The effects of attitude, credibility, and homophily on selective exposure to information

This paper reviews and criticizes selective exposure literature. Based upon that critique the following hypotheses were tested: (I) Receivers’ attitudes toward sources and concepts will significantly discriminate between those who selectively expose themselves to information and those who selectively reject exposure to information; and (2) receivers who selectively seek to expose themselves to information will have significantly higher attitudes toward the sources and concepts involved than receivers who selectively reject exposure to information. Attitude intensity and involvement, along with perceptions of source competence, sociability, composure, character, and homophily were significant independent predictors of selection‐rejection behavior with the higher means on these variables in the selection group.