The Effects of Proxemic Violations as Distractors on Persuasive Message Attempts.

Presumably, dviing persuasion, a violation of a subject's expected distance would act as a distraction, increase the likelihood of message acceptance, create fewer counterarguments, and shift the listener's focus from message content to speaker characteristics. Forty-nine undergraduate speech students participated in a study at a major southeastern university. Each subject entered a room where a confederate was already seated and which contained one empty chair placed against a wall. The confederate then invited the subject to "have a seat and make yourself comfortable," thus ensuring that the subject, and not the confederate, would place the empty chair in the optimal space for that subject--presumably at a comfortable distance from the confederate. As the student sat, the confederate read a counterattitudinal script, during the course of which, in half of the situations, the confederate invaded the subject's space moving his or her own chair far enough to reduce the subject's expected distance by one-half. The subject then completed a 19-item questionnaire. Results provided support for the hypothesis that a violation of expected distance would produce higher speaker attributed credibility sclres than when there was no violation. (A sample questionnaire, a data table, and a counterattitudinal script are included; 46 references are attached.) (SG) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original docLment. *********************************************************************** The Effects of Proxemic Violations as Distractors on Persuasive Message Attempts Michael Eaves Department of Communication Florida State University Presented at the 1990 Convention of the SSCA in the Communication Theory Division held in Birmingham, AL on April 5-8, 1990 "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS Bostrom Young Scholars Finalist sZI MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)... Running head: THE EFFECTS OF PROXEMIC VIOLATIONS 2 BEST COPY AVAILABLE 1 U.S. DEPARTMENT Of EDUCATION Offs-e of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER LERICI / This document has been reproducek 11$ receivftd from the pefilOo Of coganitahon originating it r Minor changes have been made to impr oe reproduction Quality Pointe ot vie* of opinion& stifled in tele docu ment do not necessarily represent official OERI position Or poky