Designing and Testing Cogent Communications

Abstract

Experiments involving choice tasks were conducted to test the potential utility of word associations in constructing assertions and messages that are cogent in the sense that they actually bear on the interests and experiences of a particular audience. Similarity judgment tasks, which were based on verbal association dat previously obtained from similar groups, were administered to U. S. and Korean student samples. The results supported the hypothesis that associations previously scoring higher by one cultural group would be judged "more similar, " "more related, " by a group from the same culture. In another experiment administered only to the Korean group, higherscoring associations and their respective communication themes were combined into assertions. It was assumed that assertions based on strong associative linkages would be judged more meaningful by groups similar to the one on which the original data were obtained. The cogency of these association-based assertions was compared in choice tasks with that of assertions constructed on the same themes by two cultural experts on Korea; the association-based assertions were found to be significantly more meaningful.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Asch, S. E. A reformulation of the problem of associations . American Psychologist, 1969, 24, 92-102.

Deese, J. The structure of associations in language and thought. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.

Glenn, E. S. Meaning and behavior; communication and culture . Journal of Communication 1966, 16, 248-272.

Hartley, E. L. , & Hartley, R. E. Fundamentals of social psychology. New York: Knopf, 1962.

Hovland, C. I. , Janis, I. L. , & Kelley, H. H. Communication and persuasion. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1953.

Mapper, Y. T. The effects of mass communication. Glencoe, Ill.: Glencoe Press, 1960.

McGinnies, E. Studies in persuasion: reactions of Japanese students to one-sided and two-sided communications . Journal of Social Psychology, 1966, 76, 87-93.

Mead, M. The communication of ideas. New York: Institute for Religious and Social Studies, 1945.

Miller, G. A. Psycholinguistic approaches to the study of communication. In D. Arm (Ed.), Journeys in science. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1967.

10.

Osgood, C. E. , Suci, G. , & Tannenbaum, P. H. The measurement of meaning. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1957.

11.

Szalay, L. B. , Moon, W. T. , Lysne, D. A. , & Bryson, J. A. A lexicon of selected U. S. Korean communication themes. Kensington, Md.: American Institutes for Research, 1971. (a)

12.

Szalay, L. B. , Moon, W. T. , & Bryson, J. A. Communication lexicon on three South Korean audiences: Social, national, and motivational domains. Kensington, Md.: American Institutes for Research, 1971. (b)

13.

Szalay, L. B. , Windle, C. , & Lysne, D. A. Attitude measurement by free verbal associations. Journal of Social Psychology, 1970, 82, 43-55.

14.

Szalay, L. B. , & Brent, J. E. The analysis of cultural meanings through free verbal associations. Journal of Social Psychology, 1967, 72, 161-187.

15.

Triandis, H. C. Cognitive similarity and communication in a dyad . Human Relations, 1960, 13, 175-183.

16.

Weaver, C. H. The quantification of the frame of reference in labor-management communication . Journal of Applied Psychology, 1958, 42, 1-9.