Social Cognition and Writing: Interpersonal Cognitive Complexity and Abstractness and the Quality of Students' Persuasive Writing

This study examines the relationship between two measures of individual differences in social cognition and the quality of eleventh grade students' persuasive writing. Subjects completed Crockett's Role Category Questionnaire, and wrote a persuasive letter in response to the problem, “Smok...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Written communication 1987-01, Vol.4 (1), p.68-89
Main Authors: PICHÉ, GENE L., ROEN, DUANE
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cognition
Individual differences
Persuasion
Questionnaires
Social perception
Student writing
Writing
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:This study examines the relationship between two measures of individual differences in social cognition and the quality of eleventh grade students' persuasive writing. Subjects completed Crockett's Role Category Questionnaire, and wrote a persuasive letter in response to the problem, “Smoking and the School Nurse.” Letters were submitted to judges for impressionistic and attributional ratings. A content-analytic measure was applied to these 40 papers to yield a measure of the number and quality of persuasive strategies employed. Finally, the same papers were submitted to a second panel, who rated them for overall persuasiveness and appropriateness of tone. Results indicated a significant relationship between interpersonal cognitive complexity and abstractness and quality of writing, persuasiveness, appropriateness of tone, and level of persuasive strategy employed.
ISSN:0741-0883
1552-8472
DOI:10.1177/0741088387004001004