The perception of self‐uniqueness as a determinant of message choice and valuation

Abstract

This experiment was designed to test the hypothesis that an individual's preference for and valuation of relatively unavailable communicative messages compared to more readily available messages is a function of and will become more pronounced as his personal sense of “self‐uniqueness” is decreased. Greater preferences for and more favorable valuations of unavailable messages relative to available messages were also expected, independent of subjects’ anticipated familiarity or unfamiliarity with arguments contained in the messages. Experimental subjects received fictitious test results describing them as extremely high, high, or low in personal uniqueness compared with their peers. They then received information about four different messages; the messages being described as either available or unavailable to them and to others, and as containing either familiar or unfamiliar arguments. Subjects indicated their preferences for and valuations of each of the four different messages. The hypothesized effects ...