Processing Social Information in Messages: Social Group Familiarity, Fiction/Non-fiction Labels, and Subsequent Beliefs.

A study examined how the relative familiarity of a social group described in a message may affect the impact of ostensibly fiction and nonfiction messages on subsequent beliefs about social groups. The 24 paid subjects each received one of four sets of prose excerpts. Each set consisted of four excerpts that were labelled as fiction or nonfiction and were manipulated to refer to either a familiar or unfamiliar social group. Interactions between group familiarity and fiction/non-fiction status on beliefs about group member attributes and on confidence in belief estimates were found. It is concluded that fictional messages about unfamiliar groups of people may well have equal or greater impact on readers' beliefs than do nonfictional messages. The results of the study also highlight the contexts in which cultivation and dependency theory are more applicable. (One table and two figures are included, and 41 references are attached.) (MG)