Turn a Blind Eye If You Care: Impacts of Attitude Consistency,Importance, and Credibility on Seeking of Political Information and Implications for Attitudes

Abundant media outlets allow for much diversity of political messages and selective use among citizens. A 2‐session online field study examined impacts of attitude consistency, attitude importance, and source credibility on selective exposure to political messages and subsequent attitude accessibility. The first session assessed attitudes and their accessibility. In the second session, participants browsed online search results that featured attitude‐consistent and attitude‐discrepant messages associated with sources of either high or low credibility; selective reading was tracked. Then attitude accessibility was measured again. Participants spent less time with attitude‐discrepant messages compared to attitude‐consistent messages; this pattern was particularly pronounced among participants with higher attitude importance. Low importance fostered exposure to high‐credibility messages. Exposure to attitude‐discrepant, high‐credibility messages reduced attitude accessibility.     

Exposure to Health (Mis)Information: Lagged Effects on Young Adults' Health Behaviors and Potential Pathways

Consumers frequently encounter competing health information comprised of accurate and erroneous messages about different diseases. This longitudinal study examined the lagged associations between young adults' exposure to health (mis)information about 4 cancer‐related risk factors (indoor tanning, e‐cigarette use, reusing plastic bottles, and artificial sweeteners), beliefs, intentions, and behaviors as informed by theories of persuasion and behavior change. We found significant lagged associations between health (mis)information exposure and beliefs for three topics; beliefs predicted subsequent intentions for 2 topics; and intentions predicted subsequent behaviors for 4 topics. The hypothesized pathway of effects was supported for 2 topics. These findings provide insights for developing theory in the area of (mis)information effects and for designing interventions that mitigate the adverse consequences of misinformation.     

Reinforcement of the Political Self Through Selective Exposure to Political Messages

The idea that recipients prefer messages that reinforce preexisting attitudes and self‐perceptions has pervaded much communication research, but effects of selective exposure are rarely examined. This 2‐session experiment (n = 157) investigates such effects. The first session presented computerized questions on 12 political issue attitudes and political self‐concept. Accessibility data were collected based on response times. In the second session, participants browsed through an online magazine including 4 of the 12 issues, each issue being covered by 2 articles featuring opposing viewpoints. Selective exposure was logged and categorized as attitude‐consistent or counterattitudinal. Finally, a questionnaire repeated measures for attitudes and self‐concept. The results show that participants preferred attitude‐consistent over counterattitudinal messages, which strengthened the political self‐concept through increased accessibility.     

How Does Insightful and Emotional Disclosure Bring Potential Health Benefits? Study Based on Online Support Groups for Women With Breast Cancer

Building upon 2 theoretical models (the cognitive adaptation model and the emotional exposure–habituation model), this research focused on 2 aspects of disclosure content—insights and emotions—and examined how women with breast cancer benefit from written disclosure in online support groups. Using survey data collected at baseline and after 4 months and messages posted in bulletin‐board‐type online groups in between, we analyzed how the content of disclosive messages predicted health outcomes. Disclosure of insights led to greater improvements in health self‐efficacy, emotional well‐being, and functional well‐being, which was mediated by lowered breast cancer concerns. Disclosure of negative emotions had no main effects on health outcomes, but weakened the unfavorable association between concerns at baseline and functional well‐being at follow‐up.     

When Do People Misrepresent Themselves to Others? The Effects of Social Desirability,Ground Truth,and Accountability on Deceptive Self‐Presentations

Following Leary's (1995) impression management model, three experiments assessed factors that affect deceptive self‐presentations of height and weight. One experiment examined the role of biased cognitive processing. It revealed interactions between biased scanning—focusing on one's own socially desirable characteristics—and participants' sex that affected discrepancies between actual and self‐reported height/weight. Another investigated the effect of establishing ground truth prior to self‐assessment. It determined that exposure to one's actual measures (ground truth) prior to self‐report reduced inaccuracy. The third examined the role of perceived accountability. It found that anticipation of being measured reduced discrepant self‐reports. Results suggest that psychological and social processes provide higher‐order explanations for distorted self‐presentations of the kind that other studies have attributed to specific goals and sociotechnological factors.     

Selective Exposure and Reinforcement of Attitudes and Partisanship Before a Presidential Election

Right before the 2008 U.S. presidential election, this 2‐session online field study examined consequences of selective exposure to political messages on accessibility of attitudes and of partisanship. In the first session, participants indicated attitudes toward political issues and their partisanship, which allowed measuring accessibility of attitudes and of partisanship. In the second session, participants browsed articles. Four issues were covered by 8 articles, with 2 articles featuring opposing perspectives. Selective exposure was unobtrusively logged. Finally, participants completed measures for attitudes and partisanship again. Selective exposure to attitude‐consistent articles was linked to greater attitude accessibility. The indirect impact of selective exposure on partisanship accessibility through attitude accessibility was significant.     

The Role of Actors' Race in White Audiences' Selective Exposure to Movies

Movie producers are often reluctant to cast more than a few minority actors in otherwise race‐neutral movies for fear that the White audience will largely avoid such films. Two experiments were conducted to test the idea that the racial makeup of a cast could influence White audiences' selective exposure to movies. Results revealed that actors' race does influence selective exposure in certain contexts. For nonromantic movies, participants' racial attitudes moderated the relationship between race and selective exposure. For romantic movies, regardless of racial attitudes, White participants showed significantly less interest in seeing movies with mostly Black casts than in seeing movies with mostly White casts. These findings are discussed in light of both social identity theory and social cognitive theory.     

Please Your Self: Social Identity Effects on Selective Exposure to News About In‐ and Out‐Groups

Hypotheses were tested in a secondary data analysis of an experiment on selective exposure to positive and negative news articles about same‐ and differently aged individuals. A sample of 178 young (18–30 years) and 98 older adults (50–65 years) browsed an online news magazine while reading times were logged by software. Younger individuals (high status, high uncertainty) generally focused their reading on same‐aged individuals, with a preference on positive news about this in‐group. Older recipients (low‐status, low uncertainty) were more likely to select negative news about young individuals than positive news about this out‐group and negative news about older individuals. Furthermore, exposure to negative news about younger individuals bolstered older recipients' self‐esteem.     

Polarization and Partisan Selective Exposure

Today, people can easily select media outlets sharing their political predispositions, a behavior known as partisan selective exposure. Additional research is needed, however, to better understand the causes and consequences of partisan selective exposure. This study investigates the relationship between partisan selective exposure and political polarization using data from the National Annenberg Election Survey. Cross‐sectional results show strong evidence that partisan selective exposure is related to polarization. Over‐time analyses document that partisan selective exposure leads to polarization. Some evidence supports the reverse causal direction, namely that polarization leads to partisan selective exposure. Implications for the study of media effects and normative implications—both positive and negative—are discussed.     

Politically Motivated Reinforcement Seeking: Reframing the Selective Exposure Debate

This article seeks to reframe the selective exposure debate by demonstrating that people exhibit a preference for opinion‐reinforcing political information without systematically avoiding opinion challenges. The results are based on data collected in a national random‐digit‐dial telephone survey (n = 1,510) conducted prior to the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Analyses show that Americans use the control afforded by online information sources to increase their exposure to opinions consistent with their own views without sacrificing contact with other opinions. This observation contradicts the common assumption that reinforcement seeking and challenge avoidance are intrinsically linked aspects of the selective exposure phenomenon. This distinction is important because the consequences of challenge avoidance are significantly more harmful to democratic deliberation than those of reinforcement seeking.     

The Persuasive Influence of a Fictional Character's Trustworthiness

The present research examined the role of a fictional character's trustworthiness on narrative persuasion. The authors suggest that trustworthiness indicators within the story, rather than paratextual cues (fact–fiction labeling) affect persuasive outcomes. An experiment on fuel‐efficient driving behavior (green driving) was conducted, with behavioral intentions and self‐reported behavior (3 weeks postexposure) as dependent variables. A story with a trustworthy character who introduced green driving behavior led to stronger intentions to engage in fuel‐efficient driving among car owners than a story with a less trustworthy character who provided the same information or a control story. Low character trustworthiness was particularly detrimental to story‐consistent intentions and behavior for recipients who were not deeply immersed into the story world (low narrative presence).     

Political Online Information Searching in Germany and the United States: Confirmation Bias,Source Credibility,and Attitude Impacts

Before the 2013 German federal election, 121 participants completed a 2‐session online study (which paralleled a U.S. study before the 2012 presidential election). They browsed online search results pertaining to 4 political issues while selective exposure was unobtrusively measured. In a 4 × 2 × 2 (topic × issue stance × source credibility) within‐subjects design, the search results indicated either issue support or opposition, associated with low‐ or high‐credibility sources. Hypotheses were derived from cognitive dissonance, approach‐avoidance, and motivated cognition models. Findings yielded a confirmation bias. Attitude‐consistent exposure uniformly reinforced attitudes; attitude‐discrepant exposure uniformly weakened attitudes. Analyses with parallel U.S. data showed a stronger confirmation bias in the United States than in Germany.     

Social and Heuristic Approaches to Credibility Evaluation Online

The tremendous amount of information available online has resulted in considerable research on information and source credibility. The vast majority of scholars, however, assume that individuals work in isolation to form credibility opinions and that people must assess information credibility in an effortful and time‐consuming manner. Focus group data from 109 participants were used to examine these assumptions. Results show that most users rely on others to make credibility assessments, often through the use of group‐based tools. Results also indicate that rather than systematically processing information, participants routinely invoked cognitive heuristics to evaluate the credibility of information and sources online. These findings are leveraged to suggest a number of avenues for further credibility theorizing, research, and practice.     

Involved,Transported, or Emotional? Exploring the Determinants of Change in Knowledge,Attitudes, and Behavior in Entertainment‐Education

This study examined how 3 constructs—involvement with a specific character, involvement with the narrative (Green and Brock's construct of transportation), and viewers' emotional reaction to the narrative—produce entertainment‐education (EE) effects. A pretest/posttest survey of 167 regular viewers measured the effects of exposure to a lymphoma storyline on a television drama, Desperate Housewives. Transportation or involvement with the narrative was the best predictor of change in relevant knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. Although involvement with a specific character has been hailed an important direct predictor of EE effects, a structural equation model indicated that character involvement may be more important for its ability to heighten transportation and emotion, which, in turn, produce changes in viewers' knowledge, attitudes, and behavior.     

Video News Releases and the Public: The Impact of Source Labeling on the Perceived Credibility of Television News

Observers of the television news business have suggested that public judgments of the credibility of news stories and the news industry would suffer if audiences knew that external sources routinely provided story content. An experiment examined whether on‐screen labels identifying externally supplied video news release (VNR) content in television news can affect audience perceptions of the credibility of the news and the VNR provider. The results suggest that news audiences might not use the presence of VNR content in evaluations of news stories, news programs, and VNR producers. However, there is evidence that news audiences are concerned about the use of VNR content and support the use of labels.     

Helpful or Harmful? How Frequent Repetition Affects Perceived Statement Credibility

On the basis of experimental data, we study how repetition of a statement affects perceived statement credibility. We identify 2 counteracting effects: The first effect, known as “truth effect,” describes a positive relationship between repetition and statement credibility. People tend to ascribe higher credibility to messages that they repeatedly encounter. In contrast, the second effect occurs when repetition is taken too far. Here, an indirect and negative effect is identified and participants start to perceive the message as a persuasive attempt. This perception triggers reactance, which in turn considerably reduces participants' trust in the source and leads to a significant decrease in the overall credibility of the message. Our results broaden the understanding of the benefits and harms of repeated persuasive messages.     

Participating in Health Issue‐Specific Social Networking Sites to Quit Smoking: How Does Online Social Interconnectedness Influence Smoking Cessation Self‐Efficacy?

This study examined members of health issue-specific social networking sites (SNSs) for smoking cessation, hypothesizing that social identification, bridging and bonding social capital, perceived subjective norms, and social support would impact the relationship between participation and smoking cessation self‐efficacy. Results (N = 252) of an online questionnaire revealed that participation significantly influenced each social factor, which in turn resulted in greater smoking cessation self-efficacy. By applying and extending traditional peer influence theories, a structural model predicting 5 underlying mechanisms of social interconnectedness that influence perceived behavioral control for quitting smoking was tested and supported. Implications for future research on health issue-specific SNSs are discussed.     

Mediation gone wild: How three minutes put an ADR party behind bars

Michael D. Young, of Los Angeles, read that soft‐porn producer Joe Francis was put in jail in Florida for his conduct at a civil mediation during a federal suit Francis was defending. The suit alleged that Francis used underage girls in his notorious Girls Gone Wild videos. Young tracked down the documents in the case, and provides Alternatives' readers with a full chronology of the events leading to Francis's Mediation Spring Break in a federal penitentiary. The reach of the judge's rulings about the mediation raises many questions