W. Thomas Anderson

The Socially Conscious Consumer

Who are the socially conscious consumers? This article typologically classifies socially conscious consumers and evaluates the relative sensitivity of demographic and sociopsychological variables i...

Optimal Heterophily: Aid to Effective Communication

The significant conflicts which disrupt the orderly process of our lives, which inhibit the functioning of our society and the continuity of our culture are, for the most part, traceable to communications difficulties. This is not a particularly insightful observation. It has been made numerous times by numerous others. What is remarkable about the current condition of our discontent as individuals and as a society is that a knowledge of the cause of conflict is insufficient to bring about appropriate corrective actions. Perhaps the explanation for this apparent anachronism lies in the realization that communication is such a pervasive feature of society that it is taken for granted as readily as the knowledge that we are social animals. At the organizational level effective communication is essential to effective management. The efficient functioning of the business enterprise is contingent upon managements ability to foster an environment conducive to maximal individual commitment and effort toward the achievement of organizational goals. Effective communication facilitates the achievement of organizational objectives by promoting consensus, compliance and cohesion among the organizational members. Myers and Reynolds offer perhaps the most accurate assessment of the significance of communication in the context of enterprise competition:

Interpersonal Dissimilarity and Teaching Effectiveness: A Relational Analysis 1

AbstractViewing teaching as a communication process, three college instructors were evaluated using two measures of perceived teaching effectiveness and sixty-eight personal attribute scale’s. Students in each of three introductory business administration classes (combined N 195) were asked to rate their instructor and themselves on the same sixty-eight scales. The resulting profiles were then factor analyzed and twelve independent dimensions of teacher-student interpersonal dissimilarity were found to be relevant in this class setting. The three teacher- sources were perceived as differently distant from the average student-receiver self-profile across the twelve dimensions of interpersonal dissimilarity. The teacher perceived as most similar to the average student self-profile was rated most effective. However, since none of the teacher-sources was perceived as very similar to the average student, this research suggests that moderate interpersonal dissimilarity may in fact yield maximum perceived commun...

A comparative analysis of student-teacher interpersonal similarity/dissimilarity and teaching effectiveness

AbstractInterpreting classroom teaching as an interactional process fitting the classic communication paradigm, perceived student-teacher interpersonal similarity/dissimilarity (homophily/heterophily) was explored as a possible construct for deciphering the determinants of teaching effectiveness and for gauging teaching effectiveness. Students in 20 undergraduate marketing classes (combined N = 930) provided teacher and self-profiles along 54 five-point bi-polar scales. Self- and teacher profiles were factor analyzed, yielding five factors accounting for 46 percent of total variation in image evaluations: empathy, competence, conventionality, stage presence, excitement. Five conceptual and statistical models for analyzing the relationship between perceived teacher-student homophily/heterophily along the five dimensions of interpersonal distance and teaching effectiveness were examined. The model which interpreted teaching effectiveness to be a function of students’ perceptions of teachers on the five imag...

Subject-anticipated versus experimentally-derived measures of influence: Advertising implications

Three representative communication sources were selected from thirteen pictured sources using hierarchical grouping analysis. Slides of the three sources were shown sequentially to a sample of 192 male undergraduate business students, who were asked to indicate their perception of each in terms of twenty-one image and two anticipated influence (believability and convincingness) scales arrayed in five-point semantic differential format. Subjects then indicated their extent of agreement with one of three prescaled statements concerning commercial airlines randomly attributed to each source (experimentally-determined measure of influence). Anticipated and objective influence were found to vary across sources. The relative effectiveness of the three sources was found to differ when subject-anticipated and experimentally-determined influence measures were used.

The new marketplace: Life style in revolution: Five reactions to swift change

Abstract The accelerating pace o f change today is so rapid that most individuals are unable to accommodate to it. Existing institutions and conventions have eroded, leaving man detached, alienated, and without goals. Society seems to have reacted to the “fire storm of change” in different ways. At least five major segments of society can be identified, each with a different set of responses: the Traditionalists, Anarchists, Liberated, Reformers, and the Counterculture. They represent significant social movements, and portend major adjustments in social institutions and objectives, and in methods, practices, and products. An understanding of these segments and an ability to extrapolate continuities and trends seem essential for the marketer who must plan for a future clouded by revolutionizing change.