International Communication Association San Diego, 23-28 May 2003

May 2003 Konijn-Hoorn 1

International Communication AssociationSan Diego, 23-28 May 2003

Meeting Mediated People

Pushing the Ethic, Aesthetic, and Epistemic Borders

Elly A. KonijnJohan F. Hoorn

Free UniversityAmsterdam


Overview

• Introduction• Processing MPs• 9 factors• Hypotheses• Test 1: FCs• Disc. 1: Model• Disc. 2: Test 2 (MPs)• Disc. 3: Future

• (reality perception)


Introduction

Pushing the Ethic, Aesthetic, and Epistemic Borders

Click action button,then ‘play.’


How are film-mediated characters processed?

Identification? Empathy? Parasocial interaction?

How about liking dissimilar others? How about liking real bastards?

What misses?- Underlying mechanisms for establishing involvement.- Processing of distance-related features.- Contribution of negative appraisals to appreciation.

Similarity, Attractiveness?


Review: 9 factors

1. Ethics 2. Aesthetics 3. Epistemics

4. Similarity 5. Relevance 6. Valence

7. Involvement (incl. Identification, empathy)

8. Distance

9. Appreciation

Engagement

Measurement unipolar, not bipolar 16 scales e.g. ‘It is so ugly – amazingly beautiful.’


Hypotheses

H6. Involvement-distance trade-off explains appreciation better than either involvement or distance alone.

H2. Good, beautiful, realistic FCs high involvement, low distance, positive appreciation.

H3. Bad, ugly, unrealistic FCs low involvement, high distance, negative appreciation.

H4. Mixed evaluations (e.g., good-ugly-realistic) counteract H2 and H3 and heighten appreciation.

H1. Unipolar, 16 factors free model fits best in CFA.

H5. Similarity, relevance, and valence act as mediators and may counteract H2 and H3.


Method

Stimuli: 20 minute excerpts from feature films

Gandhi BridgetGregory

RockyDennis

JohnnyHandsome

Superman Cruellade Vil

EdwardScissorhands

VladDracul

good bad good bad good bad good bad

beautiful ugly beautiful ugly

realistic unrealistic

Structured questionnaire, 6 to 12 items per scale, 6-point. Cronbach’s .82 < < .97


Table 1. Design, Stimuli, and Subjects

Good Bad

Beautiful Ugly Beautiful Ugly

Realistic Gandhi Rocky Bridget Johnnyn = 39 n = 42 n = 40 n = 39

Unrealistic Superman Edward Cruella Draculn = 36 n = 38 n = 37 n = 41

2 (Ethics) x 2 (Aesthetics) x 2 (Epistemics) between-subjects (N = 312). Dependents: Involvement, distance, appreciation.


Manipulation Check & Controls

Significant main effects as expected, Ethics strongest factor 2 (Ethics) * 2 (Aesthetics) * 2 (Epistemics) ANOVA.

Male (n = 136) and female (n = 175)

equally divided over experimental conditions,

as was their age (mean age 22.4, sd = 5.74, range 17-61).

No significant effects.


Results: Model fit (H.1)

Table 3. Chi-Square, Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) for Four Variants of the PEFiC-model on Item Level

Model df Chi-Square AIC RMSEA

16 factors rigid 5132 10739.50 12567.27 0.065

16 factors free 4902 9639.80 10755.80 0.056

9 factors rigid 5216 12764.36 17476.07 0.085

9 factors free 5128 12309.64 16336.39 0.081

Browne & Cudeck (1993): .01 < RMSEA < .05 = perfect fit; < .08: reasonable fit.


Results: General hypotheses tests

Main effects (H2, H3, H4)

Ethics

Good FCs raise more involvement and appreciation, and less distance than Bad FCs (p < .000, 2 = .56).

Aesthetics

Beautiful FCs raise more involvement than Ugly FCs, but no difference in distance and appreciation (p < .000, 2 = .08).

Epistemics

Realistic FCs raise more involvement and less distance than Unrealistic FCs, but no difference in appreciation (p < .000, 2 = .11).


Interaction effects (H4)

Ugliness compensates badness:Bad FCs raise more involvement when they are ugly than when they are beautiful (Johnny, Dracul).

The beauty of bad FCs increases badness:Heightens distance, and tempers involvement (Bridget, Cruella).

Represented realism attenuates effects of FC-Ethics on appreciation:Unrealistic Bad FCs are appreciated better than Realistic Bad FCs

(Cruella, Dracul).


Results: Mediating Variables (H5)Similarity, Relevance, and Valence

All FCs are rated more dissimilar than similar:Similarity increases involvement, but not appreciation. Dissimilarity does not lower involvement.

Relevance (relevant-irrelevant) affects appreciation more than FC-type:When a Good-realistic FC is irrelevant to the observer positive effects on involvement and appreciation disappear.

Valence intensifies:positive valence higher involvement for Ugly FCsnegative valence lowers involvement for Bad + Beautiful


Good FCsInvolvement + distance explain 46% (R2= .46, F(2,150)= 62.74, p < .000).The best predictor is Distance.

Bad FCs Involvement + distance explain 24% (R2= .24, F(2,153)= 23.95, p < .000). The best predictor is Involvement.

Results: Involvement-distance trade-off (H6)

Regression Analysis:

All FCsInvolvement + distance explain 36% of the variance in appreciation (R2= .36, F(2,306)= 84.98, p < .000, distance significantly contributes).


Conclusions

All specified factors are needed to explain observers’ involvement, distance and appreciation for FCs.

Scales are unipolar, processes are parallel (mixed appraisals).(e.g., that Edward has hands is Realistic, that they are scissors is Unrealistic)

Support for main claims:Positive appraisals involvementNegative appraisals distanceBUT, all kinds of counteracting effects occurred.

(e.g., positive dissimilarity, positive appreciation for bad FCs)

Distance is needed to predict final appreciation best (in combination with involvement).


Discussion 1: PEFiC-Model

• PEFiC explains complicated emotional encounters with FCs,e.g., some like it bad.

• Submodels in PEFiC: Encoding, comparison, response phase.

• Good vs. Bad FCs need different explanatory models?


Norm

Epistemics

Aesthetics

Ethicsgood

beautiful

realistic

bad

ugly

unrealistic

Involvement

Distance

Appreciation

dissimilar

irrelevant

negative valence

similar

relevant

positive valence

%

%

ENCODE COMPARE RESPONDFe

atur

es o

f situ

atio

nan

d Fi

ctio

nal C

hara

cter

Identification,empathy, sympathy,warm feelings, approach, etc.

Aesthetic distance,antipathy, cold feelings, avoidance,etc.

Appraisal domains

Mediators Fuzzyfeature sets

Subjective norm vs.group norm

The PEFiC-model


Discussion 2: Test 2 Mediated Persons

George W. Bush Osama Bin Laden

heroes villains

Saddam HusseinTony Blair

realistic

Between Ss design, N = 401, Date: 14-15 Febr. 2003


Table 1. Means (sd) on the Interpersonal Judgment Scales across Eight Fictional Characters (FC, N= 312) compared to the

means (sd) across Four Mediated Persons (MP, N= 401)

Mean FC Mean MP Epistemics realistic 1.92 (1.11) 2.34 (1.00) + .42

Epistemics unrealistic 2.32 (1.20) 2.61 (1.18) + .29

Relevance relevant 1.88 (1.01) 1.37 ( .86) - . 51

Relevance irrelevant 2.06 (1.03) 2.27 ( .96) + .21

Involvement 1.79 ( .97) 0.92 ( .79) - . 87

Similar results for FC and MP in model fit.


Discussion 3: Future

• Reality perception complicated: • e.g.

realistically represented (e.g., Bridget is realistically represented) vs.

plausibility of meeting in real life (cf. irrelevant?)

• Context, framing, priming ?


?

International Communication Association San Diego, 23-28 May 2003

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Transcript of International Communication Association San Diego, 23-28 May 2003