Cultivation and the Elaboration Likelihood Model: A Test of the Learning and Construction and Availability Heuristic Models

Abstract

The current cultivation literature proposes both an active, learning and construction model (Potter, 1991a) as well as a passive, availability heuristic model (Shrum, 1996, 1997; Shrum & O’Guinn, 1993) of cultivation. The current study incorporates both models into one perspective of cultivation by testing these concepts using the Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). The results of the current study offer evidence of an active, learning and construction model and a passive, availability heuristic model of cultivation. The results also suggest there is ample reason to abandon cultivation’s primary assumptions and to adopt a new perspective of cultivation that incorporates and validates both models of cultivation into one perspective.

Keywords:

• Cultivation
• Elaboration Likelihood Model
• Television Viewing Effects
• Mass Communication Effects
• Cognition

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa M. Schroeder

Lisa Schroeder (Ph.D., Kent State University, 1997) is an Assistant Professor at the Southwestern Oklahoma State University.