published_or_final_version / Psychology / Master / Master of Philosophy

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The purpose of this research program was to explore how the personality traits of extraversion and self-monitoring may impact a persuasive appeal within the framework of the Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion. Using both descriptive and injunctive normative messages, I hypothesized that under conditions of low elaboration, when one is unable and unmotivated to process a message; those high in the traits of extraversion and self-monitoring would be more compliant to a persuasive appeal that utilized a descriptive normative message. Further, I hypothesized that under conditions of low elaboration, those low in the aforementioned traits would be more compliant to an appeal utilizing injunctive normative messages. I did not expect to find any differences relating to personality under conditions of high elaboration. In order to examine these expected interactions, I pre-tested messages to ensure they were adequately descriptive or injunctive (study one) and then presented these messages to participants who had previously completed measures of extraversion and self-monitoring (study two). In study one I successfully created both injunctive and descriptive normative messages that were adequately divergent. In study two, I manipulated elaboration by giving participants in the low elaboration condition a distracter task while they were reading the message, and by reducing personal relevance of the message, whereas for those in the high elaboration condition, there were no distractions and personal relevance was high. Contrary to predictions, I did not find the expected three-way interactions between extraversion, message type, and elaboration or self-monitoring, message type, and elaboration. However, I did find evidence supporting a two-way interaction between message type and elaboration, suggesting that descriptive messages are more persuasive under conditions of low elaboration whereas injunctive messages are more persuasive under conditions of high elaboration. Explanation for these findings, as well as implications of the findings both theoretical and practical, will be discussed in terms of the persuasion literature. / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2010-08-10 14:32:21.064

Studies examining descriptive norms in the activity area have demonstrated that an individual’s perceptions of others’ behaviour were related to (Priebe & Spink, 2011; Spink, Crozier, & Robinson, 2013), and influenced (Priebe & Spink, 2012, 2014) individual behaviour. Guided by focus theory of normative conduct (Cialdini, Reno, & Kallgren, 1990), the purposes of the studies examined in this thesis were three-fold: (1) to assess whether norms are related to an intention that is not a direct reflection of the norm, (2) to add to the examination of the relationship between norms and self-reported activity to include both descriptive (i.e., perceptions about others’ behaviour) and injunctive (i.e., perceptions about others’ approval) norms, and (3) to use a construct from another theory (i.e., positive outcome expectations from social cognitive theory, Bandura, 1986) to strengthen the predictions from focus theory of normative conduct to individual’s physical activity. In Study 1, which was concurrent in design, the relationship between descriptive norms reflecting prosocial behaviour and an individual’s intention to return to the group in youth sport camp participants was examined. A positive relationship emerged wherein individuals were more likely to intend to return to their group in the future when they also perceived that more group members provided encouragement, congratulations, positive and constructive feedback (i.e., prosocial) to other group members. Study 2 was an experimental field study, where the influence of normative (descriptive, injunctive) and non-normative (personal, team) motivational messages on self-reported frequency of maximal effort in adult volleyball athletes was examined. Individuals exposed to the normative messages about others exerting effort reported significantly higher frequencies of maximal effort compared to those exposed to messages highlighting personal reasons for exerting effort (i.e., to improve athletic ability). However, no differences emerged between normative messages about the effort levels of others and those who received messages about working hard for the team. In Study 3, an online experimental study, exposure to messages differing in levels of descriptive norms and positive outcome expectations was examined in relation to the exercise patterns of university students during a final exam period. All students reported decreases in their activity from their typical levels during the exam period. However, between-group differences emerged between the two groups exposed to the message that many others were active during exams (high descriptive norm). When that message was coupled with a high positive outcome expectation, individuals reported significantly greater levels of moderate and vigorous physical activity than when the normative message was accompanied with a low positive outcome expectation. Results from these three studies suggested the following: (1) a descriptive norm surrounding one class of behaviours related to an individual’s perceptions regarding an intention to return in the future to that setting, (2) normative messages influenced an individual’s perceptions of how often he/she exerted maximum effort more than non-normative personal messages in sport, and (3) a message highlighting that many others were active during an exam period (high descriptive norm) influenced self-reported individual physical activity differently depending on the level (high, low) of positive outcome expectation provided.

Word of mouth (WOM) – or information shared among consumers themselves – has long been regarded as one of the most influential information sources for consumers (Brown and Reingen 1987). Unlike offline word of mouth, which typically occurs among people who know each other, online word of mouth typically occurs among strangers who do not know, and are unlikely to ever know, one other. While it is reasonable to assume that social concerns, such as maintaining relationships, are likely to influence people’s offline word of mouth behavior among familiar others, it is unclear whether social concerns dictate people’s online word of mouth behavior. In my dissertation, I look at how social considerations – thoughts about other people – affect people’s online word of mouth behavior. In the second chapter of my dissertation, I examine how people’s choice of word of mouth topic online is influenced by social considerations. Specifically, I find that while people enjoy talking about controversial topics because the topics are intrinsically interesting, people often times avoid these topics because they fear social rejection by their conversation partner. In chapter three, I examine how reviewers’ desire to appear logical (vs. imaginative) during word of mouth transmission affects their memory for the experience. I find that attempting to be logical negatively affects reviewer’s memory and this is due to the logic mindset activating verbal instead of perceptual processes during subsequent recall. In other words, impression management goals (e.g., to present oneself as a rational person) during word of mouth communication may be detrimental for people’s memory . Chapter four examines how consumer evaluations of reviews are driven by consumer beliefs about why reviews are written. I find that, in general, consumers tend to discount positive reviews because they think positive reviews are written for reviewer-specific reason such a self-enhancement or signaling expertise. When temporal contiguity cues – words and phrases indicating that the review was written immediately after the consumption experience – are present, however, people tend to give more credence to positive reviews because these cues make consumers think that the product experience, rather than reviewer-specific goals, precipitated the writing of the review. Taken together, my dissertation shows that social considerations affect both the transmission of word of mouth and the reception of online word of mouth. More generally, my dissertation showcases how thoughts about others (e.g., will others be offended?) influence consumer behavior even in situations where present and future social interactions are unlikely to occur.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 89-97). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-79) Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rhode Island, 2005. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-105).

abstract: Predicting when an individual will adopt a new behavior is an important problem in application domains such as marketing and public health. This thesis examines the performance of a wide variety of social network based measurements proposed in the literature - which have not been previously compared directly. This research studies the probability of an individual becoming influenced based on measurements derived from neighborhood (i.e. number of influencers, personal network exposure), structural diversity, locality, temporal measures, cascade measures, and metadata. It also examines the ability to predict influence based on choice of the classifier and how the ratio of positive to negative samples in both training and testing affect prediction results - further enabling practical use of these concepts for social influence applications. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Computer Science 2016

Digital Citizenship Tools for Cause-Based Campaigns: A Broadened Spectrum of Social Media Engagement and Participation-Scale Methodology develops and applies two new tools for understanding, measuring, and recursively adjusting small to medium-size social media-based philanthropic campaigns to better foster participation and engagement—in other words, democratic digital citizenship. First, a theoretical model is offered broadening current binary conceptions of success and failure or impact of campaigns, situating specific participant actions in social media on a spectrum. Then, from that model, a new methodology is provided to measure participation and engagement generated by campaign posts. Recommendations are also offered for recursively adjusting campaign posts to better foster democratic digital citizenship. These tools were developed from data generated by #TheFaceOffChallenge, a research project representative of a typical small to medium-size cause-based campaign. #TheFaceOffChallenge also serves as a sample for analysis illustrating how to use these tools. While explicating these tools, this dissertation explores a broad range of topics related to better understanding democratic digital citizenship: online philanthropy, awareness, and digital activism; viral and memetic transmission; tensions between consumption and creation of ideas, content, and knowledge; public(s), counterpublics, and counter-efforts; literacies and access for engagement and participation in algorithmic environments; and visual communication and semiotics.