Coordinating compliance and face goals within persuasive messages: A Cognitive Rules model of communicative goals and strategies
Abstract
A substantial body of research has examined relationships between individual-difference or situational variables and selection of compliance-gaining strategies. The present thesis extends this research in two respects. First, the thesis explores how people pursue multiple goals (e.g., enhancing or diminishing a target individual's identity and autonomy, presenting a favorable self image) while seeking compliance, and how they coordinate compliance and face goals in persuasive messages. Second, the author presents a "Cognitive Rules" (CR) model which offers one explanation for how individual-difference and situation variables influence the production of persuasive messages coordinating multiple goals. Four experiments testing predictions about the effects of exposure to priming and level of construct differentiation on open-ended reports of communication goals or persuasive messages are reported. The results of Study 2 support predictions derived from the CR model. Specifically, when participants sought compliance with an obligation, priming and construct differentiation both exerted significant effects on reported frequencies of supportive interpersonal goals. Studies 1 and 4, however, provide no support for the model's predictions. In those studies, priming and construct differentiation failed to influence goals or persuasive strategies. The final investigation (chronologically), Study 3, examines whether the effects of priming and differentiation are moderated by situational factors. As predicted, priming influenced goal reports only in "attributionally ambiguous" compliance-gaining situations, where the cause for the target's failure to fulfill an obligation and the target's intent were open to multiple, plausible interpretations. Unexpectedly, the effects of priming in those situations were limited to highly differentiated participants. These findings have implications for models of message production, conceptions of communicative situations, and research on compliance-gaining strategies.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Burleson, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Communication
Off-Campus Purdue Users:
To access this dissertation, please log in to our
proxy server.