Changing Behaviors One Passionate Conversation at a Time: How Speakers’ Passion about Issues Influence Listeners’ Support
Year: 2015
Type: dissertation
Abstract: My dissertation investigates how and why passion helps people obtain support from others for issues that are important to them. Passion is an intense positive feeling about a specific issue that is important to an individual’s identity. I argue that speakers’ passion increases listeners’ support (i.e., listeners’ active participation and involvement in the issues that speakers promote) when the listeners’ epistemic motivation is lower, because listeners catch and subsequently act on the passion that speakers express. I also propose that passion decreases listeners’ support when the listeners’ epistemic motivation is higher, because listeners pay close attention to arguments, and arguments are less compelling when speakers feel passion. I test the propositions in observational and experimental studies. In Study 1A, I test whether passion exhibited by entrepreneurs on the television show Dragons’ Den is associated with venture capitalists’ investment in their companies, and find that the association between speakers’ passion and listeners’ support is positive, and only when listeners’ epistemic motivation is lower rather than higher. In Study 1B, I explore mechanisms that may explain the results in Study 1A and find that perception that speakers stand for their principles mediates the conditional association between speakers’ passion and listeners’ support. In Study 2, I test the causal effects of speakers’ passion and listeners’ epistemic motivation in a 2 x 2 between-person experimental design. Contrary to expectation, there were no effects of the interaction between speakers’ passion and listeners’ epistemic motivation on listeners’ support or on perceptions that speakers stand for their principles. Overall, my dissertation suggests that speakers’ passion does not always result in positive outcomes and identifies when speakers’ passion facilitates listeners’ support and when it does not. Contributions to the literature on passion in organizations and practical implications are discussed.
Source: TSpace (University of Toronto)
Author: Shira Agasi
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2603957491