differently with knowledge of how other people interpreted the message than without this knowledge. In the second step, peoples' interpretations influence how their attitudes change toward the message's recommendations. A two-step model was proposed: (a) knowing what bias other people thought a newspaper article presents affected how participants perceive the extremity of this article's advocated position, and (b) participants' interpretations influenced how they changed their attitudes toward the article's topic. The results from this first experiment were consistent with the two-step model. A second experiment shows that the degree of ambiguity in a message can increase or inhibit this effect. Together, these studies provide insight into how public opinions may serve as contextual influences on people's perceptions of the issues at hand and their responses to them.

The Influence of Online Comments on Perceptions of Antimarijuana Public Service Announcements on YouTube

“…That paradigm leaves open what specific theories may be brought to bear on different facets of online influence, and depending on the setting or phenomenon of interest, different constructs and theories may become more useful than others. Even in examining the effects of online PSAs and user comments, a number of other constructs might be extremely promising, such as credibility and attractiveness of sources (see for review Harrington et al, 2006), attitude toward the ad (e.g., Nan, 2008), perceptions of reference groups' public opinion or perceptions of bias (e.g., Glynn & Park, 1997; Smith & Boster, 2009), and health advocacy reception amidst “clutter” or competitive interference of multiple persuasive media messages (Duffy & Thorson, 2009; Kent & Allen, 1993). Although many theories and constructs may pertain, this research selected two that seemed to offer reasonable starting places given one theory's focus on the influence of visually anonymous peers and another's focus on PSAs in particular.…”

Advocacy engagement

“…Analysing information Allen et al, 2008 Application of information Hearne, 2008 Critical thinking skills Lane et al, 2019;Roberts & Kreeger, 2019;Young & Goodman, 2015 Dissemination of information Nagro et al, 2018 Evaluation of information Hagan & Donavan, 2013;Keselman et al, 2019;Smith & Boster, 2009;Vessey & Miola, 1997. Information engagement Hagan et al, 2018 Information gathering Hawley et al, 2016 Information management Hagan & Donovan, 2013 Information seeking skills Hagan & Donovan, 2013;Kratzke et al, 2018 Information sharing Bloodgood & Clough, 2017;Scharff et al, 2018;White et al, 2010 Interpreting information Lane et al, 2019 Knowledge transfer Abram, 2017 Media literacy De Castro & Levesque, 2018…”

That’s Not What I Meant

“…Two people can receive a message and derive different interpretations. Message interpretation scholarship has focused on factors that influence how messages are interpreted by recipients and, in some cases (e.g., Edwards & Hamilton, 2004; Smith & Boster, 2009), how those interpretations will in turn influence outcomes. Interpretations of a message are affected by a number of factors such that interpretations will “vary as a function of personality, values, group membership, role, message features, message source, and situation” (Edwards, 2011, p. 58).…”