Audience-Tuning Effects on Memory The Role of Audience Status in Sharing Reality

作者：Echterhoff Gerald^*; Lang Sonja; Kraemer Nicole; Higgins E Tory

来源：Social Psychology, 2009, 40(3): 150-163.

DOI：10.1027/1864-9335.40.3.150

• interpersonal communication
• audience tuning
• shared reality
• memory bias
• status
• power
• expertise and trustworthiness
• motivation
• personnel assessment

After tuning messages to their audience's attitude, communicators' subsequent memories for the topic are often biased toward their audience-congruent messages. In the context of personnel assessment in an organization, we examined the role of audience characteristics in this audience-tuning effect. Student communicators tuned their description of an employee to either an equal-status audience (a student temp) or a higher-status audience (a company board member). Audience-tuning occurred under both conditions, but a memory bias was found only in the equal-status condition. This audience-status effect was mediated by epistemic and relational trust in the audience. Apparently, the equal-status audience, while lacking domain-specific expertise, qualifies as a more trustworthy partner in creating a shared reality, which fulfills both epistemic and affiliative motives.

• 出版日期2009