Blackwell Reference Online

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Human beings have a natural tendency to react with some degree of positive or negative affect to any object or concept of psychological significance ( Fishbein & Ajzen 1975 ; Eagly & Chaiken 1993 ). We like or dislike certain people, support or oppose various policies, regard some activities as pleasant and others as unpleasant, have favorable views of certain television programs but unfavorable views of others, and so forth. The expectancy value (EV) model is concerned with the origins and structure of these “social attitudes” ( Feather 1982 ; →  Attitudes ). According to the EV model, the overall evaluation of or attitude toward an object is a function of the information or “beliefs” we have about the object in question (→  Information Seeking ). In the domain of communication research, the EV model has been applied to predict viewer attitudes and viewer exposure to various types of television programs and shows: news in general ( Palmgreen & Rayburn 1982 ; Babrow & Swanson 1988 ) and health-related news reports in particular ( Cooper et al. 2001 ), →  soap operas ( Babrow 1989 ), and prime-time entertainment programming ( Galloway & Meek 1981 ). In recent years, it also has been applied to predict computer technology use of Canadian elementary and secondary teachers from schools in Quebec ( Wozney et al. 2006 ; →  Enjoyment/Entertainment Seeking ; Exposure ... log in or subscribe to read full text