Mary Bresnahan

Attitudinal and affective response toward accented English

Abstract The study evaluated attitudinal and affective responses toward accented English based on variation in role identity and intelligibility. While American English was preferred, intelligible foreign accent resulted in more positive attitude and affective response compared to a foreign accent that was unintelligible. In addition, friends were viewed more positively for affect and attitude compared to teaching assistants regardless of accent. The study also assessed whether the strength of participants’ ethnic identity had any effect on attitude or affect. As predicted, people exhibiting strong ethnic identity preferred American English while people with weak ethnic identity were more accepting of foreign accent. These results suggest that greater intelligibility of foreign accent appears to be related to both more positive attitudes and affective responses especially for people who identify strongly with their ethnic group.

A Theory of Planned Behavior Study of College Students' Intention to Register as Organ Donors in Japan, Korea, and the United States

This study investigated willingness of Americans, Koreans, and Japanese to register as organ donors using the theory of planned behavior. Although previous research showed that attitude toward donation and communication with family predicted organ donation behaviors for respondents in the United States, these variables were also significant for respondents in Japan and Korea. Perceived behavioral control predicted intention to register for Japanese participants whereas knowledge about organ donation was associated with reluctance to register for Koreans. Spiritual connection and concern were shown to be causal factors underlying attitude in all 3 countries. In spite of positive attitudes toward organ donation and comparable knowledge with Americans and Japanese, most Korean participants declined to take an application to register as a donor. Implications of these findings for future research are discussed.

Changing Gender Roles in Prime-Time Commercials in Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan, and the United States

This study showed that during prime time, a new paradigm of gender role depiction has emerged in prime-time commercials in Japan, Taiwan, and Malaysia. Even though some stereotypes about the presentation of gender in commercials persist (for setting, product type, voice-over), the study found an equal number of males and females appearing as primary characters in commercials during prime time. In Japan, Malaysia, and Taiwan, the majority of commercials depicted males and females in nonstereotypical gender roles. Some shifts were also observed for role depiction in prime-time commercials in the United States. Reasons for these changes are discussed.

THE HEALING WEB

We focused on the computer-mediated communication (CMC) of social support in an electronic health discussion group dealing with menopause and midlife transition to show how vital support is to women who are trying to make sense of the change in their lives. We analyzed 2,000 messages, examining the type and frequency of support messages, how support was demonstrated, and how support was recognized by participants. We then provided evidence to show that a community of support had developed.

Communicating Stigma About Body Size

Body-size stigma is a well-documented phenomenon, particularly for large bodies (Puhl & Brownell, 2003), but few studies have investigated the features of body-related stigma communication. This article uses Smiths (2007a) stigma communication framework to analyze descriptions of male and female bodies of various sizes for their stigma content. Analyses reveal that elements of stigma communication appeared in 46.5% of comments across all bodies. The most common elements of stigma communication were severe labeling and negative comparison to body ideals. The most stigmatized body was the large male body; the second most stigmatized body was the very small female body. This article shows that stigmatizing communication occurs across the spectrum of body sizes for both genders. The implications of weight-based stigma communication on emotional and physical health are discussed. Implications for future health communication interventions aimed at decreasing body size stigma are presented.

Exploration and Validation of the Dimensions of Stigma

Stigma research is hampered by lack of consensus about the number of dimensions making up the stigma construct and what these dimensions measure. Two studies were conducted testing the dimensionality of stigma. Using 105 items proposed to measure stigma in previous research, the first study (N = 307) conducted an exploratory factor analysis using the maximum likelihood method of factor extraction. Results supported five factors that were designated as labeling, negative attribution, separation, status loss, and controllability. Using these factors, a second study (N = 263) demonstrated support for the goodness of fit of the proposed 5-dimensional stigma model.

A Comparison of Response Styles in Singapore and Taiwan

This study compares the response styles of 2 groups of Chinese men and women who have been described as collectivists—Chinese in Singapore and Taiwan. Participants were presented with one of three request scenarios that controlled participant identity and manipulated the level of imposition of what was requested. Chinese in Singapore were found to prefer complying with the request of a friend compared to Chinese in Taiwan, who were more likely to refuse and who used significantly more tactics to decline a friend’s request. This suggests that although they indicated that they would be more likely to refuse the request, Taiwan Chinese compensated for this preference by embedding declinations in several tactics. There was more request compliance with low imposition and less request compliance with high imposition for all participants, regardless of national group or gender. Independent self-construal was related to direct refusal. Overall, men were more compliant than women.

Ethical Debate Over Organ Donation in the Context of Brain Death

This study investigated what information about brain death was available from Google searches for five major religions. A substantial body of supporting research examining online behaviors shows that information seekers use Google as their preferred search engine and usually limit their search to entries on the first page. For each of the five religions in this study, Google listings reveal ethical controversy about organ donation in the context of brain death. These results suggest that family members who go online to find information about organ donation in the context of brain death would find information about ethical controversy in the first page of Google listings. Organ procurement agencies claim that all major world religions approve of organ donation and do not address the ethical controversy about organ donation in the context of brain death that is readily available online.

Reservations of the Spirit: The Development of a Culturally Sensitive Spiritual Beliefs Scale About Organ Donation

This study investigated whether spiritual beliefs offered any explanation for why participants from Korea (N = 146), Japan (N = 134), and the United States (N = 146) were willing or reluctant to register as organ donors. A culturally appropriate measure of spiritual beliefs about organ donation, the Spiritual Beliefs Scale, was developed consisting of 2 factors: (a) Spiritual Connection and (b) Spiritual Concern. Spiritual Connection was a significant predictor of behavioral intention to become an organ donor for Korean respondents, whereas Spiritual Concern was a significant predictor of reluctance to become an organ donor for American respondents. Spiritual beliefs correlated as predicted with attitude toward organ donation and fear of bodily mutilation, showing that the Spiritual Beliefs Scale exhibited internal, external, and predictive validity. Across the 3-country sample, Spiritual Connection was associated with greater willingness to become an organ donor for women, whereas Spiritual Concern inhibited participation for men. Implications of these findings are discussed for developing culturally effective education and procurement campaigns.

Personal and cultural differences in responding to criticism in three countries

The present study investigated whether verbal aggression, argument approach, argument avoidance or assertiveness had any effect on how participants in three countries responded to criticism. Consistent with the first hypothesis, men were significantly more aggressive, assertive, less avoidant, and approached argument more than women. However, men did not respond more assertively to criticism. As predicted in the second hypothesis, US Americans responded more assertively to criticism than did Japanese and Chinese. The third hypothesis predicted that verbal aggression, argument approach, argument avoidance and assertiveness would be associated with a more assertive response to criticism. The data obtained were only partially consistent with the third hypothesis. While only a small number of participants in this study indicated that they would respond to criticism with silence, US Americans used silence to mean anger while for Chinese silence showed personal embarrassment. Very few Japanese selected silence as an option for responding to a neighbor’s criticism. The implications of these results are discussed.