Reinforcement and prior information in the judgment of others’ attitudes

Reinforcement and prior information m the judglnent of others' attitudes 1 THOMAS M. OSTROM, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, and JEFFREY H. GOLDSTEIN, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pa. 19122 Either pro or anti attitudinal responses were reinforced with "good" under three conditions of prior information regarding the reinforcing agents' (interviewers') attitudes on' the issues. For all prior information conditions, the interviewer was viewed as holding a relatively pro attitude when he reinforced pro responses and a relatively anti attitude when he reinforced anti responses. Perception of the interviewer's (E's) attitude in the verbal reinforcement of attitude responses has been assumed by Insko & Cialdini (1969) to mediate the effects of a reinforcer such as "good" on attitude change. Reinforcement of discrepant attitudinal responses should lead the S to believe the interviewer personally endorses the discrepant attitude. Attitude should change to the extent that Ss perceive a discrepancy between their initial attitude and that of a likable interviewer. The present experiment directly tests this hypothesized effect of reinforcement on the perception of the interviewer's attitude. Previous research based on this hypothesis (e.g., Insko & Cialdini, 1969; Cialdini & Insko, 1969) has not assessed the magnitude of such S-interviewer discrepancy and its relation to attitude change. GENERAL DESIGN Prior information about the interviewer's attitude and direction of reinforcement were manipulated in a 3 by 2 factorial design. Perception of interviewer's attitude and attitude change were assessed. PROCEDURE Female students in introductory psychology at Ohio State University volunteered to participate in an experiment on "interviewing procedures." Of the 92 Ss reporting for the experiment, the data for two were discarded because of failure to follow instructions. The Ss reported to a waiting room in which there was a male confederate posing as another S. After several minutes, during which the confederate behaved in a friendly manner, they were called into the laboratory. They were then separated and asked to complete a questionnaire consisting of 10 pairs of self-descriptive Psychon. Sei., 1970, Vol. 19 (6) adjectives and 7 attitude items. This questionnaire later served as the basis of manipulating prior information and establishing positive attraetion between the Sand the confederate. Ss were to seleet the adjective in each pair most descriptive of themselves and to indicate their degree of agreement on an lI-point scale toward eaeh of the attitude statements. One of these statements served as the attitude pretest and read: "I feel that pay television is good and beneficial to society." Upon collecting the questionnaires, the E provided the S with abrief mimeographed statement about the purpose of the experiment. ·This statement indicated that the study dealt with interviewing processes and that one of them would be assigned the task of interviewing the other. Since knowledge of one another's opinions was "typical of many true interviewing situations," they would have an opportunity to look over each other's questionnaire before beginning the interview. Manipulation of Independent Variables Prior to exchanging questionnaires, the E fabricated a questionnaire to be given the S which indicated that the confederate's responses were similar to S's on 8 of 10 self-descriptions and on 6 of the 7 attitude statements. This procedure was employed to induce high positive attraction between the two in all conditions and was based on fmdings that indieate that similarity is a major determinant of attraction (e.g., Byrne & Clore, 1966). The seventh attitude item on the questionnaire was used to convey prior information about the confederate's attitude towardpay TV. For a third ofthe Ss, the confederate's attitude toward pay TV was checked as extremely favorable (Rating Category 11), for another third, as extremely unfavorable (Rating Category 1), while the remaining third received no information about the eonfederate's position. This attitude item was removed from the questionnaire in the no-prior-information condition. To insure that the Ss in the two attitude-informed conditions noticed and remembered how the other participant (confederate) described his own attitude toward pay TV, they were directed to especially note his self-rating for that item and to indicate what his "overall attitude toward pay TV" was on a separate rating scale provided by the E. Ss in the no-prior-information condition did not reeeive this instruction. Prior to looking over the questionnaire, lots were drawn to determine who would be assigned the role of interviewer and who the role of respondent. The drawing was arranged so that the confederate was always the interviewer and the S always the interviewee. They were also told at this point that the topic of the interview was attitude toward pay TV. The participants were then seated opposite one another and separated by a partition on the table to "elirninate facial gestures and cues which might interfere with the interview." This eliminated all nonauditory cues the confederate might have inadvertently produced. While the confederate was supposedly examining his directions on how to conduct the interview, the S read instructions indicating she would be asked to evaluate her interviewer's performance following the interview. The confederate read brief instructions to the S which indicated that she was to respond to each interview question by selecting one of four response alternatives: "c1early disagree," "slightly disagree," "slightly agree," or "c1early agree." The interview, adapted from Insko & Butzine (1967), consisted of 12 statements about pay TV, half worded positively and half negatively. In t h e positive direction of reinforcement condition, Ss were reinforced with "good" for agree responses to positively worded statements toward pay TV and for disagree responses to negatively worded statements. In the negative reinforcement condition, the same reinforcement was delivered, but for the opposite responses. Throughout the experiment, the confederate was not allowed to see any of the materials completed by the S. The confederate was kept unaware of the prior-information condition to which his S was assigned, and he did not leam of her reinforcement condition assignment until he actually began administering the interview. Dependent Measures F ollowing the interview the confederate handed a "Self-Report Questionnaire" to the S which contained several attitude questions, inc1uding an item on pay TV identical to that used in the pretest. The Sand confederate were again separated and given several forms to complete. Inc1uded was an item requesting an estirnate of the interviewer's attitude (on ascale identical to that used in reporting his own attitude) and questions perrnitting assessment of the meaning Ss gave the reinforcement. 319 Table 1 (...truncated)