Suchergebnisse

An individual (the leader) with free access to information decides how much public evidence to collect. Conditional on this information, another individual with conflicting preferences (the follower) undertakes an action that affects the payoff of both players. In this game of incomplete but symmetric information, we characterize the rents obtained by the leader as a result of his control of the generation of public information. These rents capture the degree of influence exerted by a chairman on a committee from his capacity to keep discussions alive or call a vote. Similar insights are obtained if the leader decides first how much private information he collects, and then how much verifiable information he transmits to the follower.

This experiment concerned the generality of the discussion-induced shift toward pessimism found in some previous studies but not found in others. Male university students (N = 95) were presented with one of two fictitious situations in which a protagonist wanted to gain compliance from another person (an employee wants a promotion; a parent wants his child to study more). For each of 16 compliance-gaining behaviors (e.g., promise, warning, invocation of need) the subjects had to indicate, on a 7-point scale, the likelihood that the protagonist would be successful ("objective response mode') or they had to indicate how well they personally could perform the respective influencing behavior ("subjective response mode'). All subjects first made a success-expectancy estimate. In the group condition (24 triads) participants discussed the judgmental issue and then again made a private estimate on each of the 16 items in turn. For the subjects in the control condition (N = 23) group discussion was replaced by further individual thought and note-taking. Discussion-induced shifts toward pessimism were found in the group conditions (p<.01 and .10 in the subjective and objective conditions). Since there was a (modest) overall initial tendency toward the pessimistic pole, this shift can in part be considered as group polarization, thus attesting to the generality of the group polarization phenomenon. (Secondary analyses bearing on the explanation of this polarization are presented.) In addition, secondary analyses show that pessimistic shift also occurred in those discussion cases where there was no initial leaning toward pessimism. The theoretical explanation of these shifts is discussed.

An attempt to show the usefulness for the analysis of processes of mass COMM & the like of the conception of a generalized symbolic medium analogous to money. The term influence is used to designate this medium. Money itself is held to be a symbolic medium which not only resembles language but can be said actually to be a specialized language & the same can be said about pol'al power (a companion analysis of which is soon to be published in the Proceedings of the Amer Philosophical Society). Influence is conceived thus as a generalized medium of persuasion which has a prospect of convincing independently of particularized information or declarations of intention to act, a basis on which COMM's can be trusted in view of their source & the acceptability of its word in wide circles. The ultimate `security base' of influence systems, corresponding to monetary metal, lies in solidary relationships of the 'gemeinschaft' types - if you are `one of us' we are most likely to trust your word. It is held that there are phenomena in the field of influence which are parallel to the creation of credit through banking operations in the monetary field, that is that influence is not subject to'zero-sum' condition in a soc system - nor for that matter, contrary to much opinion, is power. 'Influence credit' is above all held to operate through the phenomena of voluntary association, & the 'lending' of names & reputations which that entails. AA.