Communication, Social Cognition, and Affect (PLE: Emotion)

Lewis Donohew, Howard E. Sypher, E. Tory Higgins

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317590729
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Interpersonal Relations in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Originally published in 1988, the purpose of this book was to explore the interrelations among communication, social cognition and affect. The contributors, selected by the editors, were some of the best known in their fields and they significantly added to the knowledge of this interdisciplinary domain at the time. In late April 1986 the authors met at a conference centre at the University of Kentucky. They presented first drafts of their chapters and exchanged ideas. Out of these interactions came this book, which has a broad interest across several areas of psychology and communication. While answering a number of questions, the authors also posed others for future examination.

1An Overview of the Roles of Social Cognition and Affect in Communication

Howard E. Sypher
Lewis Donohew
University of Kentucky
E. Tory Higgins
New York University

Implicit in many contemporary theories of human communication is an assumption that individuals seek out and process appropriate information in order to logically and with full self-awareness arrive at "rational" decisions. To be sure, there are individual differences in cognitive abilities, with some of these persons employing more complex processing schemes than others, or being otherwise better equipped to proceed to cope with each day's tribulations and amusements. In this book, however, the authors severely challenge the assumption, so pervasive in the literature of research on both interpersonal and mass communca tion as well as in the person-perception literature of the 1970s, that ordinary human beings employ logical thought processes and arrive at decisions in self-aware ways.

Research in the most recent of the areas covered here—social cognition—was begun in the early 1970s, about the time that consistency models ceased to dominate work in psychology and communication. In most social-cognitive models that developed, emotion, affect, or motivation was seen as secondary in importance to cognition—a position that is beginning to come into question (see Higgins & Bargh, in press; Lazarus, 1982; Zajonc, 1980, 1984).

In this general framework, humans are seen as "naive scientists", who work to uncover the causes of their own and others' behavior. As this rational model of human functioning has developed, errors are most often viewed as being due to nonrational motivations. From this perspective, the usual attribution process is seen as a quasi-scientific cognitive analysis of causes, with occasional interference due to some motivation-based departure.

Unfortunately, people often are not so rational and tend to be somewhat more limited in their information-processing capacity than the "naive scientist" metaphor might suggest. The chapters in this volume report research results and theoretical advances that provde further questions concerning our cognitive capabilities. A great deal of previous research has shown that our cognitive information-processing system is limited in some respects and under certain conditions we tend to take mental shortcuts or use heuristics. These heuristics or cognitive simplifying devices allow us to make quicker judgments or reduce complex internal data-processing demands. Indeed, work on heuristics has developed into a separate area of research in its own right (see, for example, Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982).

In addition to using heuristics, our cognitive processing often is overridden or interrupted by affect. Some might even argue that affect or arousal of some sort initiates cognitive activity and not the other way around. However, it seems equally reasonable that emotions can alter one's goals and hence one's processing priorities, perhaps setting the agenda for cognitive activity (see McCann & Higgins, this volume).

We believe, as do many others, that some sort of combination of emotion-arousal and cognition largely controls communicative behavior. Some have advocated parallel rather than interactive influences, but the final decision on these issues still rests with the jury.

We do know, however, that from a physiological perspective, the human system has needs for stimulation of the brain and energy for the body. More than one third of the brain's volume involves pleasure centers seeking continuous stimulation (Campbell, 1973; Olds & Forbes, 1981). Although this need for arousal varies across individuals (Zuckerman, 1978, 1983, this volume), arousal is nonetheless fundamental to human behavior.

Although for some fields, emotion remained an integral part of theorizing and research efforts, this was by no means universally true. Now, after a number of years of inattention, affect or emotion once again has become a part of interdisciplinary discourse among social and behavioral scientists.

A number of communication researchers, for example, have long been concerned with affect or emotion and its use in public discourse (pathos), television, newspapers films, humor, persuasive message effects, and so on (Donohew, Finn, & Christ, this volume; Zillmann, this volume). However, although communication researchers have not completely forgotten about affect, a great many have tended to implicitly de-emphasize emotion in efforts to explore the utility of information-processing models for communication.

The picture that emerges from this book is of human beings possessing the capability to behave in a cognitively "controlled" manner when it is demanded by the circumstances—such as in the presence of threat or unfamiliarity, but who, under less demanding circumstances, do not draw so heavily upon the precious resource of attention and all its alerting and energizing capabilities (see Bargh, this volume). Instead, affect, much of the time, appears to play a considerably greater role in the guidance of the system. By affect, we mean the whole wide range of emotions, remembered feelings, moods, and physiological reactions that the concept embraces.

Thus, there is considerable interest in the role that affect plays in our conversations and in other aspects of our day-to-day lives, including exposure to the mass media. For example, while engaging in the pursuit of arousal, the newspaper reader or television watcher is likely to be responding to subtle influences on the attention process of which he or she is not aware. These sources of influence may have little or nothing to do with the subject matter, but rather may include such elements as design of the message itself (Donohew, 1984; Donohew, Palmgreen, & Duncan, 1980; Donohew, Finn, & Christ, this volume; Finn, 1983).

Recent research on automaticity in social information processing (e.g., Berger & Roloff, 1980; Higgins & Bargh, in press) had underlined the importance of arousal-inducing elements in attracting and holding an audience. The research has indicated that human beings make full use of their conscious thought processes far less than is assumed in most contemporary theories. Instead, when entering situations similar to ones they have previously encountered and to which they have "overlearned" a set of responses—such as reading a newspaper—they tend to reduce their level of attention and shift to a state often referred to as automatic pilot, automaticity, or mindlessness. This state has been found to occur in communication situations such as reading and even talking with others as well as in other familiar circumstances, including our morning drive to work. Findings from this research have considerable implications for the study of communication (see Bargh, this volume).

For example, this research would suggest that in the area of mass communication the way news stories are written may at times be more important than the subject matter or the content itself in attracting and holding readers and viewers. In situations where individuals are operating at low levels of self-awareness—that is, on automatic pilot—it appears likely that there is more reliance on arousal and less on what we commonly think of as cognition in guiding the system through routine decisions. Such decisions might include whether or not to read or watch a story and whether or not to continue exposure to it—or, for that matter, to another person. On the basis of previous research, it appears likely that we operate at these reduced levels more often than commonly realized.

Some clarification is needed here, however. In engaging in behavior that can be accomplished without concentrating attention on it, an individual still is drawing on knowledge structures often referred to as schemata (see, for example, Bargh, this volume; Crockett, this volume; H. Sypher & Applegate, 1984).

Clearly, from our view, both cognition and affect or arousal are involved in human communication, beginning with the capture of attention and continuing throughout the communication process. The influence of each on the other, however, is not a matter of consensus and many questions remain unanswered. For example, when does one precede the other? What effect does each have on the other? Are there, as some believe, separate systems? And, as previously noted, additional questions might be asked about the role of automaticity and automatic processing that may raise doubts about the relative effects of each. Finally, we should ask ourselves what are the implications of this research for interpersonal and mass communication behavior? Obviously, these are only a few of the questions one could ask about communication and affect.

1 his volume brings together researchers employing a variety or approaches to the study of affect, cognition, and communication. Although their theoretical stances (and in some cases their levels of analysis) differ, they all emphasize the intraorganismic function of emotion, seeing emotion as often disruptive and, on occasion, motivating. The volume does not include sociobiological or antropological functions and for the most part our contributors do not address the antecedents, expression of or control of emotion in any detail. These areas of research are certainly important but are covered elsewhere (e.g., Scherer & Ekman, 1984). We, of necessity, have sought to restrict the focus of the text while allowing for theoretical diversity in the individual contributions. One group of essays emphasizes the physiological or psychological and cognitive explanations. This group is represented in the work of Dolf Zillmann, Marvin Zuckerman, John Cacioppo, Richard Petty, Lewis Donohew, Seth Finn, William Christ, and others. Another group has focused its attention on social-cognitive explanations. This group is represented by the work of Charles Berger, Tory Higgins, Walter Crockett, Doug McCann, John Bargh, Howard and Beverly Sypher, and their colleagues.

The contributors to this volume offer critical (and at times speculative) assessments and reports on original research on questions evolving from consideration of affect, social cognition, and communication, including many of the issues just raised.

In the next chapter, Bargh questions not only assumptions that people are entirely conscious and rational (as does Crockett in a later chapter) but also the assumptions of others that processes carried out at a low level of awareness are therefore automatic. Bargh makes the point that many behaviors carried out at a low level of awareness are nonetheless intended. He discusses the role of automatic processes as they apply to perceptual activity influencing reception of interpersonal information. He observes that, in the act of media consumption, "(t)he type of information one attends to, how much attention one pays to it, how one encodes and interprets it, and consequently how one remembers it are all greatly influenced by one's processing goals while encountering the information." Bargh also makes the important point that automatic processing is not always "bad." If the automatic responses correspond to reality, then relatively effortless processing can be adaptive and functional. Moreover, conscious, controlled processing can override automatic processing in order to adapt to changing environmental contingencies. When this does not happen, however, people may respond irrationally.

Crockett (chapter 3) provides a general review in which he delineates the notion of schema and its relationship to social communication and affect. Crockett employs a variety of examples to illustrate schemas and their utilization in information processing, communication, and action plans. Finally, Crockett explores the interaction of schemas, affect, and arousal. He concludes with a discussion of affect and category-based judgments and a theoretical account of the connection between schemas and affect.

McCann and Higgins (chapter 4) argue that an understanding of the relation between affect and cognition is important if we are to understand the impact of communication and social interaction on the participants' attitudes toward and feelings about others. They propose that individuals' chronic personal motivations and momentary social-interaction goals influence their interpretations of social events, which in turn produce emotional reactions specific to the interpretations. The implications of this "motivation-interpretation-affect" relation are discussed concerning both self-persuasion from dyadic communication and emotional vulnerability in interpersonal relationships.

Sypher and Sypher (chapter 5) outline work on the impact of mild cognitive affect and cognitive differentiation on communicative performance. More specifically, Sypher and Sypher suggest that mild positive affect influences cognitive structure and persuasive message generation in several ways. Following a brief discussion of affect and interpersonal communication, this chapter reports a study examining the relationship between affect and persuasive message generation. The results of this investigation suggest that we have more differentiated cognitive structures for liked others (as opposed to disliked others) and that we generate more arguments for convincing known-liked others (as opposed to known-disliked others) but do not find this same difference when the receiver is an unknown other. The study also suggests that frequency of interaction may not play as significant a role in this process as previously suspected. Other results in the study are less clear and further research efforts are called for.

Borrowing from the artificial intelligence literature, Berger (chapter 6) links plans and action production to work in social cognition and communication. Berger contends that procedural knowledge as a whole has not received the kind of attention it deserves especially given the obvious importance plans have as linking knowledge and action. Berger reports previous research in which individuals involved in initial interactions were provided with incompatible goals. In this work, incompatible individual goals significantly impacted on verbal and nonverbal communication. Berger also provides the reader with a discussion of plan formulation, the role of goals and metagoals before speculating on the relationship of planning and affect. Finally, Berger reports original research aimed at illustrating the potential of his planning approach to the study of action in a dating situation.

Petty, Cacioppo, and Kasmer (chapter 7) review their Elaboration Likelihood Model for understanding the basic processes underlying the effectiveness of persuasive communications. They discuss how the same message source variables (e.g., attractiveness, expertise) can influence persuasion through a variety of different routes as a function of the likelihood that recipients of the message will cognitively elaborate upon the information contained in the message. They then extend this logic to the central issue of how affect influences persuasion, and suggest that affect can also influence persuasion by different routes depending on the extent to which message information is elaborated.

Authors of the final four chapters in the book concentrate more on affect, and appear to share a number of general assumptions about stimulus selection. In describing processing of stimuli competing for what Zuckerman refers to as "the most viral aspect of consciousness"—attention—they tend to place a greater emphasis on physiological responses to aversive stimuli or those generating pleasurable states.

In chapter 8, Zillmann, who has conducted extensive research on physiological responses to mass communication, offers a theory of stimulus arrangement, or mood management. The theory is an extension of Zillmann and Bryant's (1985) theory of affect-dependent stimulus arrangement. Its fundamental proposition is that individuals arrange and rearrange their entertainment environ ments—music, comedy, drama, sports, and the like—so as best to minimize avers...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Original Title
• Original Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• 1. AN OVERVIEW OF THE ROLES OF SOCIAL COGNITION AND AFFECT IN COMMUNICATION
• 2. AUTOMATIC INFORMATION PROCESSING: IMPLICATIONS FOR COMMUNICATION AND AFFECT
• 3. SCHEMAS, AFFECT, AND COMMUNICATION
• 4. MOTIVATION AND AFFECT IN INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS: THE ROLE OF PERSONAL ORIENTATIONS AND DISCREPANCIES
• 5. AFFECT AND MESSAGE GENERATION
• 6. PLANNING, AFFECT, AND SOCIAL ACTION GENERATION
• 7. THE ROLE OF AFFECT IN THE ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL OF PERSUASION
• 8. MOOD MANAGEMENT: USING ENTERTAINMENT TO FULL ADVANTAGE
• 9. BEHAVIOR AND BIOLOGY: RESEARCH ON SENSATION SEEKING AND REACTIONS TO THE MEDIA
• 10. "THE NATURE OF NEWS" REVISITED: THE ROLES OF AFFECT, SCHEMAS, AND COGNITION
• 11. COMMUNICATION, SOCIAL COGNITION, AND AFFECT: A PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL APPROACH
• Author Index
• Subject Index