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Frequency of Exposure and Evaluation of Candidates and Campaign Speeches 1
Author(s) -
Suedfeld Peter,
Rank Darylynn,
Borrie Roderick A.
Publication year - 1975
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1975.tb01301.x
Subject(s) - psychology , social psychology , ranking (information retrieval) , presentation (obstetrics) , audiology , medicine , computer science , artificial intelligence , radiology
Three slides, each showing the photograph of a college‐age male, were shown either 5, 10, or 25 times to a total of 95 students ( S s). After the presentation, the slides, plus a fourth not previously shown, were presented as photographs of candidates in a campus election, each being paired with a campaign speech. Three speeches consisted of bland platitudes, whereas the fourth argued in favor of a large tuition increase. Ratings of the speeches and the candidates indicated that subjects were accurate in ranking the relative frequency of exposure of the four slides and that the controversial speech elicited less agreement and less favorable ratings than the three other messages. There were U‐shaped curvilinear effects of exposure on S s' agreement with the messages, and with ratings of the persuasiveness of the message. Neither exposure nor speech effects were found in ratings of the candidates themselves. Implications of these findings for the frequency of exposure hypothesis (Zajonc, 1968) and for political campaigns are discussed.