Kenneth A Lachlan
Biographic Data
| ID | 148465 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kenneth A Lachlan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kenneth A |
| FAMILY NAME | Lachlan |
| SIGNATURE | LACHLAN K A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Connecticut |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7856-2797 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 58 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Media Effects, Emotion, and Race
In extant risk and crisis literature, there is evidence that understanding risk perceptions toward a threat can predict related attitudes, behavioral intentions, and behaviors. The climate change risk perception model (CCRPM) argues that climate change risk perceptions are predicted by four broad factors: cognitive, experiential, socio-cultural, and socio-demographic. This extension paper, proposes incorporating media effects literature, specific…
Exemplification in Communication Research
After explicating and reviewing previous research in the area of exemplification theory, the results of three studies are presented that test and extend parts of prior research concerning risk estimation and responses to a news story. Respondents examined a news story that manipulated images and quotes concerning bedbugs. The manipulated articles either featured base-rate information alone or with an iconic image or an emotional quote. In order t…
Revisiting Identity Cues and Helpfulness Heuristics in Online Learning
Previous research has consistently demonstrated that offering help in online communication is beneficial, regardless of the helper’s identity. However, studies in the context of online learning, specifically within learning management systems (LMS) discussion boards, highlight the need to reevaluate the impact of identity on helpfulness. The current study aims to replicate earlier findings with a more rigorous examination of the variables and man…
What and Where Do I Learn About the Baby Formula Shortage Crisis? Exploring Crisis Communication Patterns, Influencers, and Information Resources
The baby formula shortage escalated into a national public health crisis, spurring a public discussion on social media. As media dependency theory suggests, people likely turn to information resources they prefer. This study examined 22,055 X posts related to the baby formula shortage. By calculating 17,484 X accounts’ betweenness centrality, this article identified 20 X influencers who controlled the information flow of the baby formula shortage…
Quickening the shift from disruption to opportunity
Ongoing conversations about artificial intelligence (AI) in education often focus on student use and abuse of the tool, the potential disruptive nature of AI, and the possibility of educator replac
On the brink
Examining the Links Between Information Sufficiency, News Preferences, and Protective Behavior During Hurricane Ian
Natural disasters such as floods and hurricanes are global occurrences affecting countries, counties, and communities. These extreme weather events can cause feelings of uncertainty and produce a range of high consequence outcomes. As a result, individuals can be expected to seek out information to further understand how they will be impacted. With Hurricane Ian as the focus, this study examined the impact of source preferences on protective beha…
Examining perceptions and outcomes of AI versus human course assistant discussions in the online classroom
As technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and other forms of machine communication become more popular and readily available, the opportunities for use in an online class increase. This replication and extension sought to understand and test the use of AI versus human communication in an online learning space—specifically the learning management system (LMS) discussion board. More specifically, the differences in student perceptions an…
We Interrupt This Program, This Is an Emergency
During disasters and emergencies, radio stations frequently operate in the public interest through the dissemination of critical information. To assess the current perceptions and preparedness of radio stations to broadcast crisis information, the current study replicates and extends a survey conducted in the United States in 2009. Results suggest that radio stations devote a similar amount of time to crisis training and preparedness and continue…
Extending the understanding of online discussions
Previous research applied an affordance approach to the literature in instruction and pedagogy. Because of the continued trend in online instruction and course management, there exists a need to study the impact of technological affordances and communication in learning management systems. The current study replicates and extends research investigating the responses of undergraduate students to discussion comments on a course management page, in …
“I Thought about It and I May Follow What You Said”
The induction of cognitive elaboration on information concerning risks may facilitate compliance with messages encouraging audiences to mitigate against risks. Nevertheless, cognitive elaboration and its relationship with other key variables in risk information processing have been largely understudied. Revisiting data from three experiments, this study examined how cognitive elaboration influences behavioral intentions associated with a risk, an…
The station scientist
Broadcast meteorologists hold a set of skills unique in a newsroom. Not only must a broadcast meteorologist utilize communication skills similar to that of a newscaster, they are also typically versed in some physical science. In addition, the field of meteorology has an unfortunate disparity when examining job statistics as they relate to race and biological sex. Generally speaking, men outnumber women in broadcast television positions three to …
Exploring students’ perceptions of identity and helper heuristics in the online classroom discussion board
Although applied to numerous communication contexts, affordance approaches have yet to receive sustained attention in the instructional literature. The ongoing migration to online pedagogy suggests a need to examine the impact of technological affordances and communication in Learning Management Systems. To that end, an experimental study investigated the responses of undergraduate students to a course management page, in which the presence or ab…
Emotional Manipulation and Task Distraction as Strategy
This exploratory study modeled the effects of verbally aggressive insults, or “trash talk,” on an opponent’s performance in a competitive setting. A hypothesized model predicted that the perception of verbal insults would increase cognitive distraction, manipulate emotions, and affect motivation to perform, such that competitive performance declined. Anger and shame were posited as the primary manifestations of emotional affect. The experiment ra…
Needing to know about the crisis back home
Polarizing Organizations and Image Repair
This study examined elaboration likelihood model (ELM) processing routes used by audiences to evaluate image repair messages for two organizations that often provoke polarizing dispositions in audiences: the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the New England Patriots football team. Involvement is a key concept in the ELM paradigm, yet studies have overlooked issues on the extreme ends of the dispositional spectrum, especially where ego-involvem…
Understanding public opinion in different disaster stages
Purpose Social media, such as Twitter, has become the first and the most frequent place to visit in order to gain information and establish situational awareness in emergencies and disasters. The purpose of this paper is to examine public opinion on Twitter in different disaster stages using the case of Hurricane Irma. Design/methodology/approach More than 3.5m tweets capturing the entire disaster lifecycle were collected and analyzed. Topic mode…
Don’t Sleep on It
Humans often prefer representations that are cognitively easier to store, and these representations are easier to retrieve later to make judgments about events. Exemplification theory draws on evolutionary logic and argues that simple, iconic, concrete, and emotionally arousing depictions of events (exemplars) are favored and thus more likely to be stored and used than are abstract, inconsequential depictions or representations. This study examin…
What’s in a #Name? An Experimental Study Examining Perceived Credibility and Impact of Winter Storm Names
The practice of naming winter storms has generated a large amount of discussion within the meteorology community of late. While storm naming has typically been reserved for tropical systems, some media organizations in the United States recently began naming winter storms but oftentimes using differing criteria. Anecdotal comments have labeled this practice as a marketing initiative and other forecasting organizations have criticized The Weather …
Social media and credibility indicators
Variability in Twitter Content Across the Stages of a Natural Disaster
Little is known about the ways in which social media, such as Twitter, function as conduits for information related to crises and emergencies. The current study analyzed the content of over 1,500 Tweets that were sent in the days leading up to the landfall of Hurricane Sandy. Time-series analyses reveal that relevant information became less prevalent as the crisis moved from the prodromal to acute phase, and information concerning specific remedi…
Exemplification effects
Exemplification theory asserts that message components that are iconic and emotionally arousing are easily accessed, and are therefore relied upon when making subsequent behavioral decisions. A reanalysis of data from three studies collected at different times, unrelated experimental stimuli (terrorism, food ingredients, and bed bugs), different media (visual and print), varying geographic locations, different experimental conditions (laboratory …
Rethinking Violent Videogame Content
Numerous empirical studies have attempted to quantify the frequency and context of violence in popular videogames. While these studies have proven valuable, they overlook recent research suggesting that videogame content is far more complicated than that found in linear media. In particular, individual user characteristics, varying levels of gameplay, familiarity with the gaming environment, and length of time immersed in the game have been overl…
The Influence of Morality Subcultures on the Acceptance and Appeal of Violence
Two studies examined how disposition theory-based morality subcultures predict the acceptance and appeal of violence. Study 1 used groups formed by median splits of individual difference variables (religiosity, aggression, and sex) thought to be trait correlates of morality subcultures in three 2 × 2 × 2 designs varying trait, perpetrator disposition (positive, negative), and motive (justified, unjustified) to predict the acceptance of violence i…
Differences in Crisis Knowledge Across Age, Race, and Socioeconomic Status During Hurricane Ike
Previous research in crisis and risk communication has suggested differences across demographic groups in informational needs and response, including the presence of knowledge gaps. In the wake of Hurricane Ike, the current study surveyed 691 Houston area residents to investigate these differences and contrast them with similar data collected following Hurricane Katrina. The results suggest narrowing knowledge gaps, as socioeconomic statusdid not…
Portrayals of Overweight and Obese Individuals on Commercial Television
Objectives. This study examined the distribution and individual characteristics of body types on prime-time television. Methods. Five episodes of each of the 10 top-rated prime-time fictional programs on 6 broadcast networks during the 1999–2000 season were quantitatively analyzed. Results. Of 1018 major television characters, 14% of females and 24% of males were overweight or obese, less than half their percentages in the general population. Ove…
Assessing Attitude Toward Same-Sex Marriage
This paper reports the results of three studies conducted to develop, refine, and validate a scale which assessed heterosexual adults' attitudes toward same-sex marriage, the Attitude Toward Same-Sex Marriage Scale (ASSMS). The need for such a scale is evidenced in the increasing importance of same-sex marriage in the political arena of the United States and other nations, as well as the growing body of empirical research examining same-sex marri…
Differences in Crisis Knowledge Across Age, Race, and Socioeconomic Status During Hurricane Ike
Previous research in crisis and risk communication has suggested differences across demographic groups in informational needs and response, including the presence of knowledge gaps. In the wake of Hurricane Ike, the current study surveyed 691 Houston area residents to investigate these differences and contrast them with similar data collected following Hurricane Katrina. The results suggest narrowing knowledge gaps, as socioeconomic statusdid not…
Adjusting to Uncertainty
This study examined the coping strategies of individuals displaced after Hurricane Katrina. Following the evacuation of New Orleans, surveys were administered to those individuals displaced by Katrina and relocated to shelters or in Disaster Centers in Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Lansing, Michigan; different parts of Indiana and Kentucky; and federal aid distribution centers throughout Texas. Results indicated that talking, staying informed, and pra…
Terrorist attacks and uncertainty reduction
Major acts of terrorism, like all public crises, instigate patterns of information seeking among the general public. These patterns of information seeking are consistent with previous research in social psychology, suggesting that in times of great fear, confusion or uncertainty, there is a fundamental need to acquire information that may be useful in restoring some sense of normality. Using survey data collected in three major American cities, t…
Understanding public opinion in different disaster stages
Purpose Social media, such as Twitter, has become the first and the most frequent place to visit in order to gain information and establish situational awareness in emergencies and disasters. The purpose of this paper is to examine public opinion on Twitter in different disaster stages using the case of Hurricane Irma. Design/methodology/approach More than 3.5m tweets capturing the entire disaster lifecycle were collected and analyzed. Topic mode…
Exemplification effects
Exemplification theory asserts that message components that are iconic and emotionally arousing are easily accessed, and are therefore relied upon when making subsequent behavioral decisions. A reanalysis of data from three studies collected at different times, unrelated experimental stimuli (terrorism, food ingredients, and bed bugs), different media (visual and print), varying geographic locations, different experimental conditions (laboratory …
The High Cost of Complexity in Experimental Design and Data Analysis
The availability of statistical software packages has led to a sharp increase in use of complex research designs and complex statistical analyses in communication research. An informal examination of studies from 2 leading communication journals suggests that the analysis of variance (ANOVA) is often the statistic of choice, and a substantial proportion of published research reports using ANOVA employ complex (k ≥ 3) factorial designs, often invo…
Popular Video Games
The aim of this study was to content analyze 60 of the most popular video games for violence from three gaming systems: Nintendo 64, Sega Dream- Cast, and Sony Playstation. Games were played for l0 minutes and videotaped for later content analysis. Adapting the coding scheme from the National Television Violence Study (Wilson et al., 7 997, 1998; Smith et al., 1998, the amount as well as the context of violence in games rated for general (e.g., "…
Portrayals of Overweight and Obese Individuals on Commercial Television
Objectives. This study examined the distribution and individual characteristics of body types on prime-time television. Methods. Five episodes of each of the 10 top-rated prime-time fictional programs on 6 broadcast networks during the 1999–2000 season were quantitatively analyzed. Results. Of 1018 major television characters, 14% of females and 24% of males were overweight or obese, less than half their percentages in the general population. Ove…
Crisis Communication, Race, and Natural Disasters
This study compares differences in crisis preparation, information-seeking patterns, and media use on the basis of race in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Surveys are collected from 935 Katrina evacuees relocated in different areas of the United States. Results indicate differences in crisis preparation and information seeking on the basis of race. Results also demonstrate a continued need to create messages encouraging crisis preparation, es…
Assessing Attitude Toward Same-Sex Marriage
This paper reports the results of three studies conducted to develop, refine, and validate a scale which assessed heterosexual adults' attitudes toward same-sex marriage, the Attitude Toward Same-Sex Marriage Scale (ASSMS). The need for such a scale is evidenced in the increasing importance of same-sex marriage in the political arena of the United States and other nations, as well as the growing body of empirical research examining same-sex marri…
Adjusting to Uncertainty
This study examined the coping strategies of individuals displaced after Hurricane Katrina. Following the evacuation of New Orleans, surveys were administered to those individuals displaced by Katrina and relocated to shelters or in Disaster Centers in Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Lansing, Michigan; different parts of Indiana and Kentucky; and federal aid distribution centers throughout Texas. Results indicated that talking, staying informed, and pra…
Orientations to Video Games Among Gender and Age Groups
Questionnaires were completed by 5th-, 8th-, and 11th-grade public schools students in rural and suburban school districts and by undergraduates at two universities in the United States ( n = 1,242). They were asked about their orientation to video games—the amount of time they played, their motives for doing so, and the game types they preferred—to better understand the context in which effects research might be organized. The conceptual schema …
Terrorist attacks and uncertainty reduction
Major acts of terrorism, like all public crises, instigate patterns of information seeking among the general public. These patterns of information seeking are consistent with previous research in social psychology, suggesting that in times of great fear, confusion or uncertainty, there is a fundamental need to acquire information that may be useful in restoring some sense of normality. Using survey data collected in three major American cities, t…
Differences in Crisis Knowledge Across Age, Race, and Socioeconomic Status During Hurricane Ike
Previous research in crisis and risk communication has suggested differences across demographic groups in informational needs and response, including the presence of knowledge gaps. In the wake of Hurricane Ike, the current study surveyed 691 Houston area residents to investigate these differences and contrast them with similar data collected following Hurricane Katrina. The results suggest narrowing knowledge gaps, as socioeconomic statusdid not…
Rethinking Violent Videogame Content
Numerous empirical studies have attempted to quantify the frequency and context of violence in popular videogames. While these studies have proven valuable, they overlook recent research suggesting that videogame content is far more complicated than that found in linear media. In particular, individual user characteristics, varying levels of gameplay, familiarity with the gaming environment, and length of time immersed in the game have been overl…
The Influence of Morality Subcultures on the Acceptance and Appeal of Violence
Two studies examined how disposition theory-based morality subcultures predict the acceptance and appeal of violence. Study 1 used groups formed by median splits of individual difference variables (religiosity, aggression, and sex) thought to be trait correlates of morality subcultures in three 2 × 2 × 2 designs varying trait, perpetrator disposition (positive, negative), and motive (justified, unjustified) to predict the acceptance of violence i…
Variability in Twitter Content Across the Stages of a Natural Disaster
Little is known about the ways in which social media, such as Twitter, function as conduits for information related to crises and emergencies. The current study analyzed the content of over 1,500 Tweets that were sent in the days leading up to the landfall of Hurricane Sandy. Time-series analyses reveal that relevant information became less prevalent as the crisis moved from the prodromal to acute phase, and information concerning specific remedi…
Exemplification effects
Exemplification theory asserts that message components that are iconic and emotionally arousing are easily accessed, and are therefore relied upon when making subsequent behavioral decisions. A reanalysis of data from three studies collected at different times, unrelated experimental stimuli (terrorism, food ingredients, and bed bugs), different media (visual and print), varying geographic locations, different experimental conditions (laboratory …
Social media and credibility indicators
What’s in a #Name? An Experimental Study Examining Perceived Credibility and Impact of Winter Storm Names
The practice of naming winter storms has generated a large amount of discussion within the meteorology community of late. While storm naming has typically been reserved for tropical systems, some media organizations in the United States recently began naming winter storms but oftentimes using differing criteria. Anecdotal comments have labeled this practice as a marketing initiative and other forecasting organizations have criticized The Weather …
Don’t Sleep on It
Humans often prefer representations that are cognitively easier to store, and these representations are easier to retrieve later to make judgments about events. Exemplification theory draws on evolutionary logic and argues that simple, iconic, concrete, and emotionally arousing depictions of events (exemplars) are favored and thus more likely to be stored and used than are abstract, inconsequential depictions or representations. This study examin…
Understanding public opinion in different disaster stages
Purpose Social media, such as Twitter, has become the first and the most frequent place to visit in order to gain information and establish situational awareness in emergencies and disasters. The purpose of this paper is to examine public opinion on Twitter in different disaster stages using the case of Hurricane Irma. Design/methodology/approach More than 3.5m tweets capturing the entire disaster lifecycle were collected and analyzed. Topic mode…
Needing to know about the crisis back home
Polarizing Organizations and Image Repair
This study examined elaboration likelihood model (ELM) processing routes used by audiences to evaluate image repair messages for two organizations that often provoke polarizing dispositions in audiences: the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the New England Patriots football team. Involvement is a key concept in the ELM paradigm, yet studies have overlooked issues on the extreme ends of the dispositional spectrum, especially where ego-involvem…
Emotional Manipulation and Task Distraction as Strategy
This exploratory study modeled the effects of verbally aggressive insults, or “trash talk,” on an opponent’s performance in a competitive setting. A hypothesized model predicted that the perception of verbal insults would increase cognitive distraction, manipulate emotions, and affect motivation to perform, such that competitive performance declined. Anger and shame were posited as the primary manifestations of emotional affect. The experiment ra…
“I Thought about It and I May Follow What You Said”
The induction of cognitive elaboration on information concerning risks may facilitate compliance with messages encouraging audiences to mitigate against risks. Nevertheless, cognitive elaboration and its relationship with other key variables in risk information processing have been largely understudied. Revisiting data from three experiments, this study examined how cognitive elaboration influences behavioral intentions associated with a risk, an…
The station scientist
Broadcast meteorologists hold a set of skills unique in a newsroom. Not only must a broadcast meteorologist utilize communication skills similar to that of a newscaster, they are also typically versed in some physical science. In addition, the field of meteorology has an unfortunate disparity when examining job statistics as they relate to race and biological sex. Generally speaking, men outnumber women in broadcast television positions three to …
Exploring students’ perceptions of identity and helper heuristics in the online classroom discussion board
Although applied to numerous communication contexts, affordance approaches have yet to receive sustained attention in the instructional literature. The ongoing migration to online pedagogy suggests a need to examine the impact of technological affordances and communication in Learning Management Systems. To that end, an experimental study investigated the responses of undergraduate students to a course management page, in which the presence or ab…
We Interrupt This Program, This Is an Emergency
During disasters and emergencies, radio stations frequently operate in the public interest through the dissemination of critical information. To assess the current perceptions and preparedness of radio stations to broadcast crisis information, the current study replicates and extends a survey conducted in the United States in 2009. Results suggest that radio stations devote a similar amount of time to crisis training and preparedness and continue…
Extending the understanding of online discussions
Previous research applied an affordance approach to the literature in instruction and pedagogy. Because of the continued trend in online instruction and course management, there exists a need to study the impact of technological affordances and communication in learning management systems. The current study replicates and extends research investigating the responses of undergraduate students to discussion comments on a course management page, in …
Psychology (30 works) · Social Psychology (21 works) · Political science (19 works) · Public Relations and Crisis Communication (16 works) · Computer Science (15 works) · Perception (13 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Disaster Management and Resilience (9 works) · Geography (8 works) · Media Influence and Health (8 works)