Four hundred fifty subjects at Texas A&M University provided data, through self-administered questionnaires, to evaluate the influence on readers of qualifying statements regarding technical performance claims in magazine advertisements. Each respondent was exposed to a single treatment by viewing one of 30 versions of mock magazine…

This study attempts to determine if general principles of effective communication may be defined, if certain principles may be seen as central to the judgment of an individual's effectiveness, and if such principles of effective communication can affect perceptions of effective and ineffective communicators. Respondents to a 60-item questionnaire…

This study explores the dimensions of credibility in newspaper and television news and compares the dimensions of media credibility with those of interpersonal source credibility. Subjects, 401 Kent State University undergraduates, were given a 12-page questionnaire designed to assess attitudes toward the following: newspaper national and…

This study attempted to relate findings from social psychological research in the area of attitude change with communicator characteristics, and to apply conclusions drawn from this research to influence processes and persuasion within an educational context. Six basic hypotheses were tested employing three experimental groups and a control group.…

This study investigated sex differences in counselor credibility as perceived by high school girls. A quasi-experimental method was used in which four tape recordings presented identical career information about women by female and male counselors. Fifty-three career-oriented and 53 home-oriented girls rated the counselor-narrators on a…

This study was designed to explore two questions: do a listener's reactions differ by media; and do variables such as credibility, saliency, and recall function independently in realistic rhetorical situations? The study was designed to investigate listening variables as they function in field communication situations through the use of…

The basic premise in the study of the mass media and media credibility was that the medium is a major factor in the determination of the credibility of information by receivers. Relationships between media credibility and sociolinguistic theory were explored, and the factor analysis was used to organize patterns of perception of media credibility…

This dissertation examines the effects of a subordinate's trust in an immediate superior, desire for promotion, and perception of supervisory influence upon several qualitative aspects of communication, which include perceived accuracy of communication, directionality of communications, and overall satisfaction with communications. Trust in an…

The purpose of this study was to examine the socializing effect the viewing of adult-oriented commercials has on young children of differing socioeconomic backgrounds. The subjects, 227 children in the first, second, and third grades, included 109 lower-socioeconomic-level black children and 118 white children representing upper-middle-income…

This study examined the effects of high and low communication inhibition on small group interaction. Communication inhibition was identified in terms of a scale developed through the factor analysis of the Personal Report of Confidence as a Speaker--Short Form, the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension--College, and Unwillingness to…