Vested interest (Crano, 1983; Crano & Prislin, 1995; Sivacek & Crano, 1982) is a communication theory that seeks to explain how an attitude of self-interest can affect behavior; or, in more technical terms, to question how certain hedonically relevant (Miller & Averbeck, 2013) | Retrieved from the CIOS http://www.cios.org/www.cios.org/EJCPUBLIC/023/3/023031.html | attitudinal dimensions can influence and consistently predict behavior based on the degree of subjective investment an individual has in a particular attitude object.
As defined by William Crano, vested interest refers to the degree to which an attitude object an idea, concept, or value with potential emotional interest is deemed hedonically relevant by the attitude holder. According to Crano, "an attitude object that has important perceived personal consequences for the individual will be perceived as highly vested. Highly vested attitudes will be functionally related to behavior" (Crano, 1983). Simply put, when people are more emotionally or psychologically invested in the results of an object (like a law or policy that may greatly affect them), they will behave in a way that directly supports or defies the object to protect their own self-interest.
For example, a 30-year-old learns that the legal driving age in his state is being raised from 16 to 17. While he may not agree with this proposed change, he is not affected as much as a 15-year-old would be and is unlikely to protest the change. A 15-year-old, however, has much more to lose (waiting another year to get a driver license) and is more likely to strongly oppose the proposed law. To gather support for his position, the 15-year-old might tell other soon-to-be drivers about the new law, so that they collectively have a vested interest in perhaps changing the law. This example illustrates how highly vested attitudes concerning issues depend on the individual's point of view.
Another example of vested interest can be found in a study conducted by Berndsen, Spears and van der Pligt, which involves students from a University in Amsterdam where the teaching faculty proposed the use of English to teach the curriculum instead of Dutch. Vested interest, in this case, suggests that students would be opposed to the use of English rather than Dutch simply based on the potential impact lectures conducted in English might have on their grades.
Key Factors Involvement A key factor to consider with vested interest is the level or type of involvement the individual has with a particular attitude object. This can be broken up into three main involvement components: Value-relevant, Impression-relevant, and Outcome-relevant. Value-relevant involvement concerns behaviors which support/reinforce values of the individual. Impression-relevant involvement relates to those behaviors which serve to create or maintain a specific image of the individual. This could, in some ways, be compared to a low-self monitor. Outcome-relevant involvement concerns those behaviors which hold direct personal consequences at a premium for the individual and as a result, corresponds most closely to vested interest.
The concept of involvement closely relates to collaboration which encompasses value, impression and desired outcome. Vested interest is essential in achieving success in collaboration where two or more individuals have the potential to gain or lose. Organizations who strive for collaborative success benefit from understanding vested interest and that of other collaborators in order to maintain a supportive level of involvement.
Ego involvement The way people view vested interest as distinct from ego involvement, is a construct that has been the topic of social psychological research for many years.Sherif, M., & Hovland, C. (1961). Social judgment: Assimilation and contrast effects in communication and attitude change. Yale University Press In a study conducted by John Sivacek and William D. Crano,Sivacek, J., & Crano, W. D. (1982). Vested interest as a moderator of attitude behavior consistency. 'Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 210-221 they prove the aforementioned statement that ego involvement and vested interest are indeed separate. Sivacek and Crano state, "It was possible to have circumstances that an individual would perceive as involving but that it would not arouse his or her vested interest." The main focus points of ego-involvement concern the individual's psychological attitudes that are experienced as being a part of “me”. The more emotionally connected people are to an idea, concept, or value, minor differences in beliefs can be viewed as significantly large and perhaps make harsh judgments or have stronger reactions. Conversely, a person with less emotional connectivity (low ego-involvement) will have more latitude in their reactions. While highly vested attitudes can be experienced as ego involving, the opposite is not always true. An individual can be ego involved in a certain attitude that has no hedonic consequence. For example, religious or political ideals with little or no hedonic value may still be ego-involved because individuals view those types of beliefs as part of who they are.
Ego-involvement, as it pertains to vested interest, is relative to Social Judgment Theory in that the concept of one's identity is the primary focus of efforts in continued involvement. Essential to social judgment theory is the idea of ego thus actions or ideas with a varying degree of ego involvement carry a commensurate amount of vested interest to the individual as detailed by Sherif, Kelly, Rogers, Sarup, and Tittler. Sherif, et al. conducted a series of studies to develop “indicators of ego involvement” (p. 311). One of the leading questions they sought to answer was how much ego involvement (vested interest) does an individual in a situation with no alternatives solutions have and does this ego involvement correlate to the number of options at hand. Sherif et al., suggest the question was answered by Beck and Nebergall in 1967 who stated that individuals with little to no options have corresponding vested interest indicating low ego involvement.
Attitude importance The factor to consider with vested interest and its application towards attitude-consistent actions is attitude importance. Attitude (or issue) importance concerns not only matters of personal consequence, but also matters of national or international interest. While both of these can fall in line with each other, vested interest and attitude importance are not the same. For example, consider the plight of an African nation that has been ravaged by an influenza epidemic. Although an individual in America may consider this objectively important, because of the low probability of personal consequence i.e., vested interest his resultant behavior may not be indicative of his attitude towards the epidemic. In other words, since the issue is of little hedonic relevance to the perceiver, the amount of vested interest is low, and is therefore unlikely to produce attitude-consistent actions. Geographic distance and cultural differences are also a factor in attitude importance. Tragic circumstances halfway around the world or shocking behaviors by members of a culture different from the perceiver, will most likely never result in attitude change. The physical distance or cultural difference of an occurrence directly correlates to the vested interest of the perceiver. Things too far away or customs perceived to be too strange will almost never trigger a vested interest.
Indicators of vested interest can include attitude importance, as detailed by Jon Krosnick who defined this concept by stating that “central, ego-involved, and salient attitudes” often include attitudes significantly important to individual interests. In politics, for example, voters have a vested interest in candidates whose values (policy) align with their own to include attitudes toward these values. Due to the nature of politics, voters come to conclusions about one candidate over another based on perceived attitude importance (object) on these policies rather than vocal support alone placing a high value on this concept as it pertains to vested interest.
Attitude object continuously makes an issue salient which correlates to outcome relevant involvement. Two differences exist between vested interest and outcome relevant involvement where attitude objects remain highly important. Initially, outcome relevant objects retain a high degree of vested interest while not appearing to be. Secondly, outcome relevant involvement suggest interest ends once the goal is achieved whereas vested interest suggests a self-perpetuated interest.
Components There are five key components that may diminish or enhance the effects of vested interest on attitude-behavior consistency. These are (a) stake, (b) attitudinal salience, (c) the certainty of the attitude outcome link, (d) the immediacy of attitude-implicated consequences, and (e) the self-efficacy of the individual to perform an attitudinally implicated act. Attitudes affect behavior. However, social psychologists recognize that contextual, interpsychic, and intrapsychic sources of variation can drastically affect the strength of this relation. A factor that has been shown to strongly affect attitude-behavior consistency is self-interest or vested interest. The following sections explain each of these variables in greater detail.
Stake Stake refers to the perceived personal consequence of an attitude that is directly related to the intensity of vested interest and influences components that contribute to attitude-behavior consistency. In its basic form, the more that is at stake concerning a particular issue, the stronger the attitude will be. Consequently, as attitude strength increases, the consistency of attitude-based actions also increases.
Referring to the concept of vested interest as it relates to attitude-behavior consistency, stake is an individual's macro involvement in a particular situation where the consequence is salient. In a situation where stake is operationalized using certainly and immediacy, one found the likely effect of this was behavior relative to the immediate consequence, positive or negative. For instance, in a study conducted to measure the relevance stake has on vested interest, students given a health assessment showed greater enthusiasm for items inquiring about donating blood when saving a life was salient (i.e. a child's life depends on my donation).
Stake may contribute to attitude-behavior consistency by inducing thoughts that support the attitude. This serves as the basis for future behavior. Stake may also strengthen the attitude-behavior relation by indirectly amplifying the awareness of stimuli associated with people's attitudes. Stake is the most powerful impression that comes from all the components of vested interest regarding attitude and behavior. Stake influences perceptions of attitude and action, but also of other action-relevant components as well. When stake is high, people also find the critical issue highly salient. Stake also affects the perception of immediacy. The greater the personal consequence of the issue, the more pressing the issue is perceived to be. Finally, stake was found to affect the perception of immediacy. The greater the personal consequence of the issue, the more pressing it was perceived to be. The phrases, "the stakes are/were high" or "high stakes", are used when issues of high salience or immediacy are raised, usually in regards to gambling or other high-risk activities involving vested interest.
Salience