Year

2019

Season

Fall

Paper Type

Master's Thesis

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

NACO controlled Corporate Body

University of North Florida. Department of Psychology

First Advisor

Dr. Christopher Leone

Second Advisor

Dr. Paul Fuglestad

Rights Statement

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Department Chair

Dr. Lori Lang

College Dean

Dr. George Rainbolt

Abstract

We believe that mere thought and self-monitoring may play a role in the thought processes that underscore hiring. We hypothesized that more thought would lead to a greater degree of attitude polarization and that this relationship will be mediated by belief confidence and belief consistency. We hypothesized that normative information would moderate the effects of thought on polarization for high self-monitors. We predicted that belief confidence and belief consistency would mediate the effect of thought on polarization for low self-monitors. To research these hypotheses, 163 undergraduates were surveyed. Participants were asked to rate potential candidates for a salesperson job. They were given normative information about how attitudes change during thought and asked to think about one candidate for 60 or 120 seconds. During thought, participants listed all thoughts they had on this one job candidate. Participants then rated this candidate again. Next, participants rated their belief confidence on a series of 5-point scales. Finally, participants completed the 25-item Self-Monitoring Scale. We used Hayes’ PROCESS model to evaluate direct and indirect effects of thought. We found that more thought led to less polarization. Neither belief confidence nor belief consistency acted as mediators. When examining self-monitoring and normative information as moderators, we found that (a) more thought led to less polarization and (b) consistency acted as a mediator only when participants were low or moderate in self-monitoring and told more thought would lead to more polarization. These effects may be attributable to participants’ poorly developed salesperson schemas. Conceptual limitations and future directions are discussed.

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