White students were asked to advocate a tuition policy beneficial to Blacks at either high or low personal cost. Advocates wrote an essay while undistracted or distracted, or only committed to writing it. More attitude change occurred when the policy was personally costly (important) and advocates were undistracted. Distraction may disrupt the dominant covert cognitive response, which is normally favorable to a freely agreed‐to advocacy. This makes anti‐advocacy thoughts more likely and the advocacy seem weaker, especially when the advocacy involves conflicted racial beliefs whose contemplation under load activates negative stereotypes. Some participants wrote essays that defied their agreement to endorse the policy, and distraction enhanced their attitude change. In this case, distraction presumably disrupted an anti‐advocacy dominant cognitive response. Thought listings supported these interpretations. Finally, commitment alone led to attitude change. Coun‐terattitudinal advocacy fosters attitude change in prejudice‐relevant domains if conditions support advocacy‐favorable thoughts during advocacy.

No abstract

This study examined the levels of empathy and absorption of individuals who regularly play fantasy and science fiction role-playing games. A hypothesis was developed that higher levels of empathy would be found in individuals who fantasy role-play based upon previous research in hypnosis such as J. R. Hilgard's (1970) imaginative involvement hypothesis, research into the "fantasy prone" personality type (Wilson & Barber, 1981), and the empathic involvement hypothesis (Wickramasekera II & Szlyk, 2003). The participants in the current study were 127 fantasy role-players who volunteered and completed the Davis Interpersonal Reactivity Index (empathy) and the Tellegen Absorption Scale (absorption). The results demonstrated that those who play fantasy role-playing games scored significantly higher than the comparison group on the IRI scale of empathy, confirming the hypothesis that fantasy role-players report experiencing higher levels of empathic involvement with others. Correlational analysis between the measures demonstrated a significant positive correlation between empathy and absorption (r = .43, p < .001). These results collectively suggest that fantasy role-players have a uniquely empathically-imaginative style. The results also confirm and extend previous findings on the relationship between empathy and absorption as predicted by the Empathic Involvement Hypothesis (Wickramasekera II & Szlyk, 2003).

No abstract

No abstract