Gender and helping behavior: A meta-analytic review of the social psychological literature.

Contends, on the basis of posited social-role theory of gender and helping, that the male gender role fosters helping that is heroic and chivalrous, whereas the female gender role fosters helping that is nurturant and caring. In social psychological studies, helping behavior has mainly been examined in the context of short-term encounters with strangers. This focus has tended to exclude from the research literature those helping behaviors prescribed by the female gender role, because they are displayed primarily in long-term, close relationships. In contrast, the helping behaviors prescribed by the male gender role have been generously represented in research findings because they are displayed in relationships with strangers as well as in close relationships. Results from a meta-analytic review of sex differences in 172 studies (appended) in helping behavior indicate that in general men helped more than women and women received more help than men. Nevertheless, sex differences in helping were inconsistent across studies and were successfully predicted by various attributes of the studies and the helping behaviors. (96 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the advantages of reporting sex comparisons.

Refutes R. F. Baumeister's (see record 1989-14054-001) argument that the inclusion of sex-difference findings in research reports is undesirable from both political and scientific standpoints. A number of advantages stem from the study of sex differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implicit and explicit preferences for physical attractiveness in a romantic partner: A double dissociation in predictive validity.

Five studies develop and examine the predictive validity of an implicit measure of the preference for physical attractiveness in a romantic partner. Three hypotheses were generally supported. First, 2 variants of the go/no-go association task revealed that participants, on average, demonstrate an implicit preference (i.e., a positive spontaneous affective reaction) for physical attractiveness in a romantic partner. Second, these implicit measures were not redundant with a traditional explicit measure: The correlation between these constructs was .00 on average, and the implicit measures revealed no reliable sex differences, unlike the explicit measure. Third, explicit and implicit measures exhibited a double dissociation in predictive validity. Specifically, explicit preferences predicted the extent to which attractiveness was associated with participants' romantic interest in opposite-sex photographs but not their romantic interest in real-life opposite-sex speed-daters or confederates. Implicit preferences showed the opposite pattern. This research extends prior work on implicit processes in romantic relationships and offers the first demonstration that any measure of a preference for a particular characteristic in a romantic partner (an implicit measure of physical attractiveness, in this case) predicts individuals' evaluation of live potential romantic partners. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Involvement and persuasion: Types, traditions, and the evidence.

This article is a reply to R. E. Petty and J. T. Cacioppo's (see record 1990-19685-001) critique of our meta-analysis in which we concluded that research has established 3 different types of involvement with distinctly different effects on persuasion (B. T. Johnson and A. H. Eagly; see record 1990-01215-001). We first correct their summary of our review. In response to their claim that outcome-relevant and value-relevant involvement are best reduced to a single construct, we assert that this proposal fails to account for existing research findings and provides only a highly speculative account of the processes that might mediate the impact of involvement on persuasion. We then reaffirm our earlier conclusion that the effects of outcome-relevant involvement are especially unstable when messages contain weak arguments. In fact, this conclusion is underscored by 4 studies that Johnson conducted after completing the meta-analysis. Finally, we explain how the methodological features of our review that Petty and Cacioppo fault are consistent with established principles of meta-analytic reviewing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Causal inferences about communicators and their effect on opinion change.

An attribution analysis of opinion change viewed message persuasiveness as a function of inferred communicator biases. Recipients infer a knowledge bias (KB) by believing that a communicator's knowledge about external reality is nonveridical and a reporting bias (RB) by believing that a communicator's willingness to convey an accurate version of external reality is compromised. In an experiment with 355 undergraduates, KB expectancies were established by portraying a communicator as having a strong commitment to values represented by the probusiness or proenvironment side of a controversial issue and RB expectancies by portraying his audience as having a strong commitment to one or the other side. In all conditions, the communicator advocated the proenvironment position. Therefore, recipients' expectancies were confirmed in the context of a proenvironment communicator and/or audience and disconfirmed in the context of a probusiness communicator and/or audience. Regardless of the type of bias that Ss expected, they were more persuaded and rated the communicator as more unbiased when their expectancies were disconfirmed. Confirmation of expectancies based on RB, but not KB, was associated with inferences of communicator insincerity and manipulativeness. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vividness can undermine the persuasiveness of messages.

Research that presented messages on 2 social issues tested the idea that vividness effects are most likely when message recipients are not constrained to pay attention to the information. When a low level of attentional constraint was established by presenting a message to Ss in a seemingly incidental manner, vivid messages were less memorable and less persuasive than pallid messages. Process data suggested that the vivid elements in a message (i.e., colorful language, picturesque examples, and provacative metaphors) interfered with Ss' reception of its essential meaning and thereby reduced its memorability and persuasiveness. In contrast, when Ss' attention was constrained by instructing them to attend to a message, its vividness had no impact on their memory for its contents or on it persuasiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Communication modality as a determinant of persuasion: The role of communicator salience.

Reports 2 studies, using a total of 304 university students, in which a likable or unlikable communicator delivered a persuasive message via writing, audiotape, or videotape. In both studies the likable communicator was more persuasive in video- and audiotape than in writing, but the unlikable communicator was more persuasive in writing. Thus, communicator likability was a significant determinant of persuasion only in the broadcast modalities. Other findings suggest that Ss process more communicator cues when exposed to video- and audiotape messages than when exposed to written ones and that communicator-based (rather than message-based) cognitions predicted opinion change primarily in video and audiotape conditions rather than in written ones. It is concluded that video- and audiotapes enhance communicator-related information, so that communicator characteristics exert a disproportionate effect on persuasion when messages are broadcast. Findings are also discussed in relation to "vividness" phenomena. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Uneven progress: Social psychology and the study of attitudes.

Progress in understanding attitudes is discussed in relation to 4 critical areas of research that have particularly long histories. In 2 of these areas attitude serves as an independent variable, and in 2 it serves as a dependent variable. Thus, the effects of attitudes on behavior are examined in research on the attitude–behavior relation, and their effects on information processing are examined in research on attitudinal selectivity. Research on persuasion investigates the effects of communications on attitudes, and research on attitudinal advocacy investigates the effects of behaviors on attitudes. Each of these areas is characterized by uneven progress, as social psychologists' own research shook their early faith in simple principles, and pessimism temporarily reigned. The subsequent emergence of more sophisticated theories in these areas has resulted in considerably more successful prediction of attitudinal phenomena. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reflections on the commenters' views.

In response to the comments that followed my article, I explain my agreement with the commenters' positions that (a) feminists take differing positions on similarities and differences between the sexes, (b) the science and politics of gender are intertwined and inseparable, and (c) sex-related differences show a wide range of magnitudes in research findings. Also, I note my disagreement with the commenters by maintaining that (a) the effects of psychological treatments that were aggregated by M. W. Lipsey and D. B. Wilson (see record 1994-18340-001) are not representative of all psychological findings, (b) quantitative syntheses of research test theories of sex-related differences and derive from detailed analyses of research reports, and (c) feminism has strongly influenced the scientific consensus about sex-related differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)