Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

In a pretest-posttest control group design (Campbell & Stanley, 1963) with 2 experimental samples and a treated control sample, 132 Ss responded twice to a Sherif-Hovland instrument (Sherif & Hovland, 1961). The intervening treatments written by E appeared to be Xeroxed copies of newspaper articles: 1 represented primarily the evaluative (E) dimension of meaning (Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1957); 1 was a fusion of potency (P) and activity (A), i.e., dynamism (D). A control (C) article was irrelevant to the experimental issue, viz., censorship of movies. Posttest-pretest change scores were compared for the 3 samples by 15 t tests for independent samples (Walker & Lev, 1953). E and D were not significantly different because both changed on the 5 Sherif-Hovland measures in the same directions. Compared with C, however, E was quite effective; 4 of the 5 measures changed significantly; comparisons of D and C indicated that 2 of the 5 measures changed significantly. For this issue E was more effective than D, although more research is needed to clarify the effects of dimensions of meaning of communications on attitude change.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bettinghaus

E. P.

Persuasive communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1968.

Brehm

J. W.

Cohen

A. R.

Explorations in cognitive dissonance. New York: Wiley, 1962.

Campbell

D. T.

Stanley

J. C.

Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for research. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963.

Diab

L. N.

Studies in social attitudes: I. Variations in latitudes of acceptance and rejection as a function of varying positions on a controversial social issue. Journal of Social Psychology, 1965, 67, 283–295.

Festinger

A theory of cognitive dissonance. New York: Row, Peterson, 1957.

Harman

H. H.

Modern factor analysis. (2nd ed., rev.) Chicago: Univer. of Chicago Press, 1967.

Jones

J. M.

Meanings of “most acceptable” and “most objectionable.”

Psychological Reports, 1969, 24, 915–921.

Osgood

C. E.

On the whys and wherefores of E, P, and A. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1969, 12, 194–199.

Osgood

C. E.

Suci

G. J.

Tannenbaum

P. H.

The measurement of meaning. Urbana, Ill.: Univer. of Illinois Press, 1957.

10.

Rosnow

R. L.

Robinson

E. J.

Experiments in persuasion. New York: Academic Press, 1967.

11.

Sherif

Some needed concepts in the study of social attitudes. In Peatman

J. G.

Hartley

E. L.

(Eds.), Festschrift for Gardner Murphy. New York: Harper, 1960. Pp. 194–213.

12.

Sherif

Hovland

C. I.

Social judgment. New Haven: Yale Univer. Press, 1961.

13.

Sherif

C. W.

Sherif

Nebergall

R. E.

Attitude and attitude change. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1965.

14.

Walker

H. M.

Lev

Statistical inference. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1953.

Dimensions of Meaning and Attitude Change

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References