Communicating With and Motivating High Fatalists.

In three studies responses of high and low fatalists to five different types of communications messages were compared. The five types of information considered were single reward, multiple reward, reward explanations, conformity, and nonsense information. Nutritional, political, and reading behaviors were considered. Two field experiments were conducted with male heads of households and a laboratory experiment was conducted with students. The high fatalists were motivated by reward explanation information. The low fatalists were motivated by single and multiple reward information more than the high fatalists. Responses of the high and low fatalists converged, at the highest motivation level, in response to reward explanation information. Fatalism accounted for more response variance than income, education, or race characteristics. The social significance of these findings is discussed in terms of: the need to motivate the high fatalists; who the high fatalists are; the growth of high fatalism; and the transferability of this paper's communication content findings to organizations dealing with problems of high fatalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]