Aaron Cargile | California State University Long Beach (original) (raw)
Papers by Aaron Cargile
Ethics & Behavior, 2019
We investigated the effect of culture, moral discourse, and motivation to engage in prosocial beh... more We investigated the effect of culture, moral discourse, and motivation to engage in prosocial behavior on benefactors' positive affect. Participants from three cultures (Japan, Romania, and the United States) responded to scenarios in which they could perform small acts of kindness for different targets. A stronger relationship between agentic and obligated motivation to perform acts of kindness, as well as between obligated motivation and positive affect, was observed for participants from Japan, and for individuals with higher endorsement of the Community Ethic. Agentic motivation to engage in prosocial behavior was related to benefactors' positive affect, regardless of relationship type.
The International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication
The International Encyclopedia of Communication, 2008
International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 2017
International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 2019
Objectives: Diversity courses aim to help students navigate a pluralistic society, and meritocrac... more Objectives: Diversity courses aim to help students navigate a pluralistic society, and meritocracy beliefs are thought to be central to this effort. The purpose of this study was thus to explore the impact of diversity course enrollment on both meritocracy beliefs and interracial dialogue attitudes. Methods: Both at the beginning and end of the semester, quantitative survey data were collected from 435 student respondents: 274 were enrolled in one of two non-diversity courses, 147 participated in one section of an Intercultural Communication course, and 14 were cross-enrolled. The survey included measures of prescriptive and descriptive meritocracy, as well as two measures of dialogue assessed in relation to testimonies of social suffering provided by two African-American students: speaker trust and imagined dialogue receptivity. Results: Data confirmed that, among racial outgroup participants, descriptive and prescriptive meritocracy are connected to racial dialogue measures in antagonistic ways. In addition, the diversity class succeeded in decreasing student beliefs in descriptive meritocracy, increasing meritocracy discrepancy, expanding speaker trust, and engendering greater dialogue receptivity relative to the control classes. Lastly, changes in both meritocracy discrepancy and diversity course enrollment independently predicted changes in the racial dialogue measures. Conclusion: Meritocracy is a multidimensional, ideological belief that appears linked to racial dialogue engagement in its prescriptive form and avoidance in its descriptive form. Findings underscore the need to distinguish between these forms of meritocracy, encourage the use of meritocracy discrepancy scores, and confirm the promise of diversity course enrollment.
SAGE Open, 2016
Empathy is widely recognized as the psychological foundation for prosocial behavior, yet very lit... more Empathy is widely recognized as the psychological foundation for prosocial behavior, yet very little is known about methods to increase affective empathy in students and trainees. The present research sought to assess the reliability and potential boundary conditions of one such intervention—a brief emotional video featuring a boy diagnosed with cancer. Study 1 found that the video succeeded in indirectly increasing empathic concern for an African American victim of police abuse among an ethnically diverse student sample in a classroom setting. Study 2 replicated the effect in an online environment among a population of near-racially homogeneous adults. The effect of this brief, convenient, positive-affect intervention is in line with other practice-based and negative-affect interventions.
Annals of the International Communication Association, 2001
Language attitudes are typically inferred from hearers' evaluative reactions to speech variations... more Language attitudes are typically inferred from hearers' evaluative reactions to speech variations. Although they are central to human communication, their social scientific study has been reported mainly in journals outside of the communication discipline. This chapter first reviews the multidisciplinary work in the area that has looked to evaluations of speakers as a means of assessing language attitudes. Although this research has resulted in pragmatically interesting generalizations, more recent research and theorizing suggests that such generalizations may be limited due to assumptions and methodologies that neglect the complex process through which language attitudes reveal themselves. An emergent understanding of the speaker-evaluation process is discussed herein and represented by a recently developed model. Our assessment of the area concludes with suggested directions for future research. THE complexity of human communication has made researchers receptive to a multitude of voices, each encouraging the use of a different method or definition in its study. As a result, most communication scholars recognize that their endeavor is truly multidisciplinary and that they must often look outside the field in their attempts to understand phenomena that are central, and a fortiori those that are ancillary, to their study. Such is the case with language attitudes. Attitudes toward varieties of speech (i.e., dialects, accents, and styles) affect evaluations of many interpersonal, mass, organizational, and intercultural events. As humans develop both direct and indirect experience communicating with one another, they rely on this experience to navigate through future interactions. In our view, attitudes are a heuristic summary of experience; thus language attitudes are invoked every time interlocutors encounter a variety of speech that they have heard (or heard of) before. Despite the centrality of this process to nearly
Communication Research Reports, 2016
Media presentations that attempt to improve intergroup relations often portray stigmatized group ... more Media presentations that attempt to improve intergroup relations often portray stigmatized group members in a sympathetic light in order to induce empathy. Emotion priming research suggests that induced empathy may not only affect reactions to those portrayed, but also to a wide range of secondary others. In order to test this possible secondary or transfer effect, the present study assessed whether empathy induced by a video of a boy with cancer could also increase caring for an unrelated stigmatized group member. Although the video was not found to have a direct effect, it did have a significant indirect effect on caring for the stigmatized group member, mediated by concern for the boy. In addition, this indirect effect was also moderated by both age and gender.
Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 2015
Social suffering is distress engendered by cultural, social, and political forces. Responses to s... more Social suffering is distress engendered by cultural, social, and political forces. Responses to stories of such suffering serve as rejoinders in an identity negotiation process and can foster either healing or compounded distress—for both individuals and communities alike. Because there is no published study (to our knowledge) that focuses on the language individuals use in responding to stories of social suffering, the present study aimed to develop a theoretically grounded and empirically derived taxonomy of these responses. In order to develop and validate such a taxonomy, we collected a total of 172 audio-recorded responses to two true stories of race-based social suffering from two samples of undergraduate students at a large university in the greater Los Angeles area. The resulting coding scheme is presented here along with evidence of its reliability and validity.
International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 2013
We examine potential interventions and inter-and intragroup ethnocentrism. Reduced ethnocentrism ... more We examine potential interventions and inter-and intragroup ethnocentrism. Reduced ethnocentrism was engendered by uncertainty tolerance but not cultural knowledge. Findings support interventions that focus learner attention on intragroup and intraindividual processes.
Social suffering is distress engendered by cultural, social, and political forces. Responses to s... more Social suffering is distress engendered by cultural, social, and political forces. Responses to stories of such suffering serve as rejoinders in an identity negotiation process and can foster either healing or compounded distress—for both individuals and communities alike. Because there is no published study (to our knowledge) that focuses on the language individuals use in responding to stories of social suffering, the present study aimed to develop a theoretically grounded and empirically derived taxonomy of these responses. In order to develop and validate such a taxonomy, we collected a total of 172 audio-recorded responses to two true stories of race-based social suffering from two samples of undergraduate students at a large university in the greater Los Angeles area. The resulting coding scheme is presented here along with evidence of its reliability and validity. Keywords racial and ethnic relations, dialogue, pitch, electrodermal activity I would say that it’s completely un...
Language, Communication, and Intergroup Relations
The International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication
Human Communication Research
Awe is a widely researched, self-transcendent emotion with a robust ability to prompt prosocial b... more Awe is a widely researched, self-transcendent emotion with a robust ability to prompt prosocial behavior. Within the communication and media disciplines, however, the effects of awe have received only limited empirical attention. Moreover, extant research has ignored the role that media affordances may play in engendering awe and prosocial outcomes. This article presents two studies that explore the prosocial consequences of awe, as mediated by presence and when engendered by immersive features of various media, including virtual reality (VR). Study 1 (N = 154) found that awe content presented in highly immersive VR induced awe via an effect entirely mediated by presence, though impacts on subsequent prosocial outcomes were inconsistent. Study 2 (N = 188) attempted to replicate and clarify the prosociality results from Study 1, as well as contextualize them with respect to eudaimonic appreciation and hedonic enjoyment. Results demonstrated awe effects across all three measures of pr...
Ethics & Behavior, 2019
We investigated the effect of culture, moral discourse, and motivation to engage in prosocial beh... more We investigated the effect of culture, moral discourse, and motivation to engage in prosocial behavior on benefactors' positive affect. Participants from three cultures (Japan, Romania, and the United States) responded to scenarios in which they could perform small acts of kindness for different targets. A stronger relationship between agentic and obligated motivation to perform acts of kindness, as well as between obligated motivation and positive affect, was observed for participants from Japan, and for individuals with higher endorsement of the Community Ethic. Agentic motivation to engage in prosocial behavior was related to benefactors' positive affect, regardless of relationship type.
The International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication
The International Encyclopedia of Communication, 2008
International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 2017
International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 2019
Objectives: Diversity courses aim to help students navigate a pluralistic society, and meritocrac... more Objectives: Diversity courses aim to help students navigate a pluralistic society, and meritocracy beliefs are thought to be central to this effort. The purpose of this study was thus to explore the impact of diversity course enrollment on both meritocracy beliefs and interracial dialogue attitudes. Methods: Both at the beginning and end of the semester, quantitative survey data were collected from 435 student respondents: 274 were enrolled in one of two non-diversity courses, 147 participated in one section of an Intercultural Communication course, and 14 were cross-enrolled. The survey included measures of prescriptive and descriptive meritocracy, as well as two measures of dialogue assessed in relation to testimonies of social suffering provided by two African-American students: speaker trust and imagined dialogue receptivity. Results: Data confirmed that, among racial outgroup participants, descriptive and prescriptive meritocracy are connected to racial dialogue measures in antagonistic ways. In addition, the diversity class succeeded in decreasing student beliefs in descriptive meritocracy, increasing meritocracy discrepancy, expanding speaker trust, and engendering greater dialogue receptivity relative to the control classes. Lastly, changes in both meritocracy discrepancy and diversity course enrollment independently predicted changes in the racial dialogue measures. Conclusion: Meritocracy is a multidimensional, ideological belief that appears linked to racial dialogue engagement in its prescriptive form and avoidance in its descriptive form. Findings underscore the need to distinguish between these forms of meritocracy, encourage the use of meritocracy discrepancy scores, and confirm the promise of diversity course enrollment.
SAGE Open, 2016
Empathy is widely recognized as the psychological foundation for prosocial behavior, yet very lit... more Empathy is widely recognized as the psychological foundation for prosocial behavior, yet very little is known about methods to increase affective empathy in students and trainees. The present research sought to assess the reliability and potential boundary conditions of one such intervention—a brief emotional video featuring a boy diagnosed with cancer. Study 1 found that the video succeeded in indirectly increasing empathic concern for an African American victim of police abuse among an ethnically diverse student sample in a classroom setting. Study 2 replicated the effect in an online environment among a population of near-racially homogeneous adults. The effect of this brief, convenient, positive-affect intervention is in line with other practice-based and negative-affect interventions.
Annals of the International Communication Association, 2001
Language attitudes are typically inferred from hearers' evaluative reactions to speech variations... more Language attitudes are typically inferred from hearers' evaluative reactions to speech variations. Although they are central to human communication, their social scientific study has been reported mainly in journals outside of the communication discipline. This chapter first reviews the multidisciplinary work in the area that has looked to evaluations of speakers as a means of assessing language attitudes. Although this research has resulted in pragmatically interesting generalizations, more recent research and theorizing suggests that such generalizations may be limited due to assumptions and methodologies that neglect the complex process through which language attitudes reveal themselves. An emergent understanding of the speaker-evaluation process is discussed herein and represented by a recently developed model. Our assessment of the area concludes with suggested directions for future research. THE complexity of human communication has made researchers receptive to a multitude of voices, each encouraging the use of a different method or definition in its study. As a result, most communication scholars recognize that their endeavor is truly multidisciplinary and that they must often look outside the field in their attempts to understand phenomena that are central, and a fortiori those that are ancillary, to their study. Such is the case with language attitudes. Attitudes toward varieties of speech (i.e., dialects, accents, and styles) affect evaluations of many interpersonal, mass, organizational, and intercultural events. As humans develop both direct and indirect experience communicating with one another, they rely on this experience to navigate through future interactions. In our view, attitudes are a heuristic summary of experience; thus language attitudes are invoked every time interlocutors encounter a variety of speech that they have heard (or heard of) before. Despite the centrality of this process to nearly
Communication Research Reports, 2016
Media presentations that attempt to improve intergroup relations often portray stigmatized group ... more Media presentations that attempt to improve intergroup relations often portray stigmatized group members in a sympathetic light in order to induce empathy. Emotion priming research suggests that induced empathy may not only affect reactions to those portrayed, but also to a wide range of secondary others. In order to test this possible secondary or transfer effect, the present study assessed whether empathy induced by a video of a boy with cancer could also increase caring for an unrelated stigmatized group member. Although the video was not found to have a direct effect, it did have a significant indirect effect on caring for the stigmatized group member, mediated by concern for the boy. In addition, this indirect effect was also moderated by both age and gender.
Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 2015
Social suffering is distress engendered by cultural, social, and political forces. Responses to s... more Social suffering is distress engendered by cultural, social, and political forces. Responses to stories of such suffering serve as rejoinders in an identity negotiation process and can foster either healing or compounded distress—for both individuals and communities alike. Because there is no published study (to our knowledge) that focuses on the language individuals use in responding to stories of social suffering, the present study aimed to develop a theoretically grounded and empirically derived taxonomy of these responses. In order to develop and validate such a taxonomy, we collected a total of 172 audio-recorded responses to two true stories of race-based social suffering from two samples of undergraduate students at a large university in the greater Los Angeles area. The resulting coding scheme is presented here along with evidence of its reliability and validity.
International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 2013
We examine potential interventions and inter-and intragroup ethnocentrism. Reduced ethnocentrism ... more We examine potential interventions and inter-and intragroup ethnocentrism. Reduced ethnocentrism was engendered by uncertainty tolerance but not cultural knowledge. Findings support interventions that focus learner attention on intragroup and intraindividual processes.
Social suffering is distress engendered by cultural, social, and political forces. Responses to s... more Social suffering is distress engendered by cultural, social, and political forces. Responses to stories of such suffering serve as rejoinders in an identity negotiation process and can foster either healing or compounded distress—for both individuals and communities alike. Because there is no published study (to our knowledge) that focuses on the language individuals use in responding to stories of social suffering, the present study aimed to develop a theoretically grounded and empirically derived taxonomy of these responses. In order to develop and validate such a taxonomy, we collected a total of 172 audio-recorded responses to two true stories of race-based social suffering from two samples of undergraduate students at a large university in the greater Los Angeles area. The resulting coding scheme is presented here along with evidence of its reliability and validity. Keywords racial and ethnic relations, dialogue, pitch, electrodermal activity I would say that it’s completely un...
Language, Communication, and Intergroup Relations
The International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication
Human Communication Research
Awe is a widely researched, self-transcendent emotion with a robust ability to prompt prosocial b... more Awe is a widely researched, self-transcendent emotion with a robust ability to prompt prosocial behavior. Within the communication and media disciplines, however, the effects of awe have received only limited empirical attention. Moreover, extant research has ignored the role that media affordances may play in engendering awe and prosocial outcomes. This article presents two studies that explore the prosocial consequences of awe, as mediated by presence and when engendered by immersive features of various media, including virtual reality (VR). Study 1 (N = 154) found that awe content presented in highly immersive VR induced awe via an effect entirely mediated by presence, though impacts on subsequent prosocial outcomes were inconsistent. Study 2 (N = 188) attempted to replicate and clarify the prosociality results from Study 1, as well as contextualize them with respect to eudaimonic appreciation and hedonic enjoyment. Results demonstrated awe effects across all three measures of pr...