| Burgoon and colleagues have applied Expectancy Theory to the study of language intensity, arguing that a complex pattern of effects can be explained in terms of the expectations people hold for sources of persuasive communication. It is argued in this paper, however, that because expectations have not been directly examined, Expectancy Theory has not provided a fair test of hypotheses. The current investigation aims to alleviate this problem by determining whether expectations people have for male and female sources of persuasive communication do in fact differ.;Using a variety of message topics, expectations for male and female sources were investigated by asking respondents to provide the language choices they thought would be most effective for male and female authors of persuasive communication. What the results suggest is that both men and women should utilize moderate to high intense language to be optimally effective in suasory attempts. |
