Title

Behavioral Complexity Is in the Eye of the Beholder: Effects of Cognitive Complexity and Message Complexity on Impressions of the Source of Comforting Messages

Authors

Wendy Samter, Bryant UniversityFollow
Brant R. Burleson, Purdue University
Lori Basden-Murphy, Purdue University

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published by Wiley-Blackwell in Human Communication Research Volume 15, Issue 4, pages 612-629.

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Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Publication Source

Human Communication Research

Abstract

Recent theorizing suggests that exposure to sophisticated or behaviorally complex messages (i.e., messages that reflect a concern with multiple goals) may enhance the cognitive development of message recipients. Reasoning that persons attempt to accommodate their cognitive structuring of an environment to the level of complexity in that environment, it was hypothesized that persons exposed to behaviorally complex messages would form more differentiated impressions of the message source than would persons exposed to less complex messages.