On the Processing and Outcomes of Conflicting Advice
Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Zhou, Yanmengqian
- Graduate Program:
- Communication Arts and Sciences
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 24, 2022
- Committee Members:
- Andrew High, Major Field Member
Denise Solomon, Major Field Member
Karen Gasper, Outside Unit & Field Member
Erina Macgeorge, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Andrew High, Professor in Charge/Director of Graduate Studies - Keywords:
- conflicting advice
decision-making
interpersonal communication
social influence - Abstract:
- The overarching goal of this dissertation was to illuminate the processing and outcomes of conflicting advice. To this end, an overview of extant research on advice and an explication of conflicting advice were offered (Chapter 1), followed by three web-based experimental studies (Chapters 2-4). Study 1 tested the impact of level of conflict among the advice messages on the advice outcomes. The study also explored the mediating role of recipients’ emotional and cognitive responses and the moderating effect of perceived affordances of the communication channel. Results showed that level of conflict predicted both message-specific outcomes, including facilitation of coping and implementation intention, and global outcomes, including attitude ambivalence and global coping capacity. Multiple cognitive and emotional responses mediated the impact of level of conflict on different advice outcomes in diverse ways. The direct effect of level of conflict and its mediated effect via emotions and cognitions were further moderated by perceived personalization and privacy of the channel. Focusing on the processing of conflicting advice under the influence of source and message features, Study 2 proposed and tested four alternative models of the process through which source and message perceptions might work to shape the outcomes of conflicting advice. An experiment employing a hypothetical interaction scenario where the recipients receive conflicting advice from unknown users in an online discussion forum was conducted. Findings revealed that source and message perceptions were parallel predictors of conflicting advice responses. Specifically, recipients’ responses to each advice message in a group of conflicting recommendations were positively predicted by source and message perceptions of that input (i.e., positive intra-advice effects) while negatively predicted by source perceptions of the conflicting input (i.e., negative cross-advice effects). In addition, source and message perceptions also interacted to predict the outcomes such that the intra- and cross-advice effects of source perceptions both decreased as positive message perceptions increased. Study 3 extended Study 2, which focused on one single type of interaction scenario, by including two additional types of advice interaction. Results of the study replicated the parallel impact of source and message perceptions observed in Study 2. The interaction between source and message perceptions, however, was contingent on the type of interaction. The negative cross-advice effects also varied across the three interaction types. A general discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of the findings is presented in Chapter 5.