コミュニケーション場面における社会的文脈の知覚が情報伝達に与える影響

抄録

The present study examined effects of the perception of a communicative context on the transmission of information. The study specifically tested whether a communicator could transmit information for a recipient depending on the perceived relevance between the message recipient and the target of the communication. Thirty-six participants were assigned the role of communicator, and they were all informed that the recipient was from the marketing department of "Company A". In the high relevance condition (i.e., own product condition), the target was a computer made by Company A. On the other hand, in the low relevance condition (i.e., other product condition), the target was a computer made by a rival Company B. Results showed that communicators reproduced and transmitted a greater amount of negative information than that of positive information in the high relevance condition. In the low relevance condition, communicators referred to both negative and positive information in almost equal amount. This is interpreted that communicators could transmit adequate information depending on the perception of the relevance between the recipient and the target. Furthermore, this study demonstrated that the effect of relevance between the recipient and the target on the memory was mediated by the contents of the message and evaluation. This shows that evaluation facilitated the communicators' memory about the target. Characteristics of social cognition in a communicative context are discussed.