The literature pertaining to the effects of attitude on the learning and retention of controversial information was reviewed, and other variables which were thought to interact with attitude in its effect on memory were examined. No firm conclusions could be drawn because of the inconsistent results in past studies. The variable of commitment was singled out as a likely candidate for further study because of its possible crucial role in determining whether subjects would be open-minded in processing new information or whether they would react defensively to inconsistent material.
Using Kiesler's (1971) work as a point of departure, it was hypothesized that the higher the subject's degree of commitment to a stand, the more difficult it would be for him to retain inconsistent information as compared to consistent material. Furthermore, it was expected that this effect would grow in strength as the retention interval increased in length. A final hypothesis predicted a positive correlation between the amount of inconsistent material retained and the degree of attitude change toward the position advocated in a counter -attitudinal speech.
An attempt was made to develop new ways of examining more than just the quantity of a subject's recall. Accordingly, objective measures were developed of the types and amount of distortion present in recall and of the importance of the ideas recalled.
The experimental design involved variation of three factors; degree of commitment (three levels), consistency of information with the subject's own position (two levels), and time of recall (two levels). Subjects were recruited from the Duke University subject pool, and a total of 120 subjects
(10 per condition x 12 conditions) were used in the final analysis. Only
subjects who indicated a stand definitely for or against capital punishment in a survey prior to the experiment were recruited.
Commitment was manipulated by varying the public nature of a speech which subjects thought they would have to tape-record. Subjects in both the high and low commitment condition were given their choice of reading a speech either supporting or opposing capital punishment. Any subject who did not pick the side corresponding to his pre -measured attitude was dropped from the experiment. High commitment subjects thought that the tape recording would be made public and they would be identified as the speaker, while low commitment subjects thought that they would remain anonymous. A control condition, or no commitment condition, was created by offering some subjects the choice of reading one of two speeches unrelated to capital punishment. All subjects heard a speech either for or against capital punishment which was either consistent or inconsistent with their own beliefs on the issue ^ Half the subjects were tested for recall immediately after hearing the speech, and the other half were tested only after a delay of one week. Measures were also taken of subjects' recall ability, the degree of commitment they felt, and their attitude change.
The results of the study showed that the commitment manipulation was executed successfully, but that none of the hypotheses were supported by the data. Higher degrees of commitment did not differentially affect subjects' recall of consistent and inconsistent information. Furthermore, the hypothesized positive relationship of attitude change to retention was rendered untenable because a significant correlation in the opposite direction was found. Two further hypotheses were developed to explain this negative correlation.
A significant interaction between degree of commitment and time of recall was obtained for the amount of material recalled. This complex interaction was interpreted as the result of a combination of different anxiety levels and different amounts of rehearsal between conditions. Several small effects of dubious reliability involving the newly developed recall variables were found, but these findings need to be replicated because of the large number of significance tests conducted. / This thesis was digitized as part of a project begun in 2014 to increase the number of Duke psychology theses available online. The digitization project was spearheaded by Ciara Healy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DUKE/oai:dukespace.lib.duke.edu:10161/13567 |
| Date | 01 February 2017 |
| Creators | George, James M. |
| Contributors | Norman Guttman, Supervisor |
| Source Sets | Duke University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Ph.D. Dissertation |
| Format | Digitized dissertation |
| Relation | http://search.library.duke.edu/search?id=DUKE000921390 |
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