radio news broadcasts: their effects on interpersonal helping

Radio News Broadcasts: Their Effects on Interpersonal HelpingAuthor(s): Russell Veitch, Robert de Wood and Kathy BoskoSource: Sociometry, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Dec., 1977), pp. 383-386Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3033489 .

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Sociometry 1977, Vol. 40, No. 4, 383-386

Radio News Broadcasts: Their Effects on Interpersonal Helping*

RUSSELL VEITCH ROBERT DEWOOD

KATHY BOSKO Bowling Green State University

Subjects listened to one of two radio news broadcasts containing primarily bad news or primarily good news. Affective responses to the broadcast as well as two unobtrusive measures of helping were obtained. Subjects who had heard good news reported more positive affect and showed greater degrees of helping as well.

Charles Kuralt, reporter for the CBS evening news, has suggested that an overwhelming amount of the media news we hear is "bad news" and that, person- ally, he must at times escape this deluge by turning off the radio, turning off the T.V., throwing away all those magazines, and "go contemplate the sun going down" (Kuralt, 1972:21). The thrust of what he is saying is not unique. At one time or another, we have all felt that the only news we hear is "bad news." It is probably also true that many of us have refrained from listening to the news to preserve the good feelings we were experiencing at the moment. Why spoil feelings of contentment or bliss with figures on war dead, disaster victims, or a failing company?

A recent study by Veitch and Griffitt (1976) examined the effects of news broadcasts on the interpersonal behavior of listeners. Their results showed that news broadcasts designed to convey "bad news" in comparison to news broadcasts designed to convey "good news" did, in fact, elicit self-reports of affect which were more negative and led to lower attraction responses for simulated stran- gers. Their results were interpreted in terms of the reinforcement-affect model of interpersonal attraction (Byrne, 1971).

Veitch and Griffitt (1976) suggested that * Work on this manuscript was supported in part

by a summer research associateship granted the first author by the Faculty Research Committee, Bowling Green State University, and is based on data presented at the 48th Annual Midwestern Psycholog- ical Association Meetings, 1976.

in addition to attraction responses, other interpersonal behaviors could conceivably be affected by the quality of the news that listeners hear. Their reasoning was that if it is the affect-eliciting quality of the news that mediates attraction responses, then it might be expected that news broadcasts would also act to influence other interpersonal behaviors known to be mediation- ally related to the affective state of the individual. One such behavior that has gained in-

creasing interest is helping behavior (e.g., Aderman, unpublished; Isen, 1970; Isen and Levin, 1972; Kazdin and Bryan, 1971). The results of these several investi- gations strongly suggest that prosocial behavior in the form of helping others occurs more often among individuals who can be characterized as being in a good mood than among those in a "neutral" or negative mood. Having shown in the above- cited study (i.e., Veitch and Griffitt, 1976) that radio news broadcasts exert an influence on one's affective state and subsequent interpersonal evaluative responses, the present study was under- taken to determine if the effects of news broadcasts could be detected in overt face-to-face interpersonal behaviors. Spe- cifically, an attempt was made to determine if the affect elicited by radio news broadcasts would be sufficient to exert an influence on helping behavior. Further- more, assessments of the subject's affective state were made in an attempt to determine more precisely the relationship between affect and helping behaviors.

383



384 SOCIOMETRY

METHOD

Subjects-16 male and 16 female students-were recruited from an intro- ductory psychology course and partici- pated to fulfill part of the course require- ment. The announced purpose of the study was to determine college students' perceptions of and reactions to the various news media. Subjects signed up agreeing to one hour of participation and reported to the experimental room individually, where they were again reminded of the "purpose" of the study. Subjects then completed a lengthy questionnaire con- cerning such issues as their preferred means of obtaining news, censorship of the news, women as broadcasters, the ex- tent to which the various media were ful- filling their obligations to the public, etc. Completing this questionnaire typically took 5 to 12 minutes. Subjects were then informed that while the questionnaire dealt with a number of issues of concern to journalists, those issues were rather abstract and that what they would now be asked to do was more concrete. Instruc- tions similar to those below then followed.

What you will now be asked to do is listen to a news broadcast that was aired by the local university radio station last week. We have taped that broadcast and would like for you to listen to it. After it has ended, we will ask you to complete another questionnaire. Actually, there are several questionnaires, and which one you fill out will depend on which of several conditions of the experiment you are in.

In fact, all subjects upon completion of the taped broadcast completed a feelings scale (see Veitch and Griffitt, 1976) which con- sisted of six bipolar adjectives in seven- point semantic differential format.

The Tapes

Subjects were randomly assigned within sex to hear one of two "taped broadcasts." These tapes were the same as those utilized in the earlier study by Veitch and Griffitt (1976). The news items dealt with (la) a breakthrough in the treatment of cancer, (lb) a presumed breakthrough in the treatment of cancer which turned out to have very painful and

terminal side effects; (2a) a federal money-grant for improved health facilities at a local orphanage, (2b) the refusal of a federal money-grant for improved health facilities at a local orphanage; (3a) the forecast of substantial decreases in the local food prices, (3b) the forecast of substantial increases in local food prices; (4a) the opening of all parking lots on campus on a first-come/first-served basis to students and faculty alike, and (4b) the con- struction of a new parking lot some dis- tance from campus which would result in long walks for students who drive to campus or have cars on campus. The labels "a" and "b" designate "good news" and "bad news" broadcasts, respectively.

Upon completion of the feelings scale, subjects were thanked, any questions they may have had were answered, and they were given their "experiment credit" and dismissed.

Upon leaving the experimental room, which was located on the fourth floor of the Psychology Building and off a little- used hallway, all subjects (with the excep- tion of one who was not included in the results to be reported') turned left to re- turn to the waiting room and the elevators. Nearing the end of the hall and approx- imately 30 to 40 feet from the experimental room, subjects encountered a confederate who was on his or her hands and knees on the floor apparently searching for something.2 As subjects approached, the confederate simply looked up and asked subjects to be careful where they were walking as he/she had just lost a contact lens. The confederate made no other verbalizations except to confirm the fact that a contact lens had, indeed, been lost if so asked by subjects. The experimenter unobtrusively, from down the hall, recorded whether subjects offered any help

1 This particular subject turned right and exited the building via the stairs and a different exit. She was intercepted by the experimenter before leaving the building and was given a complete debriefing. She indicated that she had not seen the confederate and, in fact, had been sure that to get back to the waiting room she would have to turn right.

2 Half of the males and half of the females in each condition encountered a male confederate, while the other half of the subjects in each condition encountered a female confederate.



RADIO NEWS AND HELPING 385

in locating the lens. If subjects made such an effort or gesture, the confederate re- mained and continued searching for another 20 to 30 seconds and then exclaimed that he/she was late for an appointment and that, in the event subject should find the lens, " Would you take it to the switchboard operator on the second floor?"

The confederate then gathered his/her books, got up and departed, disappearing from subject's view around the corner of the hall. This procedure was utilized so that any obtained differences in helping time could not have resulted from differential interactions of subject with confederate. The experimenter3 began unobtrusively timing, via a stop watch, subjects' "helping" at the point of confederate's departure. Thus, two measures of helping behavior were determined: (a) a dichotomous measurement of stopping to help or walking right on by, and (b) the length of time spent helping despite and subsequent to the recipient's (the confederate's) departure.

RESULTS

Separate 2 (news broadcast) x 2 (sex of subject) x 2 (sex of recipient) analyses of variance were conducted on each of the semantic differential (affect) variables, the summed total across the semantic differential (affect) variables, and the amount of time spent helping. Analysis of the affect variables revealed a main effect for news broadcasts on all semantic differential items and their summed total (all p's < .05, see Table 1). These results indicate that the broadcast manipulation was again effective in eliciting differential reports of affect. In addition to these main effects, broadcasts were found to interact with the sex of the subject in determining self- reports on the following dimensions: bad-good, sad-happy, positive-negative, and the total affect score (all p's < .05).

3 Although the experimenter was not blind with respect to the particular tape heard by the subject, the confederate was. With 16 of the 32 subjects, the confederate also recorded the amount of time. Com- parisons of the experimenters and confederates revealed that there was never more than a two-second discrepancy.

Table 1. Mean Helping Time and Affective Re- sponse as a Function of Listening to Good or Bad News

Means *

Variable Good News Bad News

1. Helping time in seconds 177.25 56.87

2. Comfortable- Uncomfortable 5.44 3.94

3. Bad-Good 5.56 3.81 4. High-Low 5.31 3.81 5. Sad-Happy 5.25 3.56 6. Pleasant-

Unpleasant 5.50 3.81 7. Positive-

Negative 5.56 4.12 8. Total Affect 32.62 23.19

* All means significantly different at p < .05. Higher scores indicate more positive affect.

Post-hoc analysis (by Newman-Keuls) of these interactions revealed that on these dimensions, males were more affected by the news manipulations than were females. After having heard "bad news," males' total affect scores were lower than females' scores (p < .05); after having heard "good news," males' total affect scores were higher (though not significantly) than females' scores.

Inspection of the dichotomous helping measure revealed a nonsignificant ten- dency for those who heard "good" news" to show a greater likelihood to help. Of the 16 subjects who had been exposed to "good news," 14 stopped to help, whereas only 9 of the 16 subjects exposed to "bad news" did so. An analysis of variance of the amount of time spent helping revealed a main effect for the news manipulation, F(1, 24) = 5.29, p < .05). Indi- viduals having heard "good news" spent, on the average, more time helping than those who had heard "bad news." Mean helping times in seconds after having heard "good news" or "bad news" were 177.25 and 56.87, respectively. No other main effects or interactions occurred. Fi- nally, to determine the magnitude of the relationship between amount of time spent helping and self-reports of affect (summed measure of affect), the product moment correlation coefficient for these variables was calculated: r30 = .62, p < .05.

Since the data from those individuals who did not help (0.00 scores regarding



386 SOCIOMETRY

time spent helping) could inflate the relationship between the measure of affect and measures of helping, additional analyses were conducted. Of those who did help, those who had heard "good news" spent more time helping than those who had heard "bad news" (t = 1.82, df 22, p < .05). Respective mean helping times were 202.57 seconds and 101.11 seconds. Those who heard "good news" and helped also reported more positive affect than those who heard "bad news" and helped (t = 3.09, df = 22, p < .05), with the mean of the former being 33.71 and of the latter, 26.22.

CONCLUSIONS

The present results are of at least three- fold importance. First, they represent a replication of the Veitch and Griffitt (1976) findings and the Kuralt (1972) observation that the contents of the news have an emo- tional as well as the presumed informative impact on the listener. Second, the results add to a growing literature on the relationship between one's mood state and the likelihood of engaging in interpersonal helping. Third, taking the results at face value, it has been shown that stimulus

conditions as ubiquitous and seemingly benign as radio news broadcasts can have significant effects on interpersonal face- to-face behaviors in the form of helping.

REFERENCES

Aderman, D. Un- "Effect of prior mood on helping be- publ. havior." Doctoral dissertation, University

of Wisconsin, 1971. Byrne, D.

1971 The Attraction Paradigm. New York: Aca- demic Press.

Isen, A. M. 1970 "Success, failure, attention, and reaction to

others: The warm glow of success." Jour- nal of Personality and Social Psychology 15:294-301.

Isen, A. M. and P. F. Levin 1972 "The effect of feeling good on helping:

Cookies and kindness." Journal of Person- ality and Social Psychology 21:384-388.

Kazdin, A. E. and J. H. Bryan 1971 "Competence and volunteering." Journal

of Experimental Social Psychology 7:87- 97.

Kuralt, C. 1972 "Reporting the 'little people.' " Columbia

Journalism Review 10:17-22. Veitch, R. and W. Griffitt

1976 "Good news-bad news: Affective and interpersonal effects." Journal of Applied Social Psychology 6(1):69-75.



radio news broadcasts: their effects on interpersonal helping

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