The effects of social status on cognitive elaboration and post‐message attitude: Focusing on self‐construals

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of social status of the source on the receiver's cognitive elaboration and post‐message attitude among people of different cultural orientations. Independent and interdependent self‐construals were adopted as individual‐level cultural dimensions. Data to test the hypotheses were drawn from undergraduates, studying in Japan (N= 211), and Hawai'i (N = 180). The results of this study indicated that individuals with interdependent self‐construals paid closer attention to the characteristics of the high status source than individuals with independent self‐construals. Furthermore, in persuasive communication settings, the relative amount of the attitude change resulting from the high status source was significantly larger for those with interdependent self‐construals than for those with independent self‐construals. The implications of the results for theory and practice are discussed.